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Wednesday, March 29, 2006Local Government workers in the UK withdrew their labour yesterday as part of a dispute over pension entitlements. The members of 11 different trades unions were involved in the 24hr strike. As the day began they declared that support for the strike was solid. Although the strikers work for local councils, their pay and conditions are agreed nationally. The Local Government Association which represents the local councils in England and Wales declared predictions that 1.5 million people would stay away from work as “wildly optimistic”.

The Unions’ complaint is that local government workers are being treated unfavourably compared to other public sector employees. They say that agreements on pensions that have been reached with civil servants, teachers and health workers will allow those staff to continue to retire at 60 while local government staff will be forced to work until they are 65. Civil servants work for national government, teachers work for local councils but have their own pension arrangements and most health workers are employed by the state-controlled National Health Service.

The Local Government Association claims that if council workers continue to be able to retire at 60, it will increase the levels of Council Tax (a tax on people living in properties which funds a proportion of local government expenditure) by 2%.

The striking workers provide a wide range of services from assisting teachers in the class room, through inspecting kitchens for hygiene to provising care to the vulnerable in society. In some places council workers collect tolls for road tunnels or manage ferries. Mainstream media have reported on the strike all day with heavy coverage of disruption to commuters where transport has been affected. The unions have emphasised the large number of their members who are women working in low paid jobs.

The Government which regulates the scheme claimed that the early retirement provisions (called the rule of 85) were age-discriminatory and had to be removed.

The strike ended at midnight. The Unions have not declared any further strike days.

The Unions involved were AEP, AMICUS, CYWU, GMB, NAPO, NIPSA, NUJ, NUT, TGWU, UCATT and UNISON.

• “Unison Pensions Campaign” — Unison, 28 March 2006
• “Pensions strike bites across UK” — BBC, 28 March 2006
• LGA Media Office. “Union demands for pension scheme will cost council taxpayers more than 2% extra a year” — Local Government Association, 28 March 2006
• “ODPM STATEMENT ON LOCAL GOVERNMENT PENSIONS” — Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, 28 March 2006
• “Unions fighting together to protect our pensions” — Joint Union Strike Team, 28 March 2006

A view of the Leonard Zakim bridge from the construction site. The warehouses at right will be replaced by a five-acre park within two years. The elevated roadway in the foreground is the John F. Gilmore Bridge.

Wednesday, March 23, 2005

Cambridge, Massachusetts —Construction of two condominium buildings and a five-acre park began on March 21, in East Cambridge, Massachusetts. The buildings and park are part of the 45-acre Northpoint development, which will take 15 years and more than $2bn to complete, according to the Boston Globe. The buildings, designated as “Building S” and “Building T” by the planners of the project, Spaulding & Slye Colliers, have been designed by local architectural firm Childs Bertman Tseckares and Architects Alliance from Toronto. Buildings S and T are the first of an eventual 20 buildings planned at the site.

The development will fill what used to be a railroad yard for the Guilford Rail System, a subsidiary of Guilford Transportation Industries. According to Hoovers.com, Guilford is controlled by Timothy Mellon, heir to the Mellon banking fortune. Guilford Rail Systems has its headquarters in North Billerica and owns 1600 miles of railroad throughout New England. The tracks in the Northpoint plot have been removed, though Boston subway’s Lechmere station remains within walking distance of the site, along with parts of Boston and Cambridge. The site is bordered by Route 93 on its eastern side, Monsignor O’Brien Highway to the west, and the Gilmore Bridge to the south.

The landscape architecture of the park is provided by Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates, a landscape architecture firm on Concord Avenue in Cambridge. The firm’s principal teaches in Harvard’s Graduate School of Design. MVVA is also completing the landscape for Harvard’s Northwest Science Building.

Wednesday, July 21, 2021

Yesterday, with 85 active cases of COVID-19 in the Australian state of Victoria, Premier Daniel Andrews has extended the state’s current lockdown by a week until July 27 at 11:59 p.m. (0159 UTC).

Since a five-day lockdown was first announced last Thursday, cases have been recorded in areas across Victoria, including Phillip Island, Mildura and Barwon Heads. Notably, Mildura’s COVID-19 case, which was recorded on Sunday, is their first in 15 months. Thirteen new cases of coronavirus were recorded in Victoria yesterday.

Red zone travel permits, required for residents of New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory for entry into Victoria, are temporarily paused. Andrews said that while this decision would “cause a real challenge for many people”, he justified this decision by saying that “things are too unstable—too uncertain and frankly out of control from a virus point of view in Sydney”.

State health minister Martin Foley stated, “We’ve had thousands of Victorians return from New South Wales in recent weeks, but with the situation escalating, the recent incursions and the increased infectiousness of the Delta variant, we must act to protect Victoria and temporarily pause Red Zone Permits.”

Restrictions remain the same from the initial Thursday announcement. Under the regulations, there are only five reasons to leave home: for food and supplies; exercise; care or caregiving; work or education, if not possible from home; and to be vaccinated against COVID-19. In exercising, people cannot go more than 5 kilometers (3 mi) away from their home, and for no more than two hours. The vaccination should be administered at the nearest possible location. Face masks remain mandatory both outdoors and indoors, except at home.

A press release from the premier’s office said the COVID-19 Delta variant is moving “faster than anything Victoria’s public health experts have seen before”, adding as a result “we need to limit movement for a longer period of time”. The press release also noted over 15 thousand close contacts of cases in quarantine, over 250 exposure sites across the state, and the COVID-19 daily case numbers remaining in double digits.

Saturday, July 16, 2005

At least 54 people died today when a suicide bomber blew himself up at a gas station near a mosque in Musayyib, about 60 km south of the Iraqi capital. Some 80 people are reported to have been injured.

Witnesses said a fuel tanker was slowly approaching the pumps at the station when the attacker ran towards it and detonated explosives strapped to his body. Police said the resulting huge blast destroyed a nearby apartment complex and damaged the mosque and some small businesses.

The gas station was located near the city-center. Iraqi gas stations normally include a number of small businesses selling tea, soft drinks and snacks where crowds of people often gather.

Mussayib, a religiously mixed town, lies in an area named the “triangle of death”, due to the large number of kidnappings and killings of Shiite Muslims traveling between Baghdad and the Shiite holy cities of Karbala and Najaf.

Saturday, March 14, 2009

Rico Daniels is a British TV presenter living in France who is known for his two television series — The Salvager — whilst he still lived in the UK and then Le Salvager after he moved to France. Rico has been in a variety of jobs but his passion is now his profession – he turns unwanted ‘junk’ into unusual pieces of furniture. Rico’s creations and the methods used to fabricate them are the subject of the Salvager shows.

Rico spoke to Wikinews in January about his inspiration and early life, future plans, other hobbies and more. Read on for the full exclusive interview, published for the first time:

Monday, February 16, 2009

In the 1970s, she was one of the most popular female vocalists in France, and became well-known internationally. Anne Marie David, from Arles in the south of France, parlayed her initial success from playing Mary Magdalene in the French production of Jesus Christ Superstar into taking home the “grand prix” at the Eurovision Song Contest in 1973. Her winning song, “Tu te reconnaîtras” (You will recognize yourself), became a Europe-wide hit that spring.

At the height of her popularity, David perfomed world tours, and even lived abroad in Turkey for a time. In 1979, she tried once again to win the Eurovision, and placed a respectable third. Her song “Je suis l’enfant soleil” (I’m a child of the sun) became similarly popular across France and in the Francophone nations.

As time went on, however, her place in the French music scene became less certain. Touring the world had taken a personal toll, and David decided to retire from music completely in 1987. However, with the help of her fan base, she was coaxed out of retirement in 2003 and is returning to a part of her life that she tried to leave, but never left her. Celebrating four decades in the music scene, David is looking forward to adventurous new projects and a newfound zest for life.

Anne Marie David corresponded with Wikinews’ Mike Halterman about her eventful career, her personal anecdotes regarding living abroad, her successes in past Eurovision contests and her grievances with the way the show is produced today. This is the second in a series of interviews with past Eurovision contestants, which will be published sporadically in the lead-up to mid-May’s next contest in Moscow.

Friday, September 15, 2006

Jesse Sullivan has two cybernetic arms, after electrical burns suffered while working as an electrical utility lineman resulted in amputation of both his arms at the shoulder. Claudia Mitchell has a similar cybernetic left arm, after a motorcycle accident resulted in amputation. Sullivan and Mitchell shook hands with these thought-controlled prosthetic arms at an event staged Thursday in Washington, D.C. by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and Center for Artificial Limbs at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago.

Unlike traditional prosthetic limbs, these are actuated through muscle reinnervation; nerves are grafted onto specific muscles, controlling their contraction, which are then detected by electrode sensors and control the prosthetic limb. “Basically it is connecting the dots. Finding the nerves. We have to free the nerves and see how far they reach,” says Dr. Todd Kuiken, developer of the prostheses and director of neuroengineering at the Rehabilitation Institute. By this chain of communication the prostheses utilize thought-controlled biomechanics. According to Sullivan, “When I use the new prosthesis I just do things. I don’t have to think about it … I do all the yard work. I take out the garbage.”

DARPA, as an agency of the United States Department of Defense, seeks to eventually provide such prostheses for soldiers losing their organic limbs in combat. “We’re excited about collaborating with the military,” said Kuiken. 411 U.S. troops in Iraq and 37 in Afghanistan have had wounds that cost them at least one limb according to the Army Medical Command.