Author: Admin

Wednesday, July 10, 2019

Leaders of African Union (AU) member states met in Niamey, Niger’s capital, for an AU summit where on Sunday Presidents Muhammadu Buhari of Nigeria and Patrice Talon of Benin signed the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) agreement.

Nigeria previously announced it planned to join the AfCFTA in the week leading up to the summit. AU trade and industry commissioner Albert Muchanga announced Benin was to join. The commissioner said, “We haven’t yet agreed on rules of origin and tariff con[c]essions, but the framework we have is enough to start trading on July 1, 2020”.

Niger’s president Mahamadou Issoufou said, “Nigeria is Africa’s biggest economy and most populous country. Without Nigeria the free trade zone would’ve been handicapped.”

The agreement seeks to remove tariffs on 90 percent of commodities and better intregrate African economies.

At the opening of the AU summit, AU chairperson President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi of Egypt said, “The success of the AfCFTA will be the real test to achieve the economic growth that will turn our people’s dream of welfare and quality of life into a reality”.

With Sunday’s signings, all but one of the member states of the 55-member AU have signed on to the agreement, with Eritrea the only state unsigned. African leaders have negotiated the deal over the last four years. While 54 nations have signed onto the AfCFTA, only 27 have ratified the agreement.

While many transactions in Africa occur using U.S. dollars or euros, the AU announced an electronic pan-African payment system.African Export–Import Bank president Okey Oramah said the use of third-party currencies “costs Africa between $5 and $7 billion,” further saying, “Beyond that, it also reduces trade because Africa has a scarcity of foreign exchange.”

There are reportedly 1.3 billion people in the free trade area, with the combined economies of the countries worth US$3.4 trillion. One of the stated goals of AfCFTA is to encourage more intra-Africa trade. Currently about 16–17 percent of African trade occurs between African countries. This is in contrast to the European Union members, where intra-European trade accounts for over 60 percent of trade.

The International Monetary Fund said in May the AfCFTA might be for African countries comparable to the European and North American trade blocs as an “economic game changer”.

Seven members states had bid to host the AfCFTA secretariat, the operational organ of the free trade agreement, with Ghana winning the bid.

Wednesday, November 29, 2006

A number of properties in a Hare Krishna village in Kazakhstan were demolished on November 21, by the local authorities, causing international outrage by religious freedom groups and Hindu associations alike. Since the attack fears are now rising within the community of further demolition to the remaining properties, including the main temple structure.

“The community is in shock, but they are determined to defend their homes and place of worship,” community member Govinda Swami told Forum 18 News Service. He says destruction of the temple would be “devastating”.

The authorities in Kazaksthan claim that the Hare Krishna devotees had no official right to their homes. However human rights activists Ninel Fokina and Andrei Grishin, state in reply that while 13 out of the 66 Hare Krishna homes were destroyed on court orders, “the adjacent houses of other people who do not belong to the Society for Krishna Consciousness were left untouched even though their title deeds have the same status”.

The Hare village itself, known as ‘Sri Vrindavan Dham commune’ (named after Vrindavan forest in India is based in the Keskelen district, in the town of Seleksia, close to Almaty. It was the only village of it’s type run by Hare Krishna devotees in the country.

According to human rights activist Yevgeni Zhovtis: “Unfortunately Kazakh law does not prohibit evictions during the winter period and also does not oblige the court bailiffs to give those being evicted a few days notice,” “All the same, there were crude violations of the law. The court bailiffs had the right to evict the residents of the houses but not to demolish the buildings themselves. It was also a very crude violation to throw the belongings of the Krishna devotees into the mud. The court bailiffs were obliged to put the devotees’ belongings into store.”

Local journalist Grishin claims to have had his camera confiscated by the Police and to have been threatened “If I see you here again, I will personally smash your eyes, even though I am the hakim.”

Protests are being made by Hindu groups and members of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness around the world in an attempt to halt any further demolition or other forms of alleged religious persecution. Groups within the UK have brought the issue to the attention of both Tony Blair, and the House of Commons.

One of the Indian political parties, Bharatiya Janata Party criticised the central government for keeping silence over the issue. The party is expected to follow the saffron brotherhood agenda in the second term of Rajnath Singh.

Thursday, December 10, 2009

American and European scientists say the upgraded Hubble space telescope has spotted the oldest galaxies ever seen. The images were taken with the telescope’s new Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) in August this year.

The galaxies are about 13 billion light years from Earth, meaning they formed less than one billion years after the Big Bang — the cosmological model of the initial conditions and subsequent development of the universe.

WFC3 was installed in May this year, during a mission by the space shuttle Atlantis to repair and upgrade Hubble. Experts say the new instrument will let them peer even further back in time, to when the universe was in its infancy. The more distant a galaxy is, the more its light is “redshifted” due to expansion of the universe. Light from the furthest galaxies is shifted to infrared wavelengths invisible to the human eye, but WFC3 can detect these.

The new image was taken in August, in the same region as a 2004 visible light image known as the Hubble Ultra Deep Field. The 2004 photo previously showed the most distant galaxies, but the new infrared pictures from the WFC3 allow even more remote galaxies to be seen.

Capturing the image took four days, and the total exposure lasted 173,000 seconds. In the three months since, twelve scientific papers have been submitted on it. On Tuesday one of these confirmed the galaxies as the furthest ever seen.

They are also the oldest, with the light from them having taken around 13 billion years to reach Earth.

“At these distances, you’re really looking back in time, like you have a time machine,” said Ray Villard, of the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore. “Those things don’t exist anymore.”

The photo could be one of the ultimate achievements of the Hubble telescope, now almost twenty years old.

“These new observations are likely to be the most sensitive images Hubble will ever take,” said Professor Jim Dunlop of the University of Edinburgh.

The servicing mission in May extended the telescope’s life by around five years, but it is scheduled to be replaced by the James Webb Space Telescope in 2014. This will use infrared imaging and have a greater collecting area than Hubble, and it is thought that it may be able make out objects from just 100 million years after the Big Bang.

“We’ve really pushed Hubble to its limits,” said Villard, “and we need a bigger space telescope to go back even farther. It shows us there are really exciting things to look for with the Webb telescope.”

Friday, March 10, 2006

Buffalo, New York —The Common Council of Buffalo voted on Tuesday to send the Elmwood Village Hotel proposal “to committee for further discussion”, after citing the need for more public involvement.

The Elmwood Village Hotel is a development proposal by the Savarino Construction Services Corporation, a project designed by the architect Karl Frizlen of The Frizlen Group. The hotel would be placed on the southeast corner of Elmwood and Forest Avenues in Buffalo.

To make way for the project, at least five buildings located at 1109 to 1121 Elmwood Ave would be demolished. At least two properties on Forest Avenue could also be demolished. The Elmwood properties, according to Eva Hassett, Vice President of Savarion Construction, are “under contract”, but it is unclear if Savarino Construction actually owns the Elmwood properties. Hans Mobius, a former mayorial candidate, is still believed to be the current owner the properties. Mobius also owns 607 Forest Avenue.

The properties 605 and 607 Forest Avenue could also be included in the proposal according to Hassett.

“We would use a Special Development Plan to rezone 1119-1121 Elmwood and 605 Forest to a C-2 zoning category,” stated Hassett. It is possible that Savarino Construction may try to obtain a variance for 605 Forest, which would allow them to enforce eminent domain, should the hotel be allowed to go forward.

The building at 607 Forest was also discussed to be rezoned, but it is unclear what the plans would be for that property. During the February 28 Common Council meeting, Hassett stated that the properties 605 and 607 were “now off the agenda”.

Pano Georgiadis, owner of Pano’s Restaurant at 1081 Elmwood, owns the property at 605 Forest and attended Tuesday’s Common Council meeting.

“Having a hotel is a bright idea. We all love the idea of a hotel, but the way that it is presented, is wishful thinking. This hotel does not fit. It’s like putting two gallons of water in a gallon jug, it does not fit. At the last meeting, the architect admitted that they are planning to put the undergound parking lot and the hotel, right at the property line. If I open my window, I will be able to touch the wall, that goes fifty feet high”, said Georgiadis.

“There is a problem having a seventy-two room hotel and fifty-five parking spaces. That means that all the other cars will spill all over the neighborhood. The footprint is simply too small. If you have a bigger [parking] lot, and a smaller hotel, I will welcome a hotel. I have a parking lot at my own business, and I am chasing people all day long. Remember, the city says it has ‘zero tolerance [for illegal parking]’. Try telling that to the guy from Albany who came to see his kids, that are going to Buffalo State, who would get tickets totaling over a hundred dollars”, added Georgiadis.

The city’s Planning Board is scheduled to meet on March 14, 2006 at 9:00 a.m. about the proposal. Although a discussion will take place, no vote is expected to be taken.

At the moment, none of the properties are zoned for a hotel. Savarino Construction plans on asking for a C2 zoning permit. If that does not work, they plan to implement a new zoning plan called a “special development plan” which would allow for only a hotel on the site. That zone would not be able to be changed.

“This [project] justifies Mobius’s refusal to invest in any maitenance^[sic] or improvements”, on the properties said Clarence Carnahan, a local resident. “Where were the Council persons over the years? Where were the city inspectors over the years, to make sure that he maintained and improved his properties? The government was supposed to be protecting, not being preditorial. I see a predatorial issue here when it comes to this hotel. Over the years: Why has the local government been disfunctional when it came to Mobius’s properties? Refusal to invest in improvements, doesn’t that sound like a slumlord? Maybe I am missing a point here, but what kind of messages does this send to other slumlords that havn’t^[sic] been jailed or fined? It’s [the hotel] trying to be pushed through.”

Carnahan also presented signs for residents and or business owners who are opposed to the hotel, that could be placed in windows or on stakes in the yard. Some of the signs said, ‘No tell hotel’, ‘Hans off, no hotel’, ‘It takes more than a hotel to make a village’. and ‘Keep Elmwood free, no hotel’. Carnahan plans on making more signs for a protest to be held on Saturday March 18, at 2:00 p.m. (EST) on Elmwood and Forest. Some signs were given to individuals after the meeting.

“First things first, Hans is the problem, and I don’t think it has been addressed. Let’s roll back the clock on this project. What can we do with Hans? There is such thing as eminent domain, which could be of greater interest to the community, to seize the property at its lowest assessed value”, said Nancy Pollina, co-owner of Don Apparel with Patty Morris at 1119 Elmwood. “There are so many ideas that have not been explored and we are about to give this parcel away, to a big developer.”

Mobius has not returned any calls by Wikinews regarding the situation.

A freelance journalist writing for Wikinews has obtained a letter, exclusively, addressed to one of the five business owners from Hans Mobius stating:

There is a proposal to develop my property which you are currently renting. Because of opposition to this development, it does not look like it will happen. I will let you know if there any changes.

Despite the letter, there have been no plans or decisions made to end the proposal.

To date, none of the business owners or residents of 1119-1121 Elmwood have received an eviction notice.

Business owners and residents gave an indication of what they would like to see happen at the corner; a project similar to one done locally last year. There, developers renovated two buildings on Auburn and Elmwood Avenues, merging the buildings into one thus allowing for more shop space. Among some of the shops to move in after the development were Cone Five Pottery, The Ruby Slipper, and Abraham’s Jewelers. Prior to the renovation work, the left building in the picture was boarded up for several years. Many of the concerned locals would like to see a similar development on Forest and Elmwood.

Rocco Termini, a developer in Buffalo, proposed a similar design at the February 28 community meeting

In an interview after the February 28 meeting, Termini stated, “I will be willing to take a look at this myself, or I would be more than happy to be partners with Sam, Sam Savarino”, who is President and Chief Executive Officer of Savarino Construction Services Corp.

So far Savarino Construction has no plans to team up with Termini.

Sunday, December 13, 2015

Macomb, New York Councilman Steve Burke took some time to speak with Wikinews about his campaign for the U.S. Democratic Party’s 2016 presidential nomination.

Burke, an insurance adjuster and farmer, was elected councilman in Brookhaven, New York in 1979. He left the town after being accused and found not guilty of bribery in the 1980s. Since 1987 he has served as Macomb councilman off-and-on and currently holds the post. From 1993 to 1996 and 1999 to 2002 he worked as chairman of the Democratic Party of St. Lawrence County, New York. Among his many political campaigns, Burke unsuccessfully sought the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination in 1992 and recently attempted to run for U.S. Congress in 2014 but too many of his ballot petition signatures were found invalid. Burke filed with the Federal Election Commission to run for president in the 2016 election on September 18, 2015 and has qualified for the first-in-the-nation New Hampshire Primary.

With Wikinews reporter William S. Saturn?, Burke discusses his political background, his 2016 presidential campaign, and his policy proposals.

Thursday, March 8, 2007

Results are coming in for the Northern Ireland Assembly election held on Wednesday 7 March. With all first preference votes counted, both the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) and Sinn Féin have made gains: the DUP received 30.1% of first preferences, an increase of 4.4 percentage points on the 2003 election, while Sinn Féin won 26.2%, up 2.6 percentage points. This means that the two parties have gained more than half of the vote. The Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) came third with 15.2%, the Ulster Unionist Party fourth with 14.9% and the Alliance Party fifth with 5.2%.

The election is a crucial step in restoring devolved government to Northern Ireland, which has been under direct rule from Westminster since October 2002, when the Assembly was suspended after allegations that an IRA spy ring was operating there. The resulting court case collapsed. Attempts to get the leading unionist and nationalist parties to resume power-sharing had failed until the St Andrews Agreement was reached in October 2006. This agreement commits Sinn Féin to accepting the Police Service of Northern Ireland and the DUP to accepting power-sharing.

All 108 seats have now been filled. The DUP are the largest party with 36 seats, followed by Sinn Féin with 28 seats. Their combined total of 64 seats gives the two parties a majority of ten in the Assembly, assuming that they are willing to work together. Among others, DUP leader Ian Paisley has been elected in North Antrim, as has Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams in West Belfast. DUP deputy leader Peter Robinson topped the poll in East Belfast, where Naomi Long of the Alliance Party was also elected. The leaders of the other two main parties were also elected: Mark Durkan of the SDLP was elected on the first count in Foyle, while Ulster Unionist leader Sir Reg Empey was elected on the third count in East Belfast. Alliance Party leader David Ford was elected in his constituency of South Antrim on the fifth count. Dawn Purvis, leader of the Progressive Unionist Party (PUP), was elected on the last count in East Belfast. The Green Party won their first ever seat in the Northern Ireland Assembly, when their Northern Ireland chairperson Brian Wilson was elected on the tenth count in North Down with 2839 first preference votes.

Anna Lo of the Alliance Party has become the first candidate from an ethnic minority background to have been elected to the Northern Ireland Assembly, winning a seat in South Belfast with the fourth highest first preference vote in the constituency, 3829 votes. She said her decision to stand had been an extension of her community work, and that she wanted to give a voice to Chinese people who never felt they had any part to play in Northern Ireland politics. She also said she hoped that indigenous voters who were fed up with “tribal politics” would give her their support, and that she was determined “to be much more than a candidate for ethnic minorities”.

Counting the votes cast in the 600 polling stations continued through to Friday 9 March. Turnout was 63.5%, down 0.5 percentage points on the previous election. Assembly elections use the Single Transferable Vote (STV) method of proportional representation, with each constituency returning six MLAs.

A new power-sharing Northern Ireland Executive is to be formed by 26 March, according to the St Andrews Agreement. The election of a First Minister and Deputy First Minister requires the support of a majority of unionist MLAs and of nationalist MLAs (“parallel consent”). In practice this means that the largest unionist party and the largest nationalist party must agree to share power. If they cannot agree by the deadline the Northern Ireland Assembly at Stormont will be suspended again and MLAs will have their salaries and allowances stopped. Though there has been criticism of the deal reached at St Andrews by elements within both the DUP and Sinn Féin, the government in Westminster believes that these dissenters are in a minority.

Northern Ireland Secretary Peter Hain said to CNN: “I’m optimistic that we can achieve a working government on March 26, but it’s a very stark choice for them — get into power, or shut up shop”. But he also warned that “if this falls over on March 26, there is no prospect of another settlement for a very long time, maybe years”. On Friday 9 March Mr Hain began separate meetings with the leaders and deputy leaders of the DUP and Sinn Féin.

Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams said he had “no problem” with working with the Unionists and shaking the hand of Ian Paisley: “I think it is very, very important in terms of representing a community that for a long time was marginalized and excluded. We’re about reaching out to the Unionists”.

But Ian Paisley claimed that Sinn Féin’s decision to support the police had been “qualified”, and said, “you can’t pick and choose how far you are prepared to go for peace.” He also said that Sinn Féin had to “turn from their evil ways”. To the BBC he said: “We will enter into talks tomorrow with the Secretary of State, we will be meeting the Prime Minister next week, and the hard negotiations are now going to start. Sinn Féin are not entitled to be at the table until they declare themselves for democracy. I am a democrat, I don’t speak to loyalist paramilitaries, I don’t speak to Sinn Féin”.

On Friday 9 March British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Irish Taoiseach Bertie Ahern made a joint statement. They said, “The message of the electorate is clear. After so many years of frustration and disappointment, they want Northern Ireland to move on to build a better future together through the restored institutions. Many of the practical issues which have been raised in this election campaign can and should be resolved locally.” They said that they would work closely with the Northern Irish parties to restore devolved government by the deadline of 26 March and praised the progress already made in this direction. “The people of Northern Ireland have suffered grievous pain and loss. But enormous progress has been made and there is now no good reason why we should not be able to complete this historic process. All must now take responsibility in government for building and consolidating peace, this is what the people of Northern Ireland want. They deserve no less.”

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Thursday, July 1, 2010

The US House of Representatives passed a significant overhaul of financial regulations that strengthens the government’s hold on banks and also creates a new federal agency to oversee consumer lending on Wednesday.

“Never again, never again should Wall Street greed bring such suffering to our country,” said House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-MD after the bill was passed by the House.

The House vote, which was mainly split over party lines, had 237 representatives in favor and 192 opposed. Only three Republicans voted for the bill, though this was an increase from December, when no Republicans voted for the previous version of the bill. This new bill combines the old December bill with a newer one passed by the more conservative Senate last month.

But even though the Senate passed their bill already, support for the one passed Wednesday looks a little uncertain. Since earlier this year the Democrats lost their 60 vote filibuster majority, they had to secure the votes of a few more moderate Republican senators to beat back procedural hurdles. Democrats struggled to win the full support of these senators even after backing down on a US$19 billion tax on big banks and hedge funds, which had been opposed by Republicans. This group of senators includes Scott Brown, Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins. All three voted for the Senate bill last month.

The $19 billion tax was inserted in the 2000 page plus bill late last week, which came as a surprise to many large banks. Brown initially objected to the tax, and threatened to vote against the entire bill if the tax was not removed. Instead, the new way of financing the bill’s cost will be using $11 billion in cash that came from ending the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), a bill passed in 2008 that bailed out struggling banks, and also by increasing rates that banks pay to insure bank deposits to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. However, the increase in rates won’t affect banks with assets of less then $10 billion.

On Wednesday, Collins wrote a statement saying that she now planned to vote for the bill. However, Brown remained on the fence and said he would use recess during the week of July 4th to examine the details of the bill. He credited Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd for “thinking outside the box” in coming with a new way to fund the bill.

Other Republicans were much more opposed to the bill, and attacked it for failing to place tighter restrictions on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the mortgage giants that helped trigger the economic and housing meltdowns. House Republican leader John Boehner compared the new bill to using a nuclear weapon on an ant. In response, President Barack Obama said in a speech in Racine, Wisconsin that “[i]f the Republican leader is that out of touch with the struggles facing the American people, he should come here to Racine and ask people if they think the financial crisis was an ant.”