Wednesday, February 16, 2022 On Tuesday, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz met with the Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow. The main agenda was the ongoing crisis near the Russian-Ukrainian border. On Monday, Scholz had visited Kiev, where he met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and showed support to Ukraine against the Russian position. After Tuesday’s meeting, a joint press conference was held, in which Scholz said, “it is our absolute duty as heads of government that Europe does not see an escalation into war.” When asked about the deployments and the threat of war, Putin said Russia does “not want war in Europe.” He later added Russia is “ready to…

Wednesday, January 27, 2016 On Sunday, Manchester United announced the loan of their Spanish goalkeeper Víctor Valdés to Belgian club Standard Liège for the rest of the season. Last year, Valdés signed an 18-month contract with the English club, but the three-time UEFA Champions League winner was given very little opportunity at Old Trafford. He made only two appearances for The Reds last season, after David de Gea was injured. Relations between Manchester United manager Louis van Gaal and Valdés were not good. Van Gaal did not pick him for the pre-season tour to the United States, saying Valdés was unwilling to play a game with the under-21 team. This…

Thursday, May 13, 2010 Wikinews reporter Iain Macdonald has performed an interview with Dr Isabella Margara, a London-based member of the Communist Party of Greece (KKE). In the interview Margara sets out the communist response to current events in Greece as well as discussing the viability of a communist economy for the nation. She also hit back at Petros Tzomakas, a member of another Greek far-left party which criticised KKE in a previous interview. The interview comes amid tensions in cash-strapped Greece, where the government is introducing controversial austerity measures to try to ease the nation’s debt-problem. An international rescue package has been prepared by European Union member states and…

Saturday, September 20, 2008 A hacker who has claimed to be loosely associated with internet group Anonymous managed to hack into the email account of Alaskan Governor and Republican vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin in the early morning hours of Wednesday, September 16. Partial contents of her email account – including two family photos, email messages and contact lists – were subsequently hosted online at Wikileaks.org, a website that anonymously hosts leaked government and corporate documents. Anonymous, who were responsible for attacks on Scientology in the past, have claimed credit for the intrusion. The email account has been used by Palin for conducting government business and communication, circumventing transparency laws. The…

Thursday, April 15, 2010 The majority of radio stations in Somalia have stopped playing music after orders from Islamist militants, who claim that the songs are un-Islamic. The stations reported that they complied with the ban over fears for their life. Before the forbiddance, which includes playing all music and jingles, thirteen of the fifteen stations played music. A radio station manager said “We are using other sounds such as gunfire, the noise of the vehicles and birds to link up our programmes.” Other controllers spoke about the fear of losing listeners and advertisers due to the bans. A BBC reporter compared the militants ban to demands from the Taliban…

Sunday, May 20, 2012 U.S. Democratic Party presidential candidate John Wolfe, Jr. of Tennessee took some time to answer a few questions from Wikinews reporter William S. Saturn. Wolfe, an attorney based out of Chattanooga, announced his intentions last year to challenge President Barack Obama in the Democratic Party presidential primaries. So far, he has appeared on the primary ballots in New Hampshire, Missouri, and Louisiana. In Louisiana, he had his strongest showing, winning 12 percent overall with over 15 percent in some congressional districts, qualifying him for Democratic National Convention delegates. However, because certain paperwork had not been filed, the party stripped Wolfe of the delegates. Wolfe says he…

Thursday, March 26, 2009 The economy of Ireland shrank by 7.5% in the last quarter of 2008 compared to the same period a year previously, according to official statistics. The decline is the worst in decades. For the entire period of 2008, the economy contracted by 2.3%, the first loss since 1983. The construction industry has suffered badly as a result of the recession, with a 24% fall in output, the largest decline ever recorded. Industrial output plunged at an annualised rate of 12.5%. Unemployment has also shot up. It currently stands at around 10%, twice as high as the levels reported last year. The economy has also experienced deflation.…

Friday, January 23, 2009 Wikinews has learned that the internet group known only as “Anonymous” has hacked the website of the No Cussing Club (NCC), nocussing.com, for at least two days in a row. On day one, the group hacked into the website, replacing the content with links to images of alleged e-mail conversations. The e-mails appear to be from the founder’s e-mail account, accusing organization members of forgery and using the site for their own personal financial gains. The website was also replaced with Anonymous’s logo and a message. On January 22, they again attacked the website, by means of a Distributed Denial-of-service attack (DDoS), bringing it offline periodically…