File:Bucharest bizarre.jpgRomania, especially its capital Bucharest, attracted significantly more foreign investment in 2005
Romania’s level of foreign direct investment rose by 19% in the first six months (January-July) of 2005 when compared to the same period of 2004, according to the Romanian Agency for Foreign Investment (ARIS). The country recorded US$750 million of foreign investment in this period, and 56 total investment projects, in comparison to 40 projects between January and July 2004. The majority of the investments occurred in the Bucharest–Ilfov region, which includes the Romanian capital.
The rise in foreign investment is mainly attributed due to a more liberal taxation policy introduced by the Romanian government on January 1, 2005, which centres around a 16% flat tax on personal income and corporate profit. Additionally, the country’s expected membership of the European Union in 2007 and its relatively stable political climate also led to an increase in foreign investment in 2005.
Neuqua awarded Lysacek its first-ever Distinguished Alumni Award. He was the first American since 1988 to win the gold in men’s figure skating, having started the sport since he was eight. Despite being busy with other engagements and starring in the TV show Dancing with the Stars, Lysacek was excited about the opportunity to visit his hometown.
He also took the opportunity to thank his former teachers, who he said worked hard to keep him caught up in his studies amidst his hectic skating career. “I’ve been waiting to get back home and celebrate with the community that’s backed me and been so instrumental in my development as a person, as an athlete and take this opportunity to say thank you, not just to the community but more so to the faculty here,” he told the crowd at Neuqua.
The skater’s achievements have inspired the residents of his hometown. “I was inspired by what he showed me. He showed that I can do anything I want to do,” said Neuqua student Gbenja Okubaja. At a Chamber of Commerce lunch held later that day, Naperville Mayor A. George Pradel awarded Lysacek the key to the city, saying “I don’t know what it opens, but I’ve been told its already opened the hearts of everyone here in Naperville.” In response Lysacek joked, “I hear it opens all the banks here in Naperville.”
Afterwards, Lysacek attended a fundraiser held in honor of skater and long-time friend Stephanie Joseph, who died of cancer at the age of 21.
A 34 year old obstetrician from Forestville on Sydney’s Northern Beaches has escaped after he was robbed, car-jacked and locked in the boot (trunk) of his BMW, which was set alight. Police say the doctor was locked in the boot while his car was set alight, but was allowed to escape before flames engulfed the vehicle.
The Doctor was believed to have been heading to The Mater Hospital in North Sydney when he was waiting at the intersection of West and Falcon Streets in Chatswood around 3:15AM AEDT when a small red sedan with two men claiming to be police officers signalled him to stop. After crossing the intersection, the doctor stopped his car at the side of the road.
The doctor was then approached by the two men and when he asked to see identification, one man grabbed the keys from his car’s ignition before they both pulled the doctor out of his vehicle, hit him in the stomach with a hammer and stole his mobile phone and wallet. The robbers also demanded his key and credit cards along with their access codes before locking him in the boot.
Police allege that the men drove to several locations to withdraw cash and buy things before driving to Carisbook Street in Linley Point at around 4 a.m. local time where they set the car alight with the doctor still in the boot.
Crime Manager of the Harbourside Local Area Command, Detective Inspector Houlahan said that the doctor then “heard a click in the boot area and he heard someone call out: ‘Get out of the car'”
“When he pushed the boot up he found his car engulfed in flames.”
Det. Insp. Houlahan said the doctor told police he did not unlock the boot himself, and it appeared the man’s captors unlocked it before fleeing.
Det Insp Houlahan said that the doctor appeared to be “very distraught” and tired after the ordeal, and wanted to get home and see his wife and two young daughters.
He could only provide police with a vague description of his captors, but said the men were both Caucasian males aged in their 20s, and that one of them was about six feet tall (183cm) with short blond hair and medium build said Det. Insp. Houlahan.
The damaged portion of the apartment blocks. One witness, who lives near the building, said she was “terrified” when she saw the flames.
An apartment complex in Tyler, Smith County, Texas, incurred substantial damage during a major fire on Wednesday evening. Fire authorities were forced to close Shiloh Road, a busy street which runs adjacent to the complex, for several hours while multiple city units fought to douse the blaze. Eye witnesses report that screams of animals and people were heard. A local news source described the blaze as “massive”, adding that while no-one was injured during the blaze, one cat was killed. One witness told a local news agency: “It engulfed it pretty quick. It’s amazing to see how quick a fire can go like that. It just started on one end and took over.”
8 apartment units were reportedly totally destroyed in the incident. Initial reports indicate that the fire started in an upstairs apartment and spread rapidly. Local medical personnel were alerted to expect a large number of casualties. A woman, who lives in the neighboring apartment complex and was present during much of the event, spoke to Wikinews on the condition of anonymity. “It was unbelievable,” she said. “There were firetrucks and police cars everywhere. It was the biggest fire I’ve ever seen.”
Fire officials have stated that they believe the cause of the fire may have been faulty wiring, adding that there was no evidence to suggest arson. On Thursday morning, local news outlet KLTV reported that many residents of the complex praised the fast and aggressive response of local firefighters. 61-year-old Cecile Hughston said that she was in her home about one block from the fire when she saw the flames. She said: “I was inside my house and I could see the flames, they were stretching up toward the sky. I was terrified.” Multiple clean-up workers were present at the complex on Thursday morning and the damaged building was cordoned off with police tape.
Grammy Award-winning rock band The White Stripes announced on Wednesday the Canadian leg of a tour in support of their soon-to-be-released album, Icky Thump. The tour, which would be the first cross-Canada excursion for The White Stripes, will see the band play dates in all provinces and territories.
The latest tour for The White Stripes will kick off June 1 in Nürburgring, Germany and will play several dates in Europe before starting off in Canada on June 24, in Burnaby, British Columbia. Canadian dates will include stops in northern locales such as Whitehorse, Yellowknife, and Iqaluit, on Baffin Island.
The White Stripes, made up of guitarist/singer Jack White and drummer Meg White, have developed a significant worldwide following with their blend of punk and blues, guitar-oriented rock. The band had expressed interest in playing cities they had not yet visited. “Having never done a full tour of Canada, Meg and I thought it was high time to go whole hog,” said Jack White on The White Stripes website. “We want to take this tour to the far reaches of the Canadian landscape. From the ocean to the permafrost.” The band’s website referred to Canada by its nickname, the ‘Great White North’.
The White Stripes have played to thousands in large outdoor festival settings, but will have to deal with different logistics while setting up in a northern location, such as Iqaluit.
Some 500 tickets for the Iqaluit show are to be sold, with an admission fee of approximately CA$40. Mike Bozzer, the city of Iqaluit’s economic development officer, told CBC News that talks have taken place with The White Stripes’ publicist regarding equipment, technicians, security and other such details. “It’s definitely going to have some economic impact, and they’ll come back home with positive stories of the city,” said Bozzer.
The band’s ten-year anniversary will be reached at a point during the Canadian leg of the tour, which will be commemorated. “Another special moment of this tour is the show which will occur in Glace Bay, Nova Scotia on July 14th, The White Stripes’ Tenth Anniversary,” said Jack White.
Following the Canadian dates, The White Stripes will embark on a tour in the United States, which will reach some 16 states they have not yet visited during their career, among other repeat locations.
Scientists have confirmed that the H5N1 virus found in the DNA taken from one of two Turkish victims, who died from the disease, has mutated and they now believe that Turkey is now a locale for endemic bird flu.
However, the WHO, stressed that it is too early to tell if the mutation is important.
“We assume this could be one small step in the virus’ attempt to adapt to humans,” said Mike Perdue, a WHO virologist. “But it’s only seen in one isolate and it’s difficult to make sweeping conclusions. We just have to wait and see what the rest of the viruses from Turkey look like.”
Health officials had raised the number of deaths from the H5N1 virus from 15 to 18 after after it turned up in preliminary tests on two people hospitalised in south-eastern Turkey, and in a girl’s lungs after she died in the same area. It also has confirmed 147 human cases of the H5N1 virus worldwide and 78 deaths, though this includes only four infections and two deaths in Turkey.
All victims are thought to have had close contact with poultry.
Health officials suggest the virus can now attach itself more easily to human cells than before.
The mutation has been found in a mutated version of a key protein, haemagglutinin, which controls the way it binds to cells. This, scientists theorize, may be the key in making it more dangerous to people. The mutation makes the virus more capable of attaching itself to human cells before infecting them. But experts said the mutation had been seen before without severe consequences.
Maria Cheng, a spokeswoman for the World Health Organisation, says, “It doesn’t look as if it has significance regarding transmissibility or pathogenicity because it is not borne out by epidemiological evidence we have so far.”
Lula and Fidel Castro at Revolution’s Palace in Havana. Photo: Antonio Milena/ABr (arquivo).
Sunday, October 30, 2005
Brazil —Former advisors to Brazilian Minister of Finance Antonio Palocci have claimed that three million US dollars from Cuba were used in the 2002 political campaign of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. The accusation was printed by the Brazilian magazine Veja in its issue circulating this week.
According to Veja, Rogério Buratti, Palocci’s secretary in the early 1990s during the period when Palocci was mayor, claims that Ralf Barquete (another advisor to Palocci) had asked him to find a way to bring money from Cuba.
Another source, economist Vladmir Poleto who had also worked for Palocci, claimed to have brought the three million from Brasília to Campinas by plane. He stated the money was hidden in whiskey boxes: Johnnie Walker Red Label and Black Label and Havana Club (a Cuban brand of rum). Barquete received the money at the Campinas airport Viracopos. Afterwards he claims the money was transferred by car to São Paulo and delivered to Workers’ Party treasurer Delubio Soares.
Workers’ Party President Ricardo Berzoini has responded saying that the accusation is false. And Lula’s aide Gilberto Carvalho has said the story is “absurd”.
According to the blog of Folha de S. Paulo reporter Josias de Souza, Palocci and Lula are worried about the interviews being aired on Brazilian television.
The president of the PPS, federal deputy Roberto Freire (Pernambucostate), has stated that his party will ask the Electoral Justice investigatory agency and the Public Ministry to begin a investigation into the charge. The parties PFL and PSDB are also considering demanding an investigation.
Schriner previously ran for president in 2000, 2004, and 2008, but failed to gain much traction in the races. He announced his candidacy for the 2012 race immediately following the 2008 election. Schriner refers to himself as the “Average Joe” candidate, and advocates a pro-life and pro-environmentalist platform. He has been the subject of numerous newspaper articles, and has published public policy papers exploring solutions to American issues.
Wikinews reporter William Saturn? talks with Schriner and discusses his campaign.
The oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico pictured from the International Space Station in May last year. It is now almost a year since the largest spill in the history of the petroleum industry began after the Deepwater Horizon exploded. Image: NASA.
One year after the Deepwater Horizon disaster which caused the largest oil spill in the history of the petroleum industry and caused huge environmental damage in the Gulf of Mexico, experts have warned there are serious questions over the safety of deep water drilling as the United States government approves more exploration without improving safety measures.
I have seen no evidence that they have marshaled containment efforts that are sufficient to deal with another major spill. I don’t think they have found ways to change the corporate culture sufficiently to prevent future accidents.
Scientists have raised major concerns over repeated assurances from the industry and the government, who insist lessons have been learned from the environmental disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. Charles Perrow, a professor at Yale University, said the oil industry “is ill prepared at the least” to deal with another oil spill. “I have seen no evidence that they have marshaled containment efforts that are sufficient to deal with another major spill,” he said.
While the government has implemented new regulations, technical systems for stopping oil flowing from a leaking well, and increased oversight from oil officials, Perrow said deep water drilling had become no less dangerous. “I don’t think they have found ways to change the corporate culture sufficiently to prevent future accidents,” he said. “There are so many opportunities for things to go wrong that major spills are unavoidable.”
Last year, Doug Inkley, a scientist at the National Wildlife Federation, said the culture of an “addiction to oil” was ultimately responsible for the catastrophe. “How long must we wait for lawmakers to act to prevent future disasters? How many more lives, livelihoods and animals must be claimed by our addiction to oil?” Greenpeace also slammed BP, who ran Deepwater Horizon, for how they allowed the disaster to happen. “The age of oil is coming to an end and companies like BP will be left behind unless they begin to adapt now,” the organization said.
However, under pressure from industry executives the administration of president Barack Obama has resumed issuing drilling permits. It is understood regulators are still allowing oil companies to obtain drilling permits before reviewing new spill response plans. “I’m not an oddsmaker, but I would say in the next five years we should have at least one major blowout,” Perrow said. “Even if everybody tries very hard, there is going to be an accident caused by cost-cutting and pressure on workers. These are moneymaking machines and they make money by pushing things to the limit.”
Under pressure from industry executives the administration of president Barack Obama has resumed issuing drilling permits. Image: U.S. Senate.
BP has insisted it has changed safety procedures. The oil giant came under heavy criticism for how it handled the crisis, and other major oil companies insisted Deepwater Horizon was a result of a culture exclusive to BP. Michael Bromwich, the director of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement (BOEMRE), the U.S. government agency responsible for regulating offshore drilling, said the view was “as disappointing as it is shortsighted,” and the issue of deep water safety was “a broad problem.”
The warnings came as it emerged BP had attempted to take control of an independent study into the environmental consequences of the Deepwater Horizon spill. Internal emails expose how BP executives attempted to influence the study, which was funded by a US$500m grant from the oil company. The study may be part of the final verdict as to what penalties, fines and criminal charges are brought against the company. Greenpeace, who uncovered the emails through a Freedom of Information Act request, attacked the reportedly unsuccessful attempts to influence the supposedly independent study as “outrageous”.
My community is dead. We’ve worked five generations there and now we’ve got a dead community. I’m angry, I’ve been angry a long time.
Protesters rallied outside BP’s annual conference in London this week, where shareholders met for the first time since the disaster off the Gulf coast. Executives faced questions over their competence and large salaries from angry shareholders, many of whom disapproved of the appointment of Carl-Henric Svanberg as chairman and Sir Bill Castell as the head of BP’s safety board.
Some demonstrators purchased shares in BP in an attempt to get inside the meeting; one woman, a fisherwoman who lives on the Gulf Coast was arrested after pouring a black substance down herself at the entrance to the conference centre and refusing to move. “I have travelled all the way over from the Gulf Coast and I just wanted to talk those responsible for destroying my community,” she said as she was led away by police. “My community is dead. We’ve worked five generations there and now we’ve got a dead community. I’m angry, I’ve been angry a long time.”
Police in the West Midlands in England today said nearly 200 kilograms worth of drugs with value possibly as great as £30 million (about US$49 million or €36 million) has been seized from a unit in the town of Brownhills. In what an officer described as “one of the largest [seizures] in the force’s 39 year history”, West Midlands Police reported recovering six big cellophane-wrapped cardboard boxes containing cannabis, cocaine, and MDMA (“ecstasy”) in a police raid operation on the Maybrook Industrial Estate in the town on Wednesday.
The impact this seizure will have on drug dealing in the region and the UK as a whole cannot be underestimated
The seized boxes, which had been loaded onto five freight pallets, contained 120 one-kilogram bags of cannabis, 50 one-kilogram bags of MDMA, and five one-kilogram bricks of cocaine. In a press release, West Midlands Police described what happened after officers found the drugs as they were being unloaded in the operation. “When officers opened the boxes they discovered a deep layer of protective foam chips beneath which the drugs were carefully layered”, the force said. “All the drugs were wrapped in thick plastic bags taped closed with the cannabis vacuum packed to prevent its distinctive pungent aroma from drawing unwanted attention.” Police moved the drugs via forklift truck to a flatbed lorry to remove them.
Detective Sergeant Carl Russell of West Midlands Police’s Force CID said the seizure was the largest he had ever made in the 24 years he has been in West Midlands Police and one of the biggest seizures the force has made since its formation in 1974. “The impact this seizure will have on drug dealing in the region and the UK as a whole cannot be underestimated”, he said. “The drugs had almost certainly been packed to order ready for shipping within Britain but possibly even further afield. Our operation will have a national effect and we are working closely with a range of law enforcement agencies to identify those involved in this crime at whatever level.”
Expert testing on the drugs is ongoing. Estimates described as “conservative” suggest the value of the drugs amounts to £10 million (about US$16.4 million or €12 million), although they could be worth as much as £30 million, subject to purity tests, police said.
Police arrested three men at the unit on suspicion of supplying a controlled drug. The men, a 50-year-old from Brownhills, a 51-year-old from the Norton area of Stoke-on-Trent in Staffordshire, and one aged 53 from Brownhills, have been released on bail as police investigations to “hunt those responsible” continue. West Midlands Police told Wikinews no person has yet been charged in connection with the seizure. Supplying a controlled drug is an imprisonable offence in England, although length of jail sentences vary according to the class and quantity of drugs and the significance of offenders’ roles in committing the crime.
