best-car-wallpapers.com

Refresh

Archive

I am too chronically ill to do much over here, when I already can’t predict which en.WP edits that I start will be the ones I have to abandon. (If curious, see User:Geekdiva at en.WP for info on my limitations.)

But when working on the External links section of Scientology controversies, I saw that the Template:Wikinewshas/Scientology only had articles from 2012 and prior.

Google News shows there have been stories on Scientology since 2012. So:

Thanks for all your hard work over here and sorry I couldn’t figure this out on my own, though I did look. –Geekdiva (talk) 22:06, 1 November 2014 (UTC)

In economics, vendor lock-in, also known as proprietary lock-in or customer lock-in, makes a customer dependent on a vendor for products and services, unable to use another vendor without substantial switching costs. Lock-in costs which create barriers to market entry may result in antitrust action against a monopoly.

SIM locking may be considered a vendor lock-in tactic, since phones purchased from the vendor will work with SIM cards only from the same network. This creates additional inconvenience to the buyer, as the phone cannot use a prepaid SIM from a different vendor while on vacation. As a result, the subscriber must also sign up for the often expensive roaming service offered by the vendor. Additionally, should the subscriber wish to take out a second line for any reason, they must also get the line from the same vendor, as the SIM card of a competing vendor will not work. Sometimes, even the SIM card from the same vendor will not work and the buyer will be forced into buying another phone.^{[citation needed]}

Gift certificates are textbook examples of vendor lock-in as they can be used solely in the vendor’s shops. Gift certificates are typically only worth their face price (no bonus credit is added), so generally, they do not represent any financial advantage over money.

Also, some vendors practice a store-credit/gift certificate refund policy in the time of warranty if they can’t replace or repair the product. This is illegal in many jurisdictions as it forces the client to buy a different article in the same shop possibly for lower price/quality ratio. It’s also possible that the client is forced to buy a completely different product if the original product line is no longer sold.

This policy is different from the refund policy in case of dissatisfaction. In this case, the vendor offers to exchange the article in a typically short time frame. If the article is not faulty then the vendor has no obligation to exchange or refund it unless they’re committed to do so in advance.

In the United States, for many years the Bell System monopoly refused to allow anyone to interconnect their network to other networks or to non-Bell equipment. This was overturned by the Hush-A-Phone v. United States federal court ruling and the Carterfone FCC regulatory rulings.

The Bell System allowed interconnection to third-party equipment only through the added expense of protective acoustic couplers, while Bell equipment could be directly electrically connected to the network, until a later FCC order which led to standardized modular connectors.

Vendor lock-in is widespread in the computer and electronics industries.

In the computer industry, both hardware and software, vendor lock-in can be used to describe situations in which there is a lack of compatibility or interoperability between equivalent components.

This can make it difficult to switch systems at many levels; the application program, the file format, the operating system, or various pieces of computer hardware ranging from a video card to a whole computer or even an entire network of computers. Note that in many cases, there are no technical standards that would allow creation of interoperable systems. At nearly any level of systems architecture, lock-in may occur. This creates a situation where lock-in is often used as leverage to get market share, often leading to monopolies and antitrust actions.

IBM was subject to a series of the longest and most complex monopoly antitrust actions in United States history, and presented the first significant model for understanding of how lock-in affected the computer industry. IBM had significant lock-in of the punched card industry from its earliest days: before computers as we recognize them today even existed. From dominance of the card punches, readers, tabulators, and printers, IBM extended to dominance of the mainframe computer market, and then to the operating systems and application programs for computers. Third party products existed for some areas, but customers then faced the prospect of having to prove which vendor was at fault if, say, a third party printer didn’t work correctly with an IBM computer, and IBM’s warranties and service agreements often stipulated that they would not support systems with non-IBM components attached. This put customers into an all-or-nothing situation.

Microsoft software carries a high level of vendor lock-in, based on its extensive set of proprietary APIs. Their degree of lock-in combined with their market share has made them subject to a number of antitrust lawsuits.

The European Commission, in its March 24, 2004 decision on Microsoft’s business practices,^[4] quotes, in paragraph 463, Microsoft general manager for C++ development Aaron Contorer as stating in a February 21, 1997 internal Microsoft memo drafted for Bill Gates:

The Windows API is so broad, so deep, and so functional that most ISVs would be crazy not to use it. And it is so deeply embedded in the source code of many Windows apps that there is a huge switching cost to using a different operating system instead … .

It is this switching cost that has given the customers the patience to stick with Windows through all our mistakes, our buggy drivers, our high TCO, our lack of a sexy vision at times, and many other difficulties … . Customers constantly evaluate other desktop platforms, [but] it would be so much work to move over that they hope we just improve Windows rather than force them to move.

Microsoft’s application software also exhibits lock-in through the use of proprietary file formats. Microsoft Outlook uses a proprietary datastore file and interface which are impossible to read without being parsed. Present versions of Microsoft Word have introduced a new format MS-OOXML. This may make it easier for competitors to write documents compatible with Microsoft Office in the future by reducing lock-in. Microsoft released full descriptions of the file formats for earlier versions of Word, Excel and PowerPoint in February 2008.^[5]

Apple Inc. has historically been well known for its lock-in practices. For a long time their market share has been small enough that their anti-trust exposure has been substantially less than that of Microsoft or IBM.

Prior to March 2009, digital music files with digital rights management were available for purchase from the iTunes Store, encoded in a proprietary derivative of the AAC format that used Apple’s FairPlay DRM system. These files are compatible only with Apple’s iTunes media player software on Macs and Windows, their iPod portable digital music players, iPhone smartphones, iPad tablet computers, and the Motorola ROKR E1 and SLVR mobile phones. As a result, that music was locked into this ecosystem and available for portable use only through the purchase of one of the above devices,^[6] or by burning to CD and optionally re-ripping to a DRM-free format such as MP3 or WAV.

In January, 2005, an iPod purchaser named Thomas Slattery filed a suit against Apple for the “unlawful bundling” of their iTunes Music Store and iPod device. He stated in his brief: “Apple has turned an open and interactive standard into an artifice that prevents consumers from using the portable hard drive digital music player of their choice.” At the time Apple was stated to have an 80% market share of digital music sales and a 90% share of sales of new music players, which he claimed allowed Apple to horizontally leverage its dominant positions in both markets to lock consumers into its complementary offerings.^[7] In September 2005, U.S. District Judge James Ware approved Slattery v. Apple Computer Inc. to proceed with monopoly charges against Apple in violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act.^[8]

On June 7, 2006, the Norwegian Consumer Ombudsman Bjørn Erik Thon stated that Apple’s iTunes Music Store violates Norwegian law. The contract conditions were vague and “clearly unbalanced to disfavor the customer”.^[9] The retroactive changes to the Digital Rights Management conditions and the incompatibility with other music players are the major points of concern.^{[citation needed]}

As of 29 May 2007^[update], tracks on the EMI label became available in a DRM-free format called iTunes Plus. These files are unprotected and are encoded in the AAC format at 256 kilobits per second, twice the bitrate of standard tracks bought through the service. iTunes accounts can be set to display either standard or iTunes Plus formats for tracks where both formats exist.^[10] These files can be used with any player that supports the AAC file format and are not locked to Apple hardware. They can be converted to MP3 format if desired.

As of January 6, 2009, all four big music studios (Warner Bros., Sony BMG, Universal, and EMI) have signed up to remove the DRM from their tracks, at no extra cost. However, Apple charges consumers to have previously purchased DRM music restrictions removed.^[11]

As of the end of March, 2009, all music available on iTunes is DRM-free.^[11] However, digital downloads of television shows, movies, and iOS mobile apps through iTunes are still DRM-protected (at the insistence of the content producers who make it a prerequisite for distribution on most systems, including Apple’s).

Sony has used lock-in as a business tool in many other applications, and has a long history of engineering proprietary solutions to enforce lock-in. For many cases, Sony licenses its technology to a limited number of other vendors, which creates a situation in which it controls a cartel that collectively has lock-in on the product. Sony is frequently at the heart of format wars, in which two or more such cartels battle to capture a market and win the lock.^{[citation needed]}

Examples of Sony’s formats include:

As of 2006^[update], Sony digital cameras and a number of other Sony products typically use Memory Stick cards that can be manufactured only by Sony, co-developer SanDisk, and select licensees. This memory can be more expensive in some markets when compared to alternative memory types that exhibit similar characteristics such as data transfer speeds. This is an example of vendor lock-in, as existing users of Sony products are less likely to purchase a competitor’s product that uses a different storage medium due to the extra cost of acquiring a differing storage media. Similarly, this can discourage consumers with non-Sony merchandise from purchasing Sony products.

In contrast, Blu-ray Disc was developed by the Blu-ray Disc Association where Sony is a member, but does not have a controlling position.

Manufacturers of computer hardware sometimes design unusual or proprietary connectors. The reasons for such designs vary; some are intended to force customers quietly into a vendor lock-in situation, or force upgrading customers to replace more components than would otherwise be necessary; others are the result of practical considerations such as cost, packaging, ease of design, unusual or enhanced features; and still others result from an ignorance of standards, or even an absence of standards. There may be little immediate financial incentive for a vendor to provide backward compatibility or interoperability, while considerable (though unethical) gain may be had from preventing compatibility.

The term connector conspiracy^[12] was coined to describe this situation, and (generally humorously) implies the worst-case scenario of a cabal of manufacturers colluding in secret to sell incompatible connectors. In many “connector conspiracy” cases, vendor lock-in can be avoided by use of adapters.

Converting lossily compressed data into another format usually either increases its size, or further decreases its quality.^[13] Thus compatibility with data in the old format may need to be kept when switching to a different format, even when decoding from (as with many MPEG formats), or distribution in (as has at least been planned with H.264) the old format requires paying royalties.

In the 1980s and 1990s, public, royalty-free standards were hailed as the best solution to vendor lock-in. But there is still a possibility that one software vendor could use “embrace, extend and extinguish” (EEE) tactics to achieve a dominant market share, which could render the standard obsolete. The history of SQL is an archetypal example.^{[citation needed]}

Since the late 1990s, the use of free and open source software (FOSS), such as operating systems built on the Linux kernel, free software by teams such as the GNU Project, and free desktop environments created by projects such as KDE and GNOME, have arisen as a potential solution to some forms of vendor lock-in. Such software is typically licensed under one of several variants of the GNU General Public License, a license that prevents vendor lock-in by design: software licensed under the GPL may be freely modified and redistributed, but may not be transformed into proprietary software without violating the terms of the license.

As such, users and developers of software licensed under the GPL are legally able to “fork” a software project if they are unhappy with the direction, goals, or priorities of the original project. Typical examples of “forks” of GPL-licensed software include the Linux Mint team’s creation of the Cinnamon desktop environment, which arose as a fork of GNOME Shell, and The Document Foundation’s creation of the LibreOffice office suite, which arose as a fork of OpenOffice.org in 2010.

As a result, software licensed under the GPL is especially resistant to vendor lock-in, since any individual or company that distributes original or modified versions of such software cannot legally prevent further modification and redistribution of the original source code.^{[citation needed]}

The razor and blades business model involves products which regularly consume some material, part, or supply. In this system, a reusable or durable product is inexpensive, and the company draws its profits from the sale of consumable parts that the product uses. To ensure the original company alone receives the profits from the sales of consumable, they use a proprietary approach to exclude other companies. Inkjet computer printers are a common example of this model.

One way to create artificial lock-in for items without it is to create loyalty schemes. Examples include frequent flier miles or points systems associated with credit card offers that can be used only with the original company, creating a perceived loss or cost when switching to a competitor.

Friday, April 4, 2008 

The fifth annual Sony Fair, established and organized by Sony Taiwan Limited in Taipei, Taiwan since 2004, started at the North Square of Taipei 101 near the TWTC Hall 3 from April 3 to 13. With more opportunities and chances of Blu-ray and High-definition markets, the organizer named its theme slogan with “High-definition Entertainment Park”.

Not only executives supported this show, and high-definition AV-media showcases, but Sony BMG Taiwan will also invite several vocalists to hold some mini concerts in the Sony Fair 2008 to bring up the visitors during holiday nights.

Wikipedia policies and guidelines are developed by the community to describe best practices, clarify principles, resolve conflicts, and otherwise further our goal of creating a free, reliable encyclopedia. There is no need to read any policy or guideline pages to start editing. The five pillars is a popular summary of the most pertinent principles.

Although Wikipedia does not employ hard-and-fast rules, Wikipedia policy and guideline pages describe its principles and best-known practices. Policies explain and describe standards that all users should normally follow, while guidelines are meant to outline best practices for following those standards in specific contexts. Policies and guidelines should always be applied using reason and common sense.

This policy page specifies the community standards related to the organization, life cycle, maintenance of, and adherence to policies, guidelines, and related pages.

Wikipedia is operated by the not-for-profit Wikimedia Foundation, which reserves certain legal rights (see here for a list of its policies). See also Role of Jimmy Wales. Nevertheless, normally Wikipedia is a self-governing project run by its community. Its policies and guidelines are intended to reflect the consensus of the community.

Policies have wide acceptance among editors and describe standards that all users should normally follow. All policy pages are in Wikipedia:List of policies and guidelines and Category:Wikipedia policies. For summaries of key policies, see also List of policies.

Guidelines are sets of best practices that are supported by consensus. Editors should attempt to follow guidelines, though they are best treated with common sense, and occasional exceptions may apply. Guideline pages can be found in Wikipedia:List of policies and guidelines and Category:Wikipedia guidelines. For summaries of key guidelines, see also List of guidelines.

Essays are the opinion or advice of an editor or group of editors (such as a WikiProject) for which widespread consensus has not been established. They do not speak for the entire community and may be created and written without approval. Essays that the author does not want others to edit, or that are found to contradict widespread consensus, belong in the user namespace. See Wikipedia:Essays.

Other pages that can be found in the Wikipedia: namespace include community process pages (which facilitate application of the policies and guidelines), historical pages,^[1] WikiProject pages, or help pages (also found in the Help namespace), community discussion pages and noticeboards. These pages are not policies or guidelines, although they may contain valuable advice or information.

Use common sense when interpreting and applying policies and guidelines; there will be occasional exceptions to these rules. Conversely, those who violate the spirit of a rule may be reprimanded even if no rule has technically been broken.

Whether a policy or guideline is an accurate description of best practice is determined by the community through consensus.

On discussion pages and in edit summaries, shortcuts are often used to refer to policies and guidelines. For example, WP:NOR, WP:NPOV, and WP:LIVE. Similar shortcuts are sometimes also used for other types of project page. A shortcut does not necessarily imply that the page linked to has policy or guideline status. Additionally, remember that the shortcut is not the policy; the plain-English definition of the page’s title or shortcut may be importantly different from the linked page.

Enforcement on Wikipedia is similar to other social interactions. If an editor violates the community standards described in policies and guidelines, other editors can persuade the person to adhere to acceptable norms of conduct, over time resorting to more forceful means, such as administrator and steward actions. In the case of gross violations of community norms, they are likely to resort to more forceful means fairly rapidly. Going against the principles set out on these pages, particularly policy pages, is unlikely to prove acceptable, although it may be possible to convince fellow editors that an exception ought to be made. This means that individual editors (including you) enforce and apply policies and guidelines.

In cases where it is clear that a user is acting against policy (or against a guideline in a way that conflicts with policy), especially if they are doing so intentionally and persistently, that user may be temporarily or indefinitely blocked from editing by an administrator. In cases where the general dispute resolution procedure has been ineffective, the Arbitration Committee has the power to deal with highly disruptive or sensitive situations.

Policy and guideline pages should:

Wikipedia has many policies and guidelines about encyclopedic content. These standards require verifiability, neutrality, respect for living people, and more.

The policies, guidelines, and process pages themselves are not part of the encyclopedia proper. Consequently, they do not generally need to conform with the content standards. It is therefore not necessary to provide reliable sources to verify Wikipedia’s administrative pages, or to phrase Wikipedia procedures or principles in a neutral manner, or to cite an outside authority in determining Wikipedia’s editorial practices. Instead, the content of these pages is controlled by community-wide consensus, and the style should emphasize clarity, directness, and usefulness to other editors.^[2]

These pages do, however, need to comply with Wikipedia’s legal and behavioral policies, as well as policies applicable to non-content pages. For example, editors may not violate copyrights anywhere on Wikipedia, and edit warring is prohibited everywhere, not merely in encyclopedia articles.

Many of the most well-established policies and guidelines have developed from principles which have been accepted as fundamental since Wikipedia’s inception. Others developed as solutions to common problems and disruptive editing. Policy and guideline pages are seldom established without precedent,^[3] and always require strong community support. Policies and guidelines may be established through new proposals, promotion of existing essays or guidelines, and reorganization of existing policies and guidelines through splitting and merging.

Essays and information pages may be established by writing them and adding {{essay}}, {{Information page}}, or similar templates to the page.

Current policy and guideline proposals can be found in Category:Wikipedia proposals, and rejected proposals can be found in Category:Wikipedia rejected proposals. All editors are welcome to comment on these proposals.

Proposals for new guidelines and policies require discussion and a high level of consensus from the entire community for promotion to guideline or policy. Adding the {{policy}} template to a page without the required consensus does not mean that the page is policy, even if the page summarizes or copies policy. Most commonly, a new policy or guideline simply documents existing practices, rather than proposing a change to them. Request for comments (RfC) via the {{rfc|policy}} tag are recommended to draw wider attention to a proposed new policy or guideline in order to build consensus. Consensus for significant changes to practice are rarely accomplished through polling, and new policies and guidelines are not “approved” through polling, though sometimes polling is used to gauge wider consensus on a well-developed proposal.

The first step is to write the best initial proposal that you can. Authors can request early-stage feedback at Wikipedia’s village pump for idea incubation and from any relevant WikiProjects. Amendments to a proposal should be discussed on its talk page. It is crucial to improve a proposal in response to feedback received from outside editors. Consensus is built through a process of listening and discussion with a progressively larger group of editors.

Once you think that the initial proposal is well-written, and the issues involved have been sufficiently discussed to form a local consensus among early participants, start an RfC for your policy or guideline proposal in a new section on the talk page, and include the {{rfc|policy}} tag along with a brief, time-stamped explanation of the proposal. After that, you can provide, if you want, a detailed explanation of what the page does and why you think it should be a policy or guideline. The {{proposed}} template should be placed at the top of the proposed page; this tag will get the proposal properly categorized.

The RfC should typically be announced at the policy and/or proposals village pumps, and you should notify other potentially interested groups. If your proposal affects a specific content area, then related WikiProjects can be found at the Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Directory. For example, proposed style guidelines should be announced at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Manual of Style, which is the WikiProject most closely related to style issues. If your proposal relates to an existing policy or guideline, then leave a note on the talk page of the related policy or guideline. For example, proposed style guidelines should be announced at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style, which is the main guideline for style issues. Try to identify the subcategory of guideline or policy (see {{subcat guideline}}). Proposals involving contentious subjects or wide-ranging effects should normally be listed on Wikipedia:Centralized discussion for the duration of the RfC. Rarely, a particularly important proposal may be advertised via a watchlist notice; sitenotices (which are displayed to all readers, not just to active editors) are not used for proposals. RfCs for policy and guideline proposals are normally left open for at least one week, and sometimes as long as a couple of months.

To avoid later complaints about insufficient notice, it may be helpful to provide a complete list of the groups or pages that you used to advertise the proposal on the talk page.

Editors should respond to proposals in a way that helps identify and build consensus. Explain your thoughts, ask questions, and raise concerns; all views are welcome. Many editors begin their response with bold-font ‘vote’ of support or opposition to make evaluation easier. Editors should sign their responses.

Ending a discussion requires careful evaluation of the responses to determine the consensus. This does not require the intervention of an administrator, but may be done by any sufficiently experienced independent editor (an impartial editor not involved in the discussion) who is familiar with all of the policies and guidelines that relate to the proposal. The following points are important in evaluating consensus:

Discussion may be closed as either Promote, No consensus, or Failed. Please leave a short note about the conclusion that you came to. Update the proposal to reflect the consensus. Remove the {{Proposed}} template and replace it with another appropriate template, such as {{Subcat guideline}}, {{Policy}}, {{Essay}}, {{Wikipedia how to}}, {{Information page}}, or {{Failed}}.

If a proposal fails, the failed tag should not usually be removed. It is typically more productive to rewrite a failed proposal from scratch to address problems than to re-nominate a proposal.

An accepted policy or guideline may become obsolete because of changes in editorial practice or community standards, may become redundant because of improvements to other pages, or may represent unwarranted instruction creep. In such situations editors may propose that a policy be demoted to a guideline, or that a policy or guideline be demoted to a supplement, informational page, essay or historical page. In certain cases, a policy or guideline may be superseded, in which case the old page is marked and retained for historical interest.

The process for demotion is similar to promotion. A talk page discussion is typically started, the {{Under discussion|status|Discussion Title}} template is added to the top of the project page, and community input is solicited. After a reasonable amount of time for comments, an independent editor should close the discussion and evaluate the consensus.

The {{Disputed tag}} template is typically used instead of {{Under discussion}} for claims that a page was recently assigned guideline or policy status without proper or sufficient consensus being established.

Essays, information pages, and other informal pages that are only supported by a small minority of the community are typically moved to the primary author’s userspace. These discussions typically happen on the page’s talk page, sometimes with an RfC, but they have at times also been conducted at Miscellany for deletion (despite the MFD guidelines explicitly discouraging this practice). Other pages are retained for historical reference and are marked as such.

Policies and guidelines can be edited like any other Wikipedia page. It is not strictly necessary to discuss changes or to obtain written documentation of a consensus in advance. However, because policies and guidelines are sensitive and complex, users should take care over any edits, to be sure they are faithfully reflecting the community’s view and to be sure that they are not accidentally introducing new sources of error or confusion.

Because Wikipedia practice exists in the community through consensus, editing a policy/guideline/essay page does not in itself imply an immediate change to accepted practice. It is, naturally, bad practice to recommend a rejected practice on a policy or guideline page. To update best practices, you may change the practice directly (you are permitted to deviate from practice for the purposes of such change) and/or set about building widespread consensus for your change or implementation through discussion. When such a change is accepted, you can then edit the page to reflect the new situation.

Talk first. Talk page discussion typically precedes substantive changes to policy. Changes may be made if there are no objections, or if discussion shows that there is consensus for the change. Minor edits to improve formatting, grammar, and clarity may be made at any time.

If the result of discussions is unclear, then it should be evaluated by an administrator or other independent editor, as in the proposal process. Major changes should also be publicized to the community in general; announcements similar to the proposal process may be appropriate.

If wider input on a proposed change is desired, it may be useful to mark the section with the tag {{Under discussion|section|talk=Discussion Title}}. (If the proposal relates to a single statement, use {{Under discussion-inline|Discussion Title}} immediately after it.)

Or be bold. The older but still valid method is to boldly edit the page. Bold editors of policy and guideline pages are strongly encouraged to follow WP:1RR or WP:0RR standards. Although most editors find advance discussion, especially at well-developed pages, very helpful, directly editing these pages is permitted by Wikipedia’s policies. Consequently, you should not remove any change solely on the grounds that there was no formal discussion indicating consensus for the change before it was made. Instead, you should give a substantive reason for challenging it and, if one hasn’t already been started, open a discussion to identify the community’s current views.

Editing a policy to support your own argument in an active discussion may be seen as gaming the system, especially if you do not disclose your involvement in the argument when making the edits.

If policy and/or guideline pages directly conflict, one or more pages need to be revised to resolve the conflict so that all of the conflicting pages accurately reflect the community’s actual practices and best advice. As a temporary measure during that resolution process, if a guideline appears to conflict with a policy, editors may assume that the policy takes precedence.

More commonly, advice pages do not directly conflict, but provide multiple options. For example, WP:Identifying reliable sources says that newspaper articles are generally considered to be reliable sources, and Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources (medicine) recommends against newspaper articles for certain technical purposes. Editors must use their best judgment to decide which advice is most appropriate and relevant to the specific situation at hand.

The page names of policies and guidelines usually do not include the words “policy” or “guideline”, unless required to distinguish the page from another.

Tuesday, March 21, 2006 

During the large demonstration against the impending so-called First Employment Contract law (in French: Contrat de Première Embauche – CPE) on Saturday in Paris, one of the demonstrators was perilously injured in the head. Now, allegations have been brought against the French riot police Compagnies Républicaines de Sécurité (CRS). Eyewitnesses report that officers of the CRS kicked 39-year-old Cyril Ferez while he was lying on the ground. A report of a CRS-officer draws a different picture of the incident.

The incident happened during the evacuation of the Place de la Nation by the CRS at the end of the demonstration against the first employment contracts at about 8.30 p.m. Cyril Ferez works for the Orange telecommunication company in Torcy and is a member of the trade union Sud-PTT, which represents workers at post offices and telecommunication companies. According to the photographer Bruno Stevens, Cyril Ferez was running away from the police, together with some other demonstrators. “He was slower. He was hit directly on the head. He collapsed like a sack. They hit him further while he was lying on the ground,” the photographer told the French newspaper Libération. While he was hit by the police, he did not react in any hostile way towards them, said another photographer, Victor Tonelli. The police are said to have hit the demonstrator with night sticks and with their feet. The trade union Sud-PTT accuses the police of not having called for medical help for the injured person, despite having been called to do so. The trade union demands an official meeting with the home secretary on Wednesday afternoon and calls the behaviour of the police as not being worthy of the government of a democratic state. According to a report of the press association Reuters, the seriously injured person was immediately hospitalised. According to members of the government, referring to the treating doctors, Cyril Ferez was admitted to the hospital Henri-Mondor de Créteil with 2.7 grammes of alcohol in his blood. According to a report of a CRS-officer, with a copy of it on hand of the press association AFP and relying on statements of Cyril Ferez (before he fell into his coma), the injuries are not a result of a fight between CRS-officers and Cyril Ferez. According to this report, Cyril Ferez was attacked by other demonstrators. The report was given to the police audit. Members of the opposition party and the trade unions demand a complete clearing up of the incident.

On Sunday morning, Cyril Ferez fell into a coma. The police audit “Inspection générale des services” wants to investigate the incident. Therefore, the police audit would like to find out which witnesses were on site and which officers of the CRS were involved in the incident. Doctors assume that Cyril Ferez, if he survives, will suffer from neurological consequences. Directly after the demonstration, the police prefecture had claimed that 18 demonstrators had been injured, but that there was no seriously injured person among them.

French trade unions and student organisations have announced a general strike for 28 March. On Saturday, about 1.5 million people participated in the countrywide demonstrations against CPE.

Friday, March 25, 2011 

The death toll from the Sendai earthquake has now increased to over ten thousand. In Japan, the National Police Agency has stated that 10,019 are now known to have been killed as a result of the disaster.

The Agency also reported that 2,775 had been injured and the location of 17,541 individuals was unknown. Meanwhile, 1,900 evacuation sites are now thought to be occupied by approximately a quarter of a million people.

When the event happened two weeks ago, 18,000 thousand households were destroyed and 130,000 were damaged by the earthquake and the subsequent tsunami. In spite of this, twelve of the fifteen north-eastern ports of Japan have recommenced operating, while the majority of the oil terminals of the country remained open, according to Inchcape Shipping Services.

Amongst the aftermath of the earthquake, plant number 3 at the Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant is suspected to have been damaged and may be releasing radiation. The Japanese government have reported that an ongoing investigation is occurring to attempt to discover the cause of the radiation leak at the power plant. Chinese authorities have reported two Japanese tourists were found to have levels of radiation “seriously exceeding limits” on their clothing and luggage. In Tokyo, the amount of radiation in the supply of water has decreased, however it remains high in various parts of the north of Japan.

According to BBC News Online, two workers were hospitalised because of the leak. The Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), who operate the building, reported that three employees placing electrical cables at the location were given treatment for being exposed to radioactive water; they had experienced ten thousand times the regular amount of radioactivity. Of those three men, beta rays caused two of them to receive burns. The two individuals did not stop working despite meters advising of unsafe radiation levels. It was later discovered that they were wearing inadequate protective footwear and failed to draw their attention to a radiation alert. TEPCO has since received government orders to improve worker management.

The radiation emitted from the plant has had a significant effect on the Japanese food industry. In the surrounding areas of the plant, shipments of foodstuffs have been prohibited. In Fukushima prefecture, residents have been advised not to consume eleven leafy green vegetable types produced locally due to radiation concerns. There has also been a significant decrease in customer demand at a fish market in Tsukiji.

Japanese product importers have discovered some foodstuffs to have a small radiation amount, which is not thought to be potentially deadly. Numerous Asian countries, the European Union, Australia, Russia and the United States have prohibited milk items, seafood and vegetables from being imported from various Japanese prefectures.

Closing the power plant down may take at least one month to achieve. Speaking to AFP, an individual talking on behalf of TEPCO stated that the company is “still in the process of assessing the damage at the plant, so that we can’t put a deadline on when the cooling operations will work again”. Residents living within thirty kilometres of the plant have been advised to avoid going outdoors to attempt to prevent radiation exposure as far as possible.