Wikinews:Briefs/September 8, 2005

Audio Wikinews transcript – 2005 09 08 – 0930 UTC

The time is 0930 UTC on Thursday 8th September 2005, and this is Audio Wikinews: News Briefs.

Palestinian gunmen assassinate ex-security chief
Former Palestinian security chief Moussa Arafat, cousin of the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, was assassinated at his home in the Gaza Strip after a half-hour shootout between a number of militants and Arafat's bodyguards. They dragged Arafat into the street, while still in his pajamas, where he was shot. He was declared dead on arrival to hospital.

There is no indication that this incident will affect the withdrawal of Israeli settlers from the Gaza Strip and parts of the West Bank, scheduled to be completed in the next few weeks.

Blair is first public official to apologize for Hurricane Katrina response
British Prime Minister Tony Blair has apologised to Britons affected by Hurricane Katrina. Many British citizens who were trapped in New Orleans have complained to the British Foreign Office about the lack of response from their government after the hurricane destabilized almost 200 miles of the United States gulf coast.

Controversy erupts over German Anarchist Pogo Party's campaign ad
The German Anarchist Pogo Party ran a campaign ad which, instead of discussing the party's politics, featured various party scenes set to a heavy metal soundtrack. The spot included revellers smashing furniture, pouring beer down each other's throats, and women dancing topless. TV channel ARD refused to air the ad because it "violates the human dignity" and showed only a heavily censored version at an earlier airtime. The Party then sued the station and got an injunction by an appeal court in Münster only minutes before the next ad was due, forcing the ARD to air the spot uncensored, right before their evening news flagship.

And: One year ago yesterday, on September 7, 2004, the Wikimedia Commons project was presented to the public. Wikimedia Commons, or simply Commons, is a repository for multimedia files that include images, videos, computer animations, and music as well as spoken texts, such as this one. They currently count more than 232,000 files.

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