originmetrics.com

A compilation of brief news reports for Sunday, January 20, 2008.

Former Indonesian president Suharto, 86, is now moving and speaking softly, doctors say. He was admitted to Pertamina Hospital in Jakarta on January 4 after suffering multiple organ failure.

“He is fully conscious, he can follow instructions and answer our questions in a weak voice,” Dr. Jusuf Misbach said. “He scratched himself and raised his hands. It’s an amazing accomplishment.”

Mardjo Soebiandono said that Suharto would be given physiotherapy, but he also stated that his condition is still considered critical.

According to doctors, Suharto’s blood pressure is now stable, his heart and lungs are functioning better, and infections are being treated with antibiotics.

Preparations for a state funeral had begun last week when Suharto developed pneumnonia and sepsis. He was given only a 50:50 chance of survival.

Related news

• “Former Indonesian president, Suharto in critical condition” — Wikinews, January 5, 2008

Sources

• Telly Nathalia. “Indonesia’s Suharto tries to speak, lifts arm” — Reuters, January 20, 2008
• Niniek Karmimi. “Indonesia’s Suharto Speaks, Moves Hands” — Associated Press, January 20, 2008

Major power outages in Zimbabwe and Zambia left many without services such as electricity, water, and mobile phone connections for much of Saturday and Sunday.

The blackout reportedly hit the two nations almost simultaneously on Saturday evening. In Zambia, the power was restored eight hours later, but residents of Zimbabwe had to wait until Sunday afternoon for power.

Officials in Harare said the cause of the blackout was a fault that “tripped” the power grid, while some in Zambia blamed “turbine problems” at one of the country’s hydroelectric dams.

40% of Zimbabwe’s power is imported from neighboring countries like South Africa. As the power situation in South Africa has also been worsening, state utility company Eskom announced it will stop supplying power to Zimbabwe and other countries in order to meet domestic needs.

Sources

• Angus Shaw. “Power Outages in Zambia, Zimbabwe” — Associated Press, January 20, 2008
• South African Press Association. “Mbeki demands answers from Eskom chiefs” — Independent Online, January 20, 2008

Francis Joyon of France completed his maritime journey around the globe in a 57 days, 13 hours, 34 minutes, and 6 seconds, breaking Ellen MacArthur‘s record by 2 weeks. He sailed the world’s oceans in a trimaran of his own making.

The journey began November 23 in the port of Brest. Joyon then sailed under the tip of Africa and across the Southern Hemisphere before making his way back to France.

MacArthur was there to greet him when he landed on shore. “I’m really happy for him, proud of him,” she said. “He was very fast, he played really well, and he really deserves this record.” MacArthur had previously beaten Joyon’s record in 2005.

“The speed part, the sailing passion part, that’s extraordinary. But what is the strongest of all is having precious moments when you can be in harmony with the planet, with the elements. That is what will stay with me,” Joyon said.

Related news

• “Ellen Macarthur sets round the world solo sailing record” — Wikinews, February 7, 2005

Sources

• Associated Press. “Frenchman Sails Around the World in Record 57 Days” — FOX News, January 20, 2008
• “Frenchman Joyon smashes MacArthur’s sailing world record” — AFP, January 20, 2008

Sunday, March 25, 2018

Visual art, fabric art, photography, performance, dance, virtual reality, and music were all the subject of sessions at Furnal Equinox 2018, a conference held from March 16 to 18 at Toronto’s Westin Harbour Castle. Canada’s largest furry convention by attendance, the annual event offers dozens of subculture-specific programs.

The convention’s communications and public relations coordinator for the event, Ronnie, describes furries as “people that enjoy arts and culture centred around animals and animal-themed topics, essentially. Furnal Equinox in particular, we like to celebrate in a very visual and very […] artistic nature, where we have lots of arts and performances and crafts that go on, and people celebrate with lots of socialisation involved.”

Of the attendees, Ronnie told Wikinews “they come from all walks of life. They are people of all ages, sizes, all sorts of backgrounds, and they come together under one mutual interest, which is their love for animal culture.”

“Programming at Furnal Equinox involves[…] a lot of informational panels, so you can find out about topics from art and how to draw, or how to visually incorporate different elements into your artworks. You can also find panels that teach you how to write better, be a better fiction author for example,” explained the event representative.

At one panel Wikinews attended, members of its all-volunteer organising committee spoke of the year-long process of planning the event, and their reasons for committing such a significant amount of their time. Said one panelist, “if you’re happy, we’re happy.”

• Image: Nicholas Moreau.

• Image: Nicholas Moreau.

• Image: Nicholas Moreau.

The largest hub of activity at the convention was a dealer’s room; nicknamed the “Dealer’s Den”, giving it an anthropomorphic twist. Vendors were selling original visual art, wearables like faux fur tails or ears, or things like jewellery or soap with motifs that would interest attendees.

The back area of the room was dedicated to a charity auction, with proceeds benefiting Happily Ever Esther Farm Sanctuary. According to the convention website, the charity is “dedicated to rescuing abused, neglected, and abandoned farmed animals. Their goal is to provide a safe, life-long home for all of their residents, and to educate the public about the true nature of farmed animals through tours, volunteer programs, and community outreach.”

Split into groups, some attendees played “Fursuit Games” in front of an audience, like trying to toss a ball into a garbage can. The activity made harder, of course, by the limited dexterity and vision the most of the costumes entail.

• Image: Nicholas Moreau.

• Image: Nicholas Moreau.

• Berrie Image: Nicholas Moreau.

• Image: Nicholas Moreau.

• Attendees try to catch their own prizes, like t-shirts, after the Games. Image: Nicholas Moreau.

Saturday, April 10, 2010

Polish President Lech Kaczy?ski, travelling with 95 other people, died when his plane crashed in Russia. Officials say the crash, which occurred when the plane was approaching a Russian airport on Saturday, was due to dense fog, and that there are no survivors.

The Polish Central Bank governor, Slawomir Skrzypek, and other members of the Polish government were amongst those onboard. The crash was near Smolensk airport in western Russia. Kaczy?ski’s wife was killed along with him when the Tupolev Tu-154 went down; the trip to Russia was to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the Katyn massacre, when thousands of Polish prisoners of war and civilians were killed by the Soviets.

Sergei Antufyev, the governor of the Smolensk area, said on Russian television that no one survived the crash; the claim was backed by Polish news agencies as well. “As it was preparing for landing, the Polish president’s aircraft did not make it to the landing strip,” he commented.

“According to preliminary reports, it got caught up in the tops of trees, fell to the ground and broke up into pieces. There are no survivors in that crash. We are clarifying how many people there were in the [Polish] delegation. According to preliminary reports, 85 members of the delegation and the crew,” he added.

The exact passenger number was not known at first, with conflicting figures given by the Russian police, who said there were 132 people on board, and Polish officials. However, a full flight manifest received from the Presidential Office has been published by several news portals, giving 96 as the number of killed in the crash, including eight members of the crew. The manifest is also available on the Office’s official web page.

Television footage showed the burning plane with its charred parts scattered in the forest where it crashed. The plane crashed approximately two kilometres (1.3 miles) from Smolensk airport.

“The plane caught fire after the crash. Teams began attempting to pull out passengers from the badly damaged airplane,” commented a spokesman for the Polish Foreign Ministry from Warsaw. The chief of Poland’s military force, Franciszek Gagor and Deputy Foreign Minister Andrzej Kremer were among the victims.

A Polish television worker, Slawomir Wisniewski, said he was a witness to the crash, having seen it from hotel close by. “I saw through the fog, the aeroplane flying very low with the left wing pointing to the ground. I heard something being broken and then that thudding sound. Two flashes of fire next to each other,” he said, as quoted by the BBC.

Polish Foreign Minister, Radoslaw Sikorski noted that the country “could not have conceived a more horrible, poignant, tragic occurrence than our president going to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the murder of 20,000 Polish officers at Katyn himself dying.”

With the Polish president deceased, the speaker of the lower house of the parliament known as the Sejm, currently Bronislaw Komorowski, takes over as head of state, Komorowski’s assistant Jerzy Smolinski told the Reuters news agency.

Kaczy?ski is survived by his daughter Marta and by his identical twin brother, Jaros?aw Kaczy?ski who was Prime Minister of Poland from 2006 to 2007 and is currently chairman of the Law and Justice Party he co-founded with Lech. Both brothers were child actors who starred in the 1962 film, The Two Who Stole the Moon.

The Tupolev Tu-154, which was operated by the Polish Air Force, made its debut flight in 1990. 2,725 people have died in the 66 crashes involving this type of aircraft.

According to the flight manifest, those on board included:

• Lech Kaczy?ski, the President of Poland
• Maria Kaczy?ska, the first lady of Poland
• Ryszard Kaczorowski, the last President of the Polish government-in-exile
• Jerzy Szmajdzi?ski, the Deputy Speaker of the Sejm
• W?adys?aw Stasiak, Chief of Office of the President of the Republic of Poland
• Aleksander Szczyg?o, head of the National Security Bureau
• Pawe? Wypych, Secretary of State in the Office of the President of the Republic of Poland
• Mariusz Handzlik, Undersecretary of State in the Office of the President of the Republic of Poland
• Andrzej Kremer, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs
• General Franciszek G?gor, Chief of the Polish Army General Staff
• S?awomir Skrzypek, President of the National Bank of Poland.
• Andrzej Przewo?nik, Secretary-General of Council for the Protection of Struggle and Martyrdom Sites and several members of the Sejm.

Several other Polish government figures were in the plane as well. None of the passengers survived the crash. Poland has declared a week of national mourning after the incident.

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin was immediately appointed by Dmitry Medvedev, the president, as the head of the commission to investigate the crash. The latter also sent Sergei Shoigu, the Russian minister of emergency situations, to the site of the crash.

Prime Minister of Poland Donald Tusk remarked that “[w]e stand in the face of an incredible tragedy, one of the biggest tragic events of our nation’s history. It is definitely the most tragic event in the post-war history of Poland.”

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev commented that “All Russians are sharing in your grief and mourning. I promise that all the circumstances of this tragedy will be investigated most thoroughly, in closest cooperation with the Polish side. I have given exhaustive instructions to the law-enforcement agencies.”

He added, “On behalf of the Russian people, I am expressing my deepest, most sincere condolences to the people of Poland, sympathy and support for the victims’ families and friends.” According to Medvedev, Monday the 12th will be a day of national mourning in Russia.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, meanwhile, noted, “I think the whole world will be saddened and in sorrow as a result of the tragic death in a plane crash of President Kaczynski and his wife Maria and the party that were with them.”

“We know the difficulties that Poland has gone through, the sacrifices that he himself made as part of the Solidarity movement. We know the contribution he made to the independence and the freedom of Poland,” he continued.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy said of Kaczy?ski, “[He] devoted his life to his country. A tireless defender of the ideas in which he believed, he always battled with conviction for the values that founded his entry into politics: democracy, liberty and the fight against totalitarianism.”

German Chancellor Angela Merkel stated, “This is a political and human tragedy for Poland, our neighbouring country. Lech Kaczy?ski was a real lobbyist for his country, he loved his country and he was an argumentative European.”

Merkel also told of the memories she had of Kaczy?ski, saying: “I remember many meetings with him on European and international levels, in the end we always found a solution. I know that all of his life was dedicated to the fight for Poland’s freedom and Europe’s freedom. My husband and I fondly remember [his] invitation to his country house near Gdansk where we spent many, many hours talking about Polish and European history.”

US President Barack Obama made statement saying, “Today, there are heavy hearts across America. The United States cherishes its deep and abiding bonds with the people of Poland. It is a testament to the strength of the Polish people that those who were lost were travelling to commemorate a devastating massacre of World War II as the leaders of a strong, vibrant, and free Poland.”

Obama added, “That strength will ensure that Poland emerges from the depths of this unthinkable tragedy, and that the legacy of the leaders who died today will be a light that continues to guide Poland – and the world – in the direction of human progress.”

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said, “Kaczynski served his country and people with distinction and conviction, and was deservedly respected internationally. That he died en route to an event marking a new level of reconciliation between Poland and Russia is particularly poignant.”

Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd also expressed his condolences. “The tragic death of president Kaczincki of Poland is a great loss to the people of the Polish Republic and of course to the government of the Polish Republic,” he said. “This has been an extraordinary tragedy involving the loss of nearly 100 people. On behalf of the Australian Government we extend our condolences to the Polish people, to the the Polish government and our thoughts and our prayers are with them all.”

Saturday, October 14, 2006

An American inventor has patented a pair of new time formats with a footprint less than 50% of that of conventional four-digit time. The more unusual of the two new formats, called “TWELV”, dispenses with numerals altogether. In place of clock hands or digits, the new clock uses color to convey the hour and a moon image to convey the minute, which moon slowly grows throughout the course of an hour from a narrow crescent to a full-fledged circle.

The second and more approachable of the new formats retains numerical digits to indicate the minute but uses colors to convey the hour.

Early critics question whether the aesthetic benefits of the moon-clock will be sufficient to encourage users to learn the color-based time-telling system. However, the size advantages of the new system may make it particularly suitable for mobile applications, particularly cell phones, wearable computers, and head-mounted displays.