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Sunday, July 2, 2006

A rally organised by a coalition of nearly 30 environmental groups took place at the site of the Eden wood chip mill in the south east forests of New South Wales today. Organisers estimate that 600 people attended the event, many of whom had travelled hundreds of kilometers to the site from various parts of New South Wales and Victoria.

The protesters sought to highlight the trade in wood chips made from old growth native forests which has continued in Australia despite promises by governments to discontinue the practice. It is thought to be an unnecessary sacrifice of a publicly owned resource and the habitat of native animals for short term profits. The industry is subsidised through provision of publicly funded infrastructure and a unreasonably low royalty levied on harvesters of the resource.

All Eden wood chips are exported, mostly to pulp and paper mills in Japan and the paper made from Eden chips is generally copy paper used in the printing industry and it is consumed within Japan. Since its establishment, Eden has exported over 35 million tonnes of native forest chips.

The Eden chip mill exports approximately 900,000 tonnes of chips a year, and is heading for 1 million tonnes in the next couple of years, produced from native forests each year and Australia is the only country that continues to trade forest wood chips to Japan, as all other supplier countries use plantation stock to produce chips.

The rally was organised with police cooperation and was conducted without any incident.

Thursday, March 18, 2010

Nigeria’s acting president, Goodluck Jonathan, has announced the dissolution of the country’s cabinet.

In a statement after a cabinet meeting, Nigeria’s information minister, Dora Akunyili, said that “the acting president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Goodluck Jonathan, dissolved the Federal Executive Council [cabinet].” In the same statement, Akunyili said that Jonathan had provided no reason for the move, although analysts said that it was due to the impediment of the cabinet to Jonathan’s efforts to put his own mark on the office.

According to Akunyili, the move would not lead to a power vacuum, as the permanent secretaries will step up to take the positions vacated. Jonathan had taken over the role of acting president in February after President Umaru Yar’Adua temporarily stepped down due to sickness, and the cabinet had been entirely appointed by Yar’Adua.

In Akunyili’s statement, she said that an official statement from Jonathan as to the future of the cabinet would be released soon. Additionally, at some time in the future, Jonathan will submit to the National Assembly a list of his submissions for the next incarnation of the cabinet.

In a statement released from the president’s office, a spokesman said that it was “the prerogative of the president to change the cabinet whenever he feels the need to inject new blood, reinvigorate the cabinet and give it a new focus.” According to another, unnamed, government official, the cabinet had become paralyzed by infighting, impeding attempts of governance on major issues.

Yar’Adua has recently returned to Nigeria after being treated for a heart ailment in Saudi Arabia, but has made no public appearances. As a reflection of his impaired condition, Nigeria’s election next year has been brought forward three months, and the ruling People’s Democratic Party, of which both Yar’Adua and Jonathan belong to, has announced that its candidate in those elections will be a Muslim, preventing Jonathan, a Christian, from running. The decision follows a tradition of alternating between Muslim and Christian candidates, allowing each two four-year terms.

Friday, February 4, 2005

Europe —The government of Cuba has re-established official contacts with all of the European Union countries. The diplomatic relationship with the EU had been limited for more than 18 months.

The EU relationship with Cuba was injured on March-June 2003 after the arrest and conviction of 75 “dissidents” by the Cuban government. In a separate case, three Cubans were executed on foot of a sentence handed down by a civil court, and confirmed on appeal by the Cuban Supreme Court, which found them guilty of hijacking a ferry and endangering the lives of its occupants. Cuba accused the dissidents of collaboration with the US and sabotage against the Cuban communist system. All 75 “dissadents” appear to have pleaded guilty of receiving illegal payments from US agents in court when confronted with the evidence. 14 of the 75 convicted mercenaries, who the US continues to insist were “dissadents”, have since been released on licience.

Cuba and the EU began to come close again after the efforts of the President of the government of Spain, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero. At that time, the German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder didn’t agree with Zapatero about unfreezing the relationships between Cuba and the EU. Schröder believed Cuba should first show real commitment to improving the human rights conditions on the island. However, on November 25, 2004, the Cuban Chancellor Felipe Pérez Roque announced the re-establishment of official contacts with the government of Spain.

On November 30, 2004, Cuba released four political dissidents: Marcelo López, Margarito Broche, Óscar Espinosa Chepe and Raúl Rivero. The Dutch Presidency of the European Union praised the Cuban decision. Cuba said that the decision was not influenced by the Spanish government.

On December 15, 2004 the Council of the European Union for Latin America committee recommended the suspension of the diplomatic sanctions against Cuba, according to alleged Spanish diplomatic sources.

Finally, on January 10, 2005, the Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque told journalists:”We can say that from this moment onward Cuba has re-established government-level official contacts with all European Union countries.” On January 31, 2005, the EU council of foreign ministers agreed to a suspension of EU sanctions against Cuba. The international non-governmental organization Reporters Without Borders protested and sent a open letter to the president of the European Commission on February 1, 2005.

Saturday, September 27, 2008

On October 14, 2008, Canadians will be heading to the polls for the federal election. Christian Heritage Party candidate Jerome Dondo, CGA is standing for election in the riding of Brandon—Souris.

Self-employed since 2000, Dondo works as a finance consultant with First Nation reserves, and provides accounting services to small business clients. From 1993-1998, he worked in the accounts department of Transport Canada. He volunteered as a pastor for Pentecostal Faith Temple in Cat Lake, Ontario, and is currently on the Parent’s Advisory Committee of Ecole Gilbert Rosset, St-Claude, Manitoba.

Wikinews contacted Jerome, to talk about the issues facing Canadians, and what they and their party would do to address them. Wikinews is in the process of contacting every candidate, in every riding across the country, no matter their political stripe. All interviews are conducted over e-mail, and interviews are published unedited, allowing candidates to impart their full message to our readers, uninterrupted.

Merv Tweed is the Conservative Party incumbent in the riding. Along with Dondo, challengers include M.J. Willard (Liberal), John Bouché (NDP), Dave Barnes (Green), and Lisa Gallagher (Communist).

For more information, visit the campaign’s official website, listed below.

Friday, May 19, 2017

Yesterday, Zomato, a food ordering and restaurant finding company, announced security breach of more than 17 million accounts, via their official blog. A hacker operating under the alias nclay uploaded evidence to prove they had the stolen data — hashed passwords and emails — for sale, Hackread.com reported. Zomato later announced they contacted the hacker, who asked Zomato to organise a bug bounty programme.

The food ordering company, with 120 million monthly users, said the payment information of the users was not located with this data and was not leaked. Zomato said it uses PCI Data Security Standards.

As a security measure, all the passwords of the involved Zomato accounts were reset and all of the accounts were forcibly logged out from the application and website. The company said only hashed passwords were compromised.

Hashed passwords are encrypted and, per Zomato, every password had a different “salt”, for cryptographic salting was performed before hashing the original password. A “salt” is a random set of characters added before encryption to make decryption to obtain the original passkey more difficult.

The hashed password itself can not be used to access the account. In the blog post before contacting the hacker, saying “internal (human) security breach”, Zomato suggested this could have happened after a worker’s development account was hijacked. After contacting the hacker, and promising a bug bounty programme on Hackerone, they said, the hacker agreed and removed the stolen data which was put on sale on the dark web. Zomato said they are looking forward to working closely with the ethical hacker community on security vulnerabilities.

Friday, January 25, 2008

B2B Trade Area of Taipei Game Show, criticized by trade buyers last year, but accompanied with 2008 Taiwan Digital Content Forum, moved to the second floor at Taipei World Trade Center for world-wide participants with a better exchange atmosphere this year.

Not only local OBMs (Softstar Entertainment, Soft-World International Corp., International Games System Corp., …, etc.) but also companies from New Zealand, Canada, Japan, Hong Kong, and South Korea showcased different specialists with multiple styles. Especially on South Korea, participated members from G? Trade Show (Game Show & Trade, All-Round, aka Gstar) showcased gaming industry of South Korea and the G? upcoming at this November with brochures.

In the 2-days Digital Content Forum, world-class experts not only shared industry experiences, members from Taiwan Gaming Industry Association also discussed and forecasted marketing models for gaming industry. With participations from governmental, industrial, and academical executives world-wide, this forum helps them gained precious experiences of digital content industry from several countries.

According to the Taipei Computer Association, the show and forum organizer, the digital content industry in Taiwan was apparently grown up recent years as Minister of Economic Affairs of the Republic of China Steve Ruey-long Chen said at Opening Ceremony yesterday. Without R&Ds from cyber-gaming, and basic conceptions from policies and copyright issues, this (digital content) industry will be fallen down in Taiwan. If this industry wanted to be grown up in sustainability, gaming OBMs in Taiwan should independently produce different and unique games and change market style to market brands and games to the world.