Wednesday, May 11, 2005

Red Star (Crvena Zvezda) Belgrade advanced to the Serbia and Montenegro football cup finals, after defeating Partizan Belgrade with a score of 2:0 yesterday. The first goal was scored by Nikola Žigi? in the tenth minute (10′). Krivokapi? scored the other goal in the final moments of the match – 90′.

The game between city rivals was attended by only about 8,000 fans. Aside from heavy rain, many fans of both Red Star and Partizan decided to boycott the game.

Red Star’s fans were forbidden from performing their traditional choreography at the beginning of the match, probably due to riots that took place the last time Red Star and Partizan played a regular league game. Partizan’s fans displayed a large sign reading “Football Association of Serbia and Montenegro = mafia.”

Red Star has a chance to win the cup against Železnik, while Partizan is on its way to win the league with a 7 point lead.

Sunday, February 13, 2005

New York –”Buy cheap Viagra through us – no prescription required!” Anyone with an active email account will recognize lines like this one. According to some reports, unsolicited advertisements (spam) for Viagra and similar drugs account for one in four spam messages.

Ever since pharmaceutical giant Pfizer promised to cure erectile dysfunction once and for all with its blue pills containing the drug sildenafil citrate, spammers have tried to tap into male anxiety by offering prescription-free sales of unapproved “generic” Viagra and clones such as Cialis soft tabs. Legislation like the U.S. CAN-SPAM act has done little to stem the tide of email advertising the products.

Now Pfizer has entered a pledge with Microsoft Corporation, the world’s largest software company, to address the problem. The joint effort will focus on lawsuits against spammers as well as the companies they advertise. “Pfizer is joining with Microsoft on these actions as part of our shared pledge to reduce the sale of these products and to fight the senders of unsolicited e-mail that overwhelms people’s inboxes,” said Jeff Kindler, executive vice president at Pfizer.

Microsoft has filed civil actions against spammers advertising the websites CanadianPharmacy and E-Pharmacy Direct. Pfizer has filed lawsuits against the two companies, and has taken actions against websites which use the word “Viagra” in their domain names. Sales of controlled drugs from Canadian pharmacies to the United States are illegal, but most drugs sold in Canada have nevertheless undergone testing by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. This is not the case for many of the Viagra clones sold by Internet companies and manufactured in countries like China and India. While it was not clear that CanadianPharmacy was actually shipping drugs from Canada, Pfizer’s general counsel, Beth Levine, claimed that the company filled orders using a call center in Montreal, reported the Toronto Star.

For Microsoft’s part, they allege that the joint effort with Pfizer is part of their “multi-pronged attack on the barrage of spam.” As the creator of the popular email program Outlook, Microsoft has been criticized in the past for the product’s spam filtering process. Recently, Microsoft added anti-spam measures to its popular Exchange server. Exchange 2003 now includes support for accessing so-called real-time block lists, or RTBLs. An RTBL is a list of the IP addresses maintained by a third party; the addresses on the list are those of mailservers thought to have sent spam recently. Exchange 2003 can query the list for each message it receives.

Tuesday, March 23, 2010

File:ACORN logo.png

The US community organizing group Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) will end its operations due to dwindling funds. The group said in a statement that it would close most of its field offices by April 1.

The heads of the organization said in a joint statement that “ACORN’s members have a great deal to be proud of—from promoting homeownership to helping rebuild New Orleans, from raising wages to winning safer streets, from training community leaders to promoting voter participation—ACORN members have worked hard to create stronger communities, a more inclusive democracy, and a more just nation.”

The group, founded in 1970, played a prominent role in the 2008 US presidential elections, as it conducted many voter registration drives and fundraising for then-Senator Barack Obama, among other Democratic candidates. The organization first became scrutinized during the 2006 mid-term elections, when some of its employees were accused of voter fraud. Matters got worse in 2009 after an undercover video revealed two of its employees giving advice on how to set up a prostitution ring and commit tax fraud.

Monday, October 11, 2010

Wikinews interviewed author Amy Scobee about her book Scientology – Abuse at the Top, and asked her about her experiences working as an executive within the organization. Scobee joined the organization at age 14, and worked at Scientology’s international management headquarters for several years before leaving in 2005. She served as a Scientology executive in multiple high-ranking positions, working out of the international headquarters of Scientology known as “Gold Base”, located in Gilman Hot Springs near Hemet, California.

Sunday, February 10, 2008

The Internet group Project Chanology today held protests critical of the Church of Scientology. The protests marked what would have been the 49th birthday of Lisa McPherson, who is claimed to be a victim of the Church of Scientology’s practices. Lisa died in 1995 during a running of what Scientologists refer to as an Introspection Rundown, a procedure intended to help Church members deal with a psychotic or deeply traumatic event.

Protests were planned throughout the day in 14 countries and over 50 different cities. The estimation of total protesters world wide for Feb. 10, 2008 is 9,250 people.

Wikinews had correspondents at a number of protest locations to report on the events. This article was updated throughout the day with reports from around the globe.

Thursday, February 15, 2007

Plymouth, Michigan, United States – This week, independent software developer Stardock released Galactic Civilizations II: Dark Avatar, an expansion to their PC turn-based strategy game Dread Lords. Industry websites IGN and GameSpy responded with Editors’ Choice awards, while UGO gave it an A. The expansion had previously been named as one of GameSpy’s Most Wanted Games of 2007.

Reviewers cited the significant increase in customization options, better artificial intelligence, and an improvement in graphics quality as decisive factors. UGO’s Adam Swiderski noted that “if creating a fleet of death-dealing starships sounds like fun to you (and it really should), this is your dream playground,” while GameSpy’s reviewer suggested that “after a week of playing Dark Avatar, you may forget Master of Orion altogether.” Criticism mostly revolved around “uninspired” ground combat, a too-generic tech tree, and the continued lack of multiplayer support.

The original game received some publicity for its lack of copy protection, but gained far more by the actions of a StarForce forum administrator, who made a post linking to an illegal BitTorrent download of the game. StarForce developer Protection Technology later claimed this to be a poorly-considered attempt to demonstrate the result of not using their software, which is designed to prevent software piracy. The result was a media backlash against the company, including satirical commentary by gaming webcomic/blog Penny Arcade describing the action as “extortion.” Its writer, Jerry Holkins, asked that “publishers distance themselves from a company that has shown such contempt for their industry.”

The expansion is available as an online purchase in CD or digital download form through Stardock’s gaming subsidiary, TotalGaming.net. A compilation of the original and expansion has also been released as Galactic Civilizations II: Gold Edition and is available in stores, say Stardock. Their retail game releases still contain no copy protection, but online activation is required to download updates.

Wednesday, April 12, 2017

Yesterday in Dortmund, Germany prior to the UEFA Champions League’s quarter-final match against AS Monaco, explosives detonated near a bus carrying Borussia Dortmund (BVB)’s team, injuring defender Marc Bartra. The match was “postponed until Wednesday at 18:45 CET”, read UEFA’s official statement.

Spanish centre back Marc Bartra broke his radial bone of his right hand, and underwent an operation later at night, BVB reported. Goalkeeper Roman Bürki, who was next to Bartra in the bus told Blick that Bartra “was hit by fragments of the broken rear window”^{((de))German language: von Splittern der zerborstenen Rückscheibe getroffen wurde}.

Dortmund’s police chief Gregor Lange said the explosions were reported at 19:15 CET. He said, “At 19:15 CET, there were three explosions in the vicinity of the hotel in which the BVB team had been guests and were leaving to travel to the stadium.”^{((de))German language: Um 19.15 Uhr ist es zu drei Explosionen im Umfeld des Hotels gekommen, in dem die Mannschaft des BVB gastiert und von dort den Weg zum Stadion angetreten hat.} He said it was a “targeted attack on the BVB Team Bus”. Police checked for further explosives using sniffer dogs. Gregor Lange said they discovered another explosive which did not detonate. They also found a letter claiming the responsibility of the attack, but the officials did not reveal its details.

Benedikt Höwedes, captain of Schalke 04, Dortmund’s local rivals, tweeted, “Separated by color, united against violence! Best regards @MarcBarta and the whole team of @BVB [Borussia Dortmund], I hope you are all well! #BVBASM”^{((de))German language: Getrennt in den Farben, vereint gegen Gewalt! Alles Gute, @MarcBartra und dem gesamten Team des @BVB! Ich hoffe, es geht euch gut! #BVBASM}. AS Monaco supporters in the stadium yesterday were heard chanting “Dortmund! Dortmund!” after the accident was announced.

Dortmund asked their supporters to help away fans by providing them accommodation for a day by using #bedsforawayfans (beds for away fans) hashtag via social media. Dortmund announced stadium tours for Wednesday were canceled, via their official website. Increasing the security after the attack, Dortmund announced storage facilities at Signal Iduna Park would be closed and no backpacks bigger than A4 size would be permitted in the stadium.

Monday, December 24, 2007

Finnish theatrical hard rock band Lordi have released Beast Loose in Paradise – which will be the soundtrack to the band’s upcoming horror movie Dark Floors – as a downloadable single.

The song was originally intended to be released via Zed.fi, but for unknown reasons has not appeared on the site. However, it has appeared on at least two other sites as a pay-to-download single – MSN Music Finland and MTV3.fi.

The song was one of two recorded last month, and will be released by Sony BMG Finland as an actual CD on January 8 . The other song, titled Studs and Leather, was also written for the movie.

The cover art for the CD single has already been revealed. It is a direct tribute to the KISS album Creatures of the Night.

Most of both songs were composed during Lordi’s tour of the United States as part of Ozzfest, with the band’s lead vocalist saying in an interview with MonsterDiscoHell.com that the main riff of Beast Loose in Paradise was written in Milwaukee, while the chorus of Studs and Leather was composed in St. Augustine.

He went on to say that Studs and Leather had originally been intended for Bend over and Pray the Lord!, an unreleased album from 1999 that had been intended to be Lordi’s debut. The verses from Beast Loose in Paradise had been decided on between the whole band during therapy sessions at Christmas 2006. He said that he had written most of the rest between two US tours, the Ozzfest tour and a tour as the support act for American gothic doom metal band Type O Negative.

He continued to deny a recent rumour posted in Finnish music periodical Soundi that the new material was going to be “more brutal and raw” than that on Lordi’s last album, The Arockalypse. “Our music is not gonna get any brutal or heavier, but not any lighter [either]… I’d say these two songs are familiar Lordi. Although Beast Loose in Paradise is more ‘movie-esque’ and ‘horror-ish’ on purpose. And some might say it’s even heavier, but at the very least the chorus will be familiar and melodic Lordi stuff. And Studs and Leather is basically Heaven’s on Fire (KISS song) meets Balls To The Wall (Accept song).