Sunday, May 18, 2014

The governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney, has warned that the state of the housing market in the United Kingdom is the current biggest domestic threat to the country’s economy, due to lack of house building, and regulatory issues.

In an interview to be aired on Sky News today, he said the housing market is the “biggest risk” to the economy and has “deep, deep structural problems”. Of house building he said: “There are not sufficient houses built in the UK. To go back to Canada, there are half as many people in Canada as in the UK, twice as many houses are built every year in Canada as in the UK and we can’t influence that.”

“We’re not going to build a single house at the Bank of England. We can’t influence that. What we can influence […] is whether the banks are strong enough. Do they have enough capital against risk in the housing market?”

Carney also said the Bank of England would look into the procedures used to issue loans and mortgages to see if they were being granted appropriately: “We’d be concerned if there was a rapid increase in high loan-to-value mortgages across the banks. We’ve seen that creeping up and it’s something we’re watching closely.”

Kris Hopkins responded to Carney on behalf of the government, saying the government “inherited a broken housing market, but our efforts to fix it are working”. “We’ve scrapped the failed top-down planning system, built over 170,000 affordable homes and released more surplus brownfield sites for new housing. We’ve also helped homebuyers get on the housing ladder, because if people can buy homes builders will build them. Housebuilding is now at its highest level since 2007 and climbing. Last year councils gave permission for almost 200,000 new homes under the locally-led planning system and more than 1,000 communities have swiftly taken up neighbourhood planning. It’s clear evidence the government’s long-term economic plan is working.”

Earlier this month, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development called on the UK government to “tighten” access to the ‘Help to Buy’ scheme introduced by George Osborne and the coalition government in 2013. ‘Help to Buy’ has also recently been criticised by three former Chancellors of the Exchequer — the Conservatives Norman Lamont and Nigel Lawson, and former Labour Chancellor Alistair Darling. Darling said: “Unless supply can be increased substantially, we will exacerbate that situation with schemes like Help to Buy.”

Friday, December 12, 2008

By virtue of 28 search warrants, the Australian Federal Police has charged and arrested 23 men across Australia of “trading images and videos of child abuse on the internet,” being part of a global child pornography and video-sharing network involving people in 70 countries.

A Victorian QC, a NSW policeman, and a childcare worker are among the 19 arrested so far across NSW, Victoria and Queensland. As part of the international crackdown on the online child pornography ring, the AFP’s Child Protection Operations Teams seized some 500,000 images and 15,000 videos, which not only showed victims as young as 12 months old, but even filmed children being molested for more than two hours.

Retired former barrister, a Newham Victorian legal figure Neil James Williams QC, aged 74, was arrested by Australian Federal Police on October 22. Charged with one count of using a carriage service provider to view child pornography and one of possession of child pornography material, he appeared in the Bendigo’s Magistrates’ Court of Victoria and was released on granted bail, pending court hearing on March 4.

Sydney man Richard Ngon Fung Lee, aged 24, a waiter from Blakehurst, New South Wales, one of five men arrested and detained, was accused of “downloading and possessing child pornography,” and six counts of child sex. He did not file a petition for bail, as Sydney’s Central Local Court jurist Allan Moore adjourned the criminal lawsuit until next week. He will also be charged with having sex with a 13-year-old girl.

AFP Acting Deputy Commissioner Andrew Colvin said, “the videos seized as part of this operation have to be among the worst we have seen; in this case we haven’t located any children that were depicted in these videos or these images in Australia; law enforcement does have tools, so we can get in and infiltrate these type of applications; if we are not knocking on your door this morning, then it could be tomorrow.”

The year-long probe dubbed “Operation Resistance” began after information from the Brazilian Federal Police last December. The tip-off supplied from the DPF via the Interpol, had contributed to identification of more than 200 suspects in 70 countries forming the global internet sex network. The Age reported that “six other Victorians arrested are a 40-year-old Bell Park man, 27-year-old Maldon man, Rodney Peter Smith, a 56-year-old Altona man, a 66-year-old Northcote man, a 32-year-old Lovely Banks man and a 47-year-old Windsor man.” Some of those arrested will appear before the Geelong Magistrates’ Court of Victoria next year. Another 200 suspects have been identified worldwide.

Amid the legal and practical issue of identifying the victims, the children appear to be based primarily in Eastern Europe, and North and South America. All the charges filed concern peer-to-peer (or P2P) network, with each carrying a 10-year imprisonment penalty for possession of child abuse instrument. AFP acting assistant commissioner Neil Gaughan said more charges and arrests are expected this week. Only two children in NSW had been removed from contact with suspects. The AFP’s one year investigation has also resulted in over 300 people being arrested, including 131 people as part of 2008’s Operation Centurion.

The police are urging anyone with information regarding overt or suspicious acts about child pornography to report the matter to the local police, or online through http://www.virtualglobaltaskforce.com.

Saturday, April 17, 2010

Journalist, counselor, painter, and US 2012 Presidential candidate Joe Schriner of Cleveland, Ohio took some time to discuss his campaign with Wikinews in an interview.

Schriner previously ran for president in 2000, 2004, and 2008, but failed to gain much traction in the races. He announced his candidacy for the 2012 race immediately following the 2008 election. Schriner refers to himself as the “Average Joe” candidate, and advocates a pro-life and pro-environmentalist platform. He has been the subject of numerous newspaper articles, and has published public policy papers exploring solutions to American issues.

Wikinews reporter William Saturn? talks with Schriner and discusses his campaign.

Monday, December 3, 2007

At Thanksgiving dinner David Shankbone told his white middle class family that he was to interview Reverend Al Sharpton that Saturday. The announcement caused an impassioned discussion about the civil rights leader’s work, the problems facing the black community and whether Sharpton helps or hurts his cause. Opinion was divided. “He’s an opportunist.” “He only stirs things up.” “Why do I always see his face when there’s a problem?”

Shankbone went to the National Action Network’s headquarters in Harlem with this Thanksgiving discussion to inform the conversation. Below is his interview with Al Sharpton on everything from Tawana Brawley, his purported feud with Barack Obama, criticism by influential African Americans such as Clarence Page, his experience running for President, to how he never expected he would see fifty (he is now 53). “People would say to me, ‘Now that I hear you, even if I disagree with you I don’t think you’re as bad as I thought,'” said Sharpton. “I would say, ‘Let me ask you a question: what was “bad as you thought”?’ And they couldn’t say. They don’t know why they think you’re bad, they just know you’re supposed to be bad because the right wing tells them you’re bad.”

Tuesday, November 1, 2005

Carl-Henric Svanberg, CEO of Ericsson, began a tour of some of Marconi’s European sites this morning, starting at Coventry and moving to Beeston for the afternoon session. Genoa and Backnang will be visited on Wednesday and Thursday.

Mike Parton, CEO of Marconi Corporation, spoke of the ‘good news’ for all stake-holders and introduced Svanberg to a round of applause from the majority of the staff at Coventry New Century Park, while more staff from Coventry New Horizon Park listened on a conference call line.

The purpose of the tour is to communicate to approx. Eighty percent of Marconi’s staff and allow them to ask questions about the asset purchase proposed by Ericsson.

Sunday, June 27, 2010

Toyota announced on Friday that it will recall around 17,000 Lexus vehicles in response to risks of the fuel tank in the cars leaking after a collision.

The Lexus HS 250h model was subjected to the recall following a US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) investigation. Despite previously passing Toyota safety inspections, the conclusions of an NHTSA sub-contracted investigator were that; when the vehicles in question collided with an object at more than fifty-miles-per hour, more than 142 grams of fuel, the maximum allowed by US law, leaked from the crashed car.

According to Toyota, further tests did not show any additional failure of the fuel tank.

In response to the findings, Toyota issued a recall of all affected vehicles, since the company had no solution immediately available. The recall includes 13,000 cars already sold, as well as another 4,000 still at dealerships.

Toyota says it plans to conduct further tests to determine the cause of the leak. A Toyota spokesman, Brian Lyons, said that the company was “still working to determine what the root cause of the condition is.” It’s still unclear when exactly the recall will take place, or when dealerships will be allowed to sell this model again. Lyons said that Toyota is “working feverishly to get this resolved as soon as possible.”

Toyota isn’t aware of any accidents stemming from the leaking fuel tank in the affected vehicles, first introduced in the summer of 2009.