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.

Sunday, December 5, 2010

The controversial plan to raise university tuition fees in England and Wales will be voted on in the House of Commons on Thursday, December 9. The policy has been the cause of protests across the United Kingdom by students, some of which have turned violent. It has also been a source of considerable criticism and political difficulties for the Liberal Democrats and has raised questions as to the long-term viability of the Coalition government.

The new policy on tuition fees will allow universities to double the current tuition fees from £3,290 per year to around £6,000 per year, as well as allowing some universities to get special approval from the Office For Fair Access (OFFA) to raise their fees to £9,000 per year. If passed, the new fee structure will apply starting in the academic year of 2012/2013. The vote on Thursday will only be on the fee rise, with other matters being voted on in the new year following publication of a new higher education white paper.

In addition to increasing fees, the policy will increase the payment threshold at which payment is made. It is currently set at £15,000 and will rise to £21,000, but the interest rate will also rise. It is currently 1.5% but will now vary from between 0% and 3% plus inflation (using the Retail Price Index).

The fee increase follows the publication of an independent review by Lord Browne, former chief executive of BP, a process started by Peter Mandelson, the former Business Secretary. Before the election, two main options were mooted for funding reform in higher education: either an increase in tuition fees or a graduate tax. The Browne Review endorsed the former and the findings of the Review form the basis of the government’s policy. The graduate tax was supported by the Liberal Democrats before the election, and in the Labour leadership elections it was supported by Ed Balls and the winner of the leadership election, Ed Milliband.

Conservative members of the Coalition intend to vote for the reform, and the Labour opposition have been vociferous critics of the rise in fees, despite the previous government’s introduction of top-up fees. The Liberal Democratic members of the Coalition have been left in a politically difficult position regarding the fee hike and have been target of much criticism from protesters. Liberal Democrats have opposed the rise in tuition fees: their party manifesto included a commitment to ending tuition fees within six years, and many signed a pledge organised by the National Union of Students to not vote for any increase in tuition fees.

The Coalition agreement allows Liberal Democrats to opt to abstain on votes for a number of policies including tuition fees. Many Liberal Democrats are expected to abstain, and a few MPs have stated that they will vote against it including former party leader Sir Menzies Campbell, and the recently elected party president Tim Farron, as well as a number of Liberal Democrat back-benchers. Liberal Democrat party leaders have said that they will act collectively, but the BBC have said senior Liberal Democrats have admitted in private that government whips will not be able to force all Liberal Democrats to vote for the policy.

On Tuesday, the Liberal Democrats parliamentary party will meet in the Commons to decide on their collective position. If all ministers decide to vote for the policy, it will probably pass, but if only cabinet ministers (and maybe parliamentary private secretaries) vote for the policy, there is considerable risk of it not passing. If the Coalition does not manage to get the policy through Parliament, it will fuel doubts about the continued effectiveness and viability of the government.

How deputy prime minister Nick Clegg and business secretary Vince Cable vote has been of considerable controversy. Although under the Coalition agreement, they are allowed to abstain, suggestions of doing so have prompted criticism. It was suggested last week that Cable may abstain even though as business secretary he is directly responsible for higher education policy, and has been heavily involved in designing the proposals. Cable has said that Liberal Democrat support of the tuition fee changes has allowed them to push it in a more “progressive” direction.

Cable has now decided that he will vote for the policy, and argues that the policy has “a lot of protection for students from low income backgrounds and graduates who have a low income or take time out for family”. He also believes “there’s common consensus that the system we’ve devised is a progressive one”.

“Dr Cable has performed so many U-turns over the issue of university funding that he is spinning on his heels,” said National Union of Students president Aaron Porter. “That may stand him in good stead with the Strictly Come Dancing judges but the electorate will see it differently.”

Former deputy prime minister John Prescott joked on Twitter that “On tuition fees we’ve noticed Vince Cable’s remarkable transformation in the last few weeks from stalling to Mr In Between”—a reference to a previous attack Prescott made on Gordon Brown as having transformed from “Stalin to Mr Bean”.

On Question Time this week, Liberal Democrat treasury secretary Danny Alexander also confirmed he is prepared to vote for the policy but delegated the question to the meeting of Liberal Democrats on Tuesday.

The politics of the tuition fee debate may also affect the by-election taking place in Oldham East and Saddleworth following the removal of Phil Woolas, where Liberal Democrat and Conservative candidates will both be standing for the first by-election following the formation of the Coalition government.

Opposition to the policy has become the focus for a large number of protests across the country by both current university students, many school pupils and political allies of the student movement.

On November 10, between 30,000 and 52,000 protesters from across Britain marched through central London in a demonstration organised by the National Union of Students and the University and College Union, which represents teachers and lecturers in further and higher education. At the November 10 protest, a number of people occupied Millbank Tower, an office block which houses the Conservative Party. Fifty people were arrested and fourteen were injured. NUS president Aaron Porter condemned the attack and said it was caused by “those who are here to cause trouble”, and that the actions of a “minority of idiots” shouldn’t “undermine 50,000 who came to make a peaceful protest”.

Following the November 10 march, other protests have taken place across the country including an occupation at the University of Manchester, a sit-in at the John Owens Building in Manchester, and a demonstration at the University of Cambridge. A protest was also run outside the offices of The Guardian where Nick Clegg—who was giving a lecture inside the building—was executed in effigy while students protested “Nick Clegg, shame on you, shame on you for turning blue” (blue is the colour of the Conservative Party).

On November 24, a large number of protests took place across the country including a mass walk-out from universities and schools organised on Facebook, numerous university occupations, and demonstrations in Manchester, Cambridge, Birmingham, Leeds, Brighton and Cardiff, and a well-publicised occupation of University College London.

In London, a protest was planned to march down Whitehall to Parliament, but police held protesters in Trafalgar Square until they eventually broke free and ran around in a game of “cat and mouse” along the side streets around Charing Cross Road, Covent Garden and Picadilly Circus.

Simon Hardy from the National Campaign Against Fees and Cuts described the police response including the controversial ‘kettling’ of protesters as “absolutely outrageous”. Green MP Caroline Lucas raised the police response including the use of kettling in the House of Commons and stated that it was “neither proportionate, nor, indeed, effective”.

On November 30, protests continued in London culminating in 146 arrests of protesters in Trafalgar Square, and protests in Cardiff, Cambridge, Newcastle, Bath, Leeds, Sheffield, Edinburgh, Liverpool, Belfast, Brighton, Manchester and Bristol. Protesters in Sheffield attempted to invade and occupy Nick Clegg’s constituency office. Occupations of university buildings started or continued at University College London, Newcastle University, Cambridge University and Nottingham University, as well as council buildings in Oxford and Birmingham.

A “day of action” is being planned on December 8, the day before the Commons vote, by the National Union of Students.

Friday, May 31, 2013

An extremely well preserved woolly mammoth has been found by Russian scientists in Siberia, announced Wednesday.

The adult female was found with blood preserved still intact in ice cavities. When palaeontologists excavated the animal, blood flowed from the space below the animal’s abdomen.

The discovery was made on the Lyakhovsky Islands by scientists from the North-Eastern Federal University in Yakutsk, who estimated the animal’s age at 10,000 years.

The temperature of the ice at time of excavation was estimated between ?7 °C (19 °F) and ?10 °C (14 °F). This has led scientists to believe mammoth blood may contain some cryoprotectant, making it resistant to freezing.

Scientists are currently discussing the possibility of resurrecting extinct animals from their DNA.Along with blood samples taken from the site, scientists also discovered well-preserved muscle tissue described as the color of fresh red meat.

The scientists hypothesise the mammoth had fallen into a swamp or water, where she was trapped and eventually died. The remains are to be transported to Yakutsk and tested to ensure there are no dangerous diseases present.

Researchers said this mammoth is the best-preserved ever discovered.

Wednesday, July 13, 2005

The U.S. space agency NASA called off the launch of Space shuttle Discovery today after a problem with a fuel sensor in the external tank used to detect fuel exhaustion. According to the agency-run NASA TV, the low-fuel sensor was either malfunctioning or damaged. The launch was already facing the threat of a scrub due to thunderstorms in the area.

The sensor is one of four used to trigger the engine cutout after launch. Although only two are required for normal operation, and the Shuttle can be flown with one, NASA elected to maintain full redundancy. Should more of the sensors fail, the engine might burn out due to lack of fuel, a situation that has not been tested.

The problem was detected during a simulation of an empty tank. When placed in a mode simulating an empty tank, three of the sensors correctly registered that the tank was empty, while the faulty sensor stayed in the “full” state. NASA is currently unsure whether the problem relates to the sensor, the instrumentation circuits reporting the sensor’s state, or the simulation circuits.

The problem comes after a separate incident yesterday when a cockpit window cover fell from the Orbiter, damaging thermal protection tiles. A similar problem caused the replacement of the fuel tank in June. NASA described the problem as an “intermittent fault”.

The launch, which was scheduled for 3:51 ET (20:51 UTC), would have been the first launch of a shuttle since Columbia‘s February 2003 crash which killed all crew members aboard.

It is still unknown to NASA officials what caused the sensor to become defective. It is also unknown at the moment whether the issue will be fixed on the launch pad, or in the Vehicle Assembly Building – in which it takes close to a full day’s time to transport a shuttle between the two areas.

In the interim, the crew of the shuttle will stay at KSC unless there are further delays, in which case the crew might be transported back to JSC in Houston for refresher training.

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 Don Valley East (Ward 33). One candidates responded to Wikinews’ requests for an interview. This ward’s candidates include Zane Caplan, Shelley Carroll (incumbent), Jim Conlon, Sarah Tsang-Fahey, and Anderson Tung.

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

Friday, July 18, 2008

For nearly half a century the world’s largest telescope, the Arecibo Observatory in Arecibo, Puerto Rico, has been observing our solar system and the universe around it. Completed by Cornell University along with the National Science Foundation (NSF) in 1963, Arecibo’s enormous size gives it the ability to collect more light than any other telescope, allowing it to observe objects that are too faint for other radio telescopes to see. Its main purposes are radio astronomy, aeronomy and radar astronomy, but is probably most famous for its continuing use to search for and attempt to communicate with extraterrestrial life outside our solar system and beyond.

Now Arecibo is facing severe budget cuts which could ultimately close the facility. In an in depth exclusive report, Wikinews examined how much of the observatory’s budget was at risk, and what the possible outcomes could be for the programs currently relying on Arecibo as their main research tool. Wikinews spoke to several individuals closely affiliated with projects and facilities who use significant time at the observatory.

Currently, the NSF funds the operations of Arecibo with just over US$10 million every year. By 2011 they plan to drastically cut that funding to only $4 million a year, nearly 65% less than the current budget. To counter that loss, the United States House of Representatives passed a bill that would authorize NASA to spend at least 2 million dollars of their nearly $21 billion budget to fund portions of Arecibo until 2009. But that still leaves more than half of the loss to be recovered, and if something isn’t done soon the facility will be closed by 2011 — or sooner if additional cuts are made.

Arecibo is 305 meters in diameter and 300 meters tall at its highest point. It also has an on-site remote sensing LIDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) system to detect light and range of a given object in space. Construction began in 1960 and the observatory officially opened on November 1, 1963. Since then, several projects, programs and discoveries were made possible because of the telescope. Its platform also received a fresh coat of paint in late 2007, the first since it was built.

In 1989, the first images of an asteroid named 4769 Castalia were captured using Arecibo. In 1992 Aleksander Wolszczan, an astronomer from Poland used Arecibo to discover pulsar PSR B1257+12 which then led him to discover the first three extrasolar planets in history, and possibly a comet. Scientists with the Near Earth Object Program also use the observatory to track possible meteors and asteroids that have the potential to strike the Earth. Arecibo is also part of the Express Production Real-time e-VLBI Service (EXPReS) project which is aimed at connecting telescopes from Africa, Europe and North and South America to create a 6,000 mile wide telescope. This allows all connected telescopes to observe the exact same spot in the sky giving scientists images 100 times better than any single telescope on Earth. A successful test of this system was completed on May 22. The observatory was also featured in the movie Contact starring Jodie Foster and several James Bond films.

Perhaps the most well known use of Arecibo is its ongoing attempt to find and or communicate with extraterrestrial life. The popular distributed computing SETI@home project launched in 1999 (started by scientists at the University of California, Berkeley), uses Arecibo on a daily basis to record radio data. SETI@home users from around the world can then donate computer time to analyze the data for potential artificial signals, and maybe some day find a message from another intelligent civilization.

“If this occurs [budget cuts], all projects using Arecibo would stop, including uncompleted surveys looking for pulsars, mapping Galactic hydrogen and of course our SETI surveys (SETI@home and SERENDIP V),” stated Eric Korpela, the project scientist for SETI@home, to Wikinews. This would also include the NEO Program. Currently the NEO is mandated by Congress to keep a record of all near-Earth objects that are more than 1 kilometer in diameter.

According to Korpela, the cuts began several years ago when United States senators earmarked funds for other observatories located in West Virginia and New Mexico. He says that those actions “diverted money away from the rest of astronomy” causing the NSF to take the shortfall from the Arecibo budget.

“About two years ago, NSF decided that because of additional funding problems Arecibo wouldhave to close in 2011 with substantial budget cuts before then,” added Korpela who also said the he is sure that SETI@home and SERNDIP V could find an alternative science source, but nothing as powerful and as sensitive as Arecibo. Korpela also adds that there is not yet any planned move of SETI@home, and no agreements between them and other observatories.

“I’m certain the both SETI@home and SERENDIP V would find another telescope to use. But no other telescope comes close to the sensitivity of Arecibo, with the next largest telescopes having afactor of 10 less collecting area and therefore a factor of 10 less sensitivity. The same is true for the pulsar searches. For the hydrogen mapping Arecibo has 3 times the angular resolution of thenearest competitors,” added Korpela but also stated that “there currently aren’t any plans” to move SETI@home and that they don’t “have any agreements from any of the telescopes” to host SETI@home; there are several possible telescopes SETI@home could use adds Korpela.

“Of course we’d like the largest telescopes available if we could get them. Parkes (a 64m telescope in Australia) would be a good candidate. Effelsberg (a 100m dish in Germany) or the 100m Green Bank Telescope in the U.S. would also be good candidates, but as I said much discussion would need to take place before a change could happen,” said Korpela.

In June, former U.S. President Bill Clinton and his daughter Chelsea visited the observatory in an effort to bring awareness to the importance of Arecibo; he called the funding for the facility “gravely inadequate.” He also stated that his wife, and former 2008 U.S. presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, supports the need for “basic science”, and notes Hillary’s continued support for a defeated congressional bill that would have given Arecibo the funding it needed.

The bill, named H.R. 2862 ‘Departments of Commerce and Justice, Science, and Related Agencies Appropriations Bill’, was rejected by the House of Representatives because “it exceed[ed] the President’s request by $1.4 billion.” The House stated that the need for more funding for the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina was more important.

“The Administration shares the priority the Senate Committee affords basic research and fundamental science and education at NSF, but is concerned that the bill does not fully support the President’s request,” stated the bill which also added that “the Committee has identified areas, such as facilities oversight, that need increased investment to maintain NSF’s efficient operations” and that the NSF didn’t “provide [a] full request for salaries and expenses that would allow NSF to continue to perform to high standards.”

A new bill was then resubmitted and reintroduced as H.R. 3737 on October 3, 2007. It is specifically aimed at providing the “National Science Foundation and National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) utilization of the Arecibo Observatory.”

“[This bill will] ensure that the Arecibo Observatory is fully funded to continue its research on Earth’s ionosphere, continue its research in radio astronomy, and continue research on the solar system; and coordinate with the Administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration to ensure that the capabilities of the Arecibo Observatory continue to be available for National Aeronautics and Space Administration research in characterizing and mitigating Near Earth Objects, and other research as needed,” states the Bill.

If Arecibo were to close, Korpela states that it would take only a short time for SETI@home to move its project elsewhere, but that any agreements made with other observatories will take a much longer time to work out. “Setting up the equipment at a new telescope would be a matter of days, arranging an agreement to do so would take much longer. If we can’t find an alternative telescope after an Arecibo shutdown, the project would end once the existing data was analyzed. We’re still hoping that Arecibo will be spared,” added Korpela. He calls for more support of bill H.R. 3737 to continue Arecibo’s science, and SETI@home urges individuals to write to Congress to show support for the bill.

As for the NEO Program, packing up and moving to another location is not possible. There are no other observatories sensitive or large enough to perform the task of tracking near-Earth objects, especially ones at great distances. If Arecibo were to close, the NEO Program, despite a U.S. Congressional mandate and recognition from the Astronomical Science Senior Review Committee, would come to a screeching halt. Wikinews contacted the NSF for a statement, but a Dan MacMillan directed us to the Committee’s report.

“The SR endorses its future discovery potential and archival value. The SR recognizes the significant and unique scientific contributions that the Arecibo Observatory has made to astronomy and astrophysics and it congratulates NAIC and Cornell on operating the facility so effectively,” said the Committee in a 94 page report on the NSF’s budget.

“However, the committee was not persuaded of the primacy of the science program beyond the end of the decade and found that the case for long term support at the present level was not as strong as that for other facilities. The SR recommends that NAIC plan either to close Arecibo or to operate it with a much smaller AST budget. The SR recommends closure after 2011 if the necessary support is not forthcoming. It recommends that operation of the Angel Ramos Visitor Center continue,” added the Committee which also said that “that there were no reliable de-commissioning estimates and recommends that AST engage an independent study to advise on the viability and cost of decommissioning the telescope.”

In an attempt to cover the budget shortfall Arecibo faces, Don Campbell, Professor of Astronomy at Cornell’s Department of Astronomy, who specializes in radio and radar astronomy, tells Wikinews that the university is looking at all possible sources of funding to keep Arecibo open.

“Cornell/NAIC is looking at all possibilities for raising the funds needed to keep the Observatory operating as a forefront institution for research in astronomy and atmospheric sciences. This includes funding from federal agencies, from within Puerto Rico, via international agreements and from private sources,” said Campbell who added that “the NSF’s Division of the Senior Review (SR) panel recommended that NAIC’s budget – NAIC is head quartered at Cornell University and manages the Arecibo – from NSF/AST be reduced from about $10.5M to $8M in FY 2010. It also recommended that there be a further 50% reduction in FY 2011 and that Cornell must find the additional funds needed to operate Arecibo from other sources.”

Campbell also adds that Arecibo is so unique and sensitive, closing it makes no sense.

“Closing Arecibo would be closing the world’s largest and most sensitive single dish radio telescope. It is 4 to 5 times more sensitive, and has a higher resolving power at the same frequencies, than the next largest single dish radio telescope, the 100 m Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope,” said Campbell.

“Arecibo is also, of course, the source of the data that is processed by all the volunteers working with the SETI@home project. Given its relatively small operating budget, closing Arecibo makes no sense,” added Campbell.

Monday, April 5, 2021

Wikinews extended invitations by e-mail March 23 to multiple candidates running in the 2021 Texas’s 6th congressional district special election of May 1, 2021 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 and Europe. He is the founder of Operation Battle Buddy, which has under his leadership kept in touch with over 20,000 wounded veterans and their families. He was born in California, but moved to Midlothian, Texas eight years ago. 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.

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