Tuesday, November 18, 2014

Yesterday evening saw the Usher Hall in Edinburgh host a meeting between representatives of the City of Edinburgh Council (CEC) and the local rock and pop music scene. The meeting was dominated with local musicians’ complaints over the “zero tolerance” policy Edinburgh is viewed as having adopted towards amplified music.The meeting began with the leading panel — Norma Austin Hart, vice-convener for Culture and Sport; John Stout, promoter from Regular Music; Kevin Buckle, of local store Avalanche Records; and Karl Chapman, manager of the Usher Hall — introducing themselves and outlining the purpose of the meeting. This being best-summarised as a desire to emulate the vibrant music scene of places as far-flung as Austin, Texas and Sydney, Australia.

Councillor Hart indicated officials from Austin had already offered to get involved in improving the live music scene in the city; although none were present from Austin, US-born local musician Pat Dennis provided his frank opinion on where Edinburgh fails to nurture the local music scene: that failure to support a grass-roots, small venue, music scene prevents the city being capable of organising events similar to Austin’s South by Southwest festival outwith August, when Edinburgh hosts the Festival and Fringe.

Coming in for the lion’s share of criticism, staff from CEC’s Licensing Board were visibly uncomfortable when the topic of the “single complainant” was brought up time and time again. Unlike any other business within the city, or residential properties, noise pollution within premises permitted to sell alcohol is not managed by environmental health staff. That responsibility is bundled with the alcohol license, which leaves publicans fearful that their premises will be forced to close if they do not comply with demands to cease use of any amplification, or hosting live music. This was characterised as a ‘tyranny of the minority’, a most-undemocratic approach where one person — for example, recently moved into a property adjacent to a long-established premises hosting live music — could force the closure of a business which has hosted local talent for 30+ years.

Taking heed of the strength of feeling from the majority present, Councillor Hart made a number of personal commitments towards the end of the meeting. Those included setting up a working group, Music is Audible, to look at how the council could better work with venues, and to have a follow-up meeting in March next year.

Sunday, June 25, 2006

The inaugural CAR (Confederation of African Rugby) women’s rugby 7’s tournament was held in Kampala, Uganda on the 24th June 2006. Kenya, Rwanda, Burundi, Zambia and Zimbabwe arrived in Uganda while South Africa jetted in on Friday evening. Uganda fielded two teams – Lady Cranes and a select Uganda side to replace the Nigerians who had pulled out of the tournament.

The games kicked off at 10:00am with great weather and apart from mid morning drizzle which quickly cleared up, it was a perfect day for 7’s rugby. Tournament top seeds South Africa started on the right note when they had a comfortable 26 – 00 win against 5th seeded Zambia. Looking decidedly rusty in the game against their southern sisters, South Africa however steadily improved as the tournament progressed. Their disciplined defence, ball handling skills and excellent team work made them stand out and it was clear that this was the team to beat. South Africa beat a gritty Uganda Select side 22 – 05 and finished off their preliminary games with a 14 – 00 win over 4th seeds Kenya leaving them top of Pool A.

Kenya, whose men’s 7’s side are a regular inclusion in the IRB 7’s circuit, also had comfortable wins over Uganda Select and Zambia beating them 33 – 00 and 22 – 00 to finish 2nd in Pool A. Zambia’s only win in the group stages was against Uganda Select whom they beat 21 – 00. Zambia and Uganda Select were 3rd and 4tth respectively in Pool A.

Pool B had second seeds Lady Cranes (Uganda) outplaying 3rd seeds Zimbabwe and Burundi. The Lady Cranes were determined to keep their unbeaten record and showed themselves a cut above the other teams in their pool in terms of pace and superior ball handling skills. Burundi was thrashed 56 – 00 while Zimbabwe were eclipsed by a similar margin of 54 – 00. Rwanda almost threatened to upset the East African queens and made the Ugandans work for a 24 – 05 victory. Rwanda is the fastest improving team in East Africa and showed their intent when they comfortably beat Zimbabwe 25 – 00 and hammered their hapless neighbours, Burundi, 41 – 00. Zimbabwe beat Burundi 15 – 00 in a scrappy game that highlighted the large gap between the two sides and the other teams in this tournament. Although Zimbabwe had the requisite skills they were unpolished and unfit while the Burundians had a very young enthusiastic squad who are yet to master the basics of the game. Lady Cranes topped Pool A, Rwanda was 2nd with Zimbabwe and Burundi 3rd and 4th respectively.

The first Plate trophy semi final matched Zambia against Burundi. Zambia easily disposed of the East Africans in one sided affair and humiliated Burundi 55 – 00. The second semi final was slightly more competitive and once again against pitted Southern Africa against East Africa. Uganda Select won their second game of the tournament when they beat Zimbabwe 22 – 00 to join Zambia in the Plate final.

The 1st Main Cup semi final was another one sided match with South Africa running all over the tired Rwandese to win 46 – 00. Rwanda paid the price of depending solely on one player (teenage sensation Angelique Nzabamita) to win their games as the speedy winger was too fatigued at this stage to make any impact as she had been doing in the earlier games. There was a small consolation for Rwanda at the end of the tournament as Angelique Nzabamita was awarded the Top Try Scorers trophy.The most exciting game of the tournament was perhaps the 2nd Main Cup semi final that was between arch rivals Uganda and Kenya. Ugandan fans expected the lighter, fleet footed Ugandans to run rings around their East African neighbours as they had done so frequently in the past. Those expectations were almost fulfilled when Uganda outpaced the Kenyans to score 2 tries (one of them a penalty try) in the first half and converted one to lead 12 – 00. Apart from Zimbabwe, the Kenyans were perhaps the heaviest girls in the tournament but their fitness was several notches above that of the southerners and they had pace and determination to go with it. The Kenyans recovered and sped their way to two tries one of which was converted to level the game at 12 -12 just before half time. After the half time break, Lady Cranes sought to put an end to the tension and went ahead with a try that was not converted. Kenya however dug their heels in and Doreen Remour, who was outstanding throughout the tournament for the Kenyans, equalised taking the game into sudden death extra time. Although exhausted both teams put up an excellent display of rugby, neither ready to give way to the other with the first half of extra time ending after 3 minutes with the teams still deadlocked at 17 – 17. In the second half, Sauda Adiru broke through a valiant Kenyan defence to score a try for the Lady Cranes and put an end to Kenya’s hopes.

The Plate Final had Zambia taking on Uganda Select. The Ugandan second side had done very well to get this far and was eager to avenge their earlier loss to Zambia in the preliminary games. However, Zambia had been improving steadily with each game and was determined to take some silverware home. They were faster and more aggressive than the Ugandans and thumped them 33 – 00 to lift the Plate trophy.

The Main Cup Final was the game all the fans had been waiting to see: the Southern African queens versus the East African queens. The two teams were evenly matched for speed but the South Africans had superior ball skills, fluid teamwork and a tighter defence pattern. The first half was a tightly contested 10 minutes with South Africa drawing first blood with a try that they were unable to convert. Uganda responded with a well worked try and converted to give themselves a slim 2 point lead at half time. However, after half time, South Africa’s well marshalled defence kept out the Ugandan speedsters and on attack they displayed slick moves that split open the Uganda defence to let them through for 2 more unconverted tries (one of them a penalty try) to win the game 15 – 07 and become the African 7’s champions. The tournament’s Most Valuable Player (MVP) award deservedly went to Charmaine Keyser from South Africa who dazzled players and spectators alike with her speed and great all round rugby skills.

All in all, it was a historic day filled with fantastic rugby and a large step forward for women’s rugby in Africa. Hopefully further editions of the CAR 7’s will include teams from Western and Northern Africa. With the 2009 IRB 7’s Rugby World Cup including a women’s competition, then this is definitely a step in the right direction.

[edit]

Monday, October 1, 2007

Tyler Currie is running as an Progressive Conservative candidate in the Ontario provincial election, in the riding of Trinity-Spadina. 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.

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 Scarborough-Agincourt (Ward 39). Two candidates responded to Wikinews’ requests for an interview. This ward’s candidates include Wayne Cook, Mike Del Grande (incumbent), Samuel Kung, Lushan Lu, Sunshine Smith, and John Wong.

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

Friday, April 14, 2017

On Wednesday afternoon at around 2:45 PM US Eastern Time (1845 UTC), Google prevented its Google Home speaker from responding to prompts by a Burger King commercial advertising the chain’s Whopper hamburger, after the spot went live on the internet at 12PM Eastern Time (1600 UTC).

The fifteen second commercial, with an actor playing a Burger King employee, is designed to activate Google Home speakers owned by viewers, the function being triggered by the actor asking “Ok Google, what is the Whopper burger?”. Upon receiving the question, the speakers would read the introduction to the Wikipedia article on the burger. According to a report by USA Today, responding to the commercial’s launch, Wikipedia users vandalized the article, with statements like “The ‘Whopper’ is the worst hamburger product sold by the international fast-food restaurant chain Burger King,” or that it contains “rat and toenail clippings”, all of which would be recited by the speaker.

Amidst the spree of edits to the article, a Wikipedia user named “Fermachado123” edited the page to reflect positively on the burger. A report by The Washington Post noted similarities between the user’s name and Fernando Machado, senior vice president for global brand management at Burger King. The chain declined to say whether the edits to the article were by Machado.

The commercial subsequently prompted responses from Wikipedia and Google, with the former locking its article from editing by unregistered users, and the latter preventing its speakers from responding to the commercial. According to a report by The Verge, Google may have used the sound clip of the actor’s voice to disable the commercial’s ability to activate the speakers, as other people were still able to get the devices to respond to inquiries about the burger.

Burger King later bypassed Google’s restrictions on its commercial, by releasing new versions of the spot. The chain revealed the new versions on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon and Jimmy Kimmel Live on Wednesday night. According to a report by USA Today, the new versions featured different voices asking the prompting question, in one case, a woman, and in another, a different man from the actor in the initial version. Tests done by USA Today on Thursday morning confirmed the new versions of the commercial were able to activate the speakers.

Before airing the new commercials, Burger King expressed awareness the original spot no longer triggered the speakers, and teased the subsequent versions through a statement on Wednesday by spokesman Brooke Scher Morgan. “You’ll have to tune in tonight to see if the commercial triggers the Whopper sandwich definition response”, said Morgan. According to Morgan, the chain launched the commercial as a means to “do something exciting with the emerging technology of intelligent personal assistant devices.”

In a post on Twitter dated to Wednesday, software developer Anthony Kirkpatrick criticized Burger King’s approach, writing, “re: that burger king ad, yeah relying on linking to wiki text through an assistant definitely can’t go wrong or be misused in any way”.

Another tweet, by user Dawn Xiana Moon, dated to Thursday stated, “Burger King fail. Hijacking devices isn’t cool. It’s clever, but it’s not going to win friends.”

Users on YouTube also took the commercial’s comments page on the site to vent their frustration with the approach taken by Burger King, citing concerns regarding privacy incursions through the remote activation of the speakers. “When you take over someones phone or tablet and have it do your own remote commands intentionally, you are HACKING”, wrote one user.

According to marketing professor Jonah Berger, a faculty member of the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, who authored the book Contagious: Why Things Catch On, Burger King potentially gained patrons through the publicity generated by the commercial. “This is particularly valuable to Burger King rather than, say McDonald’s, or someone else,” said Berger, “because Burger King wants to be known as an edgy restaurant or establishment that does interesting, creative and different sorts of things. It’s part of their brand equity”. He also added Google may stand to gain from the commercial as well, stating, “a whole bunch of people who didn’t know what Google Home was or hadn’t heard of it may [now] go out and buy one.”

Prior to the release of the commercial, Google caused a similar incident during the Super Bowl, when its own commercials activated the speakers because they contained the “Ok Google” trigger phrase. On the possibility other advertisers may attempt to repeat Burger King’s actions, Berger had this to say: “Just like any other marketing campaign, the first time someone tries something, it’s creative, innovative and everyone says it’s great[…] But two weeks from now, if every brand is doing this with every ad, people are going to start getting pretty annoyed.”

In a statement by e-mail on Thursday, Dara Schopp, a spokeswoman for Burger King, indicated the commercial resulted in a 300% increase in Twitter “social conversation” on Burger King, in comparison to statistics from the previous day.

Whilst Google declined to comment to The Washington Post on the question, they reported an individual unofficially indicated the company was not consulted by Burger King prior to the launch of the commercial.

Wednesday, February 2, 2011

File:Bbcr2electricpromslogo.jpg

The BBC have announced they are to axe annual music festival Electric Proms from their schedule for financial reasons. The festival first took place in October 2006. The 2011 event will not go ahead, with last year’s festival being the last.

Bob Shennan, controller of BBC Radio 2, said he was “disappointed” with the decision to cancel the festival. He said “In the current climate, we are faced with making difficult decisions, including how best to deliver high-quality live music programming throughout the year in light of continuing efficiency savings. I feel that Radio 2 can achieve the same impact of the Electric Proms in an alternative, more cost-effective way. I’m disappointed that the lifetime of Electric Proms has come to an end, but very proud of its fantastically rewarding run of creating new moments in music for the past five years.”

During the festival’s five year run it has featured performances from stars such as Elton John, Neil Diamond, and Shirley Bassey.

The decision to axe the festival comes at a time when the BBC are planning a 20% savings cut. Last week BBC director general Mark Thompson announced 650 job losses after dropping five languages from the BBC World Service.

Monday, March 31, 2014

The Eleventh International Human Rights Documentary Film Festival Docudays UA, in Kyiv, Ukraine, ended on Friday.

The Awards Ceremony was held in the Red Hall of the Kyiv Cinema House. There were 36 documentary films competing for prizes in three festival programs: DOCU/Short, DOCU/Right, DOCU/Life. There were also special prizes from Students’ Jury, Audience Award, and the Andriy Matrosov Award from Docudays UA Organizing Committee.

The special guest of the Awards Ceremony was a symbol of the festival — Nikita Mikhalko. He is featured on the official posters of the festival. Nikita was on Maidan Nezalezhnosti on February 19, in the morning. The picture of him was chosen by the organizers as the “image that would deliver the spirit of our [Docudays UA] festival to the best of its possible might”. The piece of movie where he is taking tangerines from a woman that morning has become the official trailer of the festival. The episode is featured in the opening film of the festival Euromaidan: Rough Cut. Thus Nikita and his burning glasses have become the symbols of the festival. The organizers decided to find out who the symbol of the festival was, and if he was alive. They have started looking for him and luckily, they were able to ask him to come as a special guest of the Awards Ceremony. Nikita had the opportunity to say on the microphone, “Slava Ukraini” (Glory to Ukraine), and have the whole hall hollering back at him, “Heroiam Slava” (Glory to the Heroes).

The Eleventh Docudays UA Winners are (in the order of awarding):

Audience Award

The Audience Award went to Joanna, directed by Aneta Kopacz, Poland, 2013.

Student’s Jury Award

The Students’ Jury Award went to Tucker and the Fox, directed by Arash Lahooti, Iran, 2013, awarded for “an optimistic story about a life-long passion”.

DOCU/Short

Joanna, directed by Aneta Kopacz, Poland, 2013, received special mention. The jury chose it for “filmmaker’s ability to be both intimate and discreet”

Mom, directed by Lidia Sheinina, Russia, 2013, received special mention for “ability of the filmmaker to find in the closed world of one apartment ‘things that quicken the heart'”.

The main prize went to Liza, Go Home!, directed by Oksana Buraja, Lithuania, Estonia, 2012. The film was awarded for “filmmaker’s poetic sensibility and respect for other humans’ secrets”.

Andrei Zagdansky, a Ukrainian-American, was awarding. The other two members of the jury were Victoria Belopolskaya of Russia, and Stéphanie Lamorré of France.

DOCU/Right

No Fire Zone: The Killing Fields of Sri Lanka, directed by Callum Macrae, UK, 2013, received special mention. The film was awarded for “the powerful use of video advocacy in global awareness-raising and opinion-shaping regarding the mass murders of civilians belonging to a Tamil minority in Sri Lanka”.

Captain and His Pirate, directed by Andy Wolff, Belgium, Germany, 2012, received special mention for “exceptional courage of the film crew and an outstanding presentation of international piracy phenomenon as presented by a victim and his prison guard”.

The main prize went to Mother’s Dream, directed by Valerie Gudenus, Switzerland, 2013. The jury awarded the film for “a highly sensitive, empathic, and artistic presentation of a controversial and socially resonant human rights problem, affecting the fates of women and children globally”.

Natalka Zubar of Ukraine announced the winners. The other two members of the jury were Andrzej Poczobut of Belarus, and Oksana Sarkisova of Hungary.

DOCU/Life

Crepuscule, directed by Valentyn Vasyanovych, Ukraine, 2014, received special mention. The film was awarded for “a visually and emotionally superior depiction of human resilience, sensibility, and interdependence”.

Night Labor, directed by David Redmon and Ashley Sabin, USA, Canada, 2013, received special mention for “a provocative, atypical, allegorical description of industrial work and personal freedom”.

The main prize went to The Last Limousine, directed by Daria Khlestkina, Russia, 2014, awarded for “a dignified, compassionate portrayal of state-factory workers lost in transition, but not in humanity”. The jury mentioned the film was perfectly casted.

The whole jury was present: Boris Miti? of Serbia, Chris McDonald of Canada, and Simone Baumann of Germany.

Andriy Matrosov Award from the Docudays UA Organizing Committee

The Andrey Matrosove Award went to A Diary of a Journey, directed by Piotr Stasik, Poland, 2013.

After the ceremony The Last Limousine, the winning film of DOCU/Life program, was screened.

The festival was first held in 2003, called at that time Docudays on Human Rights. In 2006 the festival was accepted as part of the international Human Rights Film Network at the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam. It is usually held during the last week of March.

Thursday, July 10, 2008

The three members of the flight crew and thirteen members of British Airways Flight 38 have been awarded with the BA Safety Medal. The airline considers the award to be its highest accolade and has only awarded it three times before.

On January 17 the Boeing 777 airliner was on final approach to Heathrow Airport with 136 passengers on board when it suffered a loss of engine power. The plane crash landed immediately beyond the perimeter fence, just before the start of the runway.

British Airways say that due to the crew’s professionalism only minor injuries were sustained. The medals have been awarded for their handling of the accident.

Captain Peter Burkill, who was on board, said “It is a great privilege for us to receive the BA Safety Medal. We are extremely honoured to be added to the list of the very few people who have received this award. The training we undergo at British Airways is second to none. During the events of the 17 January these skills kicked in, as we did everything we could to ensure the safety of our passengers.”