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Saturday, October 16, 2010

US Texas Commissioner of Agriculture Todd Staples visited Orr Elementary school in Tyler, Texas on Wednesday to kick off National School Lunch week for the state. Commissioner Staples spoke to over 200 students during lunch about the importance of eating healthy. “During the old days, the Three R’s in school meant ‘Reading, ‘Writing and ‘Arithmetic’ […] but I want you students to remember the three E’s: Education, Exercise and Eating right,” he stated.

The Commissioner asked students a variety of questions about state trivia such as the names of the state bird, the state tree and the state fruit. Students who answered correctly were awarded prizes.

During a short press conference following, Commissioner Staples stated his concerns regarding the health of children in Texas: “Current indications are that over 30 percent of children in [the United States of] America are struggling with childhood obesity. Estimates indicate that this issue alone can cost this county one-billion dollars in healthcare costs per year in the future.” “I applaud the city of Tyler for taking the Fit City challenge,” the Commisioner further stated.

National School Lunch Week runs from October 11th–15th. President Barack Obama issued a presidential proclamation naming October 11th–15th the National School Lunch Week.

Tuesday, March 11, 2008

On Monday, five people were injured after a Boeing 737-400, operated by Adam Air, overshot the runway today while landing at Hang Nadim Airport on the island of Batam in Indonesia.

The aircraft skidded 75 metres (245 feet) into a grassy field after touching down in rainy conditions. Damage was done to the right wing, hydraulics and main landing gear. The plane came to rest with the nose in the air and leaning towards the right.

Of the 176 passengers (one source says 174) and crew on board, five passengers required treatment for neck and head injuries.

Adam Suherman, president of the airline, said the plane had skidded 10 metres beyond the extreme end of the runway. He also gave the time of the crash as 10:40 and noted that the plane was currently resting on soft ground.

Suherman gave the registration of the aircraft as PK-KKT. This would make the aircraft the one Boeing gave the serial number 24353 and owned by CIT Group Incorporated.

Adam Air spokesman Danke Drajat described the plane as having been in “good condition” at its last major inspection in December. He suggested the weather condition may be to blame for the crash, the third to strike the budjet carrier in just over a year. On New Year’s Day in 2007 Flight 574 crashed into the sea, leaving 102 missing, presumed dead. The following month the fuselage of Flight 172 cracked in half during a hard landing. Both involved Boeing 737 aircraft.

Pantun Banjarnahor, Hang Nadim Airport’s chief of operations, said that visibility was adequate for a safe landing. The airport was closed for over two hours. It is unclear how many flights were affected.

The National Transportation Safety Committee is investigating.

Sunday, February 6, 2005A United Nations report has shown that sports footwear companies are making progress towards ending the use of sweatshops and are implementing more worker-friendly codes of practice than clothing companies and retailers.

The study, published by the International Labour Organisation, suggests that consumer pressure is behind the changes. As a result of consumer’s concerns, footwear companies have been diverting financial and human resources towards developing and implementing better codes of conduct for suppliers. Large teams have been established within companies to work toward the goal of better conditions for factory workers.

The study, based upon interviews with hundreds of managers, activists, government officials, factory workers and worker representatives and visits to companies all over the world, goes on to suggest that workers should be given more powers to oversee conditions in their places of work.

Clothing companies have been failing to make such good progress due the large number of constantly-changing suppliers they use, with the ILO study describing progress as “spotty.” A major retailer may have a supply base of over 5,000 different companies, making it more difficult to establish stronger, more effective links with supply companies. They have also assigned less manpower to the task of compliance with codes of practice.

In some areas of the retail industry, there has been almost no compliance with codes of practice.

Thursday, February 24, 2011

Two individuals are in custody after eleven secondary school students were injured in a firearms incident near a school Auchinleck Academy, in East Ayrshire, Scotland, yesterday afternoon. Police have said they are carrying out “extensive enquiries” into the incident, which reportedly involved an air gun or BB gun.

One pupil said he was walking near the school during the lunch hour and “saw two people behind a hedge.” There was a sound “like a small explosion,” he said. “I wasn’t really frightened at first but I’m quite shaken now as I know what damage has been done.”

Strathclyde Police said officers were attending an incident near the secondary school, which has approximately 950 students. Chief Superintendent John Thompson, who is leading the police inquiry into the incident, confirmed two people, aged 15 and 18, were detained in the area of the incident, in which eleven youths were injured.

“Subsequent inquiries directed us towards a house in Auchinleck where we have detained an 18-year-old male and a 15-year-old male,” Thompson said. “Both of those individuals are being interviewed at present and our inquiries are ongoing.” He appealed for people in the area of the incident to contact police.

East Ayrshire council stated “[t]he school responded immediately, informing the police and parents of the children involved, and sought appropriate medical attention”, and added officials were supporting pupils. Auchinleck Academy has not replied to a request for a comment from Wikinews.

Thursday, September 20, 2007

The U.S. economy and its currency as an instrument of world trade has suffered a series of major setbacks in recent months. Some analysts say that the Federal Reserve‘s September 18^th dramatic rate cut to 4.75% from 5.25% may be a case of “too little, too late”, or that it was excessive and dooms the dollar.

Today, Saudi officials declined to cut interest rates in lockstep with the US Federal Reserve for the first time in decades. According to Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, International Business Editor for The Daily Telegraph, “it’s a signal that the oil-rich Gulf kingdom is preparing to break the dollar currency peg in a move that risks setting off a stampede out of the dollar across the Middle East.”

Hans Redeker, the Currency Chief at BNP Paribas, also stated today that Saudi Arabia’s move to not adjust their own interest rates in sync with the Fed’s cuts is a very dangerous situation for the US dollar. Redeker points out that “Saudi Arabia has $800bn (£400bn) in their future generation fund, and the entire region has $3,500bn under management. They face an inflationary threat and do not want to import an interest rate policy set for the recessionary conditions in the United States.”

Saudi central bank officials said that “appropriate measures” would be taken to stop the large capital inflows into the country. The Federal Reserve’s half-point rate cut has already caused a plunge in the world dollar index to a fifteen-year low, reaching the weakest level ever against the Euro at just under $1.40.

The Fed hopes that by making it cheaper to borrow, people will start spending and investing more. However, some analysts fear the cut will worsen inflation, making it harder to get personal loans, and further decrease confidence in the dollar around the world. There are already signs that global investors have started rejecting U.S. Treasury securities, and recent U.S. government data on foreign holdings show a decline in purchases of US securities from $97bn to just $19bn in July.

In response to Ben Bernanke‘s statements today about a potential mortgage and housing market crisis, CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer said, “If adjustable mortgage rates go up, people may not be able to afford their mortgage payments.” Former Federal Reserve chief Alan Greenspan said earlier this week that housing prices may fall by “double digits” as the subprime crisis bites harder, prompting households to cut back sharply on spending.

Jim Rogers, the economic commentator and former partner of George Soros, stated, “If Ben Bernanke starts running those printing presses even faster than he’s already doing, we are going to have a serious recession. The dollar’s going to collapse, the bond market’s going to collapse. There’s going to be a lot of problems.”

In recent months, the U.S. dollar has taken several other significant hits including Kuwait’s decision in May to also break its dollar peg, and threats by China to interfere with the U.S. economy, calling it their nation’s “nuclear option”. According to public sources, the Chinese government has begun a concerted campaign of economic threats against the United States, hinting that it may liquidate its vast holding of US treasuries if Washington imposes trade sanctions that seek to force a Yuan revaluation.

A compilation of brief news reports for Monday, July 8, 2013.

Wednesday, August 22, 2007

An 11-year-old boy has died after being shot in the car park of the Fir Tree pub in the Croxteth area of Liverpool, shortly after 1930 BST. An eyewitness, who had been drinking outside the pub at the time, said the boy was one of three playing football in the car park when a teenager, believed to be male, on a BMX bicycle fired three shots at the group from approximately 30 metres away, one hitting the victim in the neck. The other shots missed the boys, one hitting a car. The boy’s mother was called to the scene as people came out of the pub to help him. Other witnesses have suggested the incident may be gang-related.

A spokesman for North West Ambulance Service said: “We treated an 11-year-old with serious gunshot wounds.” He added the boy was taken to Alder Hey Children’s Hospital, but police later confirmed he had died. Officers have sealed off the scene, including a neighbouring street of shops. There have currently been no arrests in connection with the shooting.

In an appeal to the local community to help catch the killer, Merseyside Police Assistant Chief Constable Simon Byrne said: “Someone out there knows who put the gun in his hand and I want your help to get the community to turn that gunman in tonight. This is quite an awful crime, quite senseless, and the community holds the clue to solving this crime quickly. You can only imagine the heartache of the family that’s been ripped apart.”

Local councillor Rose Bailey, who lives nearby, also appealed for people with information to come forward, saying: “It sends shockwaves through the community of Croxteth and really it must be devastating. To think your young son is out playing football and then to get a call to say he’s been shot, I really don’t know as a parent how you would handle that.”

The area around the pub was made a “designated area” by police last year, meaning officers could disperse groups and move people away from the area.

The incident is another in a growing list of shootings of minors, many gang-related, in the UK’s major cities in 2007.

Sunday, October 22, 2006

With online gaming in persistent worlds becoming more prevalent, a US congressional committee has begun to look into the tax implications of these booming online economies. Games such as World of Warcraft and Second Life have large player driven economic systems in which – either following the rules or against them – real world currencies are exchanged for in-game currencies. With the GDP of some of these economies rivaling that of some small countries, the US government is wondering if it is missing out on a potential source of tax revenue: or as some gamers might put it, the IRS is asking “You buy gold?”.

In cases where exchange of a real world currency for in-game currency is permitted by the rules of the game, some of these online games such as Second Life require that players report any income generated by these means to his or her government. In most on-line games however, a black market exists where players buy and sell in-game currencies in direct violation of the game’s rules; situations involving black markets are notoriously hard to tax.

Compounding the issue of currency exchange is the existence of in-game assets. In the real world if someone wins a luxury vehicle, he or she is expected to pay a capital gains tax on his or her winnings. If a 40 person “raid” in World of Warcraft gets a rare “drop,” worth up to thousands of dollars if sold illegally, should they be required to pay a capital gains tax?

Even if the issue of capital gains is ignored, there is still the matter of sales tax. In many of these games, non-player characters and players alike sell items to one another. If sales tax is to be applied, at what rate should it be charged and to what State does it go? Questions such as these have just recently been answered in much less hazy situations such as online versions of brick and mortar establishments.

Dan Miller, senior economist for the Joint Economic Committee had this to say on the issue, “I found that talking about this issue with some of the other economists on the committee, they are not really familiar with what a virtual economy is. The idea of Second Life or World of Warcraft or some of these other synthetic universes, they have trouble wrapping their head around it. So there’s an educational hurdle to overcome here.”

The preliminary findings of the committee state that virtual economies deserve clarification of existing tax laws, not new taxes.

Monday, October 5, 2009

Thousands of rebels in Nigeria’s volatile Niger Delta have surrendered their weapons, after they accepted a government offer of amnesty, reports say.

Local rebel leader Government Tompolo arrived in Warri on Sunday, after promising to support Nigerian president Umaru Yar’Adua in return for a pardon. He was among the heads of the Federated Niger Delta Ijaw Communities (FNDIC), blamed for halting a large portion of oil in 2003 from the Nigerian west delta.

The leader of another group, the Ijaw Niger Delta Vigilantes, Ateke Tom, and five thousand fighters also surrendered arms in the city of Port Harcourt. However, Tom said that his group would restart attacks if the Nigerian government did not follow up on their promise to invest in the area, saying that “if they refuse to develop our region we will go back to the creeks.”

Other rebel groups had refused to disarm until their main demands were discussed, but the government said it was unwilling to negotiate until weapons were surrendered. Niger Delta’s religious and community leaders had mounted pressure on the militants to embrace the peace process.

With their disarmament, the government’s pledge to resolve years of violence that has stopped the flow of one million barrels of oil per day appears to be on course. President Umaru Yar’Adua, whose 60-day amnesty offer commenced on August 6, said that the government is keen to build upon the success so far achieved.

Since 2006, militant activities have crippled operations of oil companies in southern Nigeria, resulting in a steep decline in production. Nigeria, one of Africa’s two biggest oil producers, derives more than 90 percent of its foreign exchange earnings from oil.

Monday, July 6, 2009

The Obama administration has given the National Security Agency powers to screen private Internet traffic going to and from government sites, and will use AT&T telecommunications as a likely test site. The Obama administration remains firm in this decision, which was put forth during the Bush administration.

The agency defends military networks with a classified system named Tutelag, which decides how to handle malware intrusions (for example, whether to block them or to investigate more closely). “We absolutely intend to use the technical resources, the substantial ones, that NSA has,” said Janet Napolitano, Secretary of the United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS). DHS’s intrusion detection program, Einstein version 3, is in development as version 2 is being deployed. The program defends all U.S. government agencies and departments.

DHS spokeswoman Amy Kudwa said, “We are moving forward in a way that protects privacy and civil liberties.”

AT&T, the chosen test site under Bush, sought assurance from the Obama administration to determine what elements of Einstein 3 to preserve. AT&T officials declined to comment.

In 2006 the Electronic Frontier Foundation filed the class action lawsuit Hepting v. AT&T—currently awaiting decision—against AT&T, which under the Bush administration permitted the NSA to look at domestic communications without a warrant. NSA’s intelligence gathering is limited only to foreign communications.

“We came away saying they have a lot of work in front of them to get this done right,” Ari Schwartz of the Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT) said. “We’re looking forward to their next steps.”

Schwartz authored a letter on Einstein to the Office of Management and Budget in December 2008 on behalf of the Information Security and Privacy Advisory Board.

NSA director Keith B. Alexander said in April 2009 that the NSA will help, but does not want to take charge. Several people—including Rod Beckstrom, who resigned over the issue as head of the National Cyber Security Center (NCSC); Bruce Schneier of BT Counterpane; Leslie Harris, president and CEO of CDT—and not Dennis Blair, Director of National Intelligence—have urged the Obama administration to keep the Department of Homeland Security in charge despite its low scores, because, they claim, the NSA is a spy agency.