DragonFire1024 - Slashdot User

Submission + - Chinese version of Wikinews blocked in China (wikinews.org)

Submitted by

DragonFire1024

on Saturday January 10, 2009 @09:47PM

DragonFire1024 writes: "Wikinews — Wikinews has learned that access to the Chinese Wikinews website has been blocked in China. Wikinews can also confirm that the English version of the website is still available in China.

Users using the social networking site called Twitter have reported that the site was "blockade[ed] today by the mainland" of China. Others, writing on the Wikimedia Foundation's mailing list also state that the Chinese version of Wikinews is blocked in major Chinese cities such as Beijing.

The reason for the blockade is not yet known. Wikinews contacted the Chinese government for a statement, but so far there has been no reply.

The Chinese government has an active policy of blocking websites they consider harmful."

Submission + - 10 years of Osama bin Laden messages leaked (wikinews.org)

Submitted by

DragonFire1024

on Sunday September 14, 2008 @08:34PM

DragonFire1024 writes: "Wikinews.org — Wikileaks.org, the website dedicated to leaking previously unreleased documents, has obtained 10 years of messages and interviews by Osama bin Laden, the leader of al-Qaeda. The documents were translated and the messages and interviews were authenticated by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in the United States.

The nearly three hundred page, 'official use only' packet from 2004, translated by the Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS), a division of the CIA, includes interviews with bin Laden from various news agencies and also includes messages he sent directly to the U.S. from the periods of 1994 to 2004.

One message includes bin Laden's denial of having anything to do with the September 11, 2001 attacks in New York City, Washington, D.C. and Pennsylvania."

Submission + - Huge interest brings Wikileaks offline (wikinews.org)

Submitted by

DragonFire1024

on Saturday March 29, 2008 @04:20AM

DragonFire1024 writes: "Wikinews.org — The Wikileaks website, which publishes sensitive and censored material submitted by anonymous contributors, has experienced unprecedented levels of Internet traffic today through public interest. This interest has caused the website's servers to be unable to meet the enormous demand of over 164 gigabytes of download traffic within twenty-four hours, leading the site to be temporarily inaccessible.

The film Fitna, directed and produced by Dutch politician Geert Wilders, has caused controversy for its presentation of Wilders' negative view of Islam as being committed to world domination and acts of terrorism. A trailer for the film was widely uploaded to many video sharing sites, including YouTube and Google Video; this met with anger from Islamic nations, the debacle culminating in Pakistan's government ordering the nation's internet service providers to block the YouTube site. This caused YouTube to be inaccessible to residents of other countries whose Internet access involved routing through Pakistan. Ultimately, YouTube acquiesced to the demands made by Pakistan and other organisations, in exchange for access being restored. The site LiveLeak originally hosted a copy of the trailer, which has now been replaced with a video message stating that the lives of their staff have been put at risk due to hosting it.

As a consequence of this censorship, Wikileaks mirrored the trailer, receiving heavy access traffic through hosting one of the few copies remaining on the Internet. Wikinews has obtained an exclusive statement from a representative of Wikileaks, affirming that the site has not been taken off-line due to external pressure, and is instead suffering technical problems due to this high demand. The representative gave the following statement:

'It seems that due to a more than less overwhelming interest in the Fitna video and recent other media coverage from the protests in Tibet, as well as a few dozen new documents leaked on the portal in the last few days, parts of the portal have given up service and need a few warm words from a friendly Wikileaks operator. Please standby, the portal will be back soon.'"

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