Sunday, August 13, 2006

A power outage hit large parts of Tokyo, and Chiba, Japan. The electrical blackout occurred due to an industrial accident, in which a crane damaged some power lines accidentally at 7:40 AM local time (2240 UTC), the Kyodo News agency reported, quoting Tokyo Power Electric Co. Power was reported to have been restored to most areas within a few hours.

At least two elevators stopped with an unknown number of people trapped inside, said a fire official in Tokyo. Some train services were halted. The number of passengers was lower than normal due to a holiday. About 800,000 residences were affected by the blackout, according to the power company. Most services have since then been restored.

Tokyo Disneyland and Tokyo DisneySea delayed opening by an hour as many rides did not function due to the power problems.

Thursday, March 18, 2021

On Monday, Kim Yo Jong, vice department director of the Central Committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea and sister of the North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, warned the United States and South Korea as a reaction to the joint military drills conducted by the US and South Korea.

In a statement released by the Rodong Sinmun, Kim Yo Jong said: “The peaceful spring days of three years ago are unlikely to return”. Arirang News asserted the “peaceful spring” refers to the inter-Korean meetings held in April 2018.

In her statement, Kim described ‘the south Korean authorities’ as “all born with stupidity” and “become the dumb and deaf bereft of judgment”. In response to the drills — which the North Korean government reportedly perceived as a threat — Kim expressed the possibility of closing various inter-Korean organizations like the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Country and the Kumgangsan International Tourism Bureau. “We also examine the issue of dissolving the Kumgangsan International Tourism Bureau and other organizations concerned as any cooperation and exchange with the south Korean authorities antagonizing us are no longer necessary”, Kim said.

Towards the end of the statement, Kim said, “If it [the United States] wants to sleep in peace for coming four years, it had better refrain from causing a stink at its first step.”

Speaking to Arirang News, Yang Moo-Jin, the vice president for public affairs at the University of North Korean Studies, said the message indicates “the regime is willing to talk […] as long as the South [Korean authorities] show some sincerity by not raising tensions through the joint drills”. Lim Eul-chul, a professor of North Korean studies at the Kyungnam University, said the North “is reaffirming its long-held stance that there will be no talks unless sanctions against the regime are lifted”. In an interview with Arirang News, Andrei Lankov, the director of the Korea Risk Group, said the message is nothing out of the ordinary, and similar messages have been coming each spring and the contents of this message are not to be overestimated. He qualified the statement as being “business as usual” and “by the North Korean standards it’s pretty tame”.

Thursday, May 27, 2010

A US Coast Guard official said today that BP’s latest effort to plug the Gulf of Mexico oil spill has been successful in slowing the amount of oil leaking from the well.

The official, Admiral Thad Allen, said that the procedure, known as a “top kill” operation, has been able to block some of the leaking oil at the source, the top of the damaged well. The operation involves pumping material into the well to plug the leak before cement is used to permanently seal the leak. Allen said the operation has “been able to force mud down and not allow any hydrocarbons to come up.”

BP hasn’t confirmed the success of the top kill operation, saying only that the “operation is proceeding as we planned it,” and that there had been no major incidents thus far. Although the possibility of failure is still present, experts say that the longer the procedure continues, the less likely it will be that anything goes wrong.

The procedure began yesterday afternoon, after diagnostics on the damaged equipment on the ocean’s surface indicated that it could withstand the added pressure of the mud being pumped into the well. Although engineers involved with the operation wore concerned that the pressure of the mud might not be able to overcome that of the oil, that has thus far not been the case.

Separately, a group of US scientists announced new estimates of how much oil was flowing from the well, ranging from 12,000 to 25,000 barrels a day, far higher than BP’s original estimate of 5,000 barrels a day, a figure which BP warned was possibly inaccurate.

In a press conference Thursday afternoon, US president Barack Obama also announced new measures in response to the spill, which include:

• Suspending off-shore test drilling for six months
• Extending the moratorium on issuing drilling permits for an additional six months
• Cancelling the sale of leases for off-shore drilling.

In statements, Obama criticized the “scandalously close relationship” between government officials and oil companies in the past, saying that the Mineral Management Service, which is the agency responsible for monitoring off-shore drilling, had been corrupt for years.

Tuesday, February 19, 2008

While nearly all cover of the 2008 Presidential election has focused on the Democratic and Republican candidates, the race for the White House also includes independents and third party candidates. These parties represent a variety of views that may not be acknowledged by the major party platforms.

As a non-partisan news source, Wikinews has impartially reached out to these candidates, throughout the campaign. The most recent of our interviews is Gaithersburg, Maryland’s Richard H. Clark (b. 1960), a senior software engineer and member of MENSA.

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Thursday, October 4, 2007

Bill Bernhardt is running for the Family Coalition Party in the Ontario provincial election, in the Kitchener Centre riding. Wikinews’ Nick Moreau interviewed him regarding his values, his experience, and his campaign.

Please note that Bill provided his answers in “ALL CAPS”; due to the time constraints of this election coverage, it remains in this typographic style.

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.