Monday, February 6, 2006

At 11:18 a.m., February 6 2006, Stephen Harper was sworn in as prime minister of Canada at Rideau Hall in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. That same day at approximately 11:22 a.m. with the Her Excellency the Right Honourable Michaëlle Jean, Governor General of Canada present, Stephen Harper signed in his new cabinet. Swearing in of each cabinet minister is currently happening (February 6th 2006, 11:25 a.m.) and being broadcast live on television stations such as Global Television and Rogers Telecommunication CPAC Channel.

At 12:27 p.m. the swearing in of cabinet ministers was complete and the Governor General officially signed in the cabinet. Canada now has a new government that will be directed by the Conservative Party. The Conservatives Party according to Global News “have not been sworn into government since Brian Mulroney in 1984.”

One member of the Liberal Party has crossed over to the Conservatives. David Emerson crossed the floor, even though he was elected two weeks earlier as a Liberal. For this he has been admitted into the cabinet by Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

Monday, October 17, 2005

American helicopters and warplanes bombed 2 villages near Ramadi, Iraq on Sunday. The U.S. military said nearly 70 suspected insurgents were killed, while local witnesses said that at least 39 civilians, including 18 children, were also lost to the attack.

A Ramadi resident, Ahmed Fouad, said that just after 7 p.m. Sunday, U.S. warplanes killed 18 children, including Fouad’s son and 8-year-old daughter. “She was killed with her brother. Her mother had a stroke out of shock.” Fouad said.

Family members of victims gathered at a Ramadi General Hospital where refrigeration space for the dead bodies had been exhausted. In the garden the bodies of a woman and three children lay as relatives sifted through remains.

“[They] were not terrorists…they were only a bunch of civilians whose curiosity prompted them to gather around a destroyed Humvee,” said Dr. Dhiya Fahdawi in reference to the dead and wounded.

The U.S. military neither confirmed nor denied that civilians were killed and issued a statement saying; “All the attacks were timed and executed in a manner to reduce the possibility of collateral damage.”

Monday, November 14, 2016

On Wednesday, India demonetised ?500 (about US$7.50) and ?1000 notes, announced as a measure to fight corruption, fake notes, and black money. Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed the Indian citizens late Tuesday, and said 500 and 1000 rupee notes would cease to be legal tender at midnight.

To minimise possible difficulties to citizens, transactions using old 500 and 1000 rupee notes were accepted at government hospitals, railway ticket bookings, government buses, and airports. The notes were also accepted at public-sector petrol-pumps, government-authorised consumer co-operative stores, milk booths authorised by State governments, and cremation grounds till Friday midnight. These shops were obliged to have a record of their stocks and sales.

In his announcement, Modi said, “For your immediate needs, you can go to any bank, head post office or sub post office, show your identity proof like Aadhar card, voter’s card, ration card, passport, income tax PAN card number or other approved proofs and exchange your old 500 or thousand rupee notes for new notes.” ^{((hi))Hindi language: ??????? ???????? ?? ??? ???? ?? ?? ?? ???? ?? ?????? ????? ?? ??? ??? ?????? ????? ?? ??? ?? ????? ?? ??? ?????? ?? ?? ???? ?? ???? ?? ?????? ?? ?? ??? ?? ?? ?????? ?? ???? ????? ????, ???? ??, ???? ?????, ?????? ?????, ???? ?????, ????????, ???? ????? ??? ????? ??????? ???? ?? ??? ??? ??? ???? ?? ??? ??? ???? ???}

Modi also announced those who failed to change their currency till December 30 can exchange the notes at Reserve Bank of India (RBI)’s office along with a declaration form till March 31. The notes can be exchanged till December 30 at any branch of any bank across India.

By Saturday, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said demonetised money equivalent to almost US$30 billion was deposited in banks across India. According to estimate, the old notes accounted for 85% of the total money in circulation. New 500 rupee and 2000 rupee notes are to be issued. Modi said RBI would exercise caution from past experience and limit the circulation of large-value notes.

International tourists could purchase up to 5000 rupees using the old notes at airport exchanges till Friday.

A limit was imposed on cash withdrawal; a maximum of 10000 rupees each day, and 20000 rupees each week, can be withdrawn. Moreover, from Thursday (November 10) till November 24, 4000 rupees can be exchanged in the banks and post offices. The amount is credited to the bank account.

Government workers were informed about demonetising when the announcement was made. Modi announced all banks would remain closed for public work on Wednesday.

In the United States, Donald Trump won the 2016 presidential election on Tuesday, immediately after which stock markets dropped globally. Following the US election and demonetising the money, the Indian stock market fell by 1700 points on Wednesday. Sensex lost 1,688.69 points and Nifty lost 111.55 points on the same day. Indian technology sector companies experienced loss. TCS suffered 4.93% loss and Infosys lost 2.74%.

The Indian rupee is also used in the neighbouring countries of Bhutan and Nepal. The border area uses Indian currency for day-to-day transactions. The Royal Monetary Authority of Bhutan (RMA) has announced the exchange of old notes will be facilitated till December 15. RMA governor Dasho Penjore informed Indian news site The Wire, “We do not know exactly how much Indian currency of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 is in circulation in Bhutan. We will get a better idea after the deadline to deposit their amount”. RMA has 30% of its international exchange reserve in Indian rupees. Nepal Rastra Bank directed all Nepali banks to stop conducting transactions using the Indian rupee.

On Thursday, there were long queues in front of ATMs and banks to exchange the old notes and withdraw money. BBC reported some banks ran out of cash. Police were called to some banks to maintain discipline. Banks were open on Saturday and Sunday for money exchange.

Shops did not accept the old 500 and 1000 rupee notes. Some emphasised cash-less transaction as well. BBC reported some traders and small business owners in Delhi threatened to call a strike as this move affected their business.

eRetail websites like Amazon and Flipkart announced they would not accept the old 500 and 1000 rupee notes on Cash on Delivery orders. Amazon also announced 15% discount on gift cards worth 500 or 1000 rupees.

The government ceased all transactions using the old 500 and 1000 rupee notes before Saturday. But a Wikinews correspondent noticed a jeweler shop accepting the demonetised notes on Saturday. When questioned, the jeweler said they were accepting the old notes only on purchase. When the correspondent, who did not identify as a reporter to the shop owners, said the old 500 and 1000 rupee notes were not legal money, they said they will exchange the notes in a bank since there were 50 days to exchange with a new and legal tender. They refused to exchange old 500 rupee notes with change, asserting the customer needs to buy merchandise from their shop.

Sunday, August 6, 2006

The government of Iran has banned the human rights group Defenders of Human Rights Center led by Nobel Peace laureate Shirin Ebadi.

On Saturday, the Iranian newspaper Shargh reported an Interior Ministry statement announcing the ban, “As the group calling itself ‘Defenders of Human Rights Center’ has not obtained a permit from the interior ministry, its activities are illegal and the violators of this decision will be prosecuted,”.

Ebadi told reporters that such a permit was not required, “Non-governmental organizations that observe the law and do not disrupt public safety do not need a permit. So the… Center does not need authorization”.

She said that the group had applied for the permit but the Interior Ministry denied the request without any explanation.

Saying that the “move is not in Iran’s national interest”, Ebadi said that the group will protest against the decision and explore legal options to “obtain our rights”.

The group was started by six prominent lawyers and has campaigned on human and minority rights issues for the past four years. It has criticized Iran’s judiciary for violations of human rights.

Abdolfattah Soltani, a member of the group was sentenced last month to five years in jail on charges of disclosing confidential information and opposing the regime. He had represented the imprisoned journalist Akbar Ganji as well as the family of the Iranian-Canadian photographer Zahra Kazemi, who was killed in custody in 2003.

The group demanded an independent probe into the death of dissident student activist Akbar Mohammadi, who died in prison on Sunday following a hunger strike.

The ban comes on the 100th anniversary of Iran’s “constitutional revolution” of August 5, 1906, when the monarch of what was then Persia decreed the creation of a constitution and an elected parliament – the Majlis.

“The ban has a bad meaning for the country” on such a day, said Mohammad Dadkhah, a founder of the rights group.

Ebadi was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2003 by the Norwegian Nobel Committee, for “her efforts for democracy and human rights…especially on the struggle for the rights of women and children,”. She was the first Iranian and first Muslim woman to receive the honour.

Tuesday, May 14, 2013

Australia’s National Rugby League (NRL) is to celebrate “Women in League” week, starting yesterday, with themes including sons, raising funds for breast cancer support, and club-related specials to encourage women to attend rugby league games. The week-long celebration of women was started in 2006 to highlight the importance of women to the sport and make the game female-friendlier.

The NRL is planning to celebrate the week in a number of ways, including having teams compete in pink uniforms, and having fans vote for the NRL player fans believe “acts as a role model for mothers and families; someone who continues to impress us on the field, however their off-field characteristics embody what it is we love about rugby league”. Additionally, funds are to be raised for the McGrath Foundation, a charity dedicated to breast cancer support and education, and the Women in League Achievement Award will be given out with the winner earning a AU$5,000 gift card to Harvey Norman, an Australian electronics store.

The NRL has been promoting the event on their Women in League Facebook page. In the past month, their Facebook updates have included posts featuring male players discussing support they received from women in their lives, sales of pink coloured NRL merchandise, plugs encouraging people to vote for their favourite son, pictures of men supporting Women in League, NRL club promotions for tickets and other events connected to Women in League, and information on a school visit promoting anti-bullying. The Facebook page has also promoted women’s participation and profiles of women’s players as recently as a month ago, when on April 9, it promoted the Girls ‘Come and Try’ Day in Canberra. Prior to that, women were last promoted as players on February 10 when pictures were shared of the Women’s All Stars team match with the Indigenous All Stars team.

140,000 women in Australia are involved with rugby league as players, sport administrators, coaches, employees, club members, or volunteers. Karen Hardy of The Canberra Times estimates this number could easily be quadrupled if wives, girlfriends, mothers, and other female family members who support male players were included. Participation is also increasing, with almost a thousand new female players taking up the sport between 2011 and 2012 for 5,801 total registered female players in 2012.

Wednesday, January 25, 2006

An international group of 73 scientists using 4 projects (PLANET led by Jean-Philippe Beaulieu and Martin Dominik, RoboNet led by MichaelBode and Keith Horne, OGLE led by Andrzej Udalski, and MOA led by Phil Yock) from 32 institutions in 12 countries have discovered the smallest Earth-like planet yet.

The new planet is about 25,000 light years away and is close to the center of the Milky Way.

The discovery was announced in the journal Nature. The journal also states the planet was found using a method called gravitational microlensing, which detects small planets with a mass like that of Earth.

Gravitational microlensing is where a light from a distant star is bent and magnified by the gravitational field of a foreground star. The presence of a planet around the foreground star causes light from the distant star to become momentarily brighter.

However, scientists say that the cold temperatures on the planet make the chance of finding any life on it “unlikely.”

“We may predict with reasonable probability that microlensing will discover planets with masses like that of Earth at a similar distance from their stars and with comparable surface temperature,” said study co-author Bohdan Paczynski from Princeton University.

So far the planet only goes by OGLE-2005-BLG-390Lb, and takes about ten years to orbit its parent star, a red dwarf, a star that is smaller and much cooler than our own Sun.

Scientists say the new planet, which is about five and a half times the mass of Earth, could either have a rocky core and a thin atmosphere, or be a small ice/gas world like Neptune , but in either case, its “very large orbit and cooler parent star, makes it a very cold world.”

The predicted surface temperature is -220° Celsius (-364° F), which means that should it have a rocky core, the planet may more closely resemble a massive version of Pluto with a surface of frozen liquids and gas. Otherwise the planet would be a liquid mass, wrapped in clouds of ice crystals and gas, much like Neptune.

“This is very exciting and important,” said Professor Michael Bode from Liverpool John Moores University, a principal investigator for the RoboNet project which helped to collaborate on the research. “This is the most Earth-like planet we have discovered to date, in terms of its mass and the distance from its parent star. Most of the other planets that have been discovered are either much more massive, much hotter or both.”

This is the third planet in two years that scientists have found using gravitational microlensing.

In the past, more than 150 planets outside our solar system were found using a technique known as the radial velocity method. This method observes a wobble in stars caused by the planet’s gravitational effects.

Sunday, April 24, 2005

New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) announced last Wednesday that it has agreed definitively to merge with Chicago-based Archipelago Exchange (ArcaEx) and form a new publicly traded, for-profit company known as NYSE Group. This announcement was followed two days later by NASDAQ®, which independently announced a definitive agreement to purchase Instinet Group.

Archipelago and Instinet are innovative e-trading (electronic trading) companies, and formerly were the two largest American rivals to NYSE and NASDAQ, in recent years taking increasingly large portions of their market share. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and other regulatory agencies still have to review and approve the transactions, particularly with respect to US securities law and antitrust law, in order to ensure that the marketplace remains lawful and competitive.

Other pending issues for NASDAQ include obtaining the approval of Instinet shareholders, as well as customary closing conditions. NYSE must obtain the approval of its members and Archipelago shareholders.

These changes, a reaction to increased e-trading competition and a changed regulatory environment, will result in NASDAQ and NYSE trading each other’s shares and attempting to grab market share, which many hope will drive down transaction costs and ultimately benefit consumers. However, at least one commentator, Dan Ackman writing in Forbes, has noted that the trading commission at the NYSE currently averages less than a nickel (US$0.05) per share, and was less enthusiastic about potential efficiency gains from electronic trading at the exchange.

The transactions are also intended to make the two leading American stock exchanges more globally competitive with such exchanges as the London Stock Exchange, the Frankfurt Stock Exchange, the Toronto Stock Exchange, and the Australian Stock Exchange located in Sydney.