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Monday, November 26, 2007

In the 18 months since Andrea Muizelaar was crowned winner of the reality TV series Canada’s Next Top Model, her life has been a complete whirlwind. From working in a dollar store in her hometown of Whitby, Ontario, to modeling haute couture in Toronto, she had reached her dream of becoming a true Top Model.

But at what cost? Unknown to casual television viewers, Muizelaar had been enveloped in the eating disorder anorexia nervosa, which inevitably became too much for her to bear. She gave up modeling and moved back to Whitby, where she sought treatment for her disorder, re-entered college, and now works at a bank. Where is she now? Happy and healthy, she says.

Recently Andrea Muizelaar sat down with Wikinews reporter Mike Halterman in a candid interview that stretched to nearly two hours, as she told all about her hopes and aspirations, her battle with anorexia, and just what really happened on Canada’s Next Top Model.

Saturday, February 4, 2006

The last few months have seen the number of land conflicts involving indigenous people increase rapidly. Brazil has 400,000 “first people”, many of whom express that they need more respect.

Hundreds of Indians occupied eight plots of land last week in an attempt to reclaim what they claim is their property. They were calling themselves victims and they threatened to destroy power lines.

In the southern region of Brazil, around a dozen Indians were injured in a police operation which apparently led to the destruction of two villages on land which is the focus of a legal dispute with the Aracruz Cellulose company.

There have been incidents throughout Brazil. The Amazon jungle in the north, and in the southern state of Catarina where eight Indians were arrested for property invasion and aggression.

The indigenous people have organized themselves over the past three decades. They have become a “political force”, said Rubem de Almeida a local anthropologist.

The government of Brazil have been somewhat successful in bringing about improvements which improve the reality for the indigenous communities.

Some of the indigenous people say they can’t simply wait for the mainstream; so in April of this year there are major demonstrations planned.

Monday, October 30, 2006

On November 13, Torontoians will be heading to the polls to vote for their ward’s councillor and for mayor. Among Toronto’s ridings is Parkdale—High Park (Ward 13). Two candidates responded to Wikinews’ requests for an interview. This ward’s candidates include Linda Coltman, David Garrick, Greg Hamara, Aleksander Oniszczak, Bill Saundercook (incumbent), and Frances Wdowczyk.

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

Friday, October 24, 2008

On August 21, the Polish weekly Przekrój published an advertisement for Dan-Mark exercise books, bearing the logo of 4fun.tv, a Polish music/interactive TV station. Part of the advertisement contained a definition of the word “exercise book”. The wording looked familiar, and Wikinews consulted Wikipedia, the collaborative online encyclopedia.

Upon seeing the Wikipedia definition, it appeared that the entry quoted in the promotional material was identical to the initial two paragraphs of the relevant Wikipedia entry.

Freelance reporters for the Polish Wikinews decided to find out the reason for such a similarity and whether either of the texts (the advertisement’s or Wikipedia’s) might be a case of copyright violation.

The reporters contacted a Jaros?aw Janas, Creative Director of 4fun.tv., where the ad appeared. His reply included the following claim:

Copyright on text does not last for fifty years as claimed by Janas, but for 70 years after the death of the author.

To investigate the authenticity of the above claims, Wikinews asked the main author of the two paragraphs in question, Wikipedian Julo, about the sources used to write the entry. He confirmed that he had written the text in question, and not copied it from an encyclopedic publication as claimed by Jana.

It is therefore impossible that both Julo and the people responsible for the exercise book advertisement have used the same uncopyrighted encyclopedia, thus coincidentally creating identical texts. The reporters also noted that the first draft of the introduction to the article was written by WaldemarWolskiHuta (February 2006). Afterward the text had undergone some modifications by Julo (September 2006), as well as Picus viridis and Beno (March 2008). However, the text presented in the press promotional material, which – according to 4fun.tv – came from an old-print encyclopedia is identical to the Wikipedia entry after the changes mentioned above had been made. Julo added that he was still alive, together with the other authors of the article in question who constituted the group of the copyright co-holders. This naturally led to a conclusion that neither 50 nor 70 years could have passed since their death. He left 4fun.tv’s actions with a comment that although the contents he and the other Wikimedians had made public and free, they are far from making them available in any “free style”, but under a specified license.

In follow up messages to Jaros?aw Janas, Wikinews reporters confronted the creative director over his seemingly inaccurate claims.

Wikinews was told in a reply that 4fun.tv would ignore the claims unless they see permission from the author of the original content to investigate this story. They were also informed that further e-mails without any specifics sent by the reporter would be qualified as spam. 4fun.tv’s creative director further added that he found the reporter’s picture on the Internet and asked how the person would feel if this picture was to appear on billboards or press releases that advertised the TV station.

Wikipedia does allow copying of its content under certain conditions. The encyclopedia’s content is released under the GNU Free Documentation License, which means that it can be copied, modified, and used commercially and non-commercially – under the conditions that the license’s text is included with the copied content and the five main authors are mentioned. If a part of the article is used, like in the example quoted in this news story, a “right to quote”, recognized by Polish law, may be used. In such a case it suffices to mention the source of the text (Polish Wikipedia) and the author of the excerpt. 4fun.tv met none of these conditions, meaning that copyright has been violated.

Over a year ago Polish Wikinews reported on a similar problem, regarding the use of free-licensed photographs. Since that time such “borrowings” have become less frequent, however photos are still being used in discordance with the license. Journalists have gotten used to citing sources, e.g. Wikipedia, although licensing conditions require attributing the actual author, not the source. So instead of attributing John Doe for his contribution, agencies like Polska Agencja Prasowa (Polish Press Agency) are attributing the source, Wikipedia.

In early September 2008 a similar situation occurred in relation to the Polish edition of Wiktionary. Gazeta Wyborcza, a Polish daily, published an IKEA advertisement, on the opening page of which an almost word-for-word Wiktionary entry was placed; additionally the advertisement used the characteristic MediaWiki layout. The reference to the external source used was missing.

In April 2008, an example of an Australian professor was cited; the scientist, in a reply to a news story, quoted a Wikipedia definition almost word-for-word. The same professor condemned the use of Wikipedia in his previous press appearances.

In 2005 Wikipedia material was discovered in the German weekly magazine Der Spiegel, which acknowledged its fault and published appropriate apologies in place of the article in the online edition.

Frontline magazine in 2007 was found using an image from Wikipedia without proper credit. When pointed out the magazine acknowledged the failing and a correction was promptly given in the subsequent issue.

Tuesday, March 3, 2009

When she was barely 20 years old, Dutch singer Edsilia Rombley got her first large taste of international acclaim. Already a winner of the smaller imitation contest Soundmix Show, she decided to shoot higher. With a great deal of determination, she performed in front of hundreds of millions of television viewers at the 1998 Eurovision Song Contest in Birmingham, United Kingdom. Her song, the R&B flavored “Hemel en aarde” (Heaven and earth), placed fourth and gave her country their highest placing at Eurovision since their last win in 1975. No Dutch contestant after her has been able to place similarly.

After the accolades died down, Rombley set her sights on promoting her vision and passion through her music. Partnering with producer Tjeerd Oosterhuis became a double blessing; eventually they became husband and wife. Even a return to Eurovision at the 2007 Contest, with less than favorable results, didn’t keep her discouraged for long. Today she has finished recording a live CD of her favorite English songs, and a live DVD of selections in Dutch, and is currently touring in singing engagements this spring in theaters across the Netherlands.

Edsilia Rombley granted Wikinews’ Mike Halterman an interview; she reflected on her career, her inspirations, what a day is like in her life, and what she would love to do in the future. This is the third in a series of interviews with past Eurovision contestants, which will be published sporadically in the lead-up to mid-May’s next contest in Moscow.

Wednesday, January 13, 2010

The U.S.-based multibillion dollar online search engine, Google Incorporated, has announced Tuesday in a public statement on its official blog that the company has been the victim of a “highly sophisticated” and “targeted attack” against their corporate infrastructure that they allege “originated from China.”

The author of said statement, David Drummond, Google’s Senior Vice President of Corporate Development and Chief Legal Officer, noted that Google was not the only multinational corporation targeted. “As part of our investigation we have discovered that at least twenty other large companies from a wide range of businesses—including the Internet, finance, technology, media and chemical sectors—have been similarly targeted.” The names of these other corporations in question have yet to be released. To this end, Google states that they are “currently in the process of notifying these companies,” and they are cooperating with the “relevant authorities.”

Drummond goes on to say that through a separate and unrelated investigation, Google has additionally discovered that the accounts of “dozens” of Gmail users worldwide who are “advocates” of political and human rights in China “appear to have been routinely accessed by third parties” as well.

However, he affirms that “…these accounts have not been accessed through any security breach at Google, but most likely via phishing scams or malware placed on the users’ computers.”

As a result of what has occurred here, Google said it has already made significant changes to the security infrastructure of its users’ accounts as to prevent something like this from ever happening again.

At the same time, Google advised individual users to use more discretion while online, “We would advise people to deploy reputable anti-virus and anti-spyware programs on their computers, to install patches for their operating systems and to update their web browsers. Always be cautious when clicking on links appearing in instant messages and emails, or when asked to share personal information like passwords.”

Google launched its Chinese-language search engine, Google.cn, in January 2006. The only precondition to operating in China was that the company had to acquiesce to certain censorship demands from the one-party government. When defending their controversial rationale for operating in the socialist republic, Google said “…that the benefits of increased access to information for people in China, and a more open Internet outweighed our discomfort in agreeing to censor some results.”

Nevertheless, Google has still been widely criticized for this voluntary censorship of search results of topics, such as the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, movements for Tibetan and Taiwan independence, and the Falun Gong religious movement along with other information considered harmful to the Chinese government. Some feel it goes against and is hypocritical of Google’s informal motto, “Don’t be evil”.

In response, a spokesperson for the Chinese Consulate in New York City, Wenqi Gao, said in a phone interview to The New York Times, “I want to reaffirm that China is committed to protecting the legitimate rights and interests of foreign companies in our country.”

In contrast, Sharon Hom, the executive director of Human Rights in China said, “It’s a wakeup call for the international community about the risks of doing business in China. The tendency has been for companies to keep their eye just on the benefits of doing business. But the risks are real—The risks are to our intellectual property. The risks are to our values.”

Analysts noted that this move has the potential to financially hurt Google, which has a somewhat limited share of the Internet search market in China, which is dominated by the Chinese-based Google-like website Baidu. Google’s shares fell just under two percent after hours to US$579.50. Meanwhile, Baidu shares rose five percent to US$406.

Harvard Business School professor David Yoffie said, “The consequences of not playing the China market could be very big for any company, but particularly for an Internet company that makes its money from advertising.”

“It will hurt their profits. They get eight to ten percent of their revenues from China,” said Trip Chowdhry, an analyst for Global Equities Research. “If they walk, they will eventually be invited back into China, because the Chinese people will request that. Openness always wins, but it will take some time.”

Tim Ghriskey, the chief investment officer for Solaris Asset Management said, “Clearly not good news for Google and clearly not good news for consumers. You’ve got to think that eventually Google figures out a way to deal with this. If they do have to shut down their Chinese operations, that they would be able to reinstate them. Hopefully soon. I can’t imagine that this would be permanent.” He added, “China is a great growth engine for every business. It is a great opportunity for Google as well.”

In response to all that has happened and what has been said, Drummond explains that this has “led us to conclude that we should review the feasibility of our business operations in China.”

He goes on to state, “We have decided we are no longer willing to continue censoring our results on Google.cn, and so over the next few weeks we will be discussing with the Chinese government the basis on which we could operate an unfiltered search engine within the law, if at all. We recognize that this may well mean having to shut down Google.cn, and potentially our offices in China.”

Drummond concludes his statement by trying to assuage the situation the best he can, “The decision to review our business operations in China has been incredibly hard, and we know that it will have potentially far-reaching consequences…We are committed to working responsibly to resolve the very difficult issues raised.”

Sunday, August 2, 2009

Food deliveries from the RMT were allowed into the Vestas plant in Newport, England yesterday, but were cut off by Vestas management this afternoon.

Protesters at the Isle of Wight factory celebrated the delivery of supermarket bags filed with groceries, which entered with a police escort. This morning, the sixteen remaining occupiers were told to prepare a list of items for future deliveries. But, according to “Mark”, an occupier in the Vestas plant, this afternoon Vestas management reversed their decision, terming the August 1 food delivery a one-time “goodwill gesture” and saying food would no longer be allowed in. The food delivery followed a formal complaint by the RMT that denying the occupiers food was a violation of their human rights. The people inside the factory have been conducting their occupation since July 20, in protest against the closure of the factory, which produces wind turbine blades for the generation of wind power, and the loss of 625 jobs in the Isle of Wight and nearby areas.

Mark went on to praise the “brave people” who have circumvented the security ring around the plant in order to get food and other items to the occupiers. An electric kettle thrown at the end of a rope up to the occupiers is said to be working well. Mark also noted that Louise Christian, a prominent British human rights lawyer, is now representing the Vestas occupiers.

While the number of occupiers at the Vestas plant — originally nearly thirty, now only sixteen — have dwindled, Mark says the ones who remain are “very determined” and furthermore hold no ill will toward their co-workers who have left the occupation. In particular, the occupiers offered sympathy for Luke Paxton, who they say left the occupation due to a combination of personal issues and malnutrition brought on by the deprivation of food. Paxton, Mark said, has the remaining occupiers’ “full support” and continues to campaign for the Vestas workers.

Mark also clarified the origins of the occupation. In contrast to claims that green socialist group Workers’ Climate Action were behind the occupation, Mark presented a more nuanced picture: the Vestas workers’ initial contacts were with veterans of the occupation of Visteon‘s auto parts plants, with the AWL, SWP and Socialist Party becoming involved later with “quite a big involvement” from all groups. Members of Workers’ Climate Action attended Vestas workers’ meetings and gave their opinions, but, Mark says, a committee organised by the workers and composed of workers was making all the decisions.

Mark also strongly rejected the support of Solidarity, a “nationalist trade union” closely associated with the BNP. In a July 24 statement, Solidarity backed the Vestas workers, with union executive member David Kerr saying “We are behind the Vestas workers 100 per cent. British jobs must be protected.” Mark, in reply, told Wikinews: “We do not want their support…they go against a lot of the things people believe in here. We have Polish workers with us. They’re our friends.”

Most of the Vestas occupiers remain independent of trade unions, with only three of the sixteen people inside being members of any union.

Mark closed with a message of solidarity with the occupiers of two Thomas Cook branches in Dublin, Ireland, whose employees began a sit-in at their offices on Friday after the announcement of surprise closures. “We fully support what you’re doing. Don’t back down…do not be pushed around, do not be intimidated”.

The Vestas occupiers have also exchanged messages of solidarity with SsangYong Motor Company in South Korea. Workers at SsangYong have been occupying their factory since May 22 in protest against a 36% cut in employees there.

The occupation continues accompanied by a warning of increased union unrest in Britain. Neil O’Brien of centre-right think tank Policy Exchange told The Daily Telegraph that, while labour unrest had increased, the current state of affairs is “nothing compared to what is going to happen once the brakes are slammed on public spending.”