Author: Admin

Thursday, May 29, 2008

Toronto FC opened up the Nutrilite Canadian Championship with a 1-0 win against Montreal Impact at Saputo Stadium on Tuesday night.

Reds defender Marco Velez scored the only goal of the game, 1^st in tournament history. Velez jumped to head home a cross from Laurent Robert. The goal came in the 72^nd minute.

Montreal played for much of the 2^nd half with 10 men after defender Stefano Pesoli was sent off for a second yellow card.

Toronto FC striker Danny Dichio has been struggling with a groin strain in recent weeks and was forced to leave the game before half time. He was replaced by Jarrod Smith.

Toronto FC now prepare to face Los Angeles Galaxy in Major League Soccer on Saturday at 3:30 p.m. at BMO Field. Toronto FC play their next Nutrilite Canadian Championship game on July 1^st against Vancouver Whitecaps at BMO Field. The Impact’s next game is on Friday against the Portland Timbers at Saputo Stadium.

[edit]

Thursday, October 22, 2020

2020 Melbourne Lord Mayor candidate Wayne Tseng answered some questions about his campaign for the upcoming election from Wikinews. The Lord Mayor election in the Australian city is scheduled to take place this week.

Tseng runs a firm called eTranslate, which helps software developers to make the software available to the users. In the candidate’s questionnaire, Tseng said eTranslate had led to him working with all three tiers of the government. He previously belonged to the Australian Liberal Party, but has left since then, to run for mayorship as an independent candidate.

Tseng is of Chinese descent, having moved to Australia with his parents from Vietnam. Graduated in Brisbane, Tseng received his PhD in Melbourne and has been living in the city, he told Wikinews. Tseng also formed Chinese Precinct Chamber of Commerce, an organisation responsible for many “community bond building initiatives”, the Lord Mayor candidate told Wikinews.

Tseng discussed his plans for leading Melbourne, recovering from COVID-19, and “Democracy 2.0” to ensure concerns of minorities in the city were also heard. Tseng also focused on the importance of the multi-culture aspect and talked about making Melbourne the capital of the aboriginals. Tseng also explained why he thinks Melbourne is poised to be a world city by 2030.

Tseng’s deputy Lord Mayor candidate Gricol Yang is a Commercial Banker and works for ANZ Banking Group.

Currently, Sally Capp is the Lord Mayor of Melbourne, the Victorian capital. Capp was elected as an interim Lord Mayor in mid-2018 after the former Lord Mayor Robert Doyle resigned from his position after sexual assault allegations. Doyle served as the Lord Mayor of Melbourne for almost a decade since 2008.

Friday, January 10, 2020

On Tuesday, the Greek prime minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis reasserted the openness of the EastMed project, which is aimed at connecting the Eastern Mediterranean gas fields with the European mainland via a pipeline through contested waters.

In his Tuesday live-streamed talk at the United States think tank Atlantic Council’s Washington headquarters, Mitsotakis reaffirmed that the EastMed project, which currently involves Greece, Cyprus and Israel, is open for other countries to join. “We don’t seek to exclude anyone from energy cooperation in the Eastern Mediterranean provided they respect international law”, he said, repeating his January 2 remarks made on the EastMed signing ceremony.

He also commented on the Turkish-Libyan maritime border agreement, calling it “null and void” and “geographically ridiculous”. “The agreement assumes that our islands, including our biggest island Crete, does not have an exclusive economic zone, which goes against everything we know in international law”, he added. He also noted that the Libyan House of Representatives rejected the demarcation, and that Greece and Turkey might end up before International Court of Justice in the Hague if talks would fail. Mitsotakis underlined they keep channels to Turkey open for dialog and that he would be “very-very happy if Turkey were to reconsider its overall approach”.

Later on Tuesday Mitsotakis met with the International Monetary Fund, then with President Trump, where he denounced the border agreement again. In regard of clashing exclusive economic zone claims, he noted “it is important to point out that the agreement signed between Turkey and Libya infringe upon Greece’s sovereign rights”.

On last Thursday, the delegations of Cyprus, Greece and Israel had met for their seventh trilateral summit, that time in Athens at the Zappeion Hall, to sign an agreement to construct the EastMed pipeline by 2025. The meeting was attended by Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and energy minister Yuval Steinitz, Greek prime minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis and energy minister Konstantinos Hatzidakis, and Cypriot president Nicos Anastasiades and energy minister Georgios Lakkotrypis. The agreement was signed by the energy ministers. Greek daily Kathimerini said Greece and Cyprus had to speed up to counter possible Turkish interference with the project.

Earlier that day, the Greek gas producer Energean signed a letter of intent on selling two billion cubic meters of gas per year to the Greek gas supplier DEPA. The planned pipeline capacity is 10 billion cubic meters per year. Energean has committed 1.7 billion dollars in the Karish and Tanin fields.

With this forming of political and economic alliance with Hellenic countries, Netanyahu envisioned the pipeline to end their “fringe country” status. Netanyahu called on Italy and Egypt to join the project, adding “We call on any other country that wishes to join us to do so”. In Cyprus, the ruling Democratic Rally in Cyprus hailed the pipeline as an advancement in the nation’s sovereignty. Progressive Party of Working People, the main opposition force, underlined that the agreement is only a legal framework, and actual construction is in the hands of still undecided private investors. Turkish Foreign Ministry spokesman Hami Aksoy underlined Turkish and Turkish Cypriot mining rights in the region, and projected a failure if these would be overlooked.

Otranto, Italy is a proposed end point for the pipeline, and Italian economic development minister Stefano Patuanelli sent a letter of support prior to the signing, but the minister said they are to build another pipeline to Igoumenitsa, Greece. The United States expressed its support via the December 20 signing of the Eastern Mediterranean Bill, a July 25 quadrilateral meeting in Washington, and sent Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to join the trilateral meeting of EastMed countries on March 20 last year. The EU partially funded the feasibility studies, as it considers the EastMed pipeline to be a Project of Common Interest (PCI), ending the energy isolation of Crete and Cyprus, and diversifying the gas supply of Europe, when completed.

In December, a Turkish official said that the trans-Anatolian pipeline, which is already up and running, renders the EastMed building effort unnecessary, Cyprus Mail reported. On November 27, Turkey and Libya signed a maritime border agreement, according to which a section between Crete and Cyprus would cross the Turkish economic zone. Athens expelled the Libyan ambassador to Greece over this issue. Turkey maintains a position that only Northern Cyprus, which is recognized only by Turkey, has the right to the exclusive economic zone around the island. Because of its drilling operations there, Turkey is already under EU sanctions, and was condemned in a joint statement by Egypt, Greece and Cyprus on October 8.

In 2017, a memorandum of understanding about the pipeline was signed between Cyprus, Greece and Israel.

According to the Cyprus Mail, the 2000 km long pipeline is to connect the fields with Crete, the Greek mainland, and would end in Otranto, Italy. The May 2019 map of gas routes by Gas Infrastructure Europe draws the pipeline between the Aphrodite gas field and Thesprotia, Greece, where it merges with the Poseidon line en route to Italy.

Alex Lagakos, deputy director of the Greek Energy Forum, said the project has a geopolitical significance rather than an economic one. He called it unlikely that the EU would finance the project, as it has committed itself to green energy. The estimated cost is six billion euros, but the saturation of the gas markets and competition from liquid natural gas (LNG) terminals are likely to keep private investors away, he noted. Egypt has two usable terminals in the Nile-Delta, in Damietta and Idku. On September 19, 2018, Cyprus and Egypt had signed an alternative deal to export Aphrodite gas through these ports via a new pipeline.

Haifa University geostrategy expert and former Israeli security official, Avinoam Idan, said the new EastMed supply can’t be considered a significant geopolitical change to Europe’s energy market, as it would not affect the market share of Russian gas. In the analysis of the German Institute for Economic Research, the high costs and technical challenges render the project unrealistic.

During the trilateral meeting of Cyprus, Greece and Israel on January 28, 2016, the then-envisioned EuroAsia Interconnector was considered as an alternative route to export the gas as electricity. The 1000 megawatt underwater cable connecting the three power grids is to be completed by December 2023. The estimated cost is 2.5 billion euros, and the EU considers it a PCI. EuroAfrica Interconnector, a similar project between Greece, Cyprus and Egypt, is also in its planning stage.

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.

Sunday, January 6, 2008

A Piper PA-31 Navajo Chieftain owned and operated by Servant Air has crashed shortly after takeoff from Kodiak Island, Alaska, United States. Six people were killed and four others were rescued.

The flight was a 100 mile scheduled domestic charter flight from Kodiak to Homer. Servant Air are a small local airline that serves Kodiak, which has a population of around 6,000. The airline was founded in 2003 and currently operates seven planes. The plane took off at 1:48 p.m. local time Saturday and subsequently crashed in a shallow harbor 50 yards from the runway.

Dean Andrew, who was piloting a float plane taxiing on the water nearby, was able to rescue four people from the crashed plane. “Once I got them in they were really cold, and they were just pretty hysterical because they had told me that their family’s in that plane,” said Andrew, who the International Tribune Herald reports operates his own small air service, although the Seattle Times reported that he flew the plane for Trident Seafoods.

Alaska State Troopers and Kodiak Police divers were called in to retrieve the bodies of four others. A fifth was pulled out the water after attempting to swim 300 yards to shore, but he had already succumbed to the cold.

The passengers were Russian Orthodox Old Believers who had chartered the flight home in order to celebrate Russian Christmas, which is celebrated on Monday. The deceased have been identified as Homer citizens Stefan F. Basargin, 36; Pavel F. Basargin, 30; Zahary F. Martushev, 25; Iosif F. Martushev, 15; Andrian Reutov, 22 and local pilot Robin Starrett, 50. The survivors, who have not been identified, are all in good condition or out of hospital. Two were flown to Anchorage for treatment and two remained in Kodak; in both cases one was released and one remains.

Andrew described the moments leading up to the crash: “I heard Servant Air’s Navajo taking off, and shortly after he took off, he said, ‘I need to return to the airport.’ I know the pilot, and I could tell by the tone of his voice that it was probably something serious.”

The US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) has opened a full investigation. NTSB investigator Clint Johnson told reporters it’s possible that mechanical problems with the plane caused the accident.

Ted Panamarioff, spokesman for Servant Air, said of Starrett “Very humble, very caring. Very detail oriented. Very precise in the way he did things. He was an excellent family man. Excellent co-worker.” He also said that Starrett had served in the Coast Guard, and that those involved were regular customers well known with the small airline. “We’re all family and friends here. We knew these customers for several years. This is really, really tragic.”

Thursday, March 31, 2005A report Tuesday from a United Nations-backed project, consulting more than 1,300 scientists from 95 countries, and written over the last four years, warns that 60 percent of the basics of life on Earth — water, food, timber, clean air — are currently being used in ways which degrade them. Furthermore, fisheries and fresh water use-patterns are unsustainable, and getting worse.

“The harmful consequences of this degradation could grow significantly worse in the next 50 years,” according to a press release from the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA), a massive four-year study begun in 2001.

“We’ve had many reports on environmental degradation, but for the first time we’re now able to draw connections between ecosystem services and human well-being,” Cristian Samper, director of the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History in Washington and a chief architect of the study, told the Christian Science Monitor.

The project’s Synthesis Report, first in a series of eleven documents and published yesterday, explains the objective: “to assess the consequences of ecosystem change for human well-being and to establish the scientific basis for actions needed to enhance the conservation and sustainable use of ecosystems and their contributions to human well-being.”

It then goes on to report on four main findings:

• Changes over the last 50 years to meet rapidly growing demands for food, fresh water, timber, fiber and fuel, have effected substantial and largely irreversible loss in the diversity of life on Earth.

• Net gains in human well-being and economic development are offset by growing costs, in the form ecosystem degradation, the possibility of abrupt and unpredictable ecosystem changes, and worsened poverty for some groups. Unless addressed, these problems will substantially diminish the benefits that future generations obtain from ecosystems.

• Ecosystem degradation could grow significantly worse over the next 50 years, presenting a barrier to meeting UN Millennium Development Goals.

• The challenge of reversing the degradation while meeting increasing ecological demands can be partially met under some scenarios, but only with significant changes in policies, institutions and practices — changes that are not currently under way.

Walter Reid, the study’s director, speaking at yesterday’s London launch of the report said it shows that over the last 50 years “humans have changed ecosystems more rapidly and extensively than in any comparable time in human history.”

“This has resulted in substantial and largely irreversible loss in the diversity of life on Earth,” he said.

It is unclear what this will mean to future generations or the possible emergence of new diseases, absence of fresh water and the continuing decline of fisheries and completely unpredictable weather.

With half of the urban populations of Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean suffering from several diseases associated with these problems, the death toll is reaching 1.7 million people a year. Entire species of mammals, birds and amphibians are disappearing from the planet at nearly 1,000 times the natural rate, according to the study. Oxygen-depleted coastal waters and rivers result from overuse of nitrogen fertilizer – an effect known as “nutrient loading” which leads to continuing biodiversity loss.

With the United States’ non-participation in the Kyoto Treaty, former U.S. Senator Timothy Wirth, president of this U.N. Foundation, says “U.S. leadership is critical in providing much-needed expertise, technological capabilities and ingenuity to restore ecosystems.

“We can take steps at home to reduce our nation’s adverse impact on the global environment.”

“At the heart of this assessment is a stark warning,” said the 45-member board.

Friday, November 13, 2009

Italian goalkeeper Carlo Cudicini has been seriously injured in a motorcycle accident in London. The player, who plays for Tottenham Hotspurs, was involved in a collision with a car at 10:30 GMT. The football club reported that he has fractured his wrists and injured his pelvis.

A spokesperson for the Metropolitan Police released a statement saying “A 36-year-old male suffered injuries described by the London Ambulance Service as possibly life-changing and was taken to Whipps Cross Hospital for further assessment and treatment”. No arrests have been made.

Cudicini crashed his motorcycle into a Ford Fiesta with a female driver and a child passenger. Neither the driver or passenger were injured in the accident.

Cudicini is the son of former AC Milan goalkeeper Fabio Cudicini. During his career he has played for Lazio, AC Milan and Chelsea. He played for Chelsea for 10 years until he was transferred to Tottenham in January. He made one appearance for the Italian national team.