Saturday, March 14, 2015

This weekend saw the opening of two new exhibitions at Edinburgh’s National Gallery of Modern Art. Wikinews attended Thursday’s press preview for the event where a full contingent of the capital’s press turned out to see the striking collection of paintings, photographs, and other works. Presented below are a selection of images captured at the preview.

REFLECTIONS: A Series of Changing Displays of Contemporary Art, billed as a showcase of a “diverse range of internationally-renowned contemporary and modern artists” is to display major works from the Gallery’s permanent collection, alongside important loans. Alongside this broad range of works, a three-room display of pieces on-loan from the Roy Lichtenstein Foundation — with a dramatic painted steel relief, ‘borrowed’ from the Tate in London — runs from March 14 through to January 10 next year.

Admission to both exhibitions is free; being located in Dean, to the north-west of Edinburgh’s city centre, a free Gallery bus service is available.

Wednesday, May 1, 2013

Announced yesterday in Sydney, the shortlist for Australia’s most prestigious literary award, the Miles Franklin Literary Award, includes only women for the first time in the award’s history. The award had been criticized in the past for its exclusion of women on the short list, with no women appearing on it in 2009 and 2011.

This year’s authors on the short list include Romy Ash for Floundering, Michelle de Kretser for Questions of Travel, Annah Faulkner for The Beloved, Drusilla Modjeska for The Mountain, and Carrie Tiffany for Mateship with Birds. The winner gets a cash prize of AU$60,000.

Judges said the shortlist selection was based on the quality of the literature, with gender not playing a role in their decision processes. Richard Neville, a librarian at the State Library of New South Wales and judge, is quoted by the Sydney Morning Herald saying, “People will probably think this is a riposte to the Stella Prize, [..] But I’ve judged this for four years, including the infamous year of the ‘sausage fest’, and we always try to view the books as literature. We felt the books on the shortlist selected themselves.”File:Brian Castro2.jpg

The longlist, announced in the last week of March, included two men out of ten total listed authors: Brian Castro for Street to Street, and Thomas Keneally for The Daughters of Mars.

Perceived discrimination against women’s writers in Australian literary circles led to the creation this year of the Stella Prize. The chair of the Australia Council’s Literature Board Sophie Cunningham played an integral role in creating the Stella Prize, modeled after the United Kingdom’s Orange Prize. The award derives its name from Miles Franklin’s birth name, Stella Maria Sarah Miles Franklin.

The winner is scheduled to be announced on June 19 in Canberra.

Saturday, January 30, 2010

Honda have issued a recall for 646,000 cars around the world due to a potential fault that could cause a fire. The recall involves the ‘Jazz’ range of cars, which is known by its alternative name, Fit, in some countries.

Three incidents involving the problem, caused by a defective master switch, have been reported worldwide, two in the US and one in South Africa. In September 2009, Vanilla Nurse, a two-year old girl, was sleeping in one of the models, when the hatchback in Cape Town caught fire. Following the accident, Honda “launched an extensive investigation to determine the cause of the incident,” according to a statement issued today. Although they could not isolate the cause of the fire, “the investigation has shown that water intrusion into the power window switch housing may in some instances cause a short circuit, which in exceptional circumstances may lead to potential damages”.

Just 10% of cars are expected to need new switches. The remainder will need a waterproof skirt in order to keep water out.

Rival Toyota was forced to recall vehicles on Thursday, citing floor mats that may stick accelerator pedals to the floor. There are fears that Toyota may have to widen their recall to cover up to eight million cars.

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Monday, January 31, 2005

Metlife announced on 01/31/05 that they were going to acquire Travelers Life and Annuity from Citigroup. Travelers Life and Annuity is an insurance underwriter. MetLife is a large life insurance and annuities underwriter. MetLife will have to borrow a lot of money to pay for the company, so rating agencies like S&P warn that the AA credit rating of MetLife might be lowered. This would cause the interest rates at which all of MetLife’s debt must be repaid to increase.

Citigroup committed to continue distributing Travelers life insurance and annuities through its Smith Barney stock brokers, Primerica agents, and Citibank branches.

Citigroup was previously known as Travelers Insurance before it bought Citicorp. First the Property and Casualty business of Travelers was spun off, and now the life insurance division has been sold off. This is primarily because insurance underwriters get a lower price to earnings multiple from the stock market because of the cycles and uncertainty associated with the insurance business. Also, having an insurance underwriter and a bank together does not usually create “cross-sell” opportunities, because consumers and businesses almost always buy life insurance and annuities through brokers who have a duty to give them other options. Citigroup will continue to sell insurance through its brokers as before.

Wednesday, July 20, 2005

A multi-center US study of 748 patients, who were to undergo treatment for coronary artery disease, has found that prayer by Christian, Muslim, Jewish, and Buddhist groups had no measurable effects on the medical health of the study subjects. The prayers were conducted by established congregations and were held away from the hospitals.

The study, published in the 16 July 2005 issue of The Lancet, found that the likelihood of an adverse cardiovascular event in hospital, re-admission or death within six months was unaffected by prayer.

None of the patients were told that they were prayed for, and none of the prayer groups knew who they prayed for. Nevertheless, 67% of the non-prayer group believed they were being prayed for – a potential placebo effect that may have hidden any small differences between the two groups.

The study also examined the effects of “music, imagery, and touch (MIT) therapy” before heart surgery. Practitioners qualified to Level 1 Healing Touch taught the patient relaxation techniques and played soothing music before applying 21 Healing Touch hand positions, over a 40 minute session.

There was no significant change in the combined chance of an adverse cardiovascular event in hospital, re-admission or death within six months. However, while the set of patients was evenly split, only 7 patients who received MIT therapy died, and 20 patients who did not receive it died. The result is not highly significant due to the low overall number of people who died.

A number of studies has recently examined the possible effects of prayer, with mixed results. While some religious groups have hailed studies which found positive results [1], skeptics have challenged the very notion of scientifically examining prayer [2], and have described past studies as flawed or even fraudulent. [3]

“The mechanisms through which distant intercessory prayer might convey healing benefit are unknown”, the authors of the study explain. One hypothesis they propose for such effects are “non-local features of consciousness based theoretically around observations in quantum physics.”

The study was conducted by a team of 16 researchers at Duke Clinical Research Institute (DCRI), Duke University Medical Center, the Durham Veterans Affairs Medical Center (VAMC), and seven other academic medical institutions across the United States.

Saturday, August 26, 2006

A British Airways (BA) flight from London to Denver made an emergency landing at an airport in Iceland today after smoke was seen emerging from an oven in the aircraft’s rear kitchen.

A BA spokesman said that the Boeing 777 landed safely at Keflavik Airport. He added that the plane’s 268 passengers left the craft unharmed.

A spokeswoman from the Iceland Civil Aviation Administration ruled out any terrorist involvement. She added: “They were 50 miles from Keflavik when it was thought there was a fire. But it turned out to be only smoke.”

The flight should complete its journey to the US tomorrow. Passengers are spending the night in a hotel.

Thursday, July 30, 2009

Eleven of the 25 workers at the Vestas factory in Newport, Isle of Wight, England who have been carrying out a sit-in since Monday July 20 have been sacked with immediate effect.

According to one of the protesters known as “Mike”, the occupiers were given their dismissal notices concealed under slices of their evening meal of pizza. The company said that the protesters have had ample opportunity to air their point of view, and had no choice but to sack eleven of the twenty five workers that they had positively identified; and that given that the fact that the action constituted a “fundamental breach” of trust, that the eleven would not be entitled to redundancy packages. A press release from the company said that Vestas “saw no other choice than to dismiss the 11 employees, who the company has positively identified as the employees currently participating in the occupation of the factory.”

The protesters remained upbeat, vowing to continue their occupation and have called upon the UK government to save the 625 jobs and to nationalise the Danish owned factory. Occupier Ian Terry told the BBC that if the occupiers are forced out, they plan to leave the building “peacefully”.

Vestas management were dealt a setback today in ending the occupation as Newport County Court ruled that the papers accusing the occupiers of aggravate trespass and requiring they surrender the office they occupy by July 29 were improperly served. The case has been adjourned until Tuesday August 4. In court, Judge Graham White said he was “distinctly uncomfortable” with what he perceived as Vestas’ effort to “get around the rules” in retaking the factory from the occupiers.

Legal representation for the Vestas workers had been offered by Bob Crow, secretary of the RMT trade union. Crow has pledged the “full solidarity” of the RMT and seven other unions with the workers occupying the plant.

Vestas management has also been providing the occupiers with hot meals in an apparent response to Crow’s announcement, made on July 24, that the RMT was planning on airlifting food into the factory by helicopter. Crow is meeting today with Ed Miliband, the Environment Minister.

Earlier in the week, Miliband pledged £6 million in funding to an expansion of Vestas’ Isle of Wight research and development centre, which currently employs 110 workers and could, said the Minister, be expanded to employ 40 more.

Rallies continued throughout the week in support of the Vestas occupiers. Since the occupation began, the Vestas workers have received declarations of support and solidarity from a wide swathe of the British left, including but not limited to: political parties Green Party, Respect, the Socialist Party, the Socialist Workers Party, the Alliance for Workers Liberty, and the Communist Party of Britain; the TUCG group, which brings together the BFAWU, FBU, NAPO, NUJ, PCS, POA, RMT, and URTU; and environmental groups Greenpeace, the Campaign against Climate Change, Climate Camp, and Workers’ Climate Action, who claims credit for initiating the campaign to occupy the factory. Attendees of the Big Green Gathering, a large annual environmentalist rally which was due to take place starting today but was suddenly canceled on Sunday, are being encouraged to go to the Isle of Wight and take part in support rallies for Vestas instead.

Speaking to Wikinews about the “red–green” coalition supporting the occupation, a spokesman for the Alliance for Workers’ Liberty said: “We think this struggle is important on at least three grounds — it is central to the struggle for jobs, it is central to the struggle for the environment, and it is central to the struggle for rebuilding the labour movement.”

Photographs shared with Wikinews by the occupiers show the occupiers, mostly young men, talking, carrying out everyday tasks, and keeping in touch with the outside world via mobile phones. The use of mobile telephones in the Vestas occupation has given the press remarkable access to the occupiers and provided an effective platform for relaying their demands and feelings to the media. In contrast, Vestas’s designated media contact for the United Kingdom is on vacation. Attempts to reach Vestas Newport factory manager Patrick Weir, whom a Vestas representative at the company’s Danish headquarters stated was handling press inquiries regarding the occupation, received no reply.

Vestas plans to close the factory on July 31, citing the difficulties of obtaining planning permission for wind farms in the United Kingdom. All blades manufactured at Vestas’ Newport plant are sent to the United States. 1900 employees of the company in Northern Europe face job losses, 625 of them in Vestas’s plants in the south of England.