Outbreak of swine flu in Mexico kills at least twenty, infects 1,000

Friday, April 24, 2009

According to Mexican health officials, an epidemic of swine flu has killed at least 68 people and infected a further one thousand inside the country.

Mexican health minister José Ángel Córdova said that the casualty rate appeared to be slowing down, and that there would be no plans to block off Mexican borders. “We’re dealing with a new flu virus that constitutes a respiratory epidemic that so far is controllable,” Córdova stated. He said that the disease had mutated from pigs and was transferred to humans at some point.

Museums and schools for seven million students near Mexico’s capital were closed down in an effort to curb the epidemic, and the government has encouraged people with symptoms of the disease to take leave from work.

The outbreak has spread north to the United States, and US health authorities have reported that eight people were diagnosed with swine flu in Texas and California. However, these people have recovered.

“We are worried. We don’t know if this will lead to the next pandemic, but we will be monitoring it and taking it seriously,” said Dr. Richard Besser, the acting head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Dr. Besser suggested “containment is not very likely” in a telephone briefing on Friday.

Tests conducted by the World Health Organisation (WHO) found that the virus from a dozen patients was genetically similar to a new outbreak of swine flu, designated as H1N1.

Thursday, July 30, 2009

Eleven of the 25 workers at the Vestas factory in Newport, Isle of Wight, England who have been carrying out a sit-in since Monday July 20 have been sacked with immediate effect.

According to one of the protesters known as “Mike”, the occupiers were given their dismissal notices concealed under slices of their evening meal of pizza. The company said that the protesters have had ample opportunity to air their point of view, and had no choice but to sack eleven of the twenty five workers that they had positively identified; and that given that the fact that the action constituted a “fundamental breach” of trust, that the eleven would not be entitled to redundancy packages. A press release from the company said that Vestas “saw no other choice than to dismiss the 11 employees, who the company has positively identified as the employees currently participating in the occupation of the factory.”

The protesters remained upbeat, vowing to continue their occupation and have called upon the UK government to save the 625 jobs and to nationalise the Danish owned factory. Occupier Ian Terry told the BBC that if the occupiers are forced out, they plan to leave the building “peacefully”.

Vestas management were dealt a setback today in ending the occupation as Newport County Court ruled that the papers accusing the occupiers of aggravate trespass and requiring they surrender the office they occupy by July 29 were improperly served. The case has been adjourned until Tuesday August 4. In court, Judge Graham White said he was “distinctly uncomfortable” with what he perceived as Vestas’ effort to “get around the rules” in retaking the factory from the occupiers.

Legal representation for the Vestas workers had been offered by Bob Crow, secretary of the RMT trade union. Crow has pledged the “full solidarity” of the RMT and seven other unions with the workers occupying the plant.

Vestas management has also been providing the occupiers with hot meals in an apparent response to Crow’s announcement, made on July 24, that the RMT was planning on airlifting food into the factory by helicopter. Crow is meeting today with Ed Miliband, the Environment Minister.

Earlier in the week, Miliband pledged £6 million in funding to an expansion of Vestas’ Isle of Wight research and development centre, which currently employs 110 workers and could, said the Minister, be expanded to employ 40 more.

Rallies continued throughout the week in support of the Vestas occupiers. Since the occupation began, the Vestas workers have received declarations of support and solidarity from a wide swathe of the British left, including but not limited to: political parties Green Party, Respect, the Socialist Party, the Socialist Workers Party, the Alliance for Workers Liberty, and the Communist Party of Britain; the TUCG group, which brings together the BFAWU, FBU, NAPO, NUJ, PCS, POA, RMT, and URTU; and environmental groups Greenpeace, the Campaign against Climate Change, Climate Camp, and Workers’ Climate Action, who claims credit for initiating the campaign to occupy the factory. Attendees of the Big Green Gathering, a large annual environmentalist rally which was due to take place starting today but was suddenly canceled on Sunday, are being encouraged to go to the Isle of Wight and take part in support rallies for Vestas instead.

Speaking to Wikinews about the “red–green” coalition supporting the occupation, a spokesman for the Alliance for Workers’ Liberty said: “We think this struggle is important on at least three grounds — it is central to the struggle for jobs, it is central to the struggle for the environment, and it is central to the struggle for rebuilding the labour movement.”

Photographs shared with Wikinews by the occupiers show the occupiers, mostly young men, talking, carrying out everyday tasks, and keeping in touch with the outside world via mobile phones. The use of mobile telephones in the Vestas occupation has given the press remarkable access to the occupiers and provided an effective platform for relaying their demands and feelings to the media. In contrast, Vestas’s designated media contact for the United Kingdom is on vacation. Attempts to reach Vestas Newport factory manager Patrick Weir, whom a Vestas representative at the company’s Danish headquarters stated was handling press inquiries regarding the occupation, received no reply.

Vestas plans to close the factory on July 31, citing the difficulties of obtaining planning permission for wind farms in the United Kingdom. All blades manufactured at Vestas’ Newport plant are sent to the United States. 1900 employees of the company in Northern Europe face job losses, 625 of them in Vestas’s plants in the south of England.

Sunday, June 20, 2010

Nicolas Sarkozy visited the UK today to celebrate the 70th anniversary since Charles de Gaulle made his war broadcast. The French president and the Prince of Wales laid wreaths at the statue of Charles de Gaulle in London.

Earlier, Mr Sarkozy and his wife Carla Bruni visited the BBC radio studio where the famous broadcast was made on BBC France. The broadcast at the time was said to have been listened to by a very small number of listeners. Carla Bruni and Nicolas Sarkozy unveiled a plaque and viewed a tapestry given to the BBC by France as a note of gratitude after World War II.

Nicolas Sarkozy and British PM David Cameron met with 200 veterans during a ceremony at the Royal Hospital Chelsea. Nicolas Sarkozy awarded the Légion d’honneur to six World War II veterans, three of whom were British.

In a short speech, Mr Cameron said the anniversary was a “reminder that Britain and France are not just neighbours in the geographical sense but also in the emotional sense.” Mr Cameron held an hour of talks with the French president at Downing Street primarily focusing on economics, Afghanistan, and other foreign policy matters. The visit is the first by a French president to mark Gen de Gaulle’s broadcast on June 18, 1940. In the stirring radio appeal, Gen de Gaulle declared himself leader of the “Free French”, spawning the French Resistance, which went on to play a crucial role in defeating the Germans.

Mr Sarkozy’s last official visit to the UK was in March 2008, when he was also accompanied by his wife.

Friday, May 1, 2009

The American auto company Chrysler filed for bankruptcy Thursday, however a deal with European auto maker Fiat went through. The emerging Chrysler will be owned 55 percent by the United Auto Workers, eight percent by the United States Government, two percent by the Canadian Government and Fiat would begin with a 20 percent share.

Chrysler Chief Executive Robert Nardelli will step down when the bankruptcy proceedings are finalized.

Initially, the Italian company, Fiat, will appoint three members on the emerging Chrysler’s new board, and the United States government will appoint six. Fiat can assume the majority of the ownership upon repayment of American loans.

Chrysler administrators expect that the bankruptcy should take a couple of months.

“We expect this to be a very short, 30-to-60-day bankruptcy process, during which the company will function normally,” a top administration official said, “People will be able to buy cars, they will have their warranties honored, and everything should go on normally.”

The bankruptcy filing indicated that Chrysler was in debt to 20 creditors to a tune of more than $10 million each.

Meanwhile, the deal with Fiat did go through, and Chrysler should have cars designed by Fiat out on the market by 2011.

“It’s a partnership that will give Chrysler a chance not only to survive, but to thrive in a global auto industry,” said American president Obama, “Fiat has demonstrated that it can build the clean, fuel-efficient cars that are the future of the industry.”

However, automotive analyst Erich Merkle has hesitations.

“History would show that alliances really don’t work that well,” Merkle said, “even though, no matter how good they may look on paper.”

The restructuring has been managed by Steve Rattner, a former investment banker, and the U.S. Government auto task force.

Obama has set three ultimatums before Fiat. Fiat should produce a 40 mile per gallon vehicle while managing the new Chrysler, transfer fuel efficient Fiat technology to Chrysler factories in the United States, and produce cars in Chrysler factories and distribute them in Europe.

A compilation of brief news reports for Thursday, November 13, 2008.

A new study has found that people storing extra fat around their waist have a strongly increased chance of early death, even if their overall weight is average. The study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine today, found that for each addition 5 cm on the waist, the chance of early death is increased by between 13% and 17%.

In the study, 360,000 people from across nine countries in Europe were surveyed.

One of the study’s authors, Professor Elio Riboli of Imperial College London, commented on the findings. “We were surprised to see the waist size having such a powerful effect on people’s health and premature death,” he stated.

Sources

• “‘Love handles’ raise death risk” — BBC News Online, November 13, 2008
• Ian Sample. “Waist, not just weight, shows risk of premature death, study says” — The Guardian, November 13, 2008
• Tobias Pischon et al. “Abstract: General and Abdominal Adiposity and Risk of Death in Europe” — New England Journal of Medicine, November 13, 2008

The European Commission, the executive branch of the European Union, has today lifted its ban on unusually shaped fruits and vegetables, in what the EU’s agriculture commissioner has called “a new dawn for the curvy cucumber and the knobbly carrot”.

The regulation has previously been criticized as an example of the EU’s bureaucracy by critics of the organisation.

The products affected by the deregulation are apricots, artichokes, asparagus, aubergines, avocadoes, beans, Brussels sprouts, carrots, cauliflowers, cherries, courgettes, cucumbers, cultivated mushrooms, garlic, hazelnuts in shell, headed cabbage, leeks, melons, onions, peas, plums, ribbed celery, spinach, walnuts in shell, water melons and witloof/chicory.

Sources

• “EU slices up ‘ugly fruit’ rules” — BBC News Online, November 13, 2008
• “Europe Relaxes Rules on Sale of Ugly Fruits and Vegetables” — New York Times, November 13, 2008

A vase purchased at a car boot sale for £1 has sold for £32,450, following advice from experts on the BBC‘s Antiques Roadshow television program. The vase was sold in an auction at Christie’s.

The vase was found to be a 1929 work made by the French designer Rene Lalique.

Sources

• “Car boot sale vase nets £32,450” — BBC News Online, November 13, 2008
• “£32,449 profit for car boot sale vase by Lalique” — Times Online, November 13, 2008

Recent anonymous press briefings by US State Department officials indicated that its arms control division may punish Blackwater Worldwide for improper paperwork.

The Directorate of Defense Trade Controls has the power to fine or agree voluntary penalties with exporters of certain weapons, who do not follow correct procedures. Blackwater Worldwide, a private military company, exported automatic weapons to Iraq that became the subject of a federal investigation first disclosed in 2007.Concern was expressed by the unnamed officials that paperwork errors may make the weapons untraceable, and that some reached Iraq’s black market.

Sources

• “Blackwater Faces Millions in Fines for Weapons Shipments (radio show transcript)” — Democracy Now!, November 13, 2008
• Knight Ridder / McClatchy Newspapers. “Blackwater faces Fines over Arms Deal” — Military.com, November 13, 2008
• Dan Friedman, Congress Daily. “Blackwater could face sanctions for improper arms shipments” — Government Executive, November 7, 2008

Thursday, August 27, 2015

Austrian police today found an estimated 20–50 decomposing corpses in an apparently abandoned lorry.

Roadworkers who spotted the vehicle, which had been there since yesterday at least, alerted police. Responding officers found it full of corpses. The lorry is on the so-called “Eastern Motorway”, the A4, close to the Hungarian border. It was on the hard shoulder between Neusiedl and Parndorf, closer to Parndorf.

The victims are thought to have suffocated. Police are seeking the driver. The Krone published an image of a non-articulated food lorry on the hard shoulder, which they report is the vehicle in question. The photo shows a pool of dark liquid on the ground beside the vehicle.

Video from a passing motorist shows at least one helicopter on-scene. The truck, which has pictures of meat on the side, shows branding for Slovakian food firm Hyza. Earlier today the company’s website sported an apparent anti-immigration graphic, which has since been removed.

Wikinews got in touch with Hyza. “We are truly sorry about [the] tragedy” they told us in a statement. They said they have checked GPS trackers on their fleet and all their vehicles remain in Slovakia. The statement says the lorry in question was one of 21 Hyza vehicles sold on last year. It was then sold again and exported to Hungary, where it is now registered. Hyza told us the new owners have not changed the branding on the vehicle. According to the Bild newspaper, Agrofert — the parent company of Hyza — said in a statement the new owners were required to do so.

Hyza says they will “actively cooperate with Slovak police”, and “express [their] sincere condolences to the bereaved families.”

Interior Minister Johanna Mikl-Leitner called it “a dark day” and called for European Union-wide measures to protect immigrant refugees and tackle human traffickers. Neighbouring Hungary is constructing a border fence across its entire frontier with Serbia. Yesterday alone saw a record 3,241 attempts to enter Hungary illegally, according to authorities there.

Conflict in Syria and other parts of the world has led refugees to Europe. Once inside, they can move freely inside the Schengen Area, which covers most of the EU.

Austrian police earlier this week arrested three motorists suspected of people smuggling. One driver is accused of moving 34 people, ten of them children, into Austria from Serbia. The group were left by the roadside near Bruck an der Leitha and reported struggling to breathe in the van.

Friday, April 23, 2021

On Tuesday, Finance Minister of Ireland Paschal Donohoe criticised talks co-ordinated by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) for a global minimum corporate tax rate, arguing smaller countries like Ireland “need to be able to use tax policy as a legitimate lever to compensate for the real, material and persistent advantage enjoyed by larger countries”.

Speaking to virtual attendees at a virtual seminar about international tax, Donohoe said any deal must “accommodate Ireland’s 12.5% rate”. This 12.5% rate benefits large corporations including Apple, Google and Facebook which account for one in eight jobs in the country. According to CNBC, corporate tax receipts in Ireland totalled €11.8 billion in 2020, and the Department of Finance has projected, according to The Irish Times that figure increase from €11.6 billion in 2021 to €12.5 billion by 2025.

Donohoe also said Ireland’s low taxes serve as an incentive to attract jobs and investment, saying while he supported an agreement with “appropriate and acceptable tax competition”, it must be lower than the 21% proposed by the United States.

Donohoe said nations should recognise the low tax rates present in Ireland and other small countries, citing “advantages of scale, location, resources, industrial heritage” present in larger ones. Defending his own long-established rate, Donohoe said a 12.5% rate is “within the ambit of healthy tax competition” as a rate which “stimulate[s] investment, growth and innovation, which are core to Ireland’s industrial policy”. According to The Guardian, current proposals would shrink Ireland’s corporate tax base by 20%; and tax receipts to be €2 billon lower than it would otherwise be in 2025, per Irish Department of Finance.

Brian Keegan, the director of public policy at Chartered Accountants Ireland said it was “not tax change, it’s political change”. Head of tax for the OECD Pascal Saint-Amans said “there is a new dynamic that is likely to bring us to a resolution”, and the US’ willingness to address expressed concerns simplifies an admittedly-complex blueprint.

A spokesperson for the Irish Department of Finance told CNBC on Monday “political level discussions on these issues have not yet taken place”.

The Guardian reported many companies in Ireland pay less on revenues as compared to other countries; with Apple paying as little as 0.005% in 2014. A European Commission ruling in 2016 ordered Apple to pay €13 billion it owed back taxes to the Government of Ireland ; it was struck down in July on the grounds “[t]he commission did not succeed in showing to the requisite legal standard that there was an advantage.”

Saturday, May 26, 2007

The mainstream press has recently uncovered the story of a wild pig, nicknamed ‘Monster Pig‘ killed on May 3, 2007, by an eleven year-old boy, Jamison Stone. The location is disclosed as a 2,500-acre commercial hunting preserve called Lost Creek Plantation, outside Anniston, Alabama.

The wild hog weighed 1,051 lbs. and was 9 ft. 4 in. from the tip of its snout to the end of its tail. The hog’s head was mounted on an extra-large foam form and measured 54 inches around the head, 74 inches around the shoulders and 11 inches from the eyes to the end of its snout. The balance of the hog is being turned into approximately 500 to 700 lbs of sausage. Jerry Cunningham, an Oxford taxidermist, said it was, “[the] Biggest thing I’d ever seen”. Wildlife specialist Dr. Jim Armstrong commented on the size said, “You might get a boar that weighs 300 or so, [Monster Pig] that’s a big pig”.

Stone said he shot the pig eight times using a Smith & Wesson Model 500 with a holographic scope and ported barrel firing 350-grain Hornady cartridges. Stone had to chase the hog for three hours through hilly woods before finishing it off with a point-blank shot.

The web host godaddy.com for the official web site monsterpig.com advised Stone that the number of hits totaled 1,246,464 as of Monday, May 21st.

Two previous record holders are Hogzilla a wild hog that was shot and killed in Alapaha, Georgia, on June 17, 2004, by Chris Griffin on Ken Holyoak’s farm and hunting reserve. It was alleged to be 12 feet (3.6 meters) long and to weigh 1,000 pounds (450 kg). Its weight was later determined to be closer to 800 lbs. A second involved local news media that reported on January 5, 2007, an 1,100 pound (500 kg) hog was shot in Fayetteville, Georgia. The shooter was William Corsey, who hung the specimen from a tree in his yard. A spokesperson from the Georgia Department of Natural Resources said that large boars and feral hogs were common in South Georgia, but that no records are kept on them. The media latched on to the notion that this animal rivals the size of Hogzilla.