Wednesday, October 14, 2009

The United States Senate Committee on Finance approved a proposal to reform health care on Tuesday, clearing it to move forward. The bill passed by a 14-9 vote, gaining support from the committee’s thirteen Democrats, and one Republican.

Senator Olympia Snowe was the only senator from the Republican party to back the bill. However, she said this might change as the bill moves through Congress.

“There are many, many miles to go in this legislative journey. My vote today is my vote today. It doesn’t forecast what my vote will be tomorrow,” Snowe said.

President Barack Obama, who supports the bill as part of his effort to overhaul the country’s health care system, welcomed the committee’s vote. “We are closer than ever before to passing healthcare reform but we are not there yet. Now is not the time to pat ourselves on the back – now is the time to dig in further and get this done. In this final phase we should engage with each other with civility and seriousness that has brought us this far and that this subject deserves.”

The bill, which contains a ten-year plan with an estimated cost of US$829 billion, is aimed at lowering healthcare costs and increasing the affordability of insurance. Proponents will now seek to merge it with another bill from the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions. Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus emphasized, “Americans want us to craft a package that will get the 60 votes needed to pass.” He argued that the Finance bill was the best candidate to attract needed the centrist support.

Critics, however, have said that the proposed plan is too costly, and will cause the government to interfere too much into the private healthcare sector.

“We can now see clearly that the bill continues its march leftward,” said the senior Republican on the committee, Senator Charles Grassley. “This bill is already moving on a slippery slope to more government control of healthcare.”

Tuesday, January 4, 2005

Republicans and lobbyists close to President George W. Bush have reported that the White House will propose changing the formula for establishing initial Social Security benefit levels in order to cut guaranteed expenditures on future retirees, according to today’s Washington Post. The Social Security Administration would no longer use the increase in wages over a worker’s lifetime to calculate retirees’ first-year benefits but would use inflation rates instead. The new “price indexing” formula will reduce individual benefits and overall Social Security outlays because the inflation rate typically is much lower than the rise in wages. The full impact of the change will be felt in the middle of the century.

The Bush Administration proposal, which will be offered to Congress in February or March 2005, is part of an overall Social Security reform package that also would create “personal investment accounts” into which individual taxpayers could divert part of their payroll taxes. The White House believes that the shortfall in benefits created by the adoption of price indexing would be made up by capital gains from the stocks and bonds held by individual taxpayers in their personal investment accounts.

The move is akin to the private sector’s migration from defined benefit retirement plans to defined contribution benefit plans such as 401(k)s as almost half of a worker’s benefits will not be guaranteed by the year 2075. President Bush will support the move to price indexing for calculating initial benefits by pointing out that it was the approach recommended by his 2001 Commission to Strengthen Social Security.

Benefits currently are calculated by averaging a worker’s earnings in their 35 highest-paid years and adjusting earnings to factor in cost of living standards at the worker’s retirement age. Under the Bush proposal, rather than adjusting benefits on the basis of earnings growth, the calculation would be based on the increase in the consumer price index over those years.

The implementation of “price indexing” would cut future Social Security costs by trillions of dollars. However, the cuts in guaranteed benefits for middle-class and some high-income workers would be substantial: 9.9% for workers retiring in 2022, over 25% for workers retiring in 2042, and 46% for workers retiring in 2075.

Opponents of the price-indexing proposal point out that inflation-based calculations of benefits, by linking benefits to prices but not wage levels, would cut retirees out from future increases in living standards since it is wages and not prices that determine standards of living. While American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) Policy Director John Rother concedes that many of the arguments of opponents are valid, price indexing is inevitable and must be viewed in the context of President Bush’s total reform package.

Rother points out that Social Security benefits, which currently equal 42 percent of the earnings of an average worker retiring at age 65, would be reduced to 20% of pre-retirement earnings for future retirees, thus potentially freezing retirees into today’s standard of living. However, Rother says that price indexing has to be linked to Bush’s private investment accounts as income from the accounts give retirees the chance to make up the shortfalls.

Saturday, February 16, 2008

While nearly all cover of the 2008 Presidential election has focused on the Democratic and Republican candidates, there are small political parties offering candidates, and those who choose to run without a party behind them, independents.

Wikinews is interviewing some of these citizens who are looking to become the 43rd person elected to serve their nation from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW.

First off is Long Beach, California’s Frank McEnulty (b. 1956), a married father of two with an MBA (Venture Management) and BS (Accounting/Finance).

Sunday, April 23, 2017

More than fifteen people were killed near the police station in Yerpedu, Andhra Pradesh, India after a heavily loaded truck lost control on Friday afternoon at about 1:45 P.M. IST (0815 UTC).

People, mostly from the village of Munagalapalem, were gathered to protest local illegal sand mining. The truck hit an electric pole, and destroyed nearby shops and vehicles causing a short-circuit and fire. Tirupati Urban Superintendent of Police R Jayalakshmi said the truck crushed some people under its wheels; six people were killed that way according to Renigunta deputy superintendent KS Nanjndappa. Other people died due to the short circuit and the fire. More than fifteen people were injured including the police station’s chief inspector and the sub-inspector. Reportedly at least ten were in a critical condition.

The driver fled after the accident. Victims were taken to hospitals in Tirupati, and Chennai and Vellore in Tamil Nadu. N Chandrababu Naidu, Andhra’s Chief Minister, said via Twitter, “State Cabinet has announced a compensation of Rs 5 lakh [0.5 million] to the families of the deceased.”

Thursday, October 6, 2005

The British Assets Recovery Agency is investigating £30 million / €44 million of assets believed to be owned by senior members of the Provisional Irish Republican Army (PIRA or IRA), using information provided by the Irish Criminal Assets Bureau and British and Irish law enforcement agencies. The money is believed to represent a small fraction of the wealth obtained by the organisation. This move follows the recent decommissioning of IRA weapons. Most of the assets are believed to have been owned by the IRA chief of staff, Thomas Murphy and businessman Dermot Craven. Now that negotiations over weapons decommissioning are over, it is believed that other IRA members who have become rich through running protection rackets or other criminal activities may also be stripped of their illegal assests in the forthcoming weeks.

Irish Justice Minister Michael McDowell said: “An Garda Síochána and the PSNI (Police Service of Northern Ireland) and the Criminal Assets Bureau and the ARA are co-operating in every possible way to ensure that on this island those who have control of the proceeds of crime are deprived of those proceeds”. Businesses and organisations paying money towards protection rackets are hoping that the structure of the IRA will now begin to unravel.

Tuesday, October 2, 2007

Ray Scott is running for the Family Coalition Party in the Ontario provincial election, in the Algoma-Manitoulin riding. Wikinews’ Nick Moreau interviewed him regarding his values, his experience, and his campaign.

Stay tuned for further interviews; every candidate from every party is eligible, and will be contacted. Expect interviews from Liberals, Progressive Conservatives, New Democratic Party members, Ontario Greens, as well as members from the Family Coalition, Freedom, Communist, Libertarian, and Confederation of Regions parties, as well as independents.

Tuesday, January 19, 2010

A Scottish woman who set out before Christmas to purchase a turkey finally made it home on Monday, after being cut off by snow for a month. Kay Ure left the Lighthouse Keeper’s cottage on Cape Wrath, at the very northwest tip of Great Britain, in December. She was heading to Inverness on a shopping trip.

However on her return journey heavy snow and ice prevented her husband, John, from travelling the last 11 miles to pick her up. She was forced to wait a month in a friend’s caravan, before the weather improved and the couple could finally be reunited.

They were separated not just for Christmas and New Year, but also for Mr Ure’s 58th birthday. With no fresh supplies, he was reduced to celebrating with a tin of baked beans. He also ran out of coal, and had to feed the couple’s six springer spaniels on emergency army rations.

“It’s the first time we’ve been separated”, said Mr Ure in December. “We’ve been snowed in here for three weeks before, so we are well used to it and it’s quite nice to get a bit of peace and quiet.”

Friday, July 31, 2009

Vestas Wind Systems, whose closing wind turbine blade manufacturing centre in Newport, Isle of Wight, England remains the site of a occupation now in its 11th day, has suddenly announced that the consultation period preceding the closure of the plant has been extended, and that the plant will remain open until mid-August.

The announcement, which was reported not by Vestas but by the RMT, was described by RMT General Secretary Bob Crow as “another significant milestone in the fight to save the factory and 625 skilled manufacturing jobs in green energy.” The plant had been due to close today.

News of the delay comes hours after confused reports that Vestas was withholding redundancy payment for at least 525 of the workers whose jobs were lost. According to a report by the local newspaper the Isle of Wight County Press, cheques which employees had been expecting today did not arrive; instead, workers who contacted Vestas management were told they would not receive payment until an interview process had been completed, and that if they began new jobs before the interview process was over they would not receive their money. However, according to Ventnorblog, a local Isle of Wight blog which has been following the Vestas closure closely, the layoff process was being delayed because a majority of the Vestas employees were refusing to agree to the management’s redundancy plan.

The delay of the closure allows more time for the negotiation of potential solutions for the Newport plant to remain open. The Vestas occupiers and labour groups continue to favour nationalisation of the plant, with Socialist Party spokesman Nick Chaffey saying:

In addition to the Vestas occupiers’ proposal that the factory be nationalised, Caroline Lucas, the MEP for South East England and a member of the Green Party, has proposed that Vestas employees should form a workers’ co-operative with government aid in order to keep the plant running. The Tory-dominated Isle of Wight Council has unanimously endorsed a resolution saying that the plant should stay open, and has called for new investors to take the Vestas plant over, as was done at a smaller Vestas plant in Scotland recently.

The news of the delay comes as workers at the plant accused Vestas management of harassing the families of the 24 remaining occupiers of the plant. Families of some occupiers were served with legal papers at their homes. One of the occupiers, Luke Paxton, left the factory on Thursday night in order to be re-united with his family; Paxton was checked for malnutrition and low blood sugar by paramedics but was not hospitalized, instead opting to go home. Paxton complained that Vestas management, while now providing hot food to the occupiers, were still under-feeding them; the RMT, which is providing legal aid to the Vestas workers, has accused Vestas management of violating the Human Rights Act by attempting to “starve the workers at Vestas into submission”.

Protesters in fancy dress were successful in sending food into the plant yesterday. Protesters dressed as a fantasy wizard and can-can dancers distracted police and company security guarding the fence which has been erected around the site while other protesters flung a bag of food and an electric kettle onto the balcony outside the office which has served as the occupiers’ home base inside the factory. No arrests were made but the protesters were removed from the factory grounds.

Requests for comment from Vestas management received no reply.

Friday, January 13, 2006

The Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND) helped the U.S. military during the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the daily Süddeutsche Zeitung, ARD‘s Panorama magazine and the Los Angeles Times concordantly reported on Thursday.

According to their information, two agents of the BND stayed in Baghdad during the war even after the German embassy was evacuated on March 17, 2003. A former “high-ranking official” in the U.S. Department of Defense told Panorama that the agents helped to track down targets throughout the Iraqi capital for the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) as they didn’t have enough reliable sources in Baghdad. A BND official, also speaking on condition of anonymity, told the Süddeutsche Zeitung that there was “no dumbness between the BND and DIA” during that time and that it was part of the BND’s “job” in Iraq to identify “non targets” like hospitals or embassies. He said this was authorized by the chancellor’s office.

The Pentagon informant of Panorama however said that the German agents were much more involved. A common saying during the war was supposedly: “Do we have anything from the Germans?” According to him, they drove to a restaurant in Mansur district of Baghdad on April 6th where Saddam Hussein was assumed to be dining. The BND agents reported back to the DIA that many Mercedes cars were parking there. As those cars were presumed to be of Saddam Hussein, the U.S. military conducted an air strike on the location. Hussein escaped, but twelve civilians were killed.

The BND confirmed that two of its agents operated in Iraq during the war but denied all other reports. A spokesperson told Panorama that it’s agency “did not provide target information or target coordinates to the warfaring parties.” The intelligence committee of the Bundestag exculpated the BND. Its chair Norbert Röttgen said that the in secret sitting committee, controlled by government parties, concluded with two-third majority that there are no indications that the agents aided the U.S. in selecting targets.

German foreign minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier called the accusations “schizophrenic” while opposition parties are demanding an parliamentary investigation committee. And during a visit of German chancellor Merkel to the White House, U.S. president Bush said in a response to a reporter’s question whether he knew anything about the allegations: “The truth of the matter is, the Chancellor brought this up this morning. I had no idea what she was talking about. The first I heard of it was this morning, truthfully”.