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Thursday, March 9, 2006

Toronto’s public utility, Toronto Hydro Telecom, will make Canada’s largest city into a huge wireless hotspot.

“This is both an exciting and very important initiative for the city of Toronto”, said Toronto’s mayor, David Miller. “It puts us on the leading edge of the telecommunications industry nationwide and globally.”

Toronto Hydro Telecom will offer customers free access for the first six months. After that, it will begin to charge for services.

“Wi-Fi technology is the new benchmark for urban living”, stated Toronto Hydro president David Dobbin. “It’s standard equipment in many electronic devices, from laptops to portable entertainment units.”

Private telephone companies are questioning why a public utility needs to compete with the private sector.

Mike Lee of Rogers Communications Inc. questioned why the city of Toronto wanted to enter the internet access business.

“It will not be an easy business”, Lee told the National Post. “In this day and age, the focus should be on core operations more than anything. I was surprised to see they are looking to get into this business.”

Brian Sharwood, a telecom analyst in Toronto, said the municipality will likely install the wireless transmitters and receivers on its lamp posts as a way to blanket the city, a process known as “wireless mesh networking”.

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.

Friday, January 7, 2011

The incumbent leader of the Ivory Coast, Laurent Gbagbo, is expelling the Canadian and British ambassadors, according to state television.

State television reports the envoys are being expelled as a reciprocal measure, as the respective countries did not recognise Gbagbo’s leadership. This is following his decision not to step down despite international recognition of rival Alassane Ouattara winning the November 2010 presidential election. Canada withdrew recognition of Louis L.B. Bony — Gbagbo’s ambassador to Canada — on December 29, with the United Kingdom following suit on December 31. In addition, France, the former colonial power of the Ivory Coast, has stated that it will recognise Ouattara’s appointee, as has the United Nations.

Although the ambassadors have been expelled, their diplomatic privileges will not be revoked until such time as they leave the Ivory Coast.

Outtara, who won 54% of the vote, which was backed by the United Nations and the country’s Electoral Commission, remains under protection by UN peacekeepers, in a hotel in the main city and former capital of Abidjan.

The Foreign Office of the United Kingdom issued a travel warning in force for the Ivory Coast last month, advising British nationals to “leave by commercial means, if safe to do so”, due to the threat of “widespread instability in Abidjan and other major cities. The Foreign Office [of the UK] continues to advise against all travel to Cote d’Ivoire”.

In a separate incident, the United States announced that US citizens were to be barred from dealing financially with Gbagbo, and that the assets of Gbagbo, his wife and three aides, had been frozen. Gbagbo retains control of the state army and media.

Saturday, November 4, 2006

On November 13, Torontonians will be heading to the polls to vote for their ward’s councillor and for mayor. Among Toronto’s ridings is Don Valley East (Ward 33). One candidates responded to Wikinews’ requests for an interview. This ward’s candidates include Zane Caplan, Shelley Carroll (incumbent), Jim Conlon, Sarah Tsang-Fahey, and Anderson Tung.

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

Monday, August 1, 2005

Poland has called for the EU to assist curtailing what it has called human rights abuses in Belarus. Belarusian papers describe this as a ‘dirty political game’, and part of a ‘cold war’ waged on president Alexander Lukashenko.

The Belarusian Riot police with guns and dogs seized the headquarters of the Union of Poles in Belarus, an association representing the 400 thousand ethnic minority Polish people living in western areas of Belarus that were part of Poland until World War II.

Earlier this year, Amnesty International reported a “pattern of deliberate obstruction, harassment and intimidation of human rights defenders” in Belarus. Reporters Without Borders recently accused the Belarusian authorities of hounding and arresting journalists from the country’s Polish minority. Lukashenko has recently closed the country’s main Polish newspaper, printing a bogus paper instead with the same name that praised his regime. Lukashenko accused Poland of an attempt to overthrow his regime by stirring up a peaceful revolution in Belarus like the “orange revolution” in [[Ukraine last year.

The dispute between Poland and Belarus escalated further as Poland responded by recalling its ambassador from Belarus for indefinite consultations and called on the European Union to impose sanctions on the Belarusian leadership.

Polish Foreign Minister Adam Rotfeld said a clampdown is under way, aimed at destroying “all elements of political pluralism and independence” in Belarus. France expressed her solidarity with Poland on the issue of human rights in Belarus a day after the EU said it was worried about the situation in the country.

The European Union will finance radio and TV programs to be broadcasted to Belarus.

The time is 18:30 (UTC) on 3rd May 2006, and this is Audio Wikinews News Briefs.