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Tuesday, February 3, 2009

General Motors ^NYSE: GM (GM) and Chrysler have both begun to offer layoff packages to their workforces.

The automobile manufacturers have been hard hit in the recent economic downturn and have been forced to seek federal aid from the U.S. government. Reports say that GM’s package includes a $20,000 cash payment and a $25,000 new vehicle voucher. Chrysler will offer a $25,000 vehicle voucher and $50,000 with healthcare and $75,000 without. Both will offer the deal to most United Auto Workers (UAW) union members – 62,000 at GM, which is seeking to cut 31,500 jobs by 2012.

The two companies have received $13.4 billion in federal loans to keep them operating, but Congress required them to produce viability plans to demonstrate they were making significant cost cuts and labor concessions in return for the money. UAW workers in Detroit earn $28 an hour; their replacements will earn about half that. The UAW’s “jobs bank”, a system where workers without duties are still paid, has stopped at both companies.

GM is also attempting to engineer a debt-for-equity swap, reducing its liabilities from $27.5 billion in unsecured debt to $9.2 billion. It is also seeking to sell a truck manufacturer, the Delco Electronics parts group and the Hummer and Saab Automobile vehicle brands.

The entire motor manufacturing sector has suffered under the economic downturn, with the Ford Motor Company ^NYSE: F announcing a $14.6 billion annual loss, although it has not sought federal aid. GM and Chrysler both ran out of operating funds in December, leading to the federal bailout.

Tuesday, August 15, 2006

Former Israeli prime minster Ariel Sharon, 78, has developed double pneumonia and is being treated with “massive” amounts of antibiotics according to hospital officials.

“We are talking about pneumonia that is being treated with massive antibiotics. There is no change in the functioning of the brain tissue and no significant fall in vital signs,” said officials at Tel Hashomer hospital in the Sheba Medical Center located in Tel Aviv, in a statement today.

Yesterday doctors stated that Sharon’s urine ouput had “decreased significantly” and that a scan of his brain “showed a deterioration in his brain function,” said Anat Dolev, a Sheba Medical Center spokesman.

Yesterday the hospital reported that the condition of Sharon was getting worse.

Sharon has been in a coma since suffering a major stroke on January 4. Since being admitted to the hospital, he has undergone several rounds of surgery on his brain in an attempt to stop bleeding. Currently a respirator assists him in breathing.

Friday, March 25, 2011

The death toll from the Sendai earthquake has now increased to over ten thousand. In Japan, the National Police Agency has stated that 10,019 are now known to have been killed as a result of the disaster.

The Agency also reported that 2,775 had been injured and the location of 17,541 individuals was unknown. Meanwhile, 1,900 evacuation sites are now thought to be occupied by approximately a quarter of a million people.

When the event happened two weeks ago, 18,000 thousand households were destroyed and 130,000 were damaged by the earthquake and the subsequent tsunami. In spite of this, twelve of the fifteen north-eastern ports of Japan have recommenced operating, while the majority of the oil terminals of the country remained open, according to Inchcape Shipping Services.

Amongst the aftermath of the earthquake, plant number 3 at the Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant is suspected to have been damaged and may be releasing radiation. The Japanese government have reported that an ongoing investigation is occurring to attempt to discover the cause of the radiation leak at the power plant. Chinese authorities have reported two Japanese tourists were found to have levels of radiation “seriously exceeding limits” on their clothing and luggage. In Tokyo, the amount of radiation in the supply of water has decreased, however it remains high in various parts of the north of Japan.

According to BBC News Online, two workers were hospitalised because of the leak. The Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), who operate the building, reported that three employees placing electrical cables at the location were given treatment for being exposed to radioactive water; they had experienced ten thousand times the regular amount of radioactivity. Of those three men, beta rays caused two of them to receive burns. The two individuals did not stop working despite meters advising of unsafe radiation levels. It was later discovered that they were wearing inadequate protective footwear and failed to draw their attention to a radiation alert. TEPCO has since received government orders to improve worker management.

The radiation emitted from the plant has had a significant effect on the Japanese food industry. In the surrounding areas of the plant, shipments of foodstuffs have been prohibited. In Fukushima prefecture, residents have been advised not to consume eleven leafy green vegetable types produced locally due to radiation concerns. There has also been a significant decrease in customer demand at a fish market in Tsukiji.

Japanese product importers have discovered some foodstuffs to have a small radiation amount, which is not thought to be potentially deadly. Numerous Asian countries, the European Union, Australia, Russia and the United States have prohibited milk items, seafood and vegetables from being imported from various Japanese prefectures.

Closing the power plant down may take at least one month to achieve. Speaking to AFP, an individual talking on behalf of TEPCO stated that the company is “still in the process of assessing the damage at the plant, so that we can’t put a deadline on when the cooling operations will work again”. Residents living within thirty kilometres of the plant have been advised to avoid going outdoors to attempt to prevent radiation exposure as far as possible.

Friday, May 18, 2012

Bruce, Canberra — In an exclusive interview with Wikinews, Australian Paralympians Evan O’Hanlon and Scott Reardon discussed the increased professionalism of their sport, and the challenges elite athletes now face in securing sponsorship deals.

O’Hanlon, with the support of his Australian teammates, is on a mission to professionalise Paralympic athletics. He is leading a charge to encourage runners to cover the logos on shoes they wear to training and in competition because he believes that many people who see him in pictures when he wins world records think his shoes are paid for by sponsors; they are not.

Paralympic athletic competitors must buy their own shoes; while Australian Paralympic competitors receive support from the government, they still must pay for things their abled-bodied counterparts would not. O’Hanlon and Reardon believe unless competitors organise as a group and act together, they will not change the sponsorship landscape for Paralympic athletes.

Teammate Michelle Errichiello didn’t tape over the logos on her shoes, while O’Hanlon told Wikinews that he had taped over the logos on a pair of practice sprint shoes which he wouldn’t normally cover due to photographers being present at the athletics track. They intentionally choose the flesh colour of the tape to make it more noticed by spectators, highlighting their cause and raising its profile.

O’Hanlon told Wikinews reporters that additional information about these sponsorship issues could be found on his website.

Wednesday, September 7, 2005

Astronomers have discovered that Saturn’s D ring, the innermost of Saturn’s 15 rings, has grown dimmer in the past 25 years and sections have moved up to 125 miles inward toward the planet. This discovery was made after astronomers compiled results predominantly from the Voyager 2 spacecraft, which passed Saturn in 1981, and the Cassini-Huygens probe which entered Saturn’s orbit last year.

Other rings were found to be rotating slower than had previously been estimated with computer models. It was also discovered that the matter composing the rings is of far more widely varying temperatures than had been expected. Sections of Saturn’s F ring were also recognised as breaking apart and reforming, depending on the location of one of Saturn’s moons.

The rings, which are now iconic to Saturn, and known to be common to all Jovian planets in general, were first observed in 1610 by Galileo. The rings have recently become a subject of scientific interest to modern astronomers who believe they are similar in structure to the dust which orbited the Sun, in a similar pattern, and formed the planets some 4.5 billion years ago.

This, and other Cassini-related discoveries, were discussed at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society‘s division of planetary sciences on Monday.

Thursday, October 18, 2007

It can be difficult to be John Reed.

Christopher Hitchens called him a “Bin Ladenist” and Cathy Young editorialized in The Boston Globe that he “blames the victims of terrorism” when he puts out a novel like Snowball’s Chance, a biting send-up of George Orwell‘s Animal Farm which he was inspired to write after the terrorist attacks on September 11. “The clear references to 9/11 in the apocalyptic ending can only bring Orwell’s name into disrepute in the U.S.,” wrote William Hamilton, the British literary executor of the Orwell estate. That process had already begun: it was revealed Orwell gave the British Foreign Office a list of people he suspected of being “crypto-Communists and fellow travelers,” labeling some of them as Jews and homosexuals. “I really wanted to explode that book,” Reed told The New York Times. “I wanted to completely undermine it.”

Is this man who wants to blow up the classic literary canon taught to children in schools a menace, or a messiah? David Shankbone went to interview him for Wikinews and found that, as often is the case, the answer lies somewhere in the middle.

Reed is electrified by the changes that surround him that channel through a lens of inspiration wrought by his children. “The kids have made me a better writer,” Reed said. In his new untitled work, which he calls a “new play by William Shakespeare,” he takes lines from The Bard‘s classics to form an original tragedy. He began it in 2003, but only with the birth of his children could he finish it. “I didn’t understand the characters who had children. I didn’t really understand them. And once I had had kids, I could approach them differently.”

Taking the old to make it new is a theme in his work and in his world view. Reed foresees new narrative forms being born, Biblical epics that will be played out across print and electronic mediums. He is pulled forward by revolutions of the past, a search for a spiritual sensibility, and a desire to locate himself in the process.

Below is David Shankbone’s conversation with novelist John Reed.

Friday, July 22, 2005

Hundreds of floating candles will be launched by young Quakers to mark Hiroshima Day at 9:00 p.m. GMT on Friday August 5.

The event will be held at the University of York towards the end of the annual Quaker Yearly Meeting where over 1600 Quakers are meeting.

The bombing of Hiroshima took place 60 years ago at 08:16am, Japanese time on August 6, 1945.

Throughout the week leading up to the Hiroshima day witness on August 5, young Quakers will be planning, organising and preparing the event, including contacting the local community and the media.

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Friday, January 17, 2014

A spokesperson for the Australian Assistant Minister for Infrastructure and Regional Development, Warren Truss, announced plans this week to close four mainland immigration detention facilities — Scherger, at RAAF Scherger, Queensland; Leonora, in Leonora, Western Australia; Port Augusta, in Port Augusta, South Australia; and Inverbrackie facilities in Woodside, the Adelaide Hills, South Australia — by the end of February. The detainees would be relocated to other detention centres. Pontville detention facility, in Pontville, Tasmania, was empty and would also be closed.

The detention centres staff learned about planned closure of their workplaces from the media rather than the employer directly, United Voice, an Australian trade union, commented. It estimated the number of affected people as 100 workers and “many more” casuals and contractors.

In a statement, Australian Immigration Minister Scott Morrison referred to recent border protection practices to justify the decision. On Tuesday, he told PM radio, “This Government is taking control of our borders, which enables us to shut mainland detention centres down in Australia. This will save taxpayers around $89 million a year and it’s the first down-payment on the dividend of stronger border protection. … These sites are remote, relatively small and expensive. The savings … amount to at least $7.4 million a month”. He also noted that the Pontville and Scherger detention facilities would be returned to the Defence Department.

The local mayor near the Pontville detention centre, Tony Foster, said the centre was opened only three years ago and revived the local economy. Foster also complained about the short notice from the new federal government elected last year. He cited recent centre upgrade costs of $15 million, estimated the number of local small businesses serving the centre between 45 and 48, and said he would explore the option of converting it to a “corrections facility for 18 to 24 year olds” with the relevant state and Commonwealth officials.

Scott Donaghy, who runs the Brighton’s Best Bakehouse business in Brighton, said “Staff members come in for breakfast, coffee, lunch, having a meeting. Not only were they coming in but there was more money coming into the general area from wages and people living here. I’m disappointed at the fact that another employer is gone from the area.” A pharmacist-in-charge at Brighton Discount Drug Store also commented, saying that staff members from the detention centre came to Brighton for lunch and shopping.

The announcement follows controversial reports of wrecked refugee boats found near Indonesian shores by the local police. The refugees had reported being towed back from Australia by the Australian Navy, which had originally deceptively claimed Christmas Island as the refugees’ destination.