Thursday, July 3, 2014

Ian Narev, the CEO of the Commonwealth Bank of Australia, this morning “unreservedly” apologised to clients who lost money in a scandal involving the bank’s financial planning services arm.

Last week, a Senate enquiry found financial advisers from the Commonwealth Bank had made high-risk investments of clients’ money without the clients’ permission, resulting in hundreds of millions of dollars lost. The Senate enquiry called for a Royal Commission into the bank, and the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC).

Mr Narev stated the bank’s performance in providing financial advice was “unacceptable”, and the bank was launching a scheme to compensate clients who lost money due to the planners’ actions.

In a statement Mr Narev said, “Poor advice provided by some of our advisers between 2003 and 2012 caused financial loss and distress and I am truly sorry for that. […] There have been changes in management, structure and culture. We have also invested in new systems, implemented new processes, enhanced adviser supervision and improved training.”

An investigation by Fairfax Media instigated the Senate inquiry into the Commonwealth Bank’s financial planning division and ASIC.

Whistleblower Jeff Morris, who reported the misconduct of the bank to ASIC six years ago, said in an article for The Sydney Morning Herald that neither the bank nor ASIC should be in control of the compensation program.

Monday, September 14, 2009

A viral election joke has landed several politicians in hot water as Norway goes to the polls to elect its parliament today. A hoax message turning voters away from polling stations is circulating in digital media. The message was also passed on by politicians, who have used social media like Twitter and YouTube to interact with the voters during the campaign. The targeted party is not laughing, and is warning that the activity could be seen as voter suppression.

“Due to full polling stations, Progress Party voters should send their vote by SMS [Standard Modular System] with shortcode FRP to 2009″ That message, and variations of it, was the joke circulating in social media such as Facebook and Twitter or by mobile phone messages.

Norway has taken significant steps towards e-government, such as a trial letting pre-calculated tax returns be filed by SMS. In this context, the General Secretary of the Progress Party, Geir Mo, said that the message was “sabotaging democracy”, because the damage would be done even if just one person believed the message. Kjell Ingolf Ropstad, one of the politicians who passed the message on, refused to apologize for doing it.

The main issue in the election has been whether voters should let the Labour Party dominated majority coalition government stay in power, or vote them out by voting for opposition parties.

Saturday, July 10, 2021

The number of patients in England waiting for treatment by the National Health Service reached 5.3 million in May, data Thursday indicated, the highest since records began in April 2007 for the second consecutive month.

Those on the health institute’s waiting list increased by over 600 thousand in the past three months. However, the average wait time of just under eleven weeks has been steadily declining since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, which drove total admissions to hospital down, according to The Guardian.

Total admissions for surgery and normal treatment have increased fourfold to nearly pre-pandemic levels from 54,550 last year to 242,064 in May, according to Sky News. In May 2019, there were 295,881 admissions for routine treatment.

The rise in demand is primarily due to a surge in non-COVID-related admissions: over two million people visited the accident and emergency department (A&E) last month, for example, in the busiest ever June. A blog post published Wednesday by the NHS Confederation warned increasing demand in urgent, non-COVID-related healthcare in both children and adults are “putting severe and unprecedented strain on the urgent care system, with unsustainable numbers of people now visiting A&E, seeing their GPs [general practitioners] and calling ambulances.”

Wait times are trending downward, according to Sky News. Between April and May, the number of people waiting over 52 weeks for treatment fell by 50 thousand, though still thirteen times higher than last year. Patients waiting over eighteen weeks dropped by 83 thousand in the same time, “for the first time this year”, according to NHS medical director Stephen Powis. However, the percent of those who received treatment within eighteen weeks, 67%, remained below the NHS standard of 92%, according to The Guardian.

The average wait time for elective care of 10.8 weeks was down 29% from May last year, according to the NHS Confederation’s chief executive Matthew Taylor. In a blog post on the organisation’s web site he remarked the “treatment backlog of 5.3 million patients” nonetheless “show[s] that while waiting lists are still rising, more people are coming forward for care, which is encouraging, as this is exactly what the NHS is there for.”

Taylor went on to say “our urgent care system [is] running a winter-like service in the middle of summer”, adding “we must go into this next phase with our eyes wide open, and acknowledge much of the care the NHS can provide to patients is likely to be disrupted further, including in the community.”

The Guardian reported other issues, including that nearly 25% of patients in A&E waited over four hours to be seen. Only 75% of cancer patients were seen within two weeks of cancer screening, below a target of 90%, or a GP’s urgent referral, below a target of 85%. An October analysis by Macmillan Cancer Support estimates from the year before, 50 thousand fewer people were diagnosed with cancer, a backlog it warned could grow by four thousand missed diagnoses per month to over 100 thousand this October, and urgent referral activity in England for August was 11% behind 2019 levels.

The NHS has said it budgeted one billion GBP on restoring services and clearing the waiting list, according to The Guardian.

32,551 new COVID-19 cases in the United Kingdom were reported on Thursday and another 35 attributable deaths, according to Sky News, up over four thousand from the week before, and the highest since the week of January 27 . This comes after health minister Sajid Javid said cases of COVID “could go as high as 100,000” ahead of the expected lifting of all remaining lockdown restrictions on July 19, dubbed “Freedom Day”, as reported by Sky News and The Guardian.

Friday, May 2, 2008

The 2008 Taipei CNC Machine Tools & Manufacturing Technology Show (MT duo) and Taiwan International Robot Exhibition (Robot Taiwan 2008) both began yesterday. These events are both taking place in the build up to Taipei International Machine Tool Show (TIMTOS 2009) at TWTC Nangang, which is due to take place next year.

The 2008 MT duo and Robot Taiwan mainly focused on software designed for industry, rather than consumers. This is in contrast to the choice of software displayed in many Japanese Trade Shows, which often displays products designed for consumers.

Robotics is a major industry in Taiwan. As a result the organizer of the event decided to refine “Manufacturing Taipei” and split it into the “Robot & Industrial Automation” of Manufacturing Taipei and “Robot Taiwan”.

There was also a “Taiwan International Robotics Forum” and “Seminars on MT duo” at the event. Both were designed to attract executives from IT, manufacturing, and machinery industries to promote the worldwide use of robotics in industry.

Friday, April 23, 2010

Minas, one of the largest states of Brazil, has stopped the sale of the Toyota Corolla over safety concerns.

The move was made after nine Corolla customers reported that their cars automatically accelerated. The state public prosecutor’s office said in an online statement on Tuesday that the problem is blamed on accelerator pedals sticking underneath floor mats. Local government said the issue was “putting in danger the lives of occupants”.

According to the prosecutor’s office, sales of Corollas may resume when Toyota alters the floormats in its current models. Toyota has recalled over eight million vehicles worldwide due to acceleration problems.

Tuesday, December 1, 2009

With two by-elections coming up in Australia, many minor parties and independents will be looking to gain a seat in the House of Representatives. Stephen Murphy is one of the independents.

Mr Murphy is a computer programmer from the Melbourne suburb of Brunswick.

“After growing up in South-East Melbourne I studied Science at Monash with first class Honours, worked in Europe for 10 years and have recently returned to Australia. I work in finance as a computer programmer and speak five languages,” Mr Murphy said.

Wikinews reporter Patrick Gillett held an exclusive email interview with Mr Murphy, candidate for the Division of Higgins.

((WN)) Why do you want to get into parliament?

Stephen Murphy: I am standing up for what I believe is the correct course of action on the biggest issue in Australian politics in 100 years – Kevin Rudd’s flawed emissions trading scheme (ETS).

((WN)) What would the three main policies you are taking into this by-election be?

SM: I will oppose the emissions trading scheme, ensure that all government policy is based on accurate scientific evidence and return common sense to Canberra

((WN)) How would you address these policies?

SM: By asking for a Royal Commission into climate change so that the facts (such as that global warming stopped in 2001 and the emissions trading scheme will not change the climate one bit) are openly presented to the Australian people.

((WN)) Sending asylum seekers to Indonesia: good or bad?

SM: Any government policy that does not properly consider all implications (be it emissions trading, or any other issue) is a bad one.

((WN)) Is the Australian dollar’s near parity with the US dollar a sign that the Australian economy is healthy, the US economy in chaos or both?

SM: It’s a sign of both. Many countries around the world look with envy at how well (relatively) Australia is doing, to our credit! It is of concern that the American economy is in such bad shape and that their levels of debt seem unsustainable.

((WN)) How do you rate the governments economic stimulus package?

SM: The economic stimulus package was poorly targeted and poorly carried out. When we could have been building roads, dams, railways and hospitals yet instead we were paying for tattoos, PlayStations and overseas holidays.

((WN)) Should it be wound back?

SM: The question about levels of stimulus spending is a complicated one and requires expertise in economics, however one could say in general terms that all government spending should be well targeted and spent in the most efficient way.

((WN)) Is Kevin Rudd a better Prime Minister than John Howard?’

SM: Australian voters are the best judge of that and we will know in 2019 🙂

((WN)) Is the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme an effective solution to climate change? Why?

SM: Absolutely not. The CPRS will not change the climate by any amount that we can measure – it’s just a new tax that will hurt Australians and drive businesses and jobs overseas. Since 2003 there has been mountains of new scientific data which contradicts the popular theory that human carbon dioxide emissions are causing significant global warming. Recently, many of the scientists who wrote the IPCC report (on which the ETS / CPRS is based) have been reported as manipulating scientific data to create scary global warming scenarios. The science is definitely not settled

((WN)) Is there a better solution?

SM: We can very easily refocus the momentum and goodwill that has been generated on climate change and channel this energy into other worthwhile environmental projects in Australia that will make a difference.

((WN)) Why should the electorate vote for you?

SM: I will oppose the ETS and support responsible environmental policies instead of radical environmental policies that could end up costing every Australian taxpayer $4550 per year in new taxes.

Friday, September 9, 2005

New Orleans, Louisiana —After Category 4 storm Hurricane Katrina slammed into New Orleans, on the night before August 29, 2005, several flood control constructions failed. Much of the city flooded through the openings. One of these was the flood wall forming one side of the 17th Street Canal, near Lake Pontchartrain. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) is the primary agency for engineering support during such emergencies. A USACE team was assessing the situation in New Orleans on the 29th, water flow was stopped September 2nd, and the breach was closed on September 5th.