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Wednesday, March 18, 2009

United States President Barack Obama stated Monday that insurance giant AIG is in financial trouble due to “recklessness and greed,” and called for legal action to stop the company from giving out millions of dollars in bonuses to its executives.

“It’s hard to understand how derivative traders at AIG warranted any bonuses, much less $165 million in extra pay,” Obama said. “How do they justify this outrage to the taxpayers who are keeping the company afloat.”

Obama’s statement comes after reports surfaced last weekend saying the insurance agency, which is in deep financial trouble, had paid US$165 million to executives in bonuses, after receiving $170 billion as part of a government bailout plan.

AIG has said that the bonuses have to be given out, as the company is legally required by contract to do so. A representative with the National Economic Council, Lawrence H. Summers, also said that the bonuses were required to be given out. If AIG had refused to give out the bonuses, employees could file a lawsuit against the company for the money.

“We cannot attract and retain the best and the brightest talent to lead and staff the A.I.G. businesses — which are now being operated principally on behalf of American taxpayers — if employees believe their compensation is subject to continued and arbitrary adjustment by the U.S. Treasury,” AIG CEO Edward M. Liddy said in a letter addressed to Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner on Saturday.

Liddy said that he asked Geithner “to use that leverage and pursue every legal avenue to block these bonuses and make the American taxpayers whole.”

“I want everybody to be clear that Secretary Geithner’s been on the case,” Obama said. “He’s working to resolve this matter with the new CEO, Edward Liddy, who, by the way, everybody needs to understand, came on board after the contracts that led to these bonuses were agreed to last year.”

If the bonuses cannot be stopped, the U.S. Congress says they want AIG to reimburse the government. Congress is looking to impose stiff new taxes on the pay, or ordering the company to return the money which was originally granted from a government bailout. In a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Tuesday, senator Richard Shelby promised that the treasury will recover all of the money. Several U.S. senators along with Liddy have sent letters to AIG asking for the bonuses to be renegotiated, something AIG agreed to and says they will reduce future bonuses by 30%. Senators state that if Libby does not respond by renegotiating the bonuses, the Senate Finance Committee will propose an excise tax. Not only will an excise tax be proposed on AIG, but all companies receiving bailout money and their employees who receive bonuses.

Numerous House Democrats have introduced legislation which would place a 100% tax on any bonuses of over $100,000 from companies that are receiving government bailout funds. Meanwhile in the Senate, a bipartisan proposal by Max Baucus (D-Montana) and Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) would levy a special 90% excise tax on AIG’s bonuses. Asked Senator Baucus, who chairs the Senate Finance Committee: “What is the highest excise tax we can impose that will stand up in court? Let’s find out.”

Sunday, October 7, 2007

Cecile Willert is running for the Green Party of Ontario in the Ontario provincial election, in the Ajax—Pickering riding. Wikinews’ Nick Moreau interviewed her regarding her values, her experience, and her campaign.

Stay tuned for further interviews; every candidate from every party is eligible, and will be contacted. Expect interviews from Liberals, Progressive Conservatives, New Democratic Party members, Ontario Greens, as well as members from the Family Coalition, Freedom, Communist, Libertarian, and Confederation of Regions parties, as well as independents.

Tuesday, March 7, 2006

All across the Canadian province of Ontario, college teachers have gone on strike, leaving more than 150,000 students in 24 colleges without classes.

The Ontario Public Service Employees Union rejected the final offer from college management, after negotiations at the Delta Chelsea Hotel in downtown Toronto.

This strike comes just a month before many student’s scheduled graduations. If courses are extended into the summer, to compensate for lost school time, students’ ability to maintain jobs to pay for their education would be severely limited.

“A prolonged strike would not only affect college students, but also have a ripple affect on the Ontario economy and workforce. Potential employers are expecting 44,000 new graduates and 100,000 returning students to enter the workforce this May, families have made summer plans, and some seasonal businesses may experience a significant loss if the school year does not finish on time,” says Tyler Charlebois, Director of Advocacy for the College Student Alliance. “I hope for the sake of Ontario, the provincial government takes this situation as seriously as we are and takes action as necessary.”

OPSEU was asking for more teachers, smaller classes, and more faculty time for students. A strike vote was 80.4% in favour of action. Humber had the least support for the strike, with only 67.0%, followed by St. Lawrence with 67.7%. St. Clair, Boréal, Centennial, and Sault all had more than 90% support.

Wednesday, March 21, 2018

Yesterday, Kenya’s Ol Pejeta Conservancy announced they had euthanised the last male northern white rhino, Sudan, on Monday, after consulting with wildlife officials. Sudan was 45-years-old, and now only two northern white rhinos, both female and descendants of Sudan, remain.

“Sudan was being treated for age-related complications that led to degenerative changes in muscles and bones combined with extensive skin wounds”, the conservancy said. “His condition worsened significantly in the last 24 hours; he was unable to stand up and was suffering a great deal”, they added.

Sudan, who was born in the early 1970s, suffered a wound in his right hind leg in late February. He was born in South Sudan, and at that time around 700 northern white rhinos were alive.

Sudan was in captivity for the last 38 years. Earlier, he was kept at the Dv?r Králové Zoo in Czech Republic before he was moved to Kenya. He stayed in a 90 thousand acre (about 140 square mile, 364 square kilometre) reserve with the only two remaining female northern white rhinos, 27-year-old Najin and seventeen-year-old Fatu. Najin and Fatu are Sudan’s daughter and granddaughter, respectively.

Ol Pejeta said they collected Sudan’s genetic material on Monday. The conservancy said, “The only hope for the preservation of the subspecies now lies in developing in-vitro fertilisation techniques using eggs from the two remaining females, stored northern white rhino semen from males and surrogate southern white rhino females.”

Last year, an account was opened on dating platform Tinder on Sudan’s behalf, to raise money for a fertility treatment after attempts at natural mating proved futile. Suni, second to last male of the subspecies, died four years ago, in October 2014 in San Diego Zoo, US. He was 42.

Ol Pejeta’s CEO, Richard Vigne, said Sudan “was a great ambassador for his species and will be remembered for the work he did to raise awareness globally on the plight facing not only rhinos, but also the many thousands of other species facing extinction as a result of unstable human activity”.

In 2008, the World Wildlife Foundation declared northern white rhinos extinct in the wild.

Thursday, June 5, 2008

On June 3rd, 2008, two United States Internet service providers (ISPs) announced they would begin tests to slow web access for their most active customers and charge them for extra speed. Comcast and Time Warner Cable, two of the largest ISPs in North America, both made separate announcements of their plans. The actions come in the wake of an investigation by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), over whether Comcast had restricted some customers from sharing videos, music, and similar files. The FCC investigation led to a US Congress debate over whether and how much control ISPs should have over the flow of customer data.

Public interest groups complained in November 2007 to the FCC that Comcast had specifically targeted customers using applications that made use of the BitTorrent system, a popular form of file sharing. Free Press, an advocacy group that pushes for better oversight of cable operators such as Comcast, stated that Comcast practices were discriminatory towards users of the legal technology. “The cable companies see a hammer hovering above their heads and are scrambling to find ways to reduce the appearance of wrongdoing,” said Ben Scott, head of the group.

According to Roger Entner, a senior vice president from Nielsen IAG, as little as 5 percent of all Internet users may consume as much as 50 percent of all the bandwidth on the Internet. “This is the politically correct version of doing what Comcast had been doing before, though it takes the occasional [peer-to-peer] user off the hook,” Entner said. Sena Fitzmaurice, a Comcast spokesperson, said, “This says we won’t be looking at what type of traffic that there is, even though we still need to manage the network.”

Comcast’s tests are expected to begin in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania and Warrenton, Virginia.

While Comcast will attempt to throttle the speed of all its high-volume users, Time Warner Cable intends to use a different method. They will meter and bill clients, charging more money for faster speeds and larger amounts of transmitted data, functioning more like a traditional public utility, such as an electric company or cell phone service. Their metered billing test will begin on June 5 in Beaumont, Texas for newly enrolled customers. “Instead of raising prices across the board, consumers who are excessive users would pay,” said Alex Dudley, a Time Warner Cable spokesman. “It is clearly the fairest way to fund the investment that is going to be required to support that use.”

An Associated Press report that Time Warner Cable will bill customers between $29.95 to $54.90USD per month has been confirmed by the cable operator, with clients charged an extra $1 for each gigabyte (GB) by which they exceed their purchased plan. Art Brodsky, communications director of Public Knowledge, a consumer advocacy group in Washington D.C., has expressed concerns about the Time Warner Cable plan. Time Warner Cable’s most expensive offering, $54.90, comes with 15 megabits-per-second of data transfer speed and a 40 gigabyte limit on total data transfer.

“An HD (high-definition) movie is 8GB or so, three movies is more than half your allowance for a month, and heaven knows what else you might want to watch,” Brodsky says. “This is not a relieving congestion scheme as much as it is a rationing scheme. All it does is protect an inadequate infrastructure from the cable company.”

Thursday, July 26, 2012

The Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS), the largest civil services trade union in the United Kingdom, yesterday reversed its decision to hold a strike for its UK Home Office worker members scheduled for today, the day before the Olympic Games are due to start in London. The strike, which was called last week as a result of job reductions being made, would have affected the UK Border Agency (UKBA), the Identity and Passport Service, and the Criminal Records Bureau, at London Heathrow Airport amongst other UK airports.

PCS General Secretary Mark Serwotka cited the “significant development” of the creation of 1100 new job positions, 800 in the UKBA and 300 in the Passport Service, as the reason for the union’s decision change. “We believe that significant progress means that there is no case for the union to proceed with industrial action tomorrow,” Serwotka said yesterday morning. The PCS also reported position recruitment advertisements appearing on the Internet for London Heathrow, London Luton and Gatwick Airport.

However, the UK government’s Home Office denied that they had created such positions. “We have made no concessions to the PCS and are not creating any new jobs in response to their threat of strike action”, a spokesperson for the Home Office stated. Saying the recruitment effort, initiated two months ago, was amongst scheduled modifications to the UK Border Force, the spokesperson clarified: “Unfortunately, due to an administrative error, a figure of 400 posts was repeated in both adverts by mistake. This will now be corrected”.

Serwotka’s announcement was made one hour before lawyers representing the UK government had been due at the High Court to attempt to gain an injunction preventing the strike. According to the PCS, the government’s plan was based on accusations that twelve staff members in Brussels and Paris became involved in the dispute despite the fact they would be unaffected.

The PCS’ decision was welcomed by airport operating company BAA. “So far passengers arriving for the Olympics have had a smooth journey through Heathrow and it is great news that those arriving tomorrow can also expect a warm welcome to London and the Games”, a spokeswoman for BAA said yesterday. UK Home Secretary Theresa May had considered the PCS’ plans “opportunist and wholly unjustified”. Serwotka said he had “[a]bsolutely no regrets” about his previous decision to call the strike.

The PCS has also postponed plans to launch a work-to-rule initiative during the 2012 Summer Olympics.

Wednesday, July 11, 2007

UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown has announced a review into the ‘social effects’ of gambling, throwing doubt over the government’s previous plans to grant a license for a 5,000 m² ‘supercasino’.

The review, to take place in September, will look at “whether regeneration in the areas for the super-casinos may be a better way of meeting their economic and social needs than the creation of super-casinos”. Gordon Brown made the announcement during Prime Ministers questions, in response to a question from Labour MP Andy Reed.

The plan to allow the building of a single supercasino, and 16 smaller casinos, was set in motion by previous Prime Minister Tony Blair. An independent Casino Advisory Panel had recommended in February 2007 that the supercasino license should be granted to the city of Manchester, a recommendation which the Government was expected to follow.

The new announcement by Gordon Brown throws doubt over these plans, and BBC News are quoting an unnamed ‘Whitehall source’ as having commented that the supercasino plan is “dead in the water”.

Sunday, May 18, 2008

John Key is the leader of the New Zealand National Party and with the New Zealand General Election this year, Wikinews’ Gabriel Pollard spoke to John Key via email.