Friday, November 3, 2006

On November 13, Torontoians will be heading to the polls to vote for their ward’s councillor and for mayor. Among Toronto’s ridings is Trinity—Spadina (Ward 20). One candidate responded to Wikinews’ requests for an interview. This ward’s candidates include Desmond Cole, Helen Kennedy, Douglas Lowry, Chris Ouellette, Carmin Priolo, Devendra Sharma, Joseph Tuan, and Adam Vaughan.

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

Monday, March 19, 2012

Hawker, Australian Capital Territory — Tonight, the Japanese national team beat the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) softball team 1–0 in the first of a two game series before Japan plays a three game test series against the Australian national team.

The game was a low scoring pitching duel. Japan brought five pitchers to Canberra for their Australian tour. Since the last Olympics, Japan has been in a rebuilding period. The side is young and many of their best players have not had much international experience. One of their best pitchers is only nineteen years old.

The ACT side included Australian national team members Aimee Murch and Clare Warwick; Olympic bronze medalist Brenda De Blaes; Victorian state team representative, national team member and Olympic bronze medalist Justine Smethurst; and Clare Currie, who narrowly missed the cut for the national team.

De Blaes started the top of the first with a hit. She ended the inning stranded on base. Murch was pitching for the ACT to start the bottom of the first. Number 15 for Japan opened the inning with a single, and was advanced to third on another single. She was tagged out after trying to score a run after her teammate hit a pop up caught by the ACT’s centre fielder. Number 6 hit a double during this inning, scoring Japan’s only run.

The top of the second saw ACT players 1, 5 and 3 tagged out after hits to the infield. The bottom of the second saw number 13 out on a foul ball caught on the fly by the ACT’s third baseman, and number 11 and 24 out on balls hit into and caught by the ACT’s centre fielder.

The top of third inning saw numbers 24 and 21 ground out. De Blaes ended the inning by striking out. The bottom of the third saw Japan’s first batter ground out, number 8 getting a single on an infield hit, another playing getting an out, and the inning ending with number 11 hitting an infield ground out.

The rest of the game followed much the same pattern. Two players, an ACT player and a Japanese, were struck by balls and required trainers to look at them. Smethurst came in and pitched a few innings in relief. Between the fifth and sixth innings, there was a small delay in the game when a dog named Streaker, owned by Australia men’s national softball team player Adam Folkard, ran onto the the infield.

The game ended 1–0. An announcement was made at the end of the game that the match scheduled for tomorrow would start fifteen minutes earlier than the advertised start time of 18:00.

Wednesday, November 7, 2007

Bindeez beads, a children’s toy from Australia and manufactured by Moose Enterprise in Hong Kong, is being pulled off toy store shelves in the United Kingdom after traces of an illegal drug, which is converted into gamma-Hydroxybutyric acid (GHB) when ingested, was found inside the toy. At least 20 million toys are affected.

So far at least three children from the U.K. and at least two from Auckland, New Zealand have fallen seriously ill and are currently receiving medical attention. The toy is also sold in the United States as Aqua Dots, with two reports received by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) of children needing hospitalization after ingesting the beads.

“We’ve asked all our customers to take them off the shelf while we retest everything to make sure the toys comply with all regulations,” said the company in a statement, although no mandatory recall has been issued for the product. The statement also says that the plant in Hong Kong was not using a chemical mixture approved by the company.

“This substitution was not at any time approved by Moose nor was Moose made aware of any substitution by the supplier,” added the statement.

The toys were supposed to contain a non-toxic chemical known as 1,5-pentanediol, but instead 1,4-butanediol, which is mainly used in creating the illegal drug GHB, was used in the toys. When humans consume 1,4-butanediol, the body converts it into GHB and could make the individual seriously ill, causing headaches, seizures, dizziness and in some cases death. GHB is a natural chemical found in a variety of things such as beef, wine and some varieties of citrus fruits. It is also used as a pharmaceutical which is sold as Xyrem.

Recent animal research indicates that drugs are available for human use which may work as antidotes to the poison, either by hindering its conversion to GHB with 4-methylpyrazole (fomepizole, Antizol) or by blocking GHB’s effectiveness at the receptor (SCH 50911). Rodent testing has found the lethal dose of 1,4-butanediol to range from 1.4 to 2.5 grams per kilogram body weight, but an antidote can increase the lethal dose by a factor of 10.

It is not known how the chemicals got mixed up, but officials for the toy company say that they are continuing the investigation. The toy is currently banned in all of Australia, but the company says all those who bought it will be refunded their money.

“The issue of how a dangerous substance was used in these beads and not the non-toxic substance … that is going to take us a few more days to uncover,” said Australia’s Fair Trade Minister, Linda Burney in a statement to the press.

The toy was recently named Australia’s number one toy for 2007.

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Thursday, December 31, 2009

A suicide bomber attacked an American base in the Khowst region on the Pakistani border of Afghanistan, leaving seven American CIA officers dead and six injured. No American or NATO military personnel were killed or injured in the attack on Forward Operating Base Chapman.

It appears that the suicide bomber, reportedly wearing an Afghan National Army uniform, blew himself up in either the gym or the dining facility of Base Chapman.

In a statement on the Voice of Jihad web page, the Taliban claimed responsiblity for the attack, alleging 20 “CIA employees” were killed in the incident.

The Chapman Base is a converted military base which is now being used for civilian reconstruction operations, although military personnel are still located on the base. Camp Salerno, the main base in the Khowst province, has been the target of many attacks in recent weeks.

Recent attacks have been focused on foreign civilians, such as an incident in October in which 7 foreign and 3 Afghan civilians were killed in an attack at a UN guest house. The CIA has not lost this many operatives in nearly 25 years and the last time CIA agents were killed was in 2003.

Friday, January 12, 2007

The iPhone only made its appearance as a prototype and there have been controversies aroused.

The dispute has come up between the manufacturer of the iPhone (which was resented on Wednesday for the first time) – Apple Inc. – and a leader in network and communication systems, based in San Jose – Cisco. The company claims to possess the trademark for iPhone, and moreover, that it sells devices under the same brand through one of its divisions.

This became the reason for Cisco to file a lawsuit against Apple Inc. so that the latter would stop selling the device.

Cisco states that it has received the trademark in 2000, when the company overtook Infogear Technology Corp., which took place in 1996.

The Vice President and general counsel of the company, Mark Chandler, explained that there was no doubt about the excitement of the new device from Apple, but they should not use a trademark, which belongs to Cisco.

The iPhone developed by Cisco is a device which allows users to make phone calls over the voice over Internet protocol (VoIP).