Friday, August 7, 2009

The remaining six workers staging an occupation in Newport, Isle of Wight, England have left peacefully after police entered their factory.

After barricading the office which has served as a living quarters for 19 nights against police entry, three of the workers, Justin Moody, Mark Smith, and Dave Arbuthnott, exited via a fire escape escorted by security staff; two, Ian Terry and Mark Flower, abseiled down the factory’s wall; and Jaymie Rigby jumped thirty feet from a balcony to the bushes below. Rigby was examined at a local hospital after the jump but was found to be in good condition and released. The six were processed by police but not arrested.

The six, who as part of a group of around 25 entered the factory on the evening July 20, had been conducting their occupation in a bid to get the government to nationalise the factory. Despite rising profits and rising orders, Vestas has decided to close their production facilities in the United Kingdom and most of their facilities in Denmark, at a cost of 1900 jobs, in order to concentrate on growth in North and South America and in Asia. The Vestas factory in Newport does not produce blades for the UK market and the company has refused both a £6 million grant and offers from the government to assist the company in re-tooling the plant for production of British blades.

The company, in turn, blames the British government for making it too hard to obtain planning permission for on-shore wind farms. A Vestas spokesman, commenting to the BBC about the end of the occupation, said, “we have always understood the frustrations of the workers but have been surprised at the length of this action.”

The evicted workers say that, after spending time with their families, they plan to return to the protests against Vestas, joining the impromptu camp of hundreds of protesters which has sprung up outside the factory gates. The Vestas occupiers have received support from a broad coalition of left-wing political parties, trade unions, environmental groups, the Tory-dominated Isle of Wight Council, and a handful of MPs; today, the last major left party which had not joined the coalition, Arthur Scargill‘s Socialist Labour Party, released a statement saying

The SLP’s spokesman, Alan Johnson, went on to tell Wikinews that the occupiers “have our full support.” None of the three large parties dominating the British parliament have backed the Vestas workers, however, although the ruling Labour Party has recently sponsored talks between among the coalition of trade unions supporting the occupiers.

Police served the remaining occupiers notice to vacate the premises yesterday at noon; Vestas’s first attempt at obtaining a warrant was stymied in court when the defence successfully argued that notice requiring possession had not been correctly served to the occupiers.

The occupiers lived in the factory twenty-four hours a day during the occupation, sleeping in a 1600-square-foot (149-square-metre) office, maintaining hygiene as well as possible in the factory’s bathrooms, and eating one small meal a day — initially from the contents of vending machines, then from what the company management supplied supplemented by whatever protesters were able to get over the fence surrounding the factory. The RMT, which has arranged legal representation for the Vestas occupiers, has accused Vestas of violating human rights and at one point said it would arrange to have a helicopter airlift food into the workers.

The end of the Newport occupation does not represent the end of unrest at Vestas’s facilities in the Isle of Wight, however. A number of workers at Vestas’s smaller plant in Cowes occupied the plant there on the evening of August 4, with activists from the RMT and environmental groups taking to the roof and waving flags proclaiming the occupation.

Monday, April 20, 2009

The government has announced 13 June as the date for the upcoming Mount Albert by-election.

The by-election has been caused by former Prime Minister Helen Clark‘s departure to head the United Nations Development Program. While it is considered to be a safe Labour seat, the by-election is expected to be heavily contested.

Candidates must be nominated by 19 May.

Nominations for the Labour Party close on Wednesday. So far four candidates have put their names forward: Auckland city councillor Glenda Fryer, former candidate Hamish McCracken, University of Auckland political studies lecturer Meg Bates and employment lawyer Helen White. List MP Phil Twyford, widely expected to succeed Ms Clark, has not put his name forward.

The National Party has narrowed its possible candidates down to two: list MP Melissa Lee or unsuccessful 2008 candidate Ravi Musuku. The decision will be made at a party meeting on 4 May.

The Greens and ACT New Zealand will both contest the by-election, but have yet to select candidates.

Tuesday, June 30, 2020

Recently, Finnish open-source video game developer Perttu Ahola discussed Minetest, his “longest ever project”, with Wikinews.

Started in October 2010, Minetest was an attempt by Ahola to create a sandbox game similar to Minecraft. Minecraft is a multi-platform commercial game, which was in alpha version when Ahola challenged himself to create something similar to it from scratch, he told Wikinews.

Minetest is an open-source game, which is free for anyone to download and play. It is written in the C++ programming language, and the source code is available on code-hosting site GitHub. According to Ahola, Minetest attempts to run on older hardware, with limited graphics, but to be accessible to more people: those who have outdated technology, and making it available for no cost. Minecraft, on the other hand, is a paid game, currently costing USD 26.95 for its computer version. Minecraft is currently owned by Microsoft, and performs poorly on older hardware.

A correspondent from French Wikinews contacted Perttu Ahola via Internet Relay Chat a few weeks ago, discussing Minecraft. This interview is built on top of the previous interview, as we take a deeper dive into knowing more about this free game which is about to turn ten years old in a few months.

Saturday, October 23, 2021

China property giant Evergrande Group wired USD83.5 million in interest owed in an offshore bond from September 23 on Thursday, temporarily averting default, according to a Reuters source and Chinese newspaper Securities Times.

The wire to a Citibank fiduciary account following a 30-day grace period came after assurances by various members of the Chinese government, Reuters reported. At a Beijing forum Wednesday, Chinese Vice Premier Liu He described the risks as controllable, and chairman of the China Securities Regulatory Commission Yi Huiman said that while authorities needed to curb excessive debt more broadly by “improv[ing] the effectiveness of the constraint mechanism on debt financing”, the matter would be dealt with properly.

Once China’s top real estate developer, Evergrande had accumulated approximately USD305 billion in liabilities, two per cent of the Chinese gross national product, after “dwindling resources” cut its value by 80%, according to Reuters. September data revealed Chinese home sales by value fell by nearly 17% year-on-year, according to The Guardian, and fears over its default led to a slowdown in China’s third quarter GDP growth to a year low of 4.9%. Two sale negotiations with rival developers Hopson Development and Yuexiu, valued at USD2.6 billion and USD1.7 billion, respectively, were suspended, reportedly due to a lack of consent by the government of Guangdong province currently overseeing Evergrande’s restructuring.

News of Evergrande’s remittance caused its shares to rise by as much as 7.8% this morning after a two-week pause in trading for the anticipated sale of 50.1% in Evergrande Property Services Group, and offering some reprieve for bondholders, according to Reuters. Portfolio manager at GaoTeng Global Asset Management James Wong, interviewed by The Guardian, called the news “a positive surprise”, adding “[i]f Evergrande pays this time, I don’t see why it won’t pay the next time.” Jun Rong Yeap for IG Asia pte., interviewed by Bloomberg, said the report “overturned” the narrative “that Evergrande will face difficulty in securing cash ahead”.

Further missed payments are due October 29 and November 11 after similar 30-day grace periods; including yesterday’s USD83.5 million, nearly USD280 million is owed to bondholders.

Stocks have been down for many major Chinese developers: Reuters Wednesday reported year-to-date stock prices fell 87.8% for Sinic Holdings, currently in Fitch Ratings’ ‘restricted default’ after failing to make an October 18 bond payment valued, according to The Guardian, at USD246 million; 80.2% for Evergrande itself; 78.3% for E-House, 58.5% for Fantasia Holdings and 54.6% for Kaisa Group, which defaulted in 2015 and had bonds reach record lows.

Estimates of the Chinese real estate market’s size range from 16 to 25% of the Chinese gross domestic product, according to The Guardian. Chinese President Xi Jinping’s aim to transform the country’s economy from one of debt-fuelled “inflated” growth to one of improved “quality and returns” included imposing regulations on developers that limited their capacity to borrow. A Guardian comment piece from economist George Magnus published on October 15 made reference to China’s “ghost cities” and “rampant credit creation” that has given rise to high vacancy rates and the “financialisaton of housing”.

Saturday, August 14, 2010

Former US Representative Dan Rostenkowski died of lung cancer Wednesday at his vacation home in Genoa City, Wisconsin. Rostenkowski, whose political career ended in the early 1990s after he was convicted on fraud charges, was 82.

Rostenkowski’s death was confirmed by his spokesperson, Jim Jaffe, who said that the former congressman had been receiving treatment for lung cancer for a while. Rostenkowski had previously been treated for prostate cancer in the 1990s.

Rostenkowski was born on January 2, 1928 in Chicago, Illinois. He was an athlete and declined an invitation to try out for the Philadelphia Athletics (now the Oakland Athletics) in order to pursue a career in politics. Rostenkowski attended St. John’s Northwestern Military Academy in Wisconsin, served with the US Army in Korea, and graduated from Loyola University in 1951.

Rostenkowski’s political career was supported by the Cook County political machine, and he became a member of the Illinois state legislature in 1952, one year after graduating from college. In 1958, when he was 30, Rostenkowski was elected to the US House of Representatives. In 1961, he began serving on the United States House Committee on Ways and Means, the chief committee of the House for writing taxes. From 1981–1994, he served as the committee’s chairman. Rostenkowski was involved in the creation of Medicare in 1966 and he helped make amendments to the Social Security system in 1983.

In 1992, a federal jury began an inquiry into the House post office, and Rostenkowski was accused of buying US$22,000 in stamps with government funds and then turning them into cash. The investigation, which lasted two years, led to Republican allegations of corruption within the Democratic party. In 1994, Rostenkowski was charged with 17 felony counts, including the use of federal money to purchase furniture, and obstruction of justice. In order to avoid a trial, Rostenkowski made a deal with prosecutors, pleading guilty to two counts of mail fraud in exchange for fifteen months in prison, two months in a halfway house, and a US$100,000 fine.

Rostenkowski, who was not reelected for a nineteenth term in Congress in 1994, continued to maintain his innocence, and was pardoned by US President Bill Clinton in 2000.

Saturday, September 19, 2009

Six energy companies in the United Kingdom have announced that it is likely that the prices for energy bills could increase over the course of 2010.

The companies, which are nicknamed the “big six” in the United Kingdom, did not pass on information that there would be price cuts in energy bills despite increasing profits. However, the companies have in fact sent a message in response saying that the prices of bills may even increase over the course of the next year. Energy company watchdog the Office of Gas and Electricity Markets (Ofgem) have estimated that energy companies will make gross margins of £170 ($276) per dual fual customer over the course of the next twelve months, due to the recent fall in wholesale energy costs.

Ofgem have said: “Our analysis shows that based on an 18-month hedging strategy and assuming that retail prices remain unchanged, projected gross margin is set to increase by around £80 for dual fuel customers over the next six months.”

The “big six” energy companies in the United Kingdom are British Gas, E-on, Npower, Scottish and Southern Energy, Scottish Power, and EDF Energy. British Gas stated: “Prices [are] likely to remain at historically high levels, and in fact likely to increase as non-commodity costs rise ever upwards.”

EDF Energy said: “[We] would of course be prepared to reduce tariffs if market conditions allowed.” Scottish Power stated: “There are no immediate signals that would indicate a fall in retail prices for this winter, and risks of an increase next year.” Scottish & Southern Energy commented: “With forward annual wholesale prices significantly higher, and with upward pressures in terms of distribution, environmental and social costs, seeking to avoid an increase between now and the end of 2010 is an important goal.”

Meanwhile, a study by Consumer Focus in early September 2009 suggested that “energy companies were overcharging customers by £100 ($162) every year. A spokesperson for Ofgem said that there was no evidence of any cartel in operation, or evidence of profiteering. The spokesperson commented: “It is up to the companies themselves to decide whether to cut their bills. Consumer Focus data suggests that Scottish Power has increased dual fuel prices by the most since 2003 – up 148% – while decreasing prices by 0.6% so far this year. RWE’s Npower has increased tariffs by 132% since 2003, but has reduced bills by 2.7% in 2009.”