Friday, October 13, 2006

Internet users on the Chinese-forums.com website report that the longtime block of Wikipedia by China has been at least temporarily lifted. Absent an announcement from the Chinese government, it’s unclear what the conditions were that caused the site to be accessible from within China.

A blog by Wikipedia contributor Andrew Lih says that someone in “Beijing emailed me saying he could suddenly start using Wikipedia again. Some folks in Hubei said it was still blocked. Shanghai and Guangdong users said parts were accessible.”

He continued that “from a Beijing China Netcom’s residential DSL connection, the English language and other foreign language versions are now accessible, but the Chinese version is still blocked”, noting that the Chinese-language version is the most important one to most Wikipedians in the country.

The blog entry goes on to explain the finer points of China’s blocking system, which is more complex than most media outlets suggest.

Wikimedia head Jimmy Wales told Moneycontrol.com yesterday that, “We don’t know what they took offense to. We really don’t intend to compromise the way Google did. We also feel that the block is an error. I am trying to set up high-level meetings in China to state our case and explain why we should be unblocked. We have no idea what the result of that would be. But we are somewhat hopeful. Wikipedia is not a haven for dissidents but an encyclopedia. About 99.9 percent of Wikipedia has topics that are not of interest to the Chinese Government. There is no political component. We are hopeful that they can see the point.”

He also told the outlet, he stressed how such bans were blocking Chinese perspectives in the global media. “[The] Chinese people would like to contribute to Wikipedia to give the Chinese point of view for the entire world to see. And China needs to be better understood by the rest of the world.”

The third block of Wikipedia, which was implemented 19 October 2005, was issued without explanation or an expected length. Wikipedia has been blocked twice before, the first from 2-21 June 2004, due to the 15th anniversary of the Tian’anmen Square Incident.

A website called baidu.com runs a self-censored wiki-based encyclopedia website, called baidubaike.com, launched in April of this year.

Wikipedia is a project of the Wikimedia Foundation, a non-profit organisation based out of St. Petersburg, Florida. Its 2007 annual convention, Wikimania, is set to take place in Taipei.

Tuesday, August 6, 2013

This past Sunday, Illinois Governor Pat Quinn signed into law a bill known as “Rocky’s Law” that requires Illinois high schools, through the local school district, to buy catastrophic injury insurance up to US$3 million or medical costs for up to five years, whichever one comes first, that covers student athletes. The insurance must cover student athletes while they are competing.

The legislation was named after Rasul “Rocky” Clark. In 2000, the Eisenhower High School football player became paralyzed from the waist down as a result of a tackle during a game. His school based health insurance covered the costs of his medical treatment. A legislator sponsoring the bill noted that the need for this type of insurance is rare. Clark’s mother attended the legislation signing. Her son died last year.

Before parents can claim money from school insurance, they first must pay out US$50,000. Schools have until January 1, 2014 to comply with the law. Schools cannot charge students more than US$5 to defray the cost of insurance. If a school district already requires student to be covered through private health insurance, they are exempted from this law.

Monday, March 28, 2011

File:2011 UK protests.jpg

Hundreds of thousands of people joined marches in London on Saturday against public sector cuts by the British government. One union estimated up to half a million people travelled from across the country to demonstrate as the Conservative–Liberal Democrat coalition implements wide-ranging spending cuts.

According to reports, a small group of protesters dressed in black threw paint and smoke bombs at the Oxford Street branch of Topshop, and demonstrators in Piccadilly threw smoke bombs at the Ritz Hotel. The protests have targeted the government and a number of retail outlets, following on from the UK Uncut campaign which has demonstrated outside retailers including Vodafone and Topshop to raise awareness of alleged tax system abuses by the businesses.

The violence came to a head on Sunday as police stormed Trafalgar Square and the protesters ran, throwing bricks and bottles at riot officers. “I have never seen such a fast escalation of violence in my life,” one witness to the violence in the square said. “Everything just kicked off, glass everywhere, police hitting people, people being dragged across the floor. I just can’t believe it.” Clashes in the square finally ended in the early hours of yesterday morning.

Senior members of the TUC, the federation of 88 of the country’s unions, were quick to dissociate the disruptive actions of the “few hundred” with those of the earlier peaceful protest, claiming that the violence of a minority should not detract from the message behind the main march.

The Labour Party leader, Ed Miliband, addressed hundreds of thousands of peaceful marchers assembled in Hyde Park, and attacked the planned spending cuts. “Our struggle is to fight to preserve, protect and defend the best of the services we cherish because they represent the best of the country we love,” he said.

The Metropolitan Police said approximately 4,500 officers were policing the event, and 214 demonstrators were detained. On Twitter, the force reported two significant incidents of violence and that four police officers have been injured; one is being treated in hospital. They also said protesters had thrown light bulbs filled with ammonia at officers on Oxford Street.

Small protests have been ongoing in the U.K. since early this month, mainly in the northern city of Sheffield. In the biggest of these, 5,000 people attended a protest march on March 12 in Sheffield, with demonstrators marching from Devonshire Green, an open space in the city centre, to the venue of the Liberal Democrat spring conference. Barricades were set up after “violent incidents”, though only one arrest was made.

Saturday, March 19, 2011Yesterday, Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), the agency governing Internet addresses, approved the creation of an “adult entertainment” Internet address, .xxx, on the web, first proposed in 2003. ICANN is the manager of the Internet’s top-level domains, such .com, .org and .net.

ICANN’s decision means success for the Florida-based ICM Registry (ICM), the company that first applied for the .xxx domain in 2004. ICM will oversee the new domain and will sell the .xxx Web addresses. ICM hopes that the establishment of a .xxx domain will contribute a degree of predictability and security to the largely unrestrained world of Internet websites. Its chief executive, Stuart Lawley, said, “For the first time, there will be a clearly defined Web address for adult entertainment, out of the reach of minors and as free as possible from fraud or malicious computer viruses.”

The decision was criticized by some of the Internet pornography industry’s biggest players who fear they could be the target of arbitrary censorship by governments and boards regulating the .xxx domain.

Anti-pornography campaigners also criticized the move, saying it gives the sex industry legitimacy. But since the .xxx system and its vetting process is voluntary, popular pornographic sites are not likely to trade their .com domains for .xxx. Anti-porn critics say that users who think they are avoiding porn by filtering out .xxx domains will therefore be misled.

ICM’s Lawley saw only positive outcomes from the decision: “Everybody wins. The consumer of adult sites wins. The providers will benefit because more people will become paying customers. And those who don’t want to go there will win as well, because the sites will be easier to filter.”

Thursday, October 22, 2020

2020 Melbourne Lord Mayor candidate Wayne Tseng answered some questions about his campaign for the upcoming election from Wikinews. The Lord Mayor election in the Australian city is scheduled to take place this week.

Tseng runs a firm called eTranslate, which helps software developers to make the software available to the users. In the candidate’s questionnaire, Tseng said eTranslate had led to him working with all three tiers of the government. He previously belonged to the Australian Liberal Party, but has left since then, to run for mayorship as an independent candidate.

Tseng is of Chinese descent, having moved to Australia with his parents from Vietnam. Graduated in Brisbane, Tseng received his PhD in Melbourne and has been living in the city, he told Wikinews. Tseng also formed Chinese Precinct Chamber of Commerce, an organisation responsible for many “community bond building initiatives”, the Lord Mayor candidate told Wikinews.

Tseng discussed his plans for leading Melbourne, recovering from COVID-19, and “Democracy 2.0” to ensure concerns of minorities in the city were also heard. Tseng also focused on the importance of the multi-culture aspect and talked about making Melbourne the capital of the aboriginals. Tseng also explained why he thinks Melbourne is poised to be a world city by 2030.

Tseng’s deputy Lord Mayor candidate Gricol Yang is a Commercial Banker and works for ANZ Banking Group.

Currently, Sally Capp is the Lord Mayor of Melbourne, the Victorian capital. Capp was elected as an interim Lord Mayor in mid-2018 after the former Lord Mayor Robert Doyle resigned from his position after sexual assault allegations. Doyle served as the Lord Mayor of Melbourne for almost a decade since 2008.

Tuesday, May 15, 2007

The first website in the world allowing consumers to buy life insurance online instantly has been launched today, targeting specifically New Zealanders.

The website, run by life insurance company Pinnacle Life, allows New Zealanders in many countries in the world to buy life insurance online without the need for a medical examination. Once the application has been approved, which is done immediately, the consumer can receive a $500,000 life insurance policy via an automatic e-mail. However, if certain conditions have been highlighted, then person to person contact is required to finalise the process.

Ed Saul, senior partner and architect of the new website, says, “We’re giving consumers a quicker and easier way to buy life insurance. Instead of submitting an application form and waiting days for a policy to be approved and issued, we do it online and we do it immediately.”

“The revolutionary website gives consumers complete control over the buying process whilst eliminating the previously obligatory involvement of people and paper. This is a global test case eagerly watched by the insurance industry around the world,” Mr Saul said.

When applying online, a few typical questions are asked on personal information and if the applicant has had any previous illnesses or diseases.

The countries where New Zealand citizens are allowed to apply are UK, Ireland, Canada, Australia, Hong Kong, Singapore and the USA.

Wednesday, April 2, 2008

“Localization of ‘SEMI Safety Guideline'”, executed by Safety and Health Technology Center of Taiwan (SAHTECH) and supervised by Semiconductor Equipment and Materials International (SEMI), was announced today in Hsinchu, Taiwan.

This localization included several fields on health and safety of semiconductor manufacturing, certification testing on electrical devices, evaluations on fire or natural diseases, and environmental issues on semiconductor manufacturing devices, etc.. Companies and manufacturers from the semiconductor industry also paid more attentions on this guideline because issues on carbon-savings, earthquakes, fire diseases, and environment-efficiencies were included into this guideline.

On the other side of the incoming trade show of 2008 SecuTech Expo, scheduled after 2 weeks at Taipei World Trade Center, not only main fields on security devices, information security, and fire & disease preventions, the digital monitoring will be a hot topic in security industry. For applications on fire & disease preventions, because its issues contained industrial applications and ESH (Environmental, Safety & Health) managements, if a company want to decrease the ratio of fire disease or earthquake, companies from safety and related industries should pay more attentions on disease preventions.