Author: Admin

Saturday, June 4, 2016

On Thursday, FC Barcelona technical secretary Robert Fernández announced Brazillian football defender Dani Alves would leave the club this summer as a free agent.

Alves spent eight seasons with the Catalonians when the club signed him from Sevilla FC. Making his debut for Barça in 2008, Alves played 391 matches and he played the second most games of any foreign player in the Catalan jersey after Lionel Messi. In his last league appearance for Barça, he provided an assist to Luis Suárez which was Alves’s 100th assist in La Liga.

Alves won 23 trophies with Barclona — six La Liga, four Copa del Rey, four Supercopa de España, three UEFA Champions League, three UEFA Super Cups and three FIFA Club World Cups.

Last season Alves extended his contract, as FC Barcelona had a transfer ban imposed by FIFA. Robert Fernández said in the press conference that Aleix Vidal was signed with awareness of Alves’s possible departure. He also said, “This is personal decision that the club has to accept”.

Alves posted on Instagram saying, “I’m privileged, a hard-working and honourable footballer who’s been lucky enough to wear the shirt of the best club in the world in a wonderful decade for the club thanks to the quality of its players and coaches” ^{((es))Spanish language: ?Soy un privilegiado, un futbolista trabajador y honrado, a quién la vida le ha permitido vestir la camiseta del mejor club del mundo en una década prodigiosa por la calidad de sus jugadores y entrenadores}.

FC Barcelona has invited him to address club supporters at the 2016–17 season start in farewell.

Monday, February 11, 2013

With news of Pope Benedict XVI’s resignation only hours old, online gambling sites have already published odds for who will become the next leader of the Roman Catholic Church, with Cardinals Marc Ouellet and Peter Kodwo Appiah Turkson as early odds-on favorites.

Online Australian gambling site SportsBet has Canadian Cardinal Marc Ouellet as their favorite with 7/2 odds. The Irish Paddy Power brokers has 11/4 odds with the Canadian Cardinal being chosen as Pope. Bwin has Ouellet becoming the next Pope with odds at 7/2. British SportingBet also has odds for Ouellet at 7/2.

British Ladbrokes has Nigerian Cardinal Francis Arinze with 7/2 odds.

SkyBet has the betting odd for Ghanian Cardinal Peter Kodwo Appiah Turkson at 7/2, its best odds for any potential Papal candidate. BetVictor also has the best odds on Turkson with 5/2. Stan James has the best odds for Turkson at 3/1. You Win has odds for Turkson at 5/2.

Bets are also being taken by Paddy Power for the name of the next Pope, with Peter their odds-on favorite at 2/1. It is followed by Pious at 5/1, and John Paul and John at 6/1.

Sunday, May 18, 2008

John Key is the leader of the New Zealand National Party and with the New Zealand General Election this year, Wikinews’ Gabriel Pollard spoke to John Key via email.

Wednesday, July 16, 2008

The James Bond film series is one of the most popular and successful, having grossed over US$4 billion worldwide. The suave, sophisticated secret agent has secured his place in popular culture as the definitive action hero that has appeared in twenty-three films between 1954 and 2006.

Daniel Craig was announced as the seventh actor to portray 007 in late 2005, making his debut in the 2006 smash hit Casino Royale. While fans await Craig’s second outing in Quantum of Solace, due later this year, they have been able to watch Shamelady, a fan film made by the French film production company Constellation Studios.

Shamelady is a tribute to Ian Fleming, the author of the James Bond novels on which many of the films are based, and EON Productions, the makers of the official 007 films. The film was first released in 2007 and runs just under an hour long. It can be downloaded from Constellation’s website or viewed on YouTube.

Legally, the filmmakers cannot profit from Shamelady, but they didn’t make it for the money, rather the thrill of creating an original Bond film. The plot is fairly simple, and reminiscent of Casino Royale. Bond is sent to a casino to nab a vicious crime lord, but gets betrayed by a fellow agent in the process. Viewer reaction to the film was positive for the most part, and Constellation Studios has now planned a sequel to Shamelady, which director Eric Saussine speaks of in the interview below.

Wednesday, July 11, 2007

Today, at 12:00 p.m. EDT (UTC-4) the Animal rights group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) staged a “naked” protest in White Plains, New York. The target of the protest was British fashion house, Burberry, and their fur practices.

Two “naked” female PETA members, wearing nothing but bikini bottoms and body paint held billboards with the slogan, “When plaid goes bad.” The body paint was done in the trademarked Burberry Check plaid design.

Two other PETA members were there handing out leaflets and showing a video presentation. The painted protesters were spattered with far less fake blood than other documented PETA protests in this campaign.

PETA is protesting Burberry for the company’s use of fur in its products and how it is obtained. The group has staged similar protests around the world in its ongoing “BloodyBurberry”-campaign.

The protest took place at the intersection of Westchester Avenue and Bloomingdale Road in front of the The Westchester, an upscale shopping mall owned by Simon Property Group. Burberry has a retail store in the mall.

This corner is far from the mall’s entrances and sees little pedestrian traffic. However, it does see heavy traffic by motorists, before whom the protestors were in plain sight. While Wikinews was on the scene, police and news media were the only other pedestrians.

The police presence was significant, numbering at least two vehicles and two mounted police officers. But since there was no crowd to control, they just hung back. Media was also there in numbers. At least two television crews could be observed.

As far as Wikinews can tell, Burberry has yet to make any public comment about any of the “BloodyBurberry” protests.

Sunday, August 21, 2005

A robotic system at Stanford Medical Center was used to perform a laparoscopic gastric bypass surgery successfully with a theoretically similar rate of complications to that seen in standard operations. However, as there were only 10 people in the experimental group (and another 10 in the control group), this is not a statistically significant sample.

If this surgical procedure is as successful in large-scale studies, it may lead the way for the use of robotic surgery in even more delicate procedures, such as heart surgery. Note that this is not a fully automated system, as a human doctor controls the operation via remote control. Laparoscopic gastric bypass surgery is a treatment for obesity.

There were concerns that doctors, in the future, might only be trained in the remote control procedure. Ronald G. Latimer, M.D., of Santa Barbara, CA, warned “The fact that surgeons may have to open the patient or might actually need to revert to standard laparoscopic techniques demands that this basic training be a requirement before a robot is purchased. Robots do malfunction, so a backup system is imperative. We should not be seduced to buy this instrument to train surgeons if they are not able to do the primary operations themselves.”

There are precedents for just such a problem occurring. A previous “new technology”, the electrocardiogram (ECG), has lead to a lack of basic education on the older technology, the stethoscope. As a result, many heart conditions now go undiagnosed, especially in children and others who rarely undergo an ECG procedure.

Sunday, June 29, 2014

Mattamy Athletic Centre, Toronto, Canada —Canada has won the 2014 Women’s World Wheelchair Basketball Championship at the Mattamy Athletic Centre in Toronto, defeating Germany 54–50 in the gold medal match yesterday afternoon. The game was a close one, which was decided in an exciting finish involving a series of missed shots and turnovers by both sides.

The Netherlands won the bronze medal game, defeating the United States 74–58. The score belied the closeness of the game. The Netherlands only pulled ahead in the third quarter. Attempts to gain extra time by sending the Netherlands to the free throw line in the closing minutes increased the margin to twenty points at one stage.

In her closing remarks, Maureen Orchard, the President of the International Wheelchair Basketball Federation, said the completion webcast had been watched by 68,000 people in 68 countries.