Saturday, October 6, 2007

Torbjorn Zetterlund is running for the Green Party of Ontario in the Ontario provincial election, in the Willowdale riding. Wikinews’ Nick Moreau interviewed him regarding his values, his experience, and his campaign.

Stay tuned for further interviews; every candidate from every party is eligible, and will be contacted. Expect interviews from Liberals, Progressive Conservatives, New Democratic Party members, Ontario Greens, as well as members from the Family Coalition, Freedom, Communist, Libertarian, and Confederation of Regions parties, as well as independents.

Saturday, April 17, 2010

Journalist, counselor, painter, and US 2012 Presidential candidate Joe Schriner of Cleveland, Ohio took some time to discuss his campaign with Wikinews in an interview.

Schriner previously ran for president in 2000, 2004, and 2008, but failed to gain much traction in the races. He announced his candidacy for the 2012 race immediately following the 2008 election. Schriner refers to himself as the “Average Joe” candidate, and advocates a pro-life and pro-environmentalist platform. He has been the subject of numerous newspaper articles, and has published public policy papers exploring solutions to American issues.

Wikinews reporter William Saturn? talks with Schriner and discusses his campaign.

Thursday, May 17, 2007

Recent cyber attacks in Estonia that have paralyzed the high tech country’s Web sites are a threat to national security, according to the country’s Minister of Defense. This has concerned NATO, seeing that Estonia is a member state of the organization. The attacks have subsided this week.

The Defense Minister Jaak Aaviksoo also mentioned that Russia may have been behind the attacks. He stated that the IP numbers in the initial attack belong to Russian government offices, but says that it’s insufficient evidence that the government is behind it. The Kremlin is dismissing the accusations, saying that its caused by hackers producing fake Kremlin IP addresses.

The cyber attacks came after Estonia removed a Soviet-era statue of a Bronze Soldier in Tallinn, which angered many Russians. Riots have left 160 injured, and 1 dead.

Both NATO and the European Union views this as an attack on one of their member states. Three hundred Estonian IT specialist worked day and night to fix the problem.

The Estonian government plans to analyze server logs and data to find out who is behind the attacks.

Monday, July 17, 2006

The New Zealand government has withdrawn its Criminal Proceeds and Instruments Bill from Parliament, putting on hold its plans to introduce a non-conviction-based asset forfeiture regime.

The bill was introduced to Parliament in June last year, and was removed from the Parliamentary Order Paper in the last week, before it had even received a first reading vote.

A spokesperson for the Minister of Justice refused to give a reason for the bill’s withdrawal, saying only that there were “a couple of procedural issues that need to be dealt with”.

The bill would establish a non-conviction-based asset forfeiture regime, which would allow the government to confiscate the assets of those suspected of involvement in serious crime. Suspected criminals would be required to prove on the balance of probabilities that their assets were legally acquired or else forfeit them to the crown. No criminal conviction would be required.

The scheme has attracted criticism from both sides of the House, with the Green Party calling it “an affront to the principles of justice and law”, and the National Party demanding a much tougher regime. Given the stated positions of parties on the bill, the most likely reason for its withdrawal is that the government does not have a majority to pass it in its present form.

Sunday, June 5, 2005

The Swiss people have voted a double yes in referenda to the proposals over same-sex partnerships and the Schengen/Dublin bilateral agreements. Overall they voted 58.03% for the same-sex partnerships and 54.60% for Schengen/Dublin.

The referendum of allowing the registration of same-sex partnerships was widely welcomed with the people voting 58.03% Yes and 41.97% No. Same-sex partnerships are already legal in the cantons of Geneva and Zürich. The partnerships would carry many of the legal rights of marriage, with the exception of adoption rights and fertility treatments.

The referendum of the Schengen/Dublin bilateral agreement was initially accepted, despite growing resentment with the electorate. It was passed through with the people voting 54.60% Yes and 45.40% No. The agreement relaxes existing border controls between other participating nations in concert with the Schengen treaty, which is one of the competences for inclusion in the European Union.

The bilateral agreement also includes participation in the Dublin treaty, which defines a policy for handling asylum seekers within Schengen participating countries. Also stipulated by the agreements is the use of a unified “European Informatic System” for tracking people who are wanted, missing, or are illegal immigrants and also aims to stop traffic of illegal or stolen property.

Out of the big 4 main parties the centre-left Social Democrats, the liberal-right Free Democrats and the centre-right Christian Democrats have said yes to both proposals, however the populist-right Swiss People’s Party have said no to both proposals.

Featured articles are selected by the community to represent the best of Wikinews. See the Featured Article Candidates page for nominations and discussions of candidate articles for this page. Or, subscribe to the RSS feed!

[edit]