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Sunday, November 15, 2009

Sudanese-born British mobile communications tycoon Mo Ibrahim told a news conference in Tanzania today that some African countries are too small to keep functioning independently, and need to integrate in order to survive.

Ibrahim, speaking at the beginning of a two-day-long event encouraging good governance on the continent, commented that “some of our countries, and I’m really sorry to say this, are just not viable….We need scale and we need that now — not tomorrow, the next year or the year after.”

“Intra-African trade is 4–5 percent of our international trade. Why? This is unacceptable, unviable, and people need to stand up and say this,” he continued. “Who are we to think that we can have 53 tiny little countries and be ready to compete with China, India, Europe, the Americans? It is a fallacy.”

“We are poor, we are hungry, we are going without. Something is drastically wrong. I think we have the right to ask our leaders: are they really serious?” he said.

A reporter for the BBC suggested that the tycoon was talking about economic, not political, integration.

Ibrahim also surprised many African leaders when he did not give out his Ibrahim Prize in October, worth US$5 million. The prize is given to former sub-Saharan African leaders whose governance has been deemed good. Prize judges didn’t say why it wasn’t given out this year. Former presidents Joaquim Chissano of Mozambique and Festus Mogae of Botswana both have received the prize in the past.

Thursday, March 5, 2009

After hours of hearing arguments in the case questioning the legality of the ban on same-sex marriages in California, in the United States, the state’s Supreme Court deferred ruling on the ban, known as Proposition 8. The court could issue a ruling in the next 90 days.

Opponents of the ban were fighting to have the law overturned— saying it was unconstitutional for the state to have banned same-sex marriages. Californians voted in November 2008 to ban same-sex marriages, leaving the nearly 20,000 married same-sex couples wondering if their marriages, which were legal at the time they were married, would be voided.

“Prop 8 opponents would have the court choose between the inalienable right to marry and the right of the people to change the constitution as they see fit, and what I’m picking up from the oral argument in this case is this court should willy-nilly disregard the will of the people,” Justice Joyce Kennard said while addressing Shannon Minter, the lawyer representing the opponents of the ban.

One of the petitioners in the case against Proposition 8, Robin Tyler, told Reuters that she thinks “they [the court] are going to uphold our marriages and they are going to uphold Proposition 8, and it’s a loss.”

In June 2008, the state supreme court ruled that the ban was unconstitutional. Between that time, and November 2008, 18,000 same-sex couples were legally married in California. Currently in the United States, same-sex marriages are only legal in Connecticut and Massachusetts.

Monday, August 21, 2006

Buffalo, New York —

After nearly thirty years, Pano’s Restaurant at 1081 Elmwood Avenue in Buffalo, New York will end a tradition of being open 24 hours a day, seven days a week by ending its overnight food service.

The tradition for Buffalonians, who are able to enjoy drinks at the bars and clubs until 4:00 a.m. will end sometime at the end of August or September, according to overnight manager Wendi Dittmar and restaurant accountant Roseanne Jones.

“We will be starting the closure of the overnight shift sometime in the next 2 weeks to a month,” said Dittmar in an exclusive interview with Wikinews.

Jones told Wikinews that owner Pano Georgiadis is “just fed up” with the “destruction, the walk-outs of bills and fights that the ‘drunk’ people cause” in his restaurant.

Pano’s opened in 1977 on the day of the blizzard of ’77’ and has “remained open for 24 hours since then”, only closing for an hour at a time on the weekends to clean up and prepare the restaurant for breakfast, said Georgiadis.

Artvoice, which holds the “Best of Buffalo” competition every year where readers vote for their favorite Buffalo place, has listed Pano’s as the Best of Buffalo for best brunch, best Greek restaurant, best patio and best super-cheap breakfasts for 2006.

Dittmar also says that Georgiadis is expected to make several “public service announcements” within the next few weeks to “thank customers for their patronage.”

NB this story is also covered in the article Archbishop Desmond Tutu calls for African Pope.Monday, April 4, 2005Retired Anglican Arch-Bishop Desmond Tutu has called for the Catholic church to appoint an African as new pope. “We hope the cardinals when they meet will follow the first non-Italian pope by electing the first African pope,” said Tutu on SABC TV at a press conference in his Cape Town home.

Nigeria’s Cardinal Francis Arinze, currently number four in the church hierarchy, is seen as the best hope for a pope from the third world. If Arinze is elected he will become the first African pope since Gelasius I in 496 AD.

“There should be democracy in the Catholic Church. Europeans should allow an African to become the next pope,” said 21 year old Nigerian student, Ifeoma Ezinwa, at the Saint Monica Catholic Church in Igbogbo, Lagos. “The church is growing in Africa. If Arinze gets to that position, he would work for its faster growth,” she continued.

However Steve Uwagba, a Nigerian accountant, thought that “International politics in the church may not allow him to get the papal seat. The odds of international politics and conspiracy against Africa weigh heavily against him.”

Tutu also added that “We know that [the pope] was a champion for world peace. And more than any other pope [he] went around the world galvanizing the faithful who turned out in droves to meet him. We also want to pay tribute to him for his concern for the unity of humankind. He was the first Pope, I think, to gather together … leaders of other Christian denominations, calling them to prayer for the world,”

The archbishop of Cape Town Njongonkulu Ndungane – Tutu’s successor – offered his condolences to the world’s catholics. “Our sincerest condolences go out to Catholics worldwide on the death of their great leader. We thank God for his ministry and that he has now been relieved from pain,”

Father Stephen Chukwu of St Augustine’s church in Ikorodu on the outskirts of Lagos, Nigeria said to a congregation of three thousand, “The whole world is standing still. People are held spellbound because the mighty has fallen. The whole church mourns because a leader and a revolutionary has gone,” he told the crowd, many of whom wept and sobbed.

“Who would ever believe that a pope could come from outside Rome? He was an ideal man and he led an ideal life. He held tenaciously to the teachings of the Apostles. He was against killing and abortion,” he declared. He was not a friend of the wealthy or the mighty. He was a friend of those in the gutters. He preached and fought for democracy.

After mass Mary Okoli, a 42 year old teacher said “My hope and prayer is that we get an African, especially a Nigerian, to replace him and continue his good work,””We are particularly grateful for the attention he paid to Africa and the developing world during his papacy. His concern for the poor marked him as a truly caring leader and we share the grief and loss of the Catholic Church at his passing. We also pray for the Catholic Church as it contemplates the election of the next Vicar of Christ,” he said in a statement.

Saturday, January 17, 2009

The US Secret Service has released the first photos Wednesday of the new presidential limousine that will transport Barack Obama down Pennsylvania Avenue next Tuesday as part of the 56th Presidential inaugural parade after he is sworn in at the Capitol. The First Limo – the 2009 Cadillac Presidential Limousine – will replace President Bush’s Cadillac DTS Presidential Limousine that rolled out in 2004.

Nicknamed “The Beast”, the hulking machine is a new model year 2009, modified limousine. According to General Motors, the new “2009 Cadillac Presidential Limousine” is the first not to carry a specific model name. The Obama Mobile was introduced on January 14 with noticeably different styling borrowed from the Cadillac Escalade and STS, while the suspension is most likely related to the Chevrolet Kodiak medium-duty truck.

Mr. David Caldwell of General Motors has revealed that the sleek black car would include a hand-crafted interior and “state of the art electronics.” The car’s high-tech security features include five-inch-thick (12.7-centimeter-thick) bombproof glass, tough-as-nails tires, and a sealed interior that’s invulnerable to chemical attack. The armoured limousine has been heavily modified to withstand potential attacks by weapons or bombs. The San Francisco Chronicle puts it in a proper perspective noting, “a half-inch of transparent armor is enough to stop a .44 Magnum round at point-blank range; at a thickness of 1 1/4 to 1 1/2 inches, the same material can withstand higher-velocity bullets fired from military assault rifles.”

According to spy photographer, Brenda Priddy, and General Motors, the limousine, which has the intricate, dual-textured grille, is also equipped with standard Goodyear Regional RHS truck tires in a 285/70R19.5 size, on 19.5-inch wheels. The rims have a run-flat device (manufactured by Hutchinson Industries). Xenon headlights from the Escalade are installed in the front, while the rear has some STS part. The doors are at least 20 centimeters (8 inches) thick. It carries the US flag on the front fenders and an embroidered Seal of the President of the United States is affixed to several panels in the back.

According to the US Secret Service, the vehicle would be a “valuable asset” in providing the President with the highest level of protection. “Although many of the vehicle’s security enhancements cannot be discussed, it is safe to say that this car’s security and coded communications systems make it the most technologically advanced protection vehicle in the world,” Nicholas Trotta, Assistant Director for the Office of Protective Operations said in a statement. The new limousine is the responsibility of White House Transportation Agency.

The Presidential State Car is the official state car used by the President of the United States. It is informally known as “Cadillac One”. The current Presidential State Car is a 2005 hand-crafted, armored, and stretched DTS (DeVille Touring Sedan) built on a GM four-wheel drive platform. It was first used on the second inauguration parade of George W. Bush in 2005. But the version to be used by President Obama uses a GMC Topkick chassis, while maintaining the Cadillac exterior.

The President of the United States travels in one of two armoured Cadillac limousines based upon the normal sedan, the Cadillac DTS, with heavy customisation. Lincoln cars have also been used in the past, most notably by President John F Kennedy. The current limousines were custom-built by O’Gara, Hess and Eisenhart, founded in Fairfield, Ohio in 1942. It specializes in armouring limousines for presidents and heads of state.

President William McKinley was the first US president to ride in an automobile. However, it was President Theodore Roosevelt who rode on the first government-owned car, a white Stanley Steamer. Roosevelt’s successor, William Howard Taft, was the first president to use a presidential state car that was permanently stored in the White House garage.

Meanwhile, Obama’s 2005 Chrysler 300C Hemi was auctioned on eBay with a starting bid of $100,000 and a buy-it-now price of $1,000,000. It has less than 21,000 miles on it and is in like-new condition. He leased the car in 2004 and traded it for a Ford Escape Hybrid in 2007. The car was sold to Tim O’Boyle.

Tuesday, July 17, 2007

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania — Local caterers get ready for big business, as almost three thousand fans converge on the David L. Lawrence Convention Center over the Independence Day weekend for the world’s largest ever furry convention, Anthrocon 2007.

Many hope to renew acquaintances, or meet new friends. Others look to buy from dealers and artists, or show off new artwork or costumes. Some attend to make money, or even learn a thing or two. But one thing unites them: They’re all there to have fun.

Saturday, February 27, 2021

On Friday, Wikinews learned Dr John Nathan Shutt, a long-time contributor to both Wikinews and Wikibooks, died on Wednesday. Editing under the name Pi zero, he was at the time the top contributor to Wikinews by edit count, and came third on English Wikibooks. Dr Shutt was 56 years old.

Dr Shutt’s elder sister, Ms Barbara Shutt, informed Wikinews about his death via email on early Friday. His mother Elsie Shutt had called 9-1-1 emergency services after he had trouble breathing. By the time the ambulance came, Dr Shutt was unconscious. Ms Barbara Shutt also added the doctors operated on him for two hours, but at the end, Dr Shutt died either by blood clots or by a series of heart attacks.

Dr Shutt was the most active editor and administrator on this project and had been contributing as Pi zero since September 2008. He was promoted to administrator in July 2010 and became a reviewer in August 2010. Since then, he has peer-reviewed then published over a thousand news articles on-wiki, the most recent being just a day before his death. He made over 160 thousand edits and over 120 thousand log entries on English Wikinews.

He also held reviewer and administrator privileges on English Wikibooks, having contributed to several wikibooks including Conlang, World Religions, Solar System and The Elements; and created Stacks, a mechanism for sorting the project’s content.

Dr Shutt would occasionally write blogs on his blogger called “Structural insight”. Dr Shutt was interested in constructed languages (conlangs). He was an avid reader, and enjoyed J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings novels.

In a discussion about Tolkien’s works last year, Dr Shutt said, “I read The Hobbit when I was, I think, a teenager. I read it again a few months ago; not sure if I ever read it between those times. It’s a wonderfully written story — by a linguist and, in fact, a conlanger. I’ve got the Lord of the Rings (the books, I mean), which I’ve read at least a couple of times over the years. And the Silmarillion, which covers the earliest part of Tolkien’s legendarium. Christopher Tolkien, his son who was close to his fantasy writing, is his literary executor and has spent the past half century of his life editing and publishing various of his father’s papers. I actually got for christmas… a year ago, I think, The Fall of Gondolin, which Christopher says will be the last of his father’s books that he publishes.”

Dr Shutt was awarded a PhD in Computer Science in 2011 from the Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI), Massachusetts. His research interests included Abstraction theory; the Kernel programming language, a Lisp-based language which he created and was his dissertation topic; Recursive Adaptive Grammars, the core of his master’s thesis as well as Self-Modifying Finite Automata which he developed with Roy Rubinstein. He had received his master’s degree in 1993, five years after finishing his bachelor’s degree, both from WPI. Dr John Shutt was also interested in adaptive grammar as well as category theory. He often programmed in Lisp, enjoyed xkcd comics and used Emacs as his choice of text editor.

He had spent one year at the Brown University for his post-graduate academics. Recalling the experience, Dr. Shutt said, “I spent one year at Brown, but it didn’t work. And was a traumatic experience for me; it took me a couple of years to recover enough to make a second try at graduate school.” Dr Shutt shared an office with Paul Howard in the 1988/89 academic year at Brown University. In July 2019, Dr Shutt said, “It saddens me that I forgot to wish Paul Howard a happy birthday this year, and he appears to have forgotten to wish me one either. First time we’ve failed to exchange birthday wishes, even if belatedly, since we were assigned to share an office in the 1988/89 academic year at Brown”.

Andres Navarro and Oto Havle had created an implementation of Kernel programming language, called kernel, which was mentioned in a presentation at BSDCan by Michael MacInnis. Recalling that incident in November, Dr Shutt said, “Two or three years ago, this guy Michael MacInnis emailed me. He was getting ready to give a talk at BSDCan (an annual BSD conference in Canada) about a new UNIX shell he was ready to release, called Oh; and he wanted to know if it was okay if he mentioned my name in regard to fexprs, ’cause my dissertation had come out as he was putting the design together and Kernel-style fexprs fit wonderfully well with his concept so he used them. I assured him I was fine with having my name mentioned. Last night I was watching the video he provides of his talk, which iirc he felt went very well. I’ve been meaning to learn in more detail how the shell works; it was kind of fascinating to me how it very easily does away with most of Lisp’s parentheses despite being fundamentally Lisp. (Cons cells and fexprs. Profoundly Lisp.)”.

Dr Shutt lived with Asperger’s syndrome. In a discussion with one of the Wikimedia volunteers, he said, “As often happens with aspies, I was a hyperlexic kid, some of which has lingered.”

Dr Shutt lived in Massachusetts, US, and is survived by his mother Elsie Shutt, his sister and niece Barbara and Hannah Shutt, his cat Pickles and his brother David Shutt. Dr Shutt would have turned 57 next Friday.