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From Wikinews, the free news source, this is the Audio Wikinews Brief for Wednesday, July 22, 2009. I'm James Pain, and here are today's current stories.
A former official from the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine has confessed to involvement in the abduction and murder of journalist Georgiy R. Gongadze in 2000. Olexiy Pukach has also implicated other officials in the crime.
Gongadze criticised the government of then-President Leonid Kuchma. On September 16, 2000, he was abducted and his decapitated remains were found two weeks later near Kiev. Kuchma's opponents described the slaying as political, and there was widespread controversy on national and international levels.
Kuchma himself is alleged to be directly involved, as a series of tapes totaling over 700 hours have been leaked after they were allegedly made in secret by one of his bodyguards; the evidence has been ruled inadmissible by a parliamentary commission that failed to prove or disprove their authenticity. Kuchma denies any involvement.
Preacher, painter and prohibition activist Gene Amondson, best known for his runs as the U.S. presidential nominee for one faction of the Prohibition Party in 2004 and as the party's de facto nominee in 2008, died yesterday surrounded by his four children after falling into a coma following a stroke. He was 65 years old.
He was strongly opposed to the sale of alcohol. As an activist, he filmed documentaries and held demonstrations supporting his cause.
Amondson made many appearances on television, including two visits to the Oprah Winfrey Show as a painter and was interviewed by Jon Stewart on the Daily Show during his 2008 run.
He was also interviewed by Wikinews in June 2008, during his presidential campaign.
Funeral services will be held on Saturday, July 25 at Amondson's home town of Vashon Island, Washington.
Sun Danyong, a 25-year-old employee of Foxconn, jumped from the 12th floor of a residential building in Shenzhen, China and died on the spot after he lost a new sample of an iPhone mobile phone and was suspected of stealing it.
Sun worked with Foxconn, which is one of the factories licensed to produce the iPhone in Guanlan, Shenzhen, since he graduated from the renowned Harbin Institute of Technology last year.
Before Sun committed suicide, he chatted with his former university classmates and said he suffered from an unlawful search, detention and beatings when he was investigated.
At present, the department head who had allegedly mistreated Sun has been suspended from his job and is being investigated by the police.
This has been a News Brief from Wikinews.org, the free news source, and has been released under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 license.
Until next time, thank you for listening and good day.
Wikinews:Briefs/July 22, 2009