Queensland prisoners put to work manufacturing water tanks

Monday, April 30, 2007 Prisoners in the Australian state of Queensland have been put to work manufacturing rainwater tanks to help meet a shortfall in supply. The southeast corner of Queensland, which is currently undergoing one of its worst droughts on record, is experiencing a boom in the rainwater tank industry. Households, encouraged by subsidies introduced by the Beattie government, […]

European Parliament rejects computer-implemented inventions directive

 Correction — August 23, 2010 The vote counts in this article are incorrect. 648 members rejected the proposal, 14 voted for and 18 abstained. Wikinews apologises for the error.  Wednesday, July 6, 2005 File:European-parliament-strasbourg.jpg The European Parliament has rejected the directive on the patentability of computer-implemented inventions (software patent directive) sustained by lobbies of large software publicists such as the corporations […]

It’s a GLAM wrap: Curators meet collaborators at Canberra conference

Monday, August 17, 2009 This article mentions the Wikimedia Foundation, one of its projects, or people related to it. Wikinews is a project of the Wikimedia Foundation. Earlier this month, over 150 delegates from cultural institutions, government and the online community gathered at the Australian War Memorial in Canberra over one and a half days for the first GLAM-WIKI conference. […]

Czech parliament votes in favour of legalising firearms possession

Saturday, July 1, 2017 On Wednesday, the lower house of the Czech Republic’s parliament voted in favour of expanding legal firearms possession, asserting safety of the state and citizens. 139 of 168 deputies voted to amend the Czech constitution, allowing firearms possession previously banned under European Union (EU) orders. Per the amendment, citizens can legally obtain guns, and carry them […]

US home sales fall at fastest pace on record

Monday, January 25, 2010 Sales of previously owned homes in the US fell at the fastest rate ever recorded last December, according to data from the National Association of Realtors (NAR). According to the association, existing home sales fell 16.7% last month, to an annual rate of 5.45 million, the largest crash since 1968. The figure was less than the […]

Copiapó, Chile mining accident: in depth

Wednesday, October 13, 2010 The rescue of the Chilean miners trapped in the San José Mine in Copiapó, codenamed Operación San Lorenzo (San Lorenzo Operation), began on Tuesday night, at around 20:00 local time (23:00 UTC). Florencio Ávalos was the first miner to be rescued, at 00:12 local time (03:12 UTC) on Wednesday. He was wearing a shirt signed by […]