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Sunday, January 3, 2010

Nearly a quarter of Iceland’s voters have signed a petition calling for President Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson to veto the bill passed last week to pay €3.8 billion to the United Kingdom and The Netherlands to compensate depositors impacted when the Icesave online bank collapsed in 2008.

“I consider it to be a reasonable demand that the economic burden placed on the current and future generations of Icelanders, in the form of a state guarantee for Icesave payments to the UK and Dutch governments, be subject to a national referendum,” says the petition.

The petition also demands a referendum be held; any bill not signed by the President must do so under the country’s constitution. This constitutional clause has only once been invoked since the country’s independence from Denmark in 1944. Ólafur challenged a media reform bill in 2004 which the parliament passed by a margin of only two votes. The bill which would have forced the breakup of Baugur Group due to a mix of media and business interests.

The group collecting signatures and who handed over the petition to the President, InDefence, called the bill a “huge risk” for Iceland’s economic future. “All projections based on realistic assumptions […] showed without doubt that Iceland would be unable to meet the payments stipulated by the Icesave loan agreements as set out in the disputed legislation,” it announced in a statement.

Organiser Magnus Arni Skulason made the comparison between repaying the debt and financing Iceland’s health service. “We were able to represent our arguments to the president, and also on the occasion we handed over a petition to ask the president to reject the current Icesave bill,” he said to the BBC. “The interest rate on the Icesave agreement for Iceland is like running the National Health Service of Iceland for six months.”

Magnus expressed preference for the previous legislation from the Icelandic government in August last year. That would have seen the interest paid limited and a time-limit on the period for payment where any outstanding amount would be written off after fifteen years.

Icelandic Prime Minister Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir and her coalition government threatened to resign if the bill was not passed by parliament. It did so by a slim three vote majority: 33 in favour, 30 against. One junior minister has already resigned over the matter.

Icesave was the online service offered by the Landsbanki bank and proposed high interest rates to investors. When it collapsed in October 2008 it had its accounts frozen and had to be rescued, losing 320,000 British and Dutch investors their savings. They were compensated in part by their own governments, which in turn looked to the Icelandic goverment to recompense them. In addition to the Landsbanki, the Glitnir and Kaupthing banks also had to be rescued by the Icelandic government.

The €3.8 billion, to be repaid in installments starting in 2017 over eight years, represents 40% of Iceland’s gross domestic product. Repayment of the debt is an important factor in the country’s application to join the European Union.

Wednesday, June 29, 2005

São Paulo, Brazil — Several witnesses are denouncing the government of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and the ruling Workers’ Party (PT). Below are some of the main denunciations and witnesses.

In May, the Brazilian deputy Roberto Jefferson was involved in an alleged corruption scheme that involved the Brazilian Postal Service. Jefferson said that he was unfairly being abandoned and sacrificed. In addition he said that he would not take the fall alone.

On June 6, Roberto Jefferson told the Brazilian newspaper Folha de São Paulo that the rulingWorkers’ Party (PT) has been paying Brazilian deputies 30 thousand Brazilian Reais (USD 12 thousand) each, every month, in return for support. Jefferson later confirmed to a Congressional special commission what he had previously stated to the newspaper. Also he added that he had informed the Minister José Dirceu about the payments and that no action was taken. Dirceu denied Jefferson’s allegations.

According to Jefferson the payments only stopped after he informed the President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. He also said that the Minister José Dirceu should leave the government, otherwise President Lula would get involved. Two days later, the Minister José Dirceu announced his resignation from his post.

Jefferson denied involvement in the Brazilian Postal Service scandal. Jefferson told the commission that the Brazilian Agency of Intelligence (Abin) was controlled by the former Brazilian Minister of Civil Affairs José Dirceu and it recorded the tape which shows the former Brazilian Postal Service Chief Maurício Marinho during a supposed bribery negotiation with a businessman.

However Jefferson admitted that he received R$ 4 million from the Workers’ Party (PT). According to Jefferson, during a meeting with him and the PTB treasurer Émerson Palmieri, the Workers’ Party treasurer Delúbio Soares and the Workers’ Party President José Genoíno, they decided that PTB should received R$ 20 million. Jefferson said he received only R$ 4 million and the money was delivered by the businessman Marcos Valério Fernandes de Souza, owner of publicity enterprises.

On June 14, Fernanda Karina Ramos Somaggio denounced his former boss Marcos Valério and told the Brazilian magazine “IstoÉ – Dinheiro” that she saw suitcases full of money leaving the enterprise during the time she worked for him as secretary (IstoÉ article). Also she said that Marcos Valério encountered Workers’ Party members several times, including Delúbio Soares. On June 15, the secretary denied everything what she said to “IstoÉ – Dinheiro” to police. However, on June 20, Karina Somaggio said that she lied to the police because she and her family were threatened. In a new testimony to the Brazilian police, Karina Somaggio confirmed the interview to the magazine and the accusations against her former boss, Marcos Valério. Karina Somaggio is now under police protection.

Marcos Valério denied the allegations of Karina Somaggio. He has initiated court proceedings against his former secretary.

Some days later the magazine “IstoÉ” revealed documents from the Council for Control of Financial Activities (Coaf). According to the documents around R$ 20.9 millions left SMP&B and DNA enterprises, which belong to Marcos Valério (IstoÉ article). The Coaf is a Brazilian public agency which monitors irregular financial activities. The enterprises of Marcos Valério have millionaire contracts with the Brazilian government.

On June 21 and 22, parliamentarians listened to the former Brazilian Postal Service Chief Maurício Marinho, accused of involvement in the Brazilian Postal Service scandal. At first Marinho refused talking about any illegality in the Brazilian Postal Service. However, on June 22, after his lawyers admitted that he was not telling the whole truth and that they would leave him, Marinho demanded protection for himself and his family, then started to talk. He said the Workers’ Party general-secretary Sílvio Pereira and the Minister Luiz Gushiken had some influence in the Brazilian Postal Service. He said that the biggest Brazilian Postal Service contracts should be investigated and he mentioned big contracts to the Brazilian bank Bradesco.

Sunday, August 21, 2005

A robotic system at Stanford Medical Center was used to perform a laparoscopic gastric bypass surgery successfully with a theoretically similar rate of complications to that seen in standard operations. However, as there were only 10 people in the experimental group (and another 10 in the control group), this is not a statistically significant sample.

If this surgical procedure is as successful in large-scale studies, it may lead the way for the use of robotic surgery in even more delicate procedures, such as heart surgery. Note that this is not a fully automated system, as a human doctor controls the operation via remote control. Laparoscopic gastric bypass surgery is a treatment for obesity.

There were concerns that doctors, in the future, might only be trained in the remote control procedure. Ronald G. Latimer, M.D., of Santa Barbara, CA, warned “The fact that surgeons may have to open the patient or might actually need to revert to standard laparoscopic techniques demands that this basic training be a requirement before a robot is purchased. Robots do malfunction, so a backup system is imperative. We should not be seduced to buy this instrument to train surgeons if they are not able to do the primary operations themselves.”

There are precedents for just such a problem occurring. A previous “new technology”, the electrocardiogram (ECG), has lead to a lack of basic education on the older technology, the stethoscope. As a result, many heart conditions now go undiagnosed, especially in children and others who rarely undergo an ECG procedure.

Thursday, May 13, 2010

Wikinews reporter Iain Macdonald has performed an interview with Dr Isabella Margara, a London-based member of the Communist Party of Greece (KKE). In the interview Margara sets out the communist response to current events in Greece as well as discussing the viability of a communist economy for the nation. She also hit back at Petros Tzomakas, a member of another Greek far-left party which criticised KKE in a previous interview.

The interview comes amid tensions in cash-strapped Greece, where the government is introducing controversial austerity measures to try to ease the nation’s debt-problem. An international rescue package has been prepared by European Union member states and the International Monetary Fund – should Greece require a bailout; protests have been held against government attempts to manage the economic situation.

Thursday, March 16, 2006

Buffalo, New York — The property at 605 Forest in Buffalo was the center of attention at last night’s public meeting held at the offices of Forever Elmwood on Elmwood Avenue in Buffalo. Eva Hassett, Vice President of Savarino Construction Services Corporation, confirmed last night that the company will be seeking a variance for the 605 Forest property. Originally, both the 605 and 607 Forest Avenue properties were going to have variances placed on them. As it stands, 607 Forest will not be directly affected by the proposal, should it go forward. Both 605 and 607 are currently occupied by residents.

During Monday night’s meeting, Pano Georgiadis, owner of 605 Forest and owner of Pano’s Resuraunt at 1081 Elmwood Avenue in Buffalo, threatened to “sue” Savarino Construction if they tried to obtain a variance on his property to build the Elmwood Village Hotel.

The Elmwood Village Hotel is a proposal by Savarino Construction that would be placed on the corner of Forest and Elmwood in Buffalo. In order for the project to move forward, at least five buildings (1119-1121 Elmwood) which include both residences and businesses will have to be demolished. The hotel was designed by architect Karl Frizlen of the Frizlen Group. Although the properties are “under contract,” according to Hassett, it is unclear whether Savarino Construction owns the properties. Hans Mobius, a resident of Clarence, New York and former Buffalo Mayoral candidate, is still believed to own them.

Currently, none of the properties is zoned for a hotel.

A freelance journalist writing for Wikinews asked Hassett what kind of zoning permit they [Savarino] would be applying for and, if 605 Forest is included, what zone that would be.

“There is a ‘special development plan’ in front of the council, which changes only one thing about the zoning. It allows one permitted use for just a hotel. The rest of the zoning remains as it is under the current Elmwood Business District zoning. 605 and 607 Forest are not required for the project. They are not part of the footprint for the project. Let me answer this question again. This is on the record, in council: 605 needs to be rezoned in order to facilitate the project because of the sideyard requirement. Anything in C-2 is excluded besides the hotel. So we’ve taken the C-2 and included the hotel as a permitted use, and excluded everything else and everything else remains the same.”

However, during the February 28 Common Council meeting, Hassett was quoted as saying that the two properties were “off the agenda.”

“Now Karl said, at the last meeting, that they will build this hotel right on the borderline [property line]. If a wall forty-five to fifty feet high goes next to this house, of course it’s not right. You really have to go with whatever the city code says, so you have to get back as many feet as the city code says,” said Georgiadis.

“If you try to get a variance to change the code, I will sue you. This is my home, number one,” added Georgiadis. “First of all I think we are all wasting our time here, you [Savarino], have already made up your mind, but if you go against city code, and you try to do the most rooms with a minimal amount of parking, again, I will sue you. If you build a hotel, in my idea its going to fail. It’s doomed, ok. [If] it’s going to be a home for the disabled, for the homeless, for recovery people, but that’s another story. Then how is it going to be when we say, well I told you so? You will be over and done with. Its very hard to take a four story building [hotel] down.”

Georgiadis stated last night that he was against the proposal and signed a petition to stop it, jokingly saying, “this isn’t a paper to sign to build the hotel, is it? Don’t make me sign the wrong thing.”

Joseph Golombeck, district councilman, was at Monday’s public meeting and said, “we also did request this and the reason we are doing this as a special business district is so that it has to be this specific plan. They [Savarino] can’t go halfway through it and in six months decide that [the hotel] it’s going to be three floors. They can’t decide it’s going to be five floors. It has to be, per law, exactly what it is that they brought to us [the public] so far, and then ultimately to the City of Buffalo Common Council when it’s approved. So if it gets approved, it has to be this specific, exact project. They couldn’t make it fifty parking spots, they couldn’t make it thirty. It has to be specifically what they have right here.”

A man who lives on Granger Street in Buffalo attended the meeting, speaking in favor of the hotel development. He claimed, “There are a lot of low property values. Hopefully if we embrace development, our property values, for those of us who have property, will go up. There are a lot of people unfortunately, who are working hard, that do not get a chance to come to these meetings. I myself was at work and wasn’t able to go to the last two meetings. I express that we appreciate that you [Savarino] invest in the City of Buffalo and for what you hope, because I do not think Savarino is into losing money. These people are not in business to be losing money here. They are hoping for the success of this [the hotel] more than any one of us. They are hoping that the property values in this area will go up more than any one of us, because it will benefit them [the residents and business owners], more than any one of us. I want this city to develop. I don’t think anybody else is here understanding that we’re looking for development in this city, we are looking for the city to get better. The councilman here is not interested in Buffalo failing.”

Evelyn Bencinich, resident of Granger Street, would have the hotel directly behind her home, if it were to be built.

“What about construction [time]? Is that just for the exterior, the nine months? Or does that include the interior? Is there going to be blasting through bedrock? Is there property protection for damage? Are you [Savarino and the Frizlen Group] responsible?”, asked Bencinich.

According to Frizlen, there is a layer of solid bedrock at least 30 feet from the surface of the land saying, “we anticipate that the bedrock is at least thirty feet down.” He also admitted that “we haven’t done any soil sporrings,” but did say “the bedrock is somewhere in between twenty-five and thirty feet [down], we don’t need to go that deep. So blasting is most likely out of it [the question].”

“Personally, I can only speak from the city side, but a few years ago we rebuilt Vulcan Street, in the northwest corner of Buffalo, and there were a couple of properties that were damaged and they [the owners] were able to file a claim against the company that did the work and they won in each case. It was the same thing with a school that was built on Military Road. There were a couple of problems with foundations on a couple of properties, and they weren’t sure if caused by the school or not, but the insurance company ended up paying them,” answered Golombeck.

“I would assume that Savarino is insured with someone. So if there is a problem with anything that happens to your properties, what I would recommend is that anybody that lives on Granger Place, if this does go through, that you get pictures taken of your basement and of your foundations, because God forbid if there is a problem, you want to have an^[sic] before and after [picture]. You don’t want to come afterwards and there’s a crack in there [foundation] and you have no way of proving that it happened,” added Golombeck.

According to Golombeck, the properties that Mobius owns have been “in housing court on several occasions, but has a date of April 11, 2006 that he is going back [to court] for these properties. So it is in housing court and I wouldn’t know Mr. Mobius if he walked in this room right now,” stated Golombeck.

“I’ve gone after him on numerous occasions and everytime he gets out of housing court with a slap on the wrist. If I am a conspiracy theorist and say that there is a lot more going on than meets the eye. I can only get him into housing court. Once he’s in housing court, the judge rules on it. Now I don’t mean to take any shots at previous administrations, but I am hoping with the new administration, being in here, that the inspections department is going to be a much better department than it has been for the previous several years.”

The city’s Planning Board on March 14, 2006, agreed to send the Elmwood Village Hotel proposal back to the Common Council so that it may “be opened back up to discussion from the public.”

On March 2, 2006 the Common Council sent the proposal “to committee” for further discussion and also requesting that the public be “engaged further.”

During that meeting, Justin Azzeralla, Executive Director for Forwever Elmwood, said that the organization “supports the hotel project.”

Also on March 2, the planning board agreed to table, or postpone, any decision on the hotel proposal for at least thirty days, also citing the need for the public to be “more engaged.”

The Common Council is expected to meet on March 21, 2006 at 2:00pm local time where they may approve or deny the proposal.

According to The Buffalo News, at least six Common Council members support the hotel project and are pledging to vote to approve it at the meeting on Tuesday, March 21.

However, the city’s Planning Board will get the final say on the project.

Wednesday, June 16, 2010

Billionaire Warren Buffett, Chief Executive of Berkshire Hathaway, auctioned lunch with himself on eBay for US$2.63 million.

Bidding, which started on eBay a few weeks ago, attracted nine bidders, offering huge sums for the opportunity to have a steak lunch with the man said to be a “legendary investor”.

The winning bidder, an anonymous individual, will be parting with $2.63 million for a meal with the world-famed investor and has the opportunity to bring along seven friends for the meal.

This, the latest of Buffett’s charity auctions, is providing funds to the Glide Foundation, a charity that provides food, health care, housing and job training for San Francisco’s homeless.

Over the last ten years, Buffett has netted $5.9 million in donations through such auctions.

Friday, April 7, 2006

Accra —The Ghana-India Kofi Annan Centre for Excellence in ICT introduced the Semacode technology and the Semapedia application to a segment of the Ghanaian public in a presentation delivered by Guido Sohne, Developer-In-Residence at the Centre and Chief Software Architect of CoreNett Ltd, a Ghanaian electronic transaction processing company.

Introduced for the first time in Africa, Semapedia is a way of associating Internet sites with physical barcodes that can be read by cameraphones, enabling one to look up information about physical objects quickly and easily.

Saturday, June 18, 2005

Paul Rusesabagina, the real-life hero portrayed in the film “Hotel Rwanda”, visited Atlanta, Ga. and Washington, D.C. this week to address American students and business leaders at schools and conferences centers. His appearances coincide with World Refugee Day events in Washington.

At Sleepy Hollow Elementary School in the Falls Church section of Fairfax County, he spoke to elementary school students who had learned about his accomplishments in the weeks prior to his appearance.

“I thought I was doing the right thing,” Rusesabagina said. “You also should do the right thing.” He explained the situation he faced in simple terms. “There were bad people and good people. The good people came to hide in my hotel, I had to give them food. I had to give them shelter and keep away the bad people for two and a half months.” When asked if he was scared, he responded “No, fortunately I did not have time to be scared. I did not know that what I was doing was different. I thought other people were doing it.”

In Atlanta, speaking with business leaders, he focused on the present and future.

“What is going on in Darfur is exactly what had been going on in Rwanda, the government is killing its own citizens.” He encouraged business leaders to bring money into Africa but made it clear that Africa was in need of more than just business interest. “What Africans need as a whole is not only someone who will come and pay their education, but it is also to change the systems in Africa. To help us to change, to find lasting solutions. Africa is ruled by dictators. And those dictators should know that one day they also can be brought to justice,” emphasizing the idea that Africa needed a political revamping to stabilize.

Wednesday, March 9, 2005Google has today launched the final version of its Google Desktop Search program. Google Desktop is a search engine for Windows which allows the user to search their computer’s files’ contents for a specified phrase, and includes support for many different file types, including audiovisual media, web pages stored in the local cache, e-mail, and various kinds of document files.

In Beta since last Autumn, version 1.0 adds the ability to search PDFs, Netscape/Mozilla/Firefox browser histories, and Thunderbird emails. The software also has an added a plugin facility to allow third-party developers to add support for additional file formats. A registry for a small initial set of plugins is currently available, as well as incentives such as T-shirts and free advertising for developers who submit new plugins.

Competing Windows desktop search products have also been released by Yahoo!, Microsoft, and Copernic. Mac OSX Tiger is planned to offer similar functionality through “Spotlight“, and future Linux distributions are expected to include “Beagle” desktop search.

Saturday, May 7, 2005

The 131st run for the roses in Louisville, KY is set for Saturday at Churchill Downs. Post time is 6:04pm EDT under what should be partly sunny skies and a fast track. The 20-horse field contains 10 strong contenders in what promises to be a fast pace out front in the Kentucky Derby.

Trainer Nick Zito, the 2-time derby winner boasts 5 stable horses running the race, and has the odds-on favorite Bellamy Road. The George Steinbrenner owned horse won convincingly in 4 of its last 5 trips. At its #16 post position, it will have to get out quickly, or be on the outside going into the first turn where it would have to fight for position. Given the early starting speed of Spanish Chestnut, it seems unlikely that any horse will easily set the pace.

Showing strong closing in its last 4 races is Bandini, ridden by top New York jockey John Velazquez, a 6-time Breeder’s Cup winner. If this horse can hold onto the pace, watch for him at the finish line.

For today’s 1 ¼ mile race, Jeremy Rose on Afleet Alex looks dangerous, where both horse and jockey are experienced. But it was Wilko who prevailed in their meeting at the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile last October.

A Chicago Tribune computer analysis predicts a win for High Fly, based on its “lack of flaws”. In that prediction they note criteria on which it was calculated, but nothing accounts for the race day excitement of roaring crowds in these 3-year-old thoroughbreds.

Last year the jammed Churchill Downs drew 140,000 people on a rainy Saturday to watch Smarty Jones win. The Derby run is the first leg in USA horse racing’s Triple Crown. The last horse to win the triple crown was Affirmed in 1978.