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Sunday, February 24, 2008

In the year 2000, Dries Buytaert created Drupal, a freely licensed and open source tool to manage websites, as a bulletin board for his college dorm. Since Dries released the software and a community of thousands of volunteer developers have added and improved modules, Drupal has grown immensely popular. Drupal won the overall Open CMS Award in 2007, and some speakers in Drupal’s spacious developer’s room at FOSDEM 2008 were dreaming aloud of its world domination.

Buytaert (now 29) just finished his doctoral thesis and has founded the start-up Acquia. The new company wants to become Drupal’s best friend, with the help of an all-star team and US$7 million collected from venture capitalists. Wikinews reporter Michaël Laurent sat down with Dries in Brussels to discuss these recent exciting developments.

Monday, January 28, 2008

The head of the Orthodox Church of Greece, Archbishop Christodoulos, died of cancer on Monday in his home in Athens, at the age of 69.

A strong defender of the role of the church in Greece, Christodoulos died at his home in north Athens, a few months after plans for a liver transplant in Miami, United States were cancelled.

The Greek Prime Minister Kostas Karamanlis said in a statement that “Archbishop Christodoulos was an enlightened church leader whose work brought the church closer to society, closer to modern problems and to young people” while opposition leader George Papandreou praised the late Archbishop and his personality.

Flags in all state buildings flew at half-mast as well as on the Acropolis and across the country as bells tolled. Condolences poured in as crowds of black-clad mourners gathered at the Metropolitan Cathedral of Athens where his funeral will be held on Thursday. The government announced an official four-day mourning and Archbishop’s funeral will take place under the status of head of the state honours.

Born in 1939 in the town of Xanthi, northern Greece, Christodoulos Paraskevaides was for many years Metropolitan of Demetrias in Volos, until 1998 when he became Archbishop of Athens and all Greece. A controversial personality himself, Christodoulos worked to mend ties with the Vatican and he also grudgingly agreed to a landmark visit by Pope John Paul II to Greece in 2001 that marked a turning point in relations between the Catholic and Orthodox Churches following the Great Schism of 1054 that split Christianity.

Friday, June 29, 2007

The European Union banned all of Indonesia’s air carriers yesterday, none of which presently operate services to Europe, as well as several from Russia, Ukraine and Angola. They are the latest additions to the already extensive List of air carriers banned in the EU. The ban is scheduled to come into effect on July 6. Just hours after the ban a Boeing 737 operated by one of the blacklisted airlines, TAAG Angola Airlines, crashed into a house during landing, causing at least six fatalities in Northern Angola.

Indonesia currently has 51 airlines, having grounded several and revoked the licences of others on June 25. The EU said that substandard maintenance and operation and a slow reaction by Indonesia to solve the problem were the main causes of the ban. EU holidaymakers who have booked flights with banned airlines via travel agents will be refunded for the services.

EU transport commissioner Jacques Barrot said of the ban “Once more, the EU blacklist will prove to be an essential tool not only to prevent unsafe airlines from flying to Europe and to inform passengers travelling worldwide, but also to make sure that airlines and civil aviation authorities take appropriate actions to improve safety.”

Operations and safety editor at Flight International David Learmount commented that Indonesia, whose airline industry was deregulated the early 1990s, is one of a handful of cases where deregulation has lowered safety standards instead of improving them, saying of the move by the EU “Standards in aviation safety have been going up dramatically on a worldwide basis, but there are still places where they are [of the standards of] the 70s and 80s. In Indonesia the safety watchdog was told earlier this year to pull its socks up, but the EU is clearly convinced that it has not done so.”

One unnamed EU official was reported by The Guardian to have described Indonesia’s civil aviation authority as “not very reliable”, referring to a lack of reaction to warnings of an imminent ban and requests that Indonesia reassured officials that the problem was being dealt with.

Indonesia has responded to the ban by saying that, according to information unseen by the EU, Indonesian safety standards are rising. Director-general of civil aviation at the Indonesian transport ministry Budhi Mulyawan Suyitno told Reuters new agency that, “Our data can show them that we have improved on every line. The US had already downgraded Indonesia’s safety rating earlier this year.

Also affected by the bans are Ukraine’s Volare Aviation, while Russia has imposed bans on four of its airlines after consulting the EU and restricted six others, Bulgaria has revoked the licences of six cargo airlines and Moldova has banned eight airlines.

Meanwhile, Pakistan International Airlines, subject of a controversial EU ban earlier this year, had restrictions on some of its aircraft lifted. The airline’s fleet of Boeing 777s and some of their Boeing 747s and Airbus 310s will now be allowed back into European airspace.

The announcements come after three accidents involving Indonesian airliners – the New Year’s Day crash of Adam Air Flight 574, which killed 102 people, the subsequent accident involving Adam Air Flight 172, which cracked in half on a hard landing but held together, preventing serious injury, and the March crash of state-run Garuda Indonesia Flight 200, which claimed 23 lives. All the accidents involved ageing Boeing 737 aircraft.

Saturday, January 29, 2005

Fourteen countries outside of Iraq have been selected for the installation of polling stations for the Iraqi National Assembly election. Among these, Paris, capital city of France, will welcome voters from France, Belgium, and Switzerland.

While the event has not been kept secret, the French government and media have been quite discreet about it. The polling station has been installed in an unused elementary school in a calm residential neighbourhood of the XIIIe arrondissement, without fanfare. Most inhabitants are not even aware of its presence – that is, until they notice the unusual deployment of police and come across the posters written in French and Arabic. Despite the discretion, the sight of police guarding a polling station is striking in a country where elections are a calm affair on a Sunday, and polling stations, most of which are installed in schools, are only noticeable because of the official billboards carrying the candidates’ posters.

Security measures have been taken – metallic barriers prevent parking in and around the front and back entrances to the station, and CRS riot police with bulletproof vests guard the entrances.Still, overall, the security measures remain limited. Traffic flows in the street, passers-by freely walk in front of the station entrance, no display of heavy weapons. This contrasts with the use of military troops and deployments of gendarmes mobiles that France used in its Vigipirate anti-terror plan following the Islamist terror bombings that it suffered in 1995, or the typical security measures kept around possible terror targets such as the embassies of Israel and the United States of America. This time, military cars and a handful of soldiers were seen in the morning, but were gone in the afternoon.

Tuesday, June 27, 2006

Australian Minister for Vocational Education and Training, Gary Hardgrave has announced the government will provide AU$15.8 million to establish an Australian Technical College in North Adelaide. The minister said the government was entering into a partnership with the Archdiocese of Adelaide and consortium of industrial and manufacturing companies.

The North Adelaide college will be located in Elizabeth and be operated as an independent non-government school. The college is one of 25 to be established across the country.

Enrolments at the college will begin in 2007 and will offer courses in areas where identified skills shortages exist in the North Adelaide region, specifically – engineering, construction, electronics and cooking.

Mr Hardgrave said that the proposed college had been popular among the North Adelaide business community. “This important initiative has been well received by North Adelaide business and industry, and will help to address skills needs and provide opportunities for those in greatest need, including a lot of Indigenous students in the region,” Mr Hardgrave said.

“The fact that this College is being led by local employers, local government and other key stakeholders, means it will be truly industry and community driven,” he said.

Australian Technical Colleges were established to cater for year 11 and 12 students who wish to do an apprenticeship as part of their school education.

The Australian Education Union has expressed a number of concerns about the model put forward by the government. In a report, they claim that trade facilities at TAFE colleges (operated by state governments) will deteriorate as funding is diverted to the ATCs. The union is also concerned that ATCs are supposed to be selective VET schools. According to the union they will have selective entry and preferential funding. It is feared that teachers will be lured away from schools and TAFE colleges to higher paid positions in ATCs.

The Education Union suggested that the government invest in schools that already offer vocational education programs.

Friday, November 3, 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 West (Ward 25). Three candidates responded to Wikinews’ requests for an interview. This ward’s candidates include John Blair, Robertson Boyle, Tony Dickins, Cliff Jenkins (incumbent), and Peter Kapsalis.

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

Friday, March 24, 2006

Thessaloniki, Greece — The personal correspondence of the former Archbishop of North and South America, and spiritual leader of the Greek Orthodox community in the United States of America for 37 years, Iakovos Coucouzis, will be published during 2006. The Archbishop passed away in 2005. The publication of the correspondence of the late Archbishop will be the result of co-operation between the Theology School of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, the non-governmental Institute for National and Religious Studies and the program Ecumenical Hellenism.

According to Athanasios Angelopoulos — who, along with theology professor Athanasios Karathanasis and political science student Nicolaos Mottas, has the scientific diligence of the project — the personal correspondence of Iakovos contains important information about the national issues of Greece, such as the Cyprus, Macedonian and the northern Epirus issues.

A dynamic personality, the spiritual leader of the Greek Orthodox community in the United States from 1959 to 1996, Iakovos, constructed relations with all the American presidents, from Harry Truman to Bill Clinton, and with various personalities from the Americas, such as minority leaders, with most famous being his friendship with Martin Luther King Jr. The personal correspondence of the Greek Orthodox leader contains letters between Iakovos and various United States presidents, including John F. Kennedy, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush, and with other political personalities — ministers, ambassadors, Washington, D.C. officials and former Greek Prime Ministers, including Constantine Caramanlis and Andreas Papandreou. According to professor Angelopoulos, the two-volume publication will contain photocopies of the original correspondence documents and moreover a major text — written in by Angelopoulos in Greek and translated into English by Nicolaos Mottas — which will summarize the essentians and meaning of Iakovos’ correspondence, as well as its impact on the political, social and religious life of the Greek Orthodox Community in the United States of America and on Greek-American relations.

The supervisor of the project, professor Athanasios Angelopoulos, stated that Archbishop Iakovos’ personal correspondence will be published in 2006. The publication, which will be prefaced by the Archbishop of Athens and All Greece, Archbishop Christodoulos, will be presented in Thessaloniki, Athens, and possibly to the Greek Community in the United States.