Saturday, November 1, 2008

Studs Terkel, an American historian, radio talk show host and Pulitzer Prize-winning author, has died at the age of 96. His son, Dan Terkel, said he died peacefully in his Chicago, Illinois home.

“My dad led a long, full, eventful, sometimes tempestuous, but very satisfying life. [His death was] peaceful, no agony. This is what he wanted,” said his son in a statement to the press.

Terkel was born in New York City in 1912. He moved to Chicago when he was eight years old. He was mostly known for his oral histories, but he was also host of his own radio show, an author of several books, and an activist.

In 1985, Terkel was awarded the Pulitzer Prize after his writing about World War II in his book called The Good War. In 1970, he published a book about the Great Depression, entitled Hard Times: An Oral History of the Great Depression, which told the stories of people from all walks of life who were affected by the stock market crash in 1929.

In 2007 Terkel published his memoirs, titled Touch and Go, in which he described himself as a “martini and cigar man” who never retired.

“It was those loners — argumentative ones, deceptively quiet ones, the talkers and the walkers — who, always engaged in something outside themselves, unintentionally became my mentors,” said Terkel in his memoirs.

Sunday, January 21, 2007

A suspect has been arrested in the case of Hrant Dink, the Turkish-Armenian journalist who was assassinated yesterday. Dink was known for writing about the controversial issue of Armenian genocide, the mass killings of Armenians by Turks under the rule of the Ottoman Empire.

Ogün Samast, a 17-year-old unemployed, high-school drop out from the city of Trabzon, was taken into custody by the Turkish police as the suspected assassin of Hrant Dink. The police also confiscated his gun, suspecting that it was used to kill Dink. Ahmet Samast, father of the suspected assassin, informed the authorities regarding the whereabouts of his son after seeing the assassin’s images on TV.

The Republic attorney general of Samsun stated that the suspect has confessed to committing his crime.

Thursday, May 31, 2007

According to The Japan Times, the 20-year-old Japanese delegate Riyo Mori was crowned as the 56th Miss Universe, in a ceremony held at Mexico City on May 28 .

Riyo, the new Miss Universe titleholder, is from Shizuoka, Japan. She had stayed in Canada to study ballet while in high-school.After Riyo returned to her country, she became to an instructor of a dance school.

Riyo Mori achieved the brilliant feat of winning this beauty contest as Japanese after 48 years’ absence.Incidentally, preceded runner-up is Kurara Chibana.

Sunday, April 3, 2005The annual Sunday Times Rich List published today showed that Ireland now has six euro billionaires, up from four last year. The combined wealth of Irelands 250 wealthiest is €42.3bn.

Topping the list was the new entrant Hilary Weston with a fortune estimated at over €7.2bn. Weston was excluded in previous lists because the majority of her wealth was made abroad, however a rule change this year allowed the Dublin born model to enter in first place. Mrs Weston, 63, grew up in Ireland and built her modeling career there before becoming wed to Galen Weston, heir to his grandfathers multi-billion euro retailing fortune in Canada. The couple permanently moved to Canada in 1983 after a kidnap attempt by the IRA.

The top six on the list were as follows:

1. Hilary Weston and family; €7.286bn – Retailing
2. Sir Tony O’Reilly; €1.897bn – Food, media and inheritance
3. John Dorrance; €1.857bn – Inheritance
4. Dermot Desmond; €1.239bn – Finance
5. Sean Quinn; €1.157bn – Quarries, hotels, insurance and industry
6. Tony Ryan; €1.114bn – Airline

The iconic rock group U2 placed 10th with a combined fortune of €629m.

Thursday, November 29, 2018

On November 17 and November 18, Wikinews attended the 2018 Bangalore Comicbook Convention, in Karnataka, India. Beginning on Saturday morning, the ComicCon continued till Sunday. Organised by ComicCon India, who organised Comic Con in Hyderabad in October, this event was held at Karnataka Trade Promotion Organisation (KTPO)’s convention hall. Wikinews spoke to convention’s international guests Ryan O’Sullivan, Dan Watters, and Vanesa Del Ray.

UK-based freelancer comicbook writer Ryan O’Sullivan, who has worked for Image Comics and Vault Comics, and wrote video game comics including Eisenhorn, Warhammer 40,000, and Dark Souls, was one of the guests attending ComicCon. Along with him, London-based freelance comic book writer Dan Watters was also one of the attendants. Watters has worked with Image Comics on Limbo, as well as Lucifer for Vertigo Comics. Watters has also written comics for Assassin’s Creed, Wolfenstein and Deep Roots. Cuban comic book artist Vanesa Del Rey was also one of the guest attendants, who has illustrated Scarlet Witch, Daredevil Annual, and Spider-Women Alpha for Marvel Comics; and Redlands for Image Comics.

The convention started at 11 AM. Crossing between the genres of science fiction, horror, anime, fantasy and comics, the event sprawled throughout all corners of the facility. Marvel Zone, Amazon Video zone, AXN Live RED Special Session, Warner Bros’ Aquaman and Fantastic Beasts: Crimes of Grindelwald experience, and Sony Pix zone attracted large number of audience.

On day two, Sumit Kumar, creator of Chin Chin, inspired by Chacha Chaudhary and Tintin, had a panel in the afternoon.

At 1:30 PM, there was a video presentation by Yali Dream Creations. The video was about The Village. Yali Dream Creations’ Shamik Das Gupta said the story of their comic The Village is “supernatural, social, horror”. Later, there was another presentation about their other comic, Rakshak ^{((hi))Hindi language: ?Protector} — A Hero Among Us, about a masked vigilante in India. The first part of the four-part comic was released in 2016’s Delhi ComicCon, Gupta said. Gupta also added “Delhi gang rape story pushed me”. The session ended around 1:45 PM.

After Yali Dream Creations, there was a comic launch by Rahil Mohin. Mohin had previously launched Sufi Comics in 2008, The Wise Fool of Baghdad and two comics about Persian poet Rumi and now Blame it on Rahil. While he was on the panel, he was sketching cartoon, while the host was asking questions that Mohin had prepared, focused on the 90s cartoon themes. The questions were “[What was the] breed of Courage the Cowardly Dog?”, “Catchphrase of Flintstone”, and “Arch nemesis of Dexter”. His session finished by 2 PM.

At 2 PM, there was a session with AXN, and questions about AXN shows. Musician Shrey also played scores of various AXN shows on guitar, which audience had to guess. At 2:30 PM, there was a session with Cuban comic artist Vanesa Del Rey. She said it was her first convention in India, and said, “It is like any major convention in the US”. This year, Vanesa Del Rey was nominated for an Eisner Award. During the discussion, she said she wanted to do sci-fi epic,romance, mystery and thriller comics in future. Regarding romance genre in comics, she said it is “something worth exploring”. And regarding her career choice, she said her grandmother was an artist and her “family was very supportive”.

Later, there was a session with Sony PIX, with Minions appearing on the stage.

The event finished around 8 PM.

Saturday, September 29, 2007

A suicide bomber blew himself up on a bus carrying more than 50 people in Kabul, Afghanistan killing at least 31 and critically injuring 17 of the people on board. 28 were Afghan soldiers, and so far at least two civilians have been killed.

“At this time I can tell you that 31, almost all of them military personnel, have been martyred,” said Afghanistan’s Public Health Minister, Sayed Mohammad Amin Fatemi.

Reports say that the suicide bomber, who was dressed in a military uniform, walked onto the bus and blew himself up, tearing it into two pieces. Several businesses were also damaged in the attack and military personnel were retrieving body parts from trees.

Zabiullah Mujahid of the Taliban, says they are responsible for the blast and stated that the bomber was ‘Azizullah’, a Kabul resident.