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Tuesday, October 7, 2008

The Icelandic internet bank, Icesave, has suspended all 300,000 of its UK customer accounts, leaving account holders in the United Kingdom unable to withdraw or deposit any funds. A message on its website posted this morning states:

“We are not currently processing any deposits or any withdrawal requests through our Icesave internet accounts. We apologise for any inconvenience this may cause our customers. We hope to provide you with more information shortly.”

The internet bank, owned by the Icelandic bank, Landsbanki (Landsbankinn), which was recently nationalised in an attempt to rescue it, has been hit by the global financial crisis. Reports from the United Kingdom suggest that the traders and city are preparing for the parent company to be declared insolvent, leaving customers to recover their monies through a financial compensation scheme being backed by the Icelandic Government. The plan will cover the first € 20,887 (Approx £16,300 / $28,720), the remainder of the customers funds being recovered through the UK’s own financial compensation system.

Following the decision to nationalise Landsbanki, the Icelandic Prime Minister, Geir Haarde, who introduced and signed the emergency legislation into law, stated:

In describing and explaining its actions in nationalising the bank, the Icelandic Financial Supervisory Authority issued this brief statement:

In response to the deepening world financial situation, the Dutch government has this afternoon increased its savers protection from €38,000 to €80,000 effective immediately, to help secure the financial status of its savers within Holland. Icesave also has a Dutch branch, icesave.nl – their website was unreachable at the time of this article.

Saturday, June 25, 2005

Seven months after suspicions were first raised, United States Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns confirmed that a second American cow has tested positive for BSE (also known as ‘mad cow disease’), as determined by a lab in Weybridge, England. The department believes that this cow was born in the United States.

The delay in confirmation followed two conflicting test results from last November. The “Western blot” test, which is a more sophisticated test, could have helped reach a final determination, but the U.S. refused to perform it in November. The department’s inspector general, Phyllis Fong, ordered the Western blot test in June without advising Johanns and by the time Johanns found out about it, the testing was under way.

Johanns was annoyed that the round of testing which confirmed “Mad Cow” had been ordered without him being consulted first.”I was asked by the Senate and the president to operate the department,” Johanns said. “I believe, in this area, very clearly, the secretary should be consulted, whoever the secretary is, before testing is undertaken. From my standpoint, I believe I was put there to operate the department and was very disappointed.”

A senior research associate with Consumers Union, Michael Hansen, said USDA officials “almost sound like some Keystone Kops.”

Johanns reassured Americans that they should not be afraid of eating beef, saying: “This animal was blocked from entering the food supply because of the firewalls we have in place. Americans have every reason to continue to be confident in the safety of our beef.”

On June 17, the Associated Press reported: “American cattle are eating chicken litter, cattle blood and restaurant leftovers that could help transmit mad cow disease — a gap in the U.S. defense that the Bush administration promised to close nearly 18 months ago.”

John Stauber, co-author of “Mad Cow USA: Could the Nightmare Happen Here?” said: “Once the cameras were turned off and the media coverage dissipated, then it’s been business as usual, no real reform, just keep feeding slaughterhouse waste. The entire U.S. policy is designed to protect the livestock industry’s access to slaughterhouse waste as cheap feed.”

Critics of the U.S. testing regimen said the fumbles this time increase their concerns about America’s screening process.

“How can we be sure they were really negative?” Craig Culp, a spokesman for the Center for Food Safety asked; “After all, (here is a cow that was) negative in November that is positive in June.”

The companies which render slaughter waste say new restrictions are not warranted. “We process about 50 billion pounds of product annually — in visual terms, that is a convoy of semi trucks, four lanes wide, running from New York to L.A. every year,” said Jim Hodges, president of the American Meat Institute Foundation.

Friday, April 27, 2012

The US state of Florida has repealed an order by the state’s governor to drug test all state employees and new hires to state agencies. The Miami federal court has said that the order is unconstitutional, violating the ban upon ‘unreasonable’ search and seizure.

Last year, Governor Rick Scott ordered 80,000 drug tests on state employees. He is a former health care executive and objects to the ruling against drug testing. “As I have repeatedly explained, I believe that drug testing state employees is a common sense means of ensuring a safe, efficient and productive workforce,” Scott said yesterday.

Howard Simon, executive director of the A.C.L.U. of Florida, said, “The governor can’t order the state to search people’s bodily fluids for no reason.”

Governor Scott is also dealing with a drug testing-related lawsuit for recipients of welfare.

Thursday, May 7, 2009

United States automobile company General Motors announced it has lost US$6 billion in the first quarter of 2009, amidst heavy declines in revenues. Not including special items, the firm said it had lost a net $5.9 billion dollars, or $9.66 per share.

In the first quarter of last year, GM had reported a loss of $381 million, or $0.67 per share. Most financial analysts had forecast the automaker’s losses to be over $6.7 billion, or $11.05 per share. GM had also reported that it had spent $10.2 billion in an effort to prevent bankruptcy. The manufacturer has received over $15 billion in bailout money from the federal government.

The company has a deadline set at June 1 to draw up a restructuring plan. If it doesn’t do so by then, it will be obliged to file for bankruptcy protection.

“We’re focusing very much on the cost side of the business but once you start losing revenues you get into a vicious circle from which you can’t recover,” said Ray Young, the chief financial officer for GM.

“We continue to see a 60-80 percent chance of a GM bankruptcy. While the GM equity today is largely uninvestable, we increasingly believe GM may emerge substantially stronger from a bankruptcy – provided the Chapter 11 process is not overly drawn out – particularly given the scope of targeted dealer cuts,” analyst Himanshu Patel said.

Tuesday, December 13, 2005

After two days, the 2005 Hertfordshire Oil Storage Terminal fire has finally been extinguished.

The fires began after a series of explosions early on the morning of 11 December 2005. The terminal, known locally as the Buncefield Depot, is an oil storage facility located near Hemel Hempstead in Hertfordshire in the United Kingdom. These were some of the largest explosions ever to occur in the country and the incident has been described as the biggest of its kind in peacetime Europe.

The Hertfordshire Fire Service chief Roy Wilsher said: “There are still some small bund (concrete container) fires, but the tanks are out.”

Fire crews would remain at the scene over the next few days cooling the area to ensure fires did not break out again, he said.

A few residents are being allowed to return to their homes within an exclusion zone set up around the site.

Tuesday, October 9, 2007

Stuart Ryan is running for the Communist Party in the Ontario provincial election in Ottawa Centre. Wikinews interviewed him regarding his values, his experience, and his campaign.

Wednesday, October 17, 2007

Methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), a drug-resistant strain of bacteria, killed nearly 19,000 Americans in 2005 alone, according to a new study in the Journal of the American Medical Association. That is more people than were killed by AIDS in the United States. More than 94,000 Americans were afflicted with MRSA infections in 2005.

Although the supergerm, or superbug, is primarily found in hospitals, a growing number of cases have been contracted at public gyms and schools. In Moneta, Virginia, a high school senior died from an infection that spread to his kidney, liver, lungs and heart. In Bedford County, where Moneta is located, school officials have reported five cases of the Methicillin-resistant strain of the Staph bacteria. County officials closed the schools to clean them.

“Certainly, MRSA now has to be viewed as a very important target for prevention and control,” said Dr. David A. Talan, an infectious diseases specialist at Olive View-UCLA Medical Center.