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Tuesday, April 3, 2018

Effective Tuesday, Siberian Governor Aman Tuleyev resigned his office of 20 years after Kemerovo’s Winter Cherry Mall caught fire killing 64 individuals on March 25, 2018. The newly reelected Russian President Vladimir Putin accepted Tuleyev’s resignation Sunday in Moscow approximately 1,600 miles from Kemerovo.

The investigation is lead by the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation which arrested seven individuals in connection with the fire including the woman responsible for the building inspections. Of the 64 dead were 41 children trapped in a movie theater with the exit doors locked. An additional 79 individuals were injured escaping the fast moving blaze. In compensation for their loss, families of the deceased received one-million rubles ($17,500 USD) issued by Tuleyev before his resignation.

According to Russian state run television (TASS), the security firm ‘Protection Center’ exceeded their legal abilities by undertaking fire control. The cause is still unknown with investigators looking at faulty wiring, children playing with lighters, and arson. Winter Cherry Mall is 248,000 sq ft (23,000 sq m) with a theater, trampoline area, bowling alley, and a 200 animal petting zoo all of which died in the fire.

Since the fire, demonstrations have occurred throughout Kemerovo with a population of approximately a half million citing widespread corruption on the local and national levels. Kemerovo is a coal city and acts as the administrative center for the Kemerovo Oblast. TASS has been suppressing political corruption and the demonstrations replacing them with stories about the heroics. Stories include the firefighters battling the blaze, cadet Dmitry Polukhin saving three children, and a local high school teacher Tatyana Darsaliya saving her daughters before re-entering to save more losing her life in the process.

The corruption allegations centered around the seven individuals arrested and the Russian Ministry of Emergency Situations. TASS nor international media reported Tuleyev was a focus of corruption demonstrations.

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Tuesday, March 29, 2005

Shortages of beef in Japan prompted consumers to submit a petition with about 1.19 million signatures to Japan’s Agriculture Minister Yoshinobu Shimamura on Tuesday. The petition was presented by a group led by Takashi Sakamoto, president of a chain of used book outlets.

Japan has banned imports of U.S. beef for 15 months, citing concerns about mad cow disease after authorities discovered a cow with the disease in the United States.

Japanese health and agriculture ministers said they would ask their country’s food safety commission to approve lifting the ban.

“We will ask the commission to decide if resuming U.S. beef imports is safe based on safety measures taken in the U.S.,” said health minister Makoto Kanie.

Analyst Kazuhiko Saito says this may cause a delay “until later this year”, telling Bloomberg, “The Commission has been very slow on reviewing domestic mad cow tests and will also be slow to review the U.S. beef import plans.”

U.S. lawmakers and diplomats have pressed Japan to re-open their market, and some Washington lawmakers have even threatened Japan with sanctions should beef imports not resume soon. US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice brought up the matter earlier this month during her visit to Japan.

So far, the Japan Food Safety Commission has only taken the step of loosening inspection rules, such that mad cow testing is not required for all imported live cattle.

Japan has dealt with 14 cases of mad cow disease of their own.

Thursday, September 7, 2006

British Prime Minister Tony Blair bowed to pressure from within his own Labour Party today by publicly confirming he will resign within a year. “I would have preferred to do this in my own way,” said Blair who added “the next party conference in the next couple of weeks will be my last party conference as party leader.” However, he refused to name the specific date of his resignation, “The precise timetable has to be left to me and has to be done in the proper way,” Blair insisted. “I’m not going to set a precise date now. I don’t think that’s right. I will do that at a future date, and I will do that in the interests of the country.”

He apologised for the party’s conduct this week saying it “has not been our finest hour, to be frank”.

Demands that Blair announce his resignation plans have mounted over the past few months particularly over concerns about the Prime Minister’s strong support for Israel during the Israel-Hezbollah war, the perception that he is a loyal follower of United States President George W. Bush and a precipitous slide in Labor’s support in public opinion polls where the party is now at a 16 year low.

Yesterday, eight Labour MPs resigned from their junior government positions over Blair’s refusal to announce his retirement. They had previously been considered staunch Blairites. The British press reports of a shouting match yesterday between Blair and his likeliest successor, Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown over the handover date.

“I want to make it absolutely clear today that when I met the prime minister yesterday, I said to him, as I have said on many occasions to him and I repeat today, that it is for him to make the decision,” Brown said.

“I said also to him, and I make clear again today, that I will support him in the decisions he makes, that this cannot and should not be about private arrangements but what is in the best interests of our party and, most of all, the best interests of our country.”

Despite Blair’s announcement, several MPs expressed their dissatisfaction at his refusal to name a precise date and demanded that he leave sooner rather than later.

Manchester Blakeley MP Graham Stringer told the BBC if Blair “thought it was going to take the politics out of the next nine months that simply is not going to happen”.

MP Doug Henderson said “It doesn’t seem to me that the public knows any more about the PM’s retirement plans. People keep saying to me that the Labour party must have a clear direction forward with clear priorities and a new leader before the May 2007 (regional) elections.”

The eight MPs who resigned as junior ministers or parliamentary secretaries, Wednesday, expressed a concern in their resignation letter that Blair needed to go soon in order not to harm the party’s prospects in next May’s elections to the Scottish parliament, Welsh assembly and English local authorities.

Blair became Prime Minister in 1997 when Labour defeated the Conservative government of John Major. He has led the party to three majority victories and promised before the last election that his third term would be his last.

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.”

Tuesday, January 18, 2005

Toulouse, FRANCE – In a ceremony attended by several European political leaders and 5,000 VIP guests, Airbus unveiled plans for the A380, a twin-deck aircraft that can carry up to 840 people in all-economy class (550 for a Boeing 747), or 555 people in typical three mixed classes layout.

The new aircraft will take the world’s-largest title away from rival Boeing’s 747. Boeing’s upcoming new design, the 7e7, does not attempt to compete directly with the A380 but instead is aimed at a more efficient and comfortable flight at 200-250 seats.

Airbus chief executive Noel Forgeard stated that he expected sales of the aircraft to exceed the 250 required for the project to break even. To date, 149 confirmed orders for the aircraft have been received. Airbus has hopes that sales will exceed 700. The company is currently in talks with China regarding possible sales there.

The first test flight of the aircraft may take place as early as March, and the first commercial flight is expected to take off in mid-2006 from Singapore’s Changi Airport.

British and American airline Virgin Atlantic has purchased six of these aeroplanes and intend to fit them with gyms and bars as well as seats.

Tuesday, April 8, 2014

The death of Scottish artist Alan Davie was announced on Sunday. Davie, 93, was known for his colourful abstract paintings.

Davie’s career also saw turns as a jeweler, a jazz musician, a lecturer, and a poet. Born in Grangemouth, near Falkirk, in 1920, he studied painting from 1938 to 40 at Edinburgh College of Art.

His father was a teacher who dabbled in art and his mother’s family was musically inclined. Upon seeing Coleman Hawkins performing in a music shop in Edinburgh, Davie borrowed £600 from his father to buy himself a saxophone. After serving in the Second World War, at which time he wrote much poetry later transcribed by his father, Davie toured with Scottish jazz bands.

Davie’s work was admired by the likes of Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko and David Hockney. Davie himself collected non-Western art and liked tattoos, graffiti, and ‘outsider art’. His final interview before death, with The Telegraph, gave an insight into how he viewed art: “It’s an urge, an intensity, a kind of sexual need[…] something I do from an inner compulsion, that has to come out.”

He initially avoided painting as a career at all, then spent several years earning money by other means whilst his paintings failed to sell. His exhibitions in the late 1950s, however, were highly successful and launched his career. He was in the habit of choosing titles for his art only after completion.

Despite a strong presence owing to his lengthy red beard and off-beat humour, he was shy; his international fame waned. Recent years have seen a revival of interest with price increases for his early art. London alone is host to three exhibitions this month including at the Tate.

Tate Britain calls Davie “one of the first British artists after the war to develop an expressive form of abstraction” producing “kaleidoscopic canvases[…] that the artist relates to his love of jazz”.

Sunday, June 5, 2016

Legendary boxing great Muhammed Ali died on Friday aged 74 in a hospital in Phoenix, Arizona in the United States. A family spokesperson said Ali had been admitted with respiratory problems. The former heavyweight champion lived with Parkinson’s disease for decades, diagnosed in 1984.

Born on January 17, 1942 as Cassius Marcellus Clay, he changed his name to Muhammed Ali after his 1964 conversion to Islam. In his professional career, Ali won 56 out of 61 fights — including 31 consecutive wins. He won the World Heavyweight Championship three times and had also won an Olympic gold medal in the light-heavyweight category.

Often considered the greatest boxer of all time, Ali was the world heavyweight champion in the 1960s and 1970s. His famous fights with George Foreman in 1974 when he won his title back and against Joe Frazier are considered by many as two of the greatest fights in the sport’s history. Ali had also defeated Sonny Liston to claim the championship title.

Ali was also known as a political activist. He came under considerable controversy after his decision to refuse the Vietnam War draft.

He lit the flame in the 1996 Olympics hosted in Atlanta.

His funeral is to be in Kentucky.

Thursday, July 31, 2008

From the middle of July, Sony Corporation refreshed their senior laptop brand VAIO from “Video Audio Integrated Operation” to “Visual Audio Intelligent Organizer”. According to Sony Taiwan Limited, this refreshment is an attempt to relocate the laptop consuming market for business and entertainment factors.

In the “VAIO Experience 2008” press conference in Europe, Sony promoted their new product series for different populations including BZ for business, FW for home entertainment, Z for ultra-slim, and SR for complex applications.

Different with past series, Sony added “Clear Bright” screening technology for high-definition display, and “full-carbon production” features. BD-burning and Intel Centrino 2 processing technologies will be featured in all the new models. For security issue, Sony also embedded fingerprint system to prevent personal data to be stolen. Continued from TZ series, innovative designs including “Green Power Button”, “Situational Switch” are also added in newly-launched series.

“Due to consuming market differences, Sony only promoted BZ series in Europe and America but not included Asia. Although the TICA Show in Taipei will be different, functionality will be the greatest issue when a consumers choose a notebook [computer] before buying.” addressed by executives from Sony Taiwan Limited, during the “VAIO Experience 2008” press conference in Taiwan.