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Thursday, March 25, 2010

A prank by three young kitchen staff at Hungry Jack’s fast food restaurant in the Central-Western New South Wales city of Bathurst went wrong when two customers required medical treatment after eating burgers they had laced with multi-purpose cleaner.

According to staff at the Emergency Department of Bathurst Hospital, two Hungry Jack’s customers became ill Sunday night after eating burgers contaminated with a chemical believed to be multi-purpose cleaner. One of the patrons was in a serious condition upon arrival at Bathurst Hospital due to being allergic to an ingredient in the cleaning product. “He presented to the emergency department as he was having an allergic reaction after eating a burger from Hungry Jacks, he was in a really bad way when he arrived here and if he had waited much longer it could have been much worse,” said a Greater Western Area Health Service employee. “We called Hungry Jacks and they said that three of their employees had been goofing off and sprayed multi-purpose cleaner inside the burgers so we then treated the patients for poisoning.”

Both customers are expected to make a full recovery. During an investigation undertaken by Wikinews reporter Nathan Carter, it was learned that the chemical sprayed into the burgers was KAY multipurpose cleaner which is reported to cause nausea, diarrhoea and mucosal and gastric irritation. The Material Safety Data Sheet for KAY multipurpose cleaner lists Antonic Surfactants as its hazardous ingredient.

In New South Wales, it is a criminal offence to make food intended for sale unsafe punishable by 2 years imprisonment. Due to restrictions on the publication of the name of young people involved in crimes in New South Wales, the names of kitchen staff can not be published. Wikinews was told by Hungry Jack’s staff that the staff involved in the incident remained employed by Hungry Jack’s. Josh, a Hungry Jack’s manager at the Bathurst restaurant, told Wikinews that his boss Adam was aware of the food contamination issue and would be taking steps to address it.

Monday, September 11, 2006

September 9, 2006

The Queensland state election has been won by the Peter Beattie led labor government. After a colourful campaign featuring disunity between the liberal-national coalition and a forecasted protest vote that failed to eventuate against labor, Beattie maintained his considerable margin in the 89 seat legislative assembly winning a predicted 60 seats with approximately 70% of votes counted. The nationals and liberals are predicted to pick up 16 and nine seats respectively.

September 10, 2006

Leander Paes and Martin Damm crowned their first year as a pair on Saturday as they beat Jonas Bjorkman and Max Mirnyi 6-7, 6-4, 6-3 to win the men’s doubles title at the 2006 U.S. Open tennis tournament.

Paes and Damm had lost the first set and their serve broken in the second set managed to win their first title of the year.

Paes said communication had been the key to his success with Damm. “I don’t think there are enough words to express how much fun and how much learning I’ve actually had playing with Martin, because we’re actually opposites on the court,” Paes said.”Martin is strong and plays more solid. I’m more flashy and a bit more quick. We really complement each other.”It’s been a fantastic year playing with him. I’ve really enjoyed it. I’d like to thank him for a wonderful year.”

September 10, 2006

The situation in Malegaon is calm, two days after multiple blasts killed 38 people and left 200 others injured. The police are investigating cautiously and are yet to find definite clues or detain suspects.A special ten-member team of Mahrasthra’s Anti-Terror Squad (ATS) is in Malegaon to probe blasts.National Security Guards (NSG) is inspecting the site as well.Investigators admit that cracking the Malegaon mystery will be tough one and so for there have been no arrests or detentions.

Related news:

• “Muslims in Gujarat hold anti-Pakistan rally” — Wikinews, September 9, 2006
• “38 dead, over 180 injured as blasts rock Maharashtra town” — Wikinews, September 8, 2006

September 10, 2006

A mid-air collision has taken the life of Swedish aerobatics champion Gabor Varga. Shortly after the in-flight tangle, the two planes crashed into the sea as co-competitor Eddie Goggins of Ireland parachuted into the sea where Maltese Armed Forces rescued him.

The incident comes only days after Aero GP announced a sponsorship deal with Betfair, giving the Malta Aero GP the official title, Aero GP Betfair Grand Prix of Malta.

The competition in the Aero GP involves a variety of skill tests for the pilots, testing their racing, dogfighting and target-bombing abilities.

September 10, 2006

An earthquake struck in the Gulf of Mexico with a magnitude of 6.0, a strength very rare for that region of the world, at 10:56am EDT (14:56 UTC) on September 10. Although no damage has been reported, it has been reported that tremors were felt in Orlando and Ocala in the state of Florida.

According to the U.S. Geographical Survey, the quake’s epicenter was 260 miles (418 km) WSW (240°) of Clearwater, Florida, and 329 miles (529 km) southeast (145°) of New Orleans, Louisiana, at a depth of 6.2 miles (10 km).

USGS officials stated that the quake was not strong enough to trigger a tsunami. Tremor intensities as high as Force IV on the Modified Mercalli scale were felt throughout Florida.

Friday, October 12, 2007

I had an unofficial phone call from Gay Talese last Tuesday. He had just flown back from Colombia and he was cranky. “I’m happy to do an interview with you,” he said, “but what the hell could you ask me that’s not already out there? Have you even bothered to look?!”

“Jeez, Mr. Talese, lots of things,” was my response. I lied. The truth is that when I call people to interview them, I do not have a set of preconceived questions. My agenda is to talk to them and gain a sense of who they are; to flesh them out as humans. To find out what they think about the world around them at that moment. With Gay Talese I had little interest in talking about Frank Sinatra Has a Cold and with Augusten Burroughs I had little interest in discussing Running with Scissors. I want to know what they think about things outside of the boxes people have placed them in.

With a memoirist like Burroughs, even this is a challenge. What parts of his life he has not written about himself, other interviewers have strip-mined. When we met for dinner at Lavagna in the East Village, I explained to Augusten this issue. I suggested we make the interview more of a conversation to see if that would be more interesting. “Instead of you in the catbird seat,” I said, “let’s just talk.”

We struck an instant rapport. What set out to be an hour and half interview over dinner had turned into four hours of discussion about our lives similarly lived. I removed half of the interview: the half that focused on me.

Below is Wikinews reporter David Shankbone’s conversation with writer Augusten Burroughs.

Wednesday, June 7, 2006

The Western Australian (WA) Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) has advised against the massive Greater Gorgon liquefied natural gas project off WA’s Pilbara coast. Proponents of the projects say Gorgon is one of Australia’s biggest export ventures, scheduled to provide up to 6,000 jobs and exports of up to $1.2 billion.

EPA chairman Dr Wally Cox said the Gorgon project operators (Chevron, ExxonMobil, and Shell), had made an effort on flora and fauna issues but in its present state, the Gorgon proposal was “unacceptable.” Gorgon LNG general manager Colin Beckett said that Gorgon was a world-class gas field and that the joint venture partners were confident that the decision would be reversed.

Environment Minister Mark McGowan said there was a definite process to be followed. The Minister says he will make a final decision on the Gorgon proposal after considering the EPA report – and any subsequent report from the Appeals Convenor. The EPA recommendations on the Gorgon proposal are subject to a two-week appeals period.

The EPA’s Dr Cox said that joint venture had “not been able to demonstrate that impacts from dredging, the introduction of non-indigenous species and the potential loss of fauna could be reduced to acceptable levels.”

In September 2003 the WA government provided “in-principle agreement” to the Gorgon joint venturers subject to a number of conditions. Dr Cox said that the Environmental Review and Management Programme had further highlighted the terrestrial and marine conservation values of Barrow Island and the adjacent waters.

“Flatback turtles in particular would be put at risk from the proposal with two of the most important nesting beaches located adjacent to the proposed LNG processing plant site and the materials off-loading facility,” Dr Cox said. “There is very little science available on the life-cycle, behaviour and feeding habits of Flatback turtles and as a consequence it is not possible at this time to identify management measures that would ensure ongoing survival of this Pilbara Flatback turtle population.”

Dr Cox also said that the Proponent had not been able to demonstrate that risk could be reduced to satisfactory levels in the areas of: Impacts on the marine ecosystem from dredging; The introduction of non-indigenous species; Potential loss of subterranean and short range endemic invertebrate fauna species. “As a result, the proposal in its present form cannot meet the EPA’s environmental objectives and is considered environmentally unacceptable,” Dr Cox said.

Tuesday, November 16, 2010

On Saturday, the Iraqi parliament approved a power-sharing agreement, after eight months of negotiations.

The agreement, reached on Tuesday, appeared to be falling apart on Thursday after the Sunni-backed al-Iraqiya List, led by Ayad Allawi, walked out of the parliamentary session, expressing disappointment that the parliament had not voted upon the power-sharing agreement before voting for the president. Allawi then spoke to CNN, telling the network that they viewed the power-sharing process to be “dead” and that they were expecting more “tensions and violence”.

Iraqis went to the polls on March 7 to elect members of the Council of Representatives. In this election, the al-Iraqiya List won 91 seats, becoming the largest party in the parliament. However, in order to form a government, a party needs to hold 163 seats in the 325 seat Council. The Shia-Backed State of Law Coalition, led by current Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and the Kurdish-supported Kurdistan List, led by Dr. Barham Salih, won 89 and 43 seats respectively, giving them more seats together than al-Iraqiya, but still far from enough to form a government.

Eight months of disagreement on coalition-forming culminated in a compromise on Thursday in which Nouri al-Maliki would remain Prime Minister of Iraq, while Ayad Allawi would become leader of the new National Council for Strategic Policies, offering “a check on al-Maliki’s power”. President Jalal Talabani would retain his position as well. Lawmakers also elected al-Iraqiya member Osama al-Nujaifi as Parliamentary Speaker. The problems began when al-Iraqiya believed the election of al-Nujaifi as Speaker was insufficient representation for the party in Parliament. This coupled with the fact that the rest of the parliament voted down the request to vote on the power-sharing agreement, led members of al-Iraqiya to walk out of the parliamentary session.Foreign Diplomats and Iraqi politicians have been scrambling to try and salvage the agreement. Al-Iraqiya announced its plans on Saturday to boycott the parliamentary session on Saturday.

On Saturday al-Iraqiya returned to the negotiating table; a spokesman for al-Iraqiya characterised the walkout as a “misunderstanding”. With the help of al-Iraqiya, the parliament approved the power-sharing agreement agreed upon by the parties, as well as beginning to lift the ban on Ba’athist politicians in the parliament — which the Sunni population had felt unfairly targeted them.

Wednesday, August 17, 2005

Anti-virus software publisher Symantec has reported that outbreaks of two varieties of worm are imminent following system failures on two unnamed major corporate networks in the United Kingdom. After receiving several eyewitness accounts from on-site personnel this reporter noted similarities to the MSBlast worm which made headline news two years ago (on the 16th of July 2003) after causing massive outages.

The worms are limited to Microsoft Windows products based on the NT architecture such as Windows 2000 or Windows XP, exploiting administrator services applets which shut a computer down when a certain service fails. The worms cause these “administrator services” to fail, provoking the computer into shutting down immediately.

Microsoft has announced that a critical update is available for all users, evenfor those who use pirated versions of Windows.

Chrysler, Kraft Foods and many other US corporations are feeling the brunt of the attack as the US was in the middle of the work day when new more virulent variants emerged.

Tuesday, April 11, 2006

Zach Scruggs, a lawyer for United States Senator Trent Lott, says that State Farm Insurance Company is destroying records related to claims for damage from Hurricane Katrina.

The records allegedly contain information saying that State Farm fraudulently denied insurance claims made by its policy holders, including Lott, that had homes there were damaged or destroyed when Hurricane Katrina came ashore on the Gulf Coast.

Scruggs said that Lott has “good faith belief” that many employees of the insurance company in Biloxi, Mississippi are destroying engineer’s reports that were inconclusive as to whether or not water or wind was the main cause of damage to the buildings affected by the hurricane.

Lott is among thousands of home and/or business owners who had their property damaged or destroyed during the hurricane and had their claims denied because State Farm claimed that their policies don’t cover damage caused by floods or water that was driven by the wind.

State Farm has not issued a statement on the matter so far.

Saturday, June 13, 2009

Yesterday, Norwegian news outlets reported that Defense Security Service (Forsvarets sikkerhetstjeneste [FOST]) had conducted illegal surveillance against the prime minister’s office and other government offices.

Kripos, a division of the Norwegian Ministry of Justice and the Police, did a police search of the Norwegian Ministry of Defence’s top-secret intelligence agency’s computer equipment in Jørstadmoen, after a request by the Ministry of Defense.

While remaining confident that the case will be investigated in a correct way, Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg stated to Aftenposten late Wednesday that “it’s important that the police now find out what actually has happened.”

Verdens Gang reported that to their knowledge, the surveillance happened in connection with FOST, having the responsibility for the computer security of key personnel within the prime minister’s office and other government offices. For practical reasons these people have been connected to the military secure lines. Sources with insight to the surveillance process explained to Aftenposten that when a possible breach of computer security is detected its protocol that the person be given a notice that he may be in process off or already have broken the security rules. A person, possible within the Prime minister’s office has most likely received such a note and has reacted to the fact that the computer traffic had been under surveillance.

Vice admiral Jan Eirik Finseth told Verdens Gang that the Defense security agency’s computer security section, reported that computer communication lines had been put under surveillance by military communications lines. Vice admiral Finseth stated to Verdens Gang that “the circumstances is of such a nature that the police [were] asked to investigate if anything of this may be illegal.”

When Wikinews contacted State attorney Petter Mandt, who leads the investigation, we received confirmation that a search in Jørstadmoen took place, but he would not comment on what was confiscated, if anything. Mandt also stated that they would not comment on any specifics or give any details on the investigation, but explained that for use of a police search there has to be more than 50% probable suspicion that something illegal may have happened. When asked if suspicion was that the prime minister’s office had been put under illegal surveillance, Mandt refused to comment and stated that he will comment on neither how many nor who the individuals involved are.

Defense political spokesperson for Socialistic left (Sv) Bjørn Jacobsen, told Wikinews that “it’s important to find out what, if anything has happened,” but that “it’s shocking that there even exist[s] a reason for a police search.” When asked what will happen if anything illegal is found to have taken place, Jacobsen responded by pointing out that in this case the prosecutors will have to decide on what to do next, but stated that “parliament will have to see if the law and regulations ha[ve] to be changed. It’s important to stop an eventual bad culture before it sticks to the walls.”

This is the second investigation of illegal government surveillance in Norway since the Lund commission’s report uncovered illegal surveillance of communist, socialist, and other persons, which the Norwegian Police Security Service deemed to be dangerous.

Wikinews was unable to get any comments from the Norwegian Military Defense when contacted.

Monday, December 11, 2006

There are suppositions that the US Democratic Congress may re-establish the luxury taxes, which were already once introduced in the 1990s. The suppositions resulted in the National Association of Watch and Clock Collectors commissioning a report on various tax issues.

Material goods such as jewelry, watches, expensive furs, jet planes, boats, yachts, and luxury cars had already been subjected to additional taxes back in 1990. After 3 years these taxes were repealed, though the luxury automobiles tax was still active for the next 13 years.

Rodderick A. DeArment, a representative of law firm and lobbyist Covington and Burling, guided the report. The report outlined the fact that, in 1993, the Congress did not collect as much money from the luxury taxes as it had predicted. It also stated that although its ravaging effect on employment in several industries was sensible, “the turnover that occurred in Congress made it possible for the new group to learn the same lessons again”.

The luxury tax could produce unpredictable effects for the watch industry and the report was meant to inform the members of this branch about the effects of these taxes on this luxury goods’ industry.

Friday, October 13, 2006

Florida Highway Patrol says that the bodies of four people, two adults and two young children, were found on the Florida’s Turnpike a few miles south of the I-95 interchange in Fort Pierce, Florida.

Highway Patrol Troopers received a call around 8 a.m. from someone who spotted the bodies of a male and female adult, who were both in their 20’s to 30’s, and a male and female child, between the ages of 4 and 6, on the southbound side shoulder of the Turnpike.

St. Lucie County Sheriff Ken Mascara said that the victims had been shot multiple times. Mascara also said that no vehicle was found, but there were tire tracks nearby.

The Sheriff’s office says that they think the bodies were shot on the scene because of the posture of the family. The mother’s body was found holding on to the children on either side of her.

The area where the bodies were found is near the St. James Golf Club as well as several home developments. A resident of a nearby housing development reportedly heard shots or fireworks around 3 a.m.

The turnpike has several traffic cameras in the area, however Sheriff Mascara says they were not recording at the time.