Author: Admin

Thursday, March 31, 2016

Businessman Rocky De La Fuente took some time to speak with Wikinews about his campaign for the U.S. Democratic Party’s 2016 presidential nomination.

The 61-year-old De La Fuente resides in San Diego, California, grew up in Tijuana, and owns multiple businesses and properties throughout the world. Since getting his start in the automobile industry, De La Fuente has branched out into the banking and real estate markets. Despite not having held or sought political office previously, he has been involved in politics, serving as the first-ever Hispanic superdelegate to the 1992 Democratic National Convention.

De La Fuente entered the 2016 presidential race last October largely due to his dissatisfaction with Republican front-runner Donald Trump. He argues he is a more accomplished businessman than Trump, and attacks Trump as “a clown,” “a joke,” “dangerous,” and “in the same category as Hitler.” Nevertheless, De La Fuente’s business background begets comparisons with Trump. The Alaskan Midnight Sun blog described him as the Democrats’ “own Donald Trump.”

While receiving only minimal media coverage, he has campaigned actively, and according to the latest Federal Election Commission filing, loaned almost US$ 4 million of his own money to the campaign. He has qualified for 48 primary and caucus ballots, but has not yet obtained any delegates to the 2016 Democratic National Convention. Thus far, according to the count at The Green Papers, De La Fuente has received 35,406 votes, or 0.23% of the total votes cast. He leads among the many lesser-known candidates but trails both Senator Bernie Sanders who has received nearly 6.5 million votes and front-runner Hillary Clinton who has just shy of 9 million votes.

With Wikinews reporter William S. Saturn?, De La Fuente discusses his personal background, his positions on political issues, his current campaign for president, and his political future.

Thursday, September 6, 2012

London, England — Wheelchair rugby got underway yesterday at London’s Basketball Arena with four games being played: the United States versus Great Britain, Sweden versus Belgium, Australia versus Canada, and Japan versus France.

Before a full house at a game that was the first one to sell out in the lead up to the start of the London Paralympics, the United States national wheelchair rugby team defeated Great Britain national wheelchair rugby team by a score of 56–44. While the game got off to a slow start for the United States, once the team found its rhythm, they dominated the home team and appeared to score at will. Despite this, the crowd supported their side, even when they were down by eight points. When the United States bench started a chant of U-S-A! U-S-A!, the crowd soon drowned them out with a chant of Team G-B! Team G-B!

The United States came to London as defending gold medalists and ranked first in the world. Coming into the game, the team’s assistant coach James Mate told the media regarding this game, “To be truthful we have played the home team a couple of times, but you have to play the game in that moment and it can give the hosts the edge. […] In Beijing, Great Britain gave us our best game, and the semifinal was a three-goal game. We had something similar in June (at the Canada Cup). […] They (Great Britain) play some like us and some like Canada, and are one of the teams that have a lot of good players, so we can’t focus on just one player, but on the team as a whole.”

Ranked sixth in the world, Great Britain came to London as the home town favorites. Their roster included club players from across the country including David Anthony who plays for the Cardiff Pirates, Andy Barrow, Bulbul Hussain and Steve Brown who play for the Kent Crusaders, Jonathan Coggan and Mandip Sehmi who play for the Stoke Mandeville Storm, Mike Kerr who plays for the North West Bulls, Myles Pearson who plays for the West Coast Crash, and the team’s only female player Kylie Grimes who plays for the London Wheelchair Rugby Club with teammate Ross Morrison.

Before the game, first time Paralympian Great Britain wheelchair rugby player Mike Kerr told the media regarding his squad selection, “I felt I’d never been given a chance to get noticed, so I got myself some court time at big tournaments like Knock and Roll in 2010 (a USA national tournament) and Bernd Best (the biggest wheelchair rugby tournament in the world, held in Germany). I played well and I think people finally took notice.” Regarding the wait to play, Kerr said, “It’s hard. I hate waiting around. I’m here to do a job and the sooner I get started the better. But it’s been a great experience so far. The crowd and support have been amazing. […] I’m really confident. We took confidence from how we played against them at the Canada Cup (in June). If we play our game we can shock them.”

The United States meets Japan while Great Britain meets France later today in their second games in pool play.

In the second wheelchair rugby match of the London Paralympics, Sweden defeated Belgium by a score of 52–42.

Sweden, the current European champions, came to London with a relatively new coach, who only took over the side in late 2011. Belgium’s coach Bob Vanacker also plays on the team. He and Peter Genyn and Lars Mertens play their club wheelchair rugby in the United States.

In the first game for both teams since the London Paralympics began, Australia national wheelchair rugby team defeated Canada by a score of 64–52. Australia and Canada both had their flag bearers from the opening ceremonies represented by this sport, Greg Smith for Australia and Garett Hickling for Canada.

Beijing silver medalists Australia came to London ranked second in the world. Their last major competition before the Paralympics was the Canada Cup, where they lost to the United States by a single point. The Australian side included flag-bearer Greg Smith at his fifth games, Nazim Erdem who is at his third Paralympics, Ryley Batt and Ryan Cott who competed at the 2004 and 2008 Games, Cameron Carr who competed at the Beijing Games, Chris Bond, Cody Meakin, Ben Newton, Andrew Harrison, Josh Hose and Jason Lees who made their Paralympic Games debut.

Canada came into their match against Australia as returning bronze medalists. Their roster included Ian Chan who was on the team that finished first at the 2002 World Championships, the former ice hockey player Jason Crone from Owen Sound, Ontario, debut Paralympian from Embrun, Ontario Oarice Dagenais, 2002 World Champion Jared Funk from Manitoba, five time Paralympian Garett Hickling, Trevor Hirschfield who is decribed by the Canadian Paralympic Committee as one of the world’s best low point players, Athens silver medalist and Beijing bronze medalists Fabien Lavoie, eighteen-year-old Zak Madell, University of Arizona alumnist Travis Murao, 2010 World Championships All Star Ten player Patrice Simard, former recreational hockey player David Willsie and Harrow, Ontario native Mike Whitehead.

Australia meets Sweden later today while Canada will take on Belgium.

In the last match of day yesterday, Japan defeated France 65–56. France qualified for the tournament despite the national team only being five years old. Japan came to London having beaten the top ranked United States in this year’s Canada Cup.

Tuesday, March 29, 2005A team of Australian surgeons yesterday reattached both hands and one foot to 10-year-old Perth boy, Terry Vo, after a brick wall which collapsed during a game of basketball fell on him, severing the limbs. The wall gave way while Terry performed a slam-dunk, during a game at a friend’s birthday party.

The boy was today awake and smiling, still in some pain but in good spirits and expected to make a full recovery, according to plastic surgeon, Mr Robert Love.

“What we have is parts that are very much alive so the reattached limbs are certainly pink, well perfused and are indeed moving,” Mr Love told reporters today.

“The fact that he is moving his fingers, and of course when he wakes up he will move both fingers and toes, is not a surprise,” Mr Love had said yesterday.

“The question is more the sensory return that he will get in the hand itself and the fine movements he will have in the fingers and the toes, and that will come with time, hopefully. We will assess that over the next 18 months to two years.

“I’m sure that he’ll enjoy a game of basketball in the future.”

The weight and force of the collapse, and the sharp brick edges, resulted in the three limbs being cut through about 7cm above the wrists and ankle.

Terry’s father Tan said of his only child, the injuries were terrible, “I was scared to look at him, a horrible thing.”

The hands and foot were placed in an ice-filled Esky and rushed to hospital with the boy, where three teams of medical experts were assembled, and he was given a blood transfusion after experiencing massive blood loss. Eight hours of complex micro-surgery on Saturday night were followed by a further two hours of skin grafts yesterday.

“What he will lose because it was such a large zone of traumatised skin and muscle and so on, he will lose some of the skin so he’ll certainly require lots of further surgery regardless of whether the skin survives,” said Mr Love said today.

The boy was kept unconscious under anaesthetic between the two procedures. In an interview yesterday, Mr Love explained why:

“He could have actually been woken up the next day. Because we were intending to take him back to theatre for a second look, to look at the traumatised skin flaps, to close more of his wounds and to do split skin grafting, it was felt the best thing to do would be to keep him stable and to keep him anaesthetised.”

Professor Wayne Morrison, director of the respected Bernard O’Brien Institute of Microsurgery and head of plastic and hand surgery at Melbourne’s St Vincent’s Hospital, said he believed the operation to be a world first.

Monday, May 21, 2012

Bruce, Canberra — This past week, an overstocked Australian Opals, the women’s national basketball team, prepared for the 2012 Olympic Games in London with a weeklong training camp at the Australian Institute of Sport (AIS) to be used to help narrow the nineteen member Opals squad down to the twelve that go to the Games, and provide players who rarely play together an extended period of time to play together in order to improve on court dynamics.

Camp started on Sunday, with players arriving from hometowns around Australia including Cairns, MacKay, Gladstone, Brisbane, Adelaide, and Melbourne.

The defending champions, the United States women’s national basketball team, are perceived as the Australian Opals’ main competitors. In the last three Olympic Games the Opals got silver medals. In each of these cases the United States got first place. Coach Carrie Graf said “thinking about the US too soon in inappropriate”, “Our focus is first and foremost, game by game winning our pool”. Amongst the Australian Opals’ competitors in the pool are Brazil, Russia, and Great Britain. Carrie Graf said Great Britain “will put up a fight on home turf” but there is a “world class [AIS] facility” and “world class medical support staff” supporting the team.

Australian Opal player Penny Taylor recently suffered injury from a torn anterior cruciate ligament, meaning she cannot play Olympics this year. In regards to the situation player Lauren Jackson, who is going into her fourth Olympics, said “you would never wish that upon anybody.” She says as a team they have to “move on, move through that” and “come together” to pick up their offence and defense. Despite the loss of one of their key players she says “we definitely have the talent there” and the team is all “on the same page.” She feels “pretty confident” and speaks of “very exciting” times ahead. Jenna O’Hea is going into her first Olympics with the team. She is still “pinching” herself and says she is taking it “day by day”.

A typical day at the camp might start with a 7.00am – 8.30am breakfast at the AIS Dining hall, before one and a half or two hours of court, gym, or swimming training. The middle of each day might consist of media meetings, medical checks, team meetings, and time to practise shooting. Around 12.00pm, the players meet to eat lunch and recover from the morning. The afternoon typically consists of more training, and some scrimmage games. Players usually finish around 7.00pm for dinner, and perhaps a massage.

The nineteen players in attendance this week at training camp were Suzy Batkovic, Abby Bishop, Elizabeth Cambage, Rohanee Cox, Cayla Francis, Kristi Harrower, Laura Hodges, Natalie Hurst, Lauren Jackson, Rachel Jarry, Kathleen MacLeod, Jenna O’Hea, Samantha Richards, Jennifer Screen, Belinda Snell, Marianna Tolo, Kristen Veal, Carly Wilson, and Hanna Zavecz. Basketball Australia has named fifteen players that are to attend the second phase of the camp: Suzy Batkovic, Abby Bishop, Elizabeth Cambage, Kristi Harrower, Laura Hodges, Lauren Jackson, Rachel Jarry, Kathleen MacLeod, Jenna O’Hea, Erin Phillips, Samantha Richards, Jennifer Screen, Belinda Snell, Marianna Tolo, and Hanna Zavecz.

Tuesday, February 12, 2008

The 2008 Taipei International Book Exhibition (TIBE 2008), organized by the Taipei Book Fair Foundation (TBFF), will start tomorrow and end next Monday (Feb. 18) at the Taipei World Trade Center in Hall 1 & 3 and in the Taipei Show (TWTC Hall 2). Before the opening of the main show, the TIBE changed significantly.

Since the Preview Exhibition was held in 1992 in Jhonghe City, Taipei County with the “History of books in China” theme, the preview exhibition wasn’t eventually held before the main show every year.

This pre-main-show exhibition style was replaced by a consuming battle between bookstores from actual to virtual (via Internet) and reading festivals from municipal libraries in Taiwan that the Ministry of Education of the Republic of China promoted. But in 2008, after the TBFF was regrouped last year, the preview exhibition finally returned on Feb 2 & 3 with the “Book Market” and “Arts and Crafts” in the Huashan Culture Park, Taipei. With the preview exhibition, the reading population is expected to expand rapidly and widely in Taiwan.

To gather on different cultures, the TBFF not only arranged a variety of seminars from book-cover designing, changes of publishing industry, publishing style, and strategies from global publishing industry, but also invited executives from the publishing industry worldwide such as Michel Le Bris, Gilles Lapouge, Shaun Tan, Markus Zusak, Tony Wheeler, and Maruen Wheeler and executives from the Frankfurt Book Fair.

Apart from seminars and executives, the Stiftung Buchkunst (Book Art Foundation) will showcase several awarded books from “Giant of Japanese Design” and some book design awards in the “Most Beautiful Book Designing” pavilion. Two book design awards by TBEE named the “2008 TIBE Prize” and “2008 Golden Butterfly Award” will be successively announced on Feb 13 & 14.

Not only on book-designing and pavilions, even though Australia was named as the main international pavilion, the TBFF chose the opening movie “What My Eyes Have Seen” from France and a closing movie named “The Edge of Heaven“ from Germany, those selected movies including the opening and closing ones will be screened at the movie pavilion. The Travel Literature Pavilion will show a different style varied from the 2007 Taipei International Travel Fair, not only just about traveling but also mixed with cultures and literature.

Saturday, March 15, 2008

The Internet group Anonymous today held further protests critical of the Church of Scientology.

The global protests started in Australia where several hundred protesters gathered at different locations for peaceful protests.

In a global speech, the Internet protest movement said Scientology “betrayed the trust of its members, [had] taken their money, their rights, and at times their very lives.” The protesters welcomed the public interest their protests have led to, and claimed they witnessed “an unprecedented flood of Scientologists [joining] us across the world to testify about these abuses.” The group said it would continue with monthly actions.

In a press statement from its European headquarters, Scientology accused the anonymous protesters of “hate speech and hate crimes”, alleging that security measures were necessary because of death threats and bomb threats. This also makes the Church want to “identify members” of the group it brands as “cyber-terrorists”.

Wikinews had correspondents in a number of protest locations to report on the events.

Anonymous states that the next protest is scheduled to take place on April 18, which happens to be the birthday of Suri, the daughter of Tom and Katie Cruise.