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Wednesday, April 18, 2007

In France, voting has traditionally been a low-tech experience: voters isolate themselves in a booth, put a pre-printed sheet of paper indicating their candidate of choice into an envelope. After officials verify the voter’s identity, the voter drops the envelope into the ballot box and signs the voting roll. French electoral law rather strictly codifies the proceedings. Since 1988, ballot boxes must be transparent so that voters and observers can witness that no envelopes are present at the start of the vote and that no envelopes are added except those of the duly counted and authorized voters. Candidates can send representatives to witness every part of the process. In the evening, votes are counted by volunteers under heavy supervision, following specific procedures.

In the past, voting machines, though authorized by law, were scarce. But this year, during presidential elections (the first round was April 22, the second is on May 6), the country is shaken by controversy about the machines intended to count about 1.5 million votes.

As in the United States, there is a group of academic computer scientists that oppose voting machines. They argue that voting machines replace a public, easily understandable counting process, where large-scale fraud would entail large-scale corruption, by an opaque process where votes are counted by machines that voters have to blindly trust. Voting machines have to be approved by the Ministry of the Interior, but this approval is based on confidential reports by private companies. Opponents to the machines point out that the Ministry was long held by Nicolas Sarkozy, who happens to be the leading candidate. Opponents also list a number of weaknesses and discrepancies that have occurred in other countries using voting machines.

All main political parties except UMP, Mr Sarkozy’s ruling party, oppose the voting machines. Some citizens have filed for court injunctions against the voting machines. Opponents have given detailed instructions that voting witnesses should check whether the machines correspond exactly to an approved type, including software versions, and fulfill all legal conditions. In a sign of the frenzy over the issue, on April 12 the Ministry of the Interior issued a last-minute authorization for a specific model (hardware, firmware). The stakes are high: votes on unapproved machines should be canceled by the Constitutional Council for the official count.

The opposition has crystallized on the Paris suburb of Issy-les-Moulineaux. Issy’s mayor, André Santini is a well-known technophile; his city organizes a “World E-Gov Forum”. Here too, last minute fixes are at work. The machines delivered to the city are of a yet-to-be-approved type. The manufacturer, the American company ES&S voting systems, is now delivering older 2005 machines. Le Monde reports that other municipalities have already replaced their recent machines by an older, approved, model.

Proponents of the machines, such as the French company France Élection, claim they are being defamed and dispute the competence of their critics. Elected officials supporting the machines claim the machines save on paper, time, and the need to find volunteers to count votes.

Saturday, May 26, 2018

On Wednesday, South African cricketer AB de Villiers announced his retirement from international cricket. The 34-year-old batsman uploaded a video message on Twitter saying it was a “tough decision” and he was “tired”.

De Villiers joined the national team, the Proteas, in 2004, featuring in a test match against England. Since then, the South African talisman has featured in 114 test matches for the Proteas, scoring 8765 runs. He has 22 test centuries to his name, the most recent one coming against Australia in March. South Africa went on to win the test series 3–0.

De Villiers’ batting average is above 50 in both test matches and One Day International (ODI) matches. De Villiers has featured in 228 ODI and 78 Twenty20 (T20) matches as well scoring 9577 and 1672 runs in ODIs and T20s respectively.

In a match against the West Indies at the Wanderers Stadium in Johannesburg on January 18, 2015, De Villiers scored 149 runs from 44 balls. In that match, De Villiers scored the fastest half-century in ODIs, reaching 50 runs from seventeen balls, as well as the fastest century in ODIs, with 100 runs from 31 balls.

Chris Nenzani, the President of Cricket South Africa, said, “AB is one of the all-time greats of South African cricket who has thrilled spectators around the world”.

De Villiers announced his retirement four days after he finished his Indian Premier League season with Royal Challengers Bangalore. In the video statement, De Villiers said, “I have no plans to play overseas, in fact, I hope I can continue to be available for the Titans in domestic cricket.”

Thursday, September 15, 2005

In the aftermath of the disaster in New Orleans, questions have arisen as to whether the Bush administration withheld the deployment of troops and other assistance pending an agreement by the Louisiana Governor, Kathleen Blanco, to authorize the invocation of the Insurrection Act, which would have legally allowed Bush to declare martial law and take control of the rescue and rebuilding effort.

The NY Times on Sept. 8 reported that “As New Orleans descended into chaos last week and Louisiana’s governor asked for 40,000 soldiers, President Bush’s senior advisers debated whether the president should speed the arrival of active-duty troops by seizing control of the hurricane relief mission from the governor.” But how this step would have improved the response time is not clear.

It is also unclear as to why such a move would be considered at all as no legal requirement was at issue, leading to the question of whether this was what some fear to have been a political power grab.

The same Times article quotes unnamed official(s) saying that “no active-duty forces could have been sent into the chaos of New Orleans on Wednesday or Thursday without confronting law-and-order challenges.” But though the law does bar US Military forces from law enforcement duties absent a declaration of martial law, there are no restrictions on their use in other capacities. Bush authorized more than 7,000 additional active duty troops on September 3 to join the more than 21,000 National Guard troops and more than 4,000 active duty forces deployed to the ravaged gulf region on September 1st and 2nd, law-and-order challenges taking a back seat to the urgency of the rescue mission.

Navy helicopters were over the city on August 30th and landing craft busy the following day. More than 400 members of the Army Corps of Engineers were on site, working to repair the levee system in New Orleans and removing floodwaters from the city. By September 2nd, 113 DoD helicopters, about half from the National Guard and half from active-duty Navy, Army and Air Force units, were continuing to support search and recovery missions.

The National Guard, which remains under the authority of the Governor of the state, are legally authorized and trained for law enforcement duties and the Times article goes on to say that “Pentagon officials said even the 82nd Airborne, which has a brigade on standby to move out within 18 hours, could not arrive any faster than 7,000 National Guard troops, which are specially trained and equipped for civilian law enforcement duties.”

The Louisiana National Guard was conspicuously absent following the flooding and four days passed without relief. Several states offered emergency supplies, equipment and units from their National Guard. “New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson offered Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco help from his state’s National Guard on Sunday, the day before Hurricane Katrina hit Louisiana. Blanco accepted, but paperwork needed to get the troops en route didn’t come from Washington until late Thursday.”

Similarly, FEMA has been roundly criticized for its own failure to fulfill its emergency command and control mandate during the same period of time. Though on-site before the hurricane struck, many stories of manpower, equipment and supplies being refused have surfaced. Jefferson Parish President Aaron Broussard has accused FEMA of cutting their local communication lines in the midst of the crisis. FEMA chief Mike Brown was ultimately removed from his post on Friday Sept. 9th.

Also on Friday National Guard units arrived in force and brought food and water, medical personnel, and quickly quelled the rampant looting that had beset the city during the previous days.

Without a full investigation, it is impossible to say what caused these delays. This disaster was unprecedented in scope and hit an area long known to be exceptionally vulnerable to catastrophic damage from a hurricane. But the length of the delay and the breadth of the failures have been widely condemned and demands for an explanation have come from both sides of the political aisle.

Monday, October 1, 2007

Brian Jackson is running for the Ontario Liberal Party in the Ontario provincial election, in the Oxford riding. Wikinews’ Nick Moreau interviewed him regarding his values, his experience, and his campaign.

Stay tuned for further interviews; every candidate from every party is eligible, and will be contacted. Expect interviews from Liberals, Progressive Conservatives, New Democratic Party members, Ontario Greens, as well as members from the Family Coalition, Freedom, Communist, Libertarian, and Confederation of Regions parties, as well as independents.

Saturday, December 1, 2007

Five tourists including a child, have been killed in a car accident in Kruger National Park in South Africa. Four of the tourists were from Austria and one was from Germany. The driver survived the crash with minor injuries.

On Thursday November 29, the tourists were traveling in a Mercedes-Benz 4×4, near a gate to the park when the driver “miscalculated” the turn onto a bridge crossing the Letaba river, causing the car to plunge over the edge, flip over and fall into the river below with the roof in the river’s water.

No names have been released as authorities are attempting to contact the family members of those killed. It is not known if the driver will be charged.

Wednesday, August 30, 2006

Raed Jarrar, an Iraqi peace activist who lives in the United States, was forced to change his T-Shirt, which bore an Arabic slogan, because it was found “offensive”.

The incident took place in JFK airport in New York. The activist Jarrar reported in his blog RaedInTheMiddle that he had checked-in his bags and was issued a boarding pass. After waiting near the gate to board his jetBlue airlines flight, and after having to gone through a secondary search, two officials approached him.

“People are feeling offended because of your t-shirt,” Raed reported that one of the men said to him. The writings on the T-Shirt said in both Arabic and English: “We will not be silent”.

Raed asked why this has offended anyone, and insisted his right to freedom of expression was violated.

According to Jarrar, one of the inspectors said, “You can’t wear a T-shirt with Arabic script and come to an airport. It is like wearing a t-shirt that reads ‘I am a robber’ and going to a bank”. The airport official, unable to read Arabic, was unyielding to protests by Jarrar that the English language version of the Arabic was accurate, and suggested he wear the shirt inside out.

“Many people called and complained about your t-shirt. Jetblue customers were calling before you reached the checkpoint, and customers called when you were waiting here in the boarding area”, Jarrar was told after he complained.

One employee from JetBlue offered to buy Jarrar a T-shirt to replace the one he was wearing, since the activist had none other after his bags were checked. Refusing at first, he agreed to wear one with “New York” written on it.

The officer on the scene commented that it need not have gone from one extreme to the other: wearing a T-Shirt with an Arabic peace slogan on it, to wearing one with ‘New York’. There is no reason to hate New York if you are an Arab speaking peace activist, according to Jarrar.

“I feel very sad that my personal freedom was taken away like this. I grew up under authoritarian governments in the Middle East, and one of the reasons I chose to move to the U.S. was that I don’t want an officer to make me change my t-shirt. I will pursue this incident today through a constitutional rights organization, and I am sure we will meet soon,” Raed said.

He was issued another boarding pass, with a different seat at the back of the plane.

JetBlue said it was investigating the incident but a spokeswoman said: “We’re not clear exactly what happened.” The spokeswoman also said the airline does not forbid Arabic T-shirts, but that it does take into account the concerns of its passengers.

The American-Arab Anti-discrimination Committee said the US Transportation Department and the Transportation Security Administration were also investigating the incident after the committee lodged complaints on behalf of Jarrar.

“We Will Not Be Silent” is a slogan adopted by opponents of the war in Iraq and other conflicts in the Middle East.

It is said to derive from the White Rose dissident group which opposed Nazi rule in Germany.

Wednesday, September 19, 2007

NASA is beginning the final preparations for next Wednesday’s launch of the Dawn probe, aboard a Delta II rocket. The Dawn probe, costing over US$250 million, will visit the dwarf planet Ceres and the asteroid Vesta. The launch was originally planned for mid-June, however due to a damaged crate, shipping delays, and a damaged solar panel, NASA chose to delay it until now. Last week the spacecraft was delivered to the launch pad, and engineers performed tests to ensure that it is ready for launch. Today, the payload fairings were installed, and the probe is ready for its launch next week onto its 5 billion kilometer (3.2 billion mile) mission.

As the Delta II launches, three stages of rockets will propel the probe towards its first target. With the help of ion thrusters, it will reach Mars in mid-2009. Using Mars’ gravity, the probe will speed up and proceed towards the first asteroid, Vesta, in late 2011. After orbiting for seven months, it will leave Vesta in mid-2012, and arrive at Ceres in 2015. After making scans of Ceres, it will enter an orbit around Ceres that will ensure that it does not impact the asteroid for half a century. This is required due to the United Nations’ “Outer Space Treaty”, which states that “harmful contamination” of these asteroids must be avoided.

The targets of this mission, Ceres and Vesta, couldn’t be less alike. Ceres (diameter 975 km, 600 miles) is larger than Vesta (578 km, 350 miles). This makes Ceres approximately the size of Texas. NASA believes Ceres could contain water beneath its outer crust because, like Earth, its inner layers are heavier than the outer layers, and Ceres’ outer layer is lighter than water. Vesta, on the other hand, is the size of Arizona, and has a surface of volcanic rock, which astronomers believe came from its hot inner layers. Vesta also has a large crater – almost 500 km (300 miles) across – on its southern pole. The collision that caused this likely blasted enough rock into space to fill a container 160 by 160 by 80 km (100 by 100 by 50 miles).

The probe will make several observations of these asteroids: it will compare the makeup, shape, size, and densities, analyze craters, and determine mass, gravity, rotation. To determine the makeup, the probe carries a mapping spectrometer, and tools to map emissions of neutrons and gamma rays. Using this information, NASA can compare the formation of these bodies to learn more about our solar system, for example, to test a theory which states that a number of stony meteorites may be debris from Vesta.

There’s one more piece of equipment aboard the probe: A small silicon chip containing the names of 350,000 people who submitted their names to the “Send Your Name to the Asteroid Belt” campaign. After next week’s launch, the spacecraft will deploy its solar panels and undergo two months of testing before it begins the cruise to Mars.

Thursday, November 3, 2005

Australian industral relations reform legislationmade up of 700 pages of bill legislation and 500 additional pages of explanatory memoranda was introduced into the Federal House of Representatives November 2, where the Opposition heatedly attempted to address their perceived problem of the Government’s lack of discussion and debate over the matter.

The first reading of the bill was the first order of the day, and when Kevin Andrews tried to do so, Opposition member Stephen Smith, responsible for workplace relations, immediately moved a motion deferring the bills to the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Employment, Workplace Relations and Workforce Participation. The Leader of the House, Tony Abbott moved that Smith and the necessary supporter — viz., Julia Gillard — be not further heard (cloture). The Government’s majority in the House ensured that this would happen. However, Opposition members attempted to use House standing orders necessitating that copies of the bill to be “available to Members”, with argument arising whether “available to Members” meant all members or simply whether some copies should be available; this ended up in a dissent motion moved against the Speaker of the House.

Later, in a heated Question Time, where six members of the Opposition, (Kelly Hoare, Julia Irwin, Anthony Albanese, Bernard Ripoll, Catherine King, and Gavan O’Connor), were removed from the Chamber during Question Time under standing orders for disruption — Jill Hall quipped that she was “glad to be still here to ask [her] question” — nearly all questions to the Government put by the Opposition, the subsequent time for matters of public importance, and some members in the adjournment debate, was all on the topic of the industrial relations reform.

To implement and fund the legislation, the government will “spend an additional $486million on industrial relations changes over four years, or $121million a year. This spending would be in addition to the present annual budget of $86million.” said an unnamed government source for The Australian.

The government will need to use its corporation powers to remove the powers from the states to alter the award conditions and other employee employer related conditions. But the New South Wales premier Morris Iemma has received legal advice that the legislation maybe unconstitutional, the reason being its being used to end the role of the states and territories Australian States in the industrial relations system. “It is our view that the Commonwealth is misusing this law to achieve exactly what it was designed to prevent”, Iemma said. Mr Iemma will be challenging the changes in the high court with Peter Beattie Premier of Queensland supporting his challenge in the High Court.