Wednesday, March 16, 2005

The United Kingdom Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Right Honourable Gordon Brown PC MP, in a speech to the British House of Commons today presented his ninth Budget, what is very likely to be his last Budget before the next UK General Election. This opened the parliamentary debate on the 2005 Finance Bill, and was followed by responses from the opposition parties.

In a 48 minute long speech, the Chancellor presented a Budget of “tax cuts that are reasonable, spending that is affordable, and [economic] stability that is paramount”, that was “the prudent course for Britain”. There were few surprises that had not already been indicated in his 2004 pre-Budget report. The increase in the threshold on stamp duty was greater than that forecast by commentators, as was the amount of the Council Tax rebate to households with pensioners.

Thursday, October 22, 2020

2020 Melbourne Lord Mayor candidate Wayne Tseng answered some questions about his campaign for the upcoming election from Wikinews. The Lord Mayor election in the Australian city is scheduled to take place this week.

Tseng runs a firm called eTranslate, which helps software developers to make the software available to the users. In the candidate’s questionnaire, Tseng said eTranslate had led to him working with all three tiers of the government. He previously belonged to the Australian Liberal Party, but has left since then, to run for mayorship as an independent candidate.

Tseng is of Chinese descent, having moved to Australia with his parents from Vietnam. Graduated in Brisbane, Tseng received his PhD in Melbourne and has been living in the city, he told Wikinews. Tseng also formed Chinese Precinct Chamber of Commerce, an organisation responsible for many “community bond building initiatives”, the Lord Mayor candidate told Wikinews.

Tseng discussed his plans for leading Melbourne, recovering from COVID-19, and “Democracy 2.0” to ensure concerns of minorities in the city were also heard. Tseng also focused on the importance of the multi-culture aspect and talked about making Melbourne the capital of the aboriginals. Tseng also explained why he thinks Melbourne is poised to be a world city by 2030.

Tseng’s deputy Lord Mayor candidate Gricol Yang is a Commercial Banker and works for ANZ Banking Group.

Currently, Sally Capp is the Lord Mayor of Melbourne, the Victorian capital. Capp was elected as an interim Lord Mayor in mid-2018 after the former Lord Mayor Robert Doyle resigned from his position after sexual assault allegations. Doyle served as the Lord Mayor of Melbourne for almost a decade since 2008.

Sunday, July 24, 2011

Israelis have been gathering across the country to protest against the rising costs of housing, with “tent cities” being erected in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Beersheba, Haifa, and Kiryat Shemona. On Saturday night tens of thousands marched from the encampment on Tel Aviv’s Rothschild Boulevard, which has been a focal point for the protestors, to the Tel Aviv Museum.

Rents in Tel Aviv are said to have risen by over 60 percent in four years. Buying costs have soared too, with estate agent Eli Melloul stating that the average price for an Israeli apartment has now reached 1 million shekels ($295,000). The demonstrators are urging the government to intervene and help reduce prices. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has pledged swift action, including streamlining planning and building regulations, and constructing 6,000 housing units. However none of these units are set for Tel Aviv. Some are calling for him to resign over the issue, and several members of the Knesset also joined Saturday’s march.

The protests have largely been composed of young people and students, organised using social media such as Facebook. They follow a recent Facebook campaign to boycott cottage cheese (a staple food in Israel), which succeeded in driving down prices. Elderly people have also begun to join the movement to show their solidarity.

Daphni Leef, credited with starting the protest movement, addressed the crowd at Tel Aviv Museum. “Under these conditions we will soon have no dreams”, she said. “There is no time to dream when you’re constantly looking to cover your rent. There’s no time to dream when you’re constantly looking to cover a mortgage.”

She also blamed Netanyahu personally in her speech: “You, Bibi, with your wild policy and your irresponsibility, you pushed us into a nadir. You, Mr. Netanyahu, caused us – the Facebook generation – to head to the streets and protest.”

Tuesday, November 20, 2007

British Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling announced to a shocked House of Commons today that two password-protected — but not encrypted — computer disks containing the entire Child Benefit database have been lost in transit between the offices of Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC) in Washington, Tyne & Wear and the National Audit Office (NAO) in London, in what has been described as “one of the world’s biggest ID protection failures”.

The database contains details of all families in the UK who receive Child Benefit — all families with children up to 16 years of age, plus those with children up to 20 years old if they are in full-time education or training — estimated to contain 25 million individuals in 7.25 million families. Among other items of information, the database contains names, addresses, dates of birth, child benefit and National Insurance numbers, and where appropriate, bank or building society account details.

The discs were created by a junior official at the HMRC in response to a request for information by the NAO, and were sent unregistered and unrecorded on 18 October using the courier company TNT — which operates the HMRC’s internal mail system. When it was found that the discs had not arrived for audit at the NAO, a further copy of this data was made and sent — this time by registered mail — and this package did arrive. HMRC were not informed that the original discs had been lost until 8 November, and Darling himself was informed on 10 November.

The violation of data protection laws involved in the creation of the discs has led to strong attacks on the government’s competence to establish the proposed National Identity Register, when all UK residents will have an identity card. Conservative Shadow Chancellor George Osborne described the loss of data as “catastrophic” and said “They [the government] simply cannot be trusted with people’s personal information”.

The Chairman of HMRC, Paul Gray, has resigned over the affair, and critics are calling for Darling to do likewise.

This is the third data embarrassment for HMRC in recent weeks — earlier this month it was reported that the details of over 15,000 Standard Life customers had been put on disk, and then lost en route from HMRC in Newcastle to Standard Life in Edinburgh — and last month a laptop containing the data of 400 people with high-value ISAs was stolen from the boot of a car belonging to a HMRC official who had been carrying out a routine audit.

Monday, September 24, 2007

Marion Schaffer is running for the Green Party of Ontario in the Ontario provincial election, in the Oakville 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.

Thursday, August 2, 2007

The Interstate 35W Mississippi River eight-lane bridge in Minneapolis, Minnesota has collapsed on both sides of the highway over the Mississippi River during rush hour.

Previous reports indicated at least nine people had died, but Minneapolis police revised this to four during a 7:30 a.m. (local time) press conference. Tim Dolan, the Minneapolis Police Chief later stated that “several [adding to the four] people are confirmed dead at the scene,” but would not elaborate on how many. At least 79 have been injured and at least 8 are still missing, still believed to be in the rubble.

The road was busy with bumper-to-bumper traffic in four lanes when the entire 1907 foot (581 m) steel arch bridge collapsed. At least 50 cars were traveling on the bridge, including a school bus. The Red Cross said that 60 children were aboard a school bus, and that ten of those were admitted to a hospital.

The entire length of the bridge over the river collapsed at 6:05 p.m. CDT (UTC-5). The bridge, built in 1967, cleared the water level by 64 feet; the deck surface and pavement were considerably higher.

Reports say that people may be trapped in the water. Further, “many voids may contain survivors, but we cannot search those voids until it’s safe,” said Jim Clack, Minneapolis Fire Chief, during a press conference.

“One has died from drowning,” said a doctor from the medical center during an 8:00 pm press conference, who also said that so far 22 are in “yellow condition” and at least six are in “critical condition.”

Minneapolis officials have stated during an earlier press conference that “people are being sent downtown and all survivors are off the bridge. We are seeking help from the Red Cross.” and “[…]at least 60 children are receiving trauma care some with severe injures, some with minor injuries.”

Most of the injured have been received by Hennepin County Medical Center in downtown Minneapolis for medical treatment. Area hospitals are requesting all off duty staff and all Minneapolis ambulances to report. Residents are being encouraged to stay away from the area to let emergency crews do their work.

It is not known what caused the collapse, but there was construction being performed on the bridge’s road surface which included the use of jackhammers and the FBI has ruled out terrorism.

“Although it is much too early to make any determination of the cause, we have no reason at this time to believe there is any nexus to terrorism,” said Paul McCabe, an FBI spokesman.

In 2001 a stress inspection was done and Minnesota Department of Transportation stated that the bridge “should not have any problems with fatigue cracking in the foreseeable future.”

Typically an eight-lane bridge, the bridge was reduced to four lanes (two in each direction) during the current construction. The Minnesota Department of Transportation (Mn/DOT) had just announced overnight lane reductions on the bridge to one lane in each direction for the late evening hours of July 31 and August 1.

Thursday, April 17, 2008

2008 Computex Taipei (a.k.a Taipei International Information Technology Show), the second largest IT show in the world, will start on June 3 to 7 at the TWTC Hall 1 & 3, Taipei International Convention Center (TICC), and TWTC Nangang, in conjunction with 2008 WiMAX Expo Taipei, which will start earlier at the Taipei Show Hall 2. With two IT-related industry shows will be concurrently showcased in different venues, it will bring on many convergences and opportunities for networking and mobile-related industries worldwide including Taiwan.

Since the Taipei Computer Association, Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA), and Industrial Technology Research Institute preliminary imported the “WiMAX Forum Showcase & Conference” into the TICC, WiMAX-related topics were mostly focused by several worldwide media and industrial elites. In extremity, some technologies and solutions like eSNG, wireless medical care, wireless transmission, and mobile entertainment were showcased there. And the MOEA also signed MOUs with 5 world-class WiMAX companies to help the networking industry last year in Taiwan.

Even though the signing of MOUs and new technologies will bring opportunities for WiMAX-related industries, and the mobile devices will be progressively popular in the future and more slim like an UMPC, but some companies from information security industry were worried about the future trend because of invisible threats on the Internet.

As of “Asia-pacific IT Security Forum” and “IT Security Pavilion” of SecuTech Expo 2008, there were several changes on participation from IT industry, but due to a major impact of “Edison Chen’s photo scandal“, several crisis were exposed with improper habits on modern people when using the Internet.

It’s a real deal that the WiMAX will bring different kind profits and benefits for different industries, but before the WiMAX became the trend, if Internet users didn’t cultivate proper habits on using the Internet, the WiMAX will still bring on threats for end-users and industries.