onsalehouses.net

Friday, August 19, 2005

Russian and Chinese armed forces began their first ever joint military exercises since the Korean War, when Russia was still part of the Soviet Union, on Thursday. The exercises are expected to last for eight days.

10,000 troops — about 1800 Russians, the rest Chinese — are participating in the war games. The exercises simulate United Nations-mandated police action to restore order in a fictitious country torn by ethnic unrest. They began in the eastern Russian port-city of Vladivostok and are supposed to culminate in a mock invasion involving beach landings and paratrooper drops off the coast of the Jiaodong peninsula in eastern China.

Russian and Chinese officials have framed the exercises as promoting international cooperation, but some in the US and elsewhere see the exercises as preparation for a possible future invasion of Taiwan, and as a challenge to US dominance in Asia — particularly in Afghanistan. The exercises come amid increasing speculation in the US that China may come to replace the US as the world’s greatest superpower.

Russia and China are working together to help form of a world order that will be based on multipolarity, respect for international law, and a leading role for the UN, Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Alexeyev said on Monday, August 15, 2005.[1]

“The exercise will be carried out in the framework of the fight against international terrorism and extremism, to respond to new threats and challenges,” said Liang Guanglie, chief of staff of China’s armed forces.[2]

But others citing the use in the operation of advanced aircraft atypical of a peacekeeping operation, say the countries have ulterior motives. “The main target is the US. Both sides want to improve their position for bargaining in terms of security, politics and economics,” said Jin Canrong, professor of international relations at the People’s University of China.[3]

A Taiwanese official quoted by Mosnews.com said, China’s involvement in the operations represents “the biggest security threat in the Asiatic-Pacific region.” [4]

However other analysts speculate that Russia’s motivations for using the aircraft, including Tu-95 strategic bombers and Tu-22M long-range bombers, in the exercises may be to promote their sale to the Chinese.

“Military cooperation is linked with political and economic cooperation as part of a bigger package,” said Robert Karniol, Asia-Pacific editor for Jane’s Defence Weekly. “It’s not an adversarial posture.”[5]

Many have noted that the joint exercises are an emblem of increasingly warm relations between China and Russia since the dissolution of the Soviet Union. But writing In an editorial for the International Herald Tribune, Phillip Bowring disagrees, saying that the primary purpose of the operations is as a warning to the US. “The current Russia-China joint military exercises are not so much a symbol of trust and friendship between the two as a symptom of American overstretch. The two are reminding the United States of the limits of its unilateral global power.”[6]

Despite speculation into the motives of Russia and China, the US has given at least token support to the idea that the exercises could promote international interests. “We are following the exercises,” U.S. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said this week. “We expect that they will be conducted in a manner that supports some mutual goal of regional stability shared by the United States, China and Russia.”[7]

Others say the operations are mainly a response to separatism and Islamic extremism in Russian Chechnya and the Chinese Xinjiang.

“The exercises are the logical continuation of the first signs of cooperation between Russia and China in the struggle against ‘orange revolutions,’ separatism and the dominant influence of the U.S. in the Euroasiatic sphere,” the Gazeta.ru news website wrote Thursday. Orange was the color adopted by supporters of last year’s revolution in Ukraine, which along with mass demonstrations in Georgia and Kyrgyzstan, brough pro-Western administrations to power. [8]

The war games have been called “Peace Mission 2005“.

Monday, March 12, 2007

24 of 26 Swiss Cantons rejected the proposal for a single health insurance system, in which premiums would be based on income and wealth. The vote on Sunday was the latest in a series of attempts to cut rising costs and ease the financial burden on citizens.

Around 71% of voters rejected the reform. Turnout was at about 46%, slightly above the Swiss average.

As expected, voters in the main German-speaking part of the country turned down the planned reform, which was supported by the centre-left but opposed by the centre-right as well as the business community, parliament and the government.

Opposition in the French and Italian speaking regions was less pronounced. The cantons Jura and Neuchâtel in the French speaking regions voted in favor of the proposed reforms.

Health insurance premiums are higher in southern and western Swiss cantons than in German-speaking areas.

The Swiss Interior Minister Pascal Couchepin said an important part of the Swiss Population appeared to be opposed to “a revolution” in health insurance but he said that he wanted current reforms currently under discussion in the Swiss Parliament to go ahead. He called on all sides, especially health insurers and the cantonal authorities, to make efforts to reduce spending on health insurance and aim for a greater cost efficiency. Currently Switzerland has 87 private insurers providing mandatory basic health care coverage for Swiss residents under a 1996 law. But costs have sky-rocketed. Over 100,000 people are not covered by health insurance due to non payment.

Opponents to the initiative argued that a single insurance system would lead to complacency and create a two-tier system, in which the wealthy would be the only ones available to afford to have additional private insurance coverage.

Supporters of the initiative said a single health insurer would increase the system’s efficiency and allow for annual savings of at least 300 million Swiss Francs (about $245 million) in administrative costs. Currently, the funding system is unbalanced, since many clients on low incomes use state subsidies to pay their premiums, according to the Green Party and the Social Democrats.

The initiative to unite all the insurance companies and introduce premiums based on wealth and income was the most recent in a series of attempts over the past ten years to reduce the public spending on health care. A proposal, similar to this recent proposal, to modify the funding system of the health insurance companies was rejected by 73% of voters in 2003.

Switzerland has the most expensive health system in Europe. Switzerland’s expenditure on health care was 11.6% in 2005, in front of Germany and France but behind the United States.

Monday, September 12, 2005

A power outage in a large portion of Los Angeles, California occurred at approximately 13:00 PST (20:00 UTC) on Monday. Reports from the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power indicate that the incident was caused by a worker who accidentally cut a line. The outage caused a chain reaction that took out power to a large part of the city.

According to local television stations, power is being returned to some of the city, including the UCLA Medical Center. Police are on “full tactical alert”, meaning that they will only respond to serious calls and all officers must remain on duty. Most officers are directing traffic.

Los Angeles International Airport briefly was affected but generators engaged shortly thereafter. No flights were delayed or cancelled.

According to the Department of Water and Power, the shutdown happened because of a mechanical problem at two receiving stations. The system automatically triggered a shutdown when a line was cut. DWP spokesman Ron Deaton said that if there is an increase in the power stations automatically shut down. “You cut the wrong wire and it triggers the system to shut down. We have finished repairing the transmission systems. Some units are not up yet, but we have other generating parts of the system. All that remains is the distribution of the power to the individual customers.”

The DWP is currently restoring power by redirecting it from other areas.

The DWP, LAPD, the DOD and Department of Homeland security immediately assured the public that the power outage has nothing to do with terrorism or sabotage, and that the identity of the worker(s) who cut the power lines will not be released.

Sunday, October 1, 2006

An overpass has collapsed in Laval, a suburb of the Montreal area of Quebec, Canada. Three lanes of the Concorde Boulevard overpass collapsed into Highway 19. At least 5 people are dead, 6 others injured, 2 critically and least 3 cars are reported to be trapped underneath the overpass. Authorities have stated that 3 cars and a motorcycle were on the overpass when it collapsed.

Rescue workers and construction engineers have brought in heavy equipment, cranes and drills to break up the overpass into roughly a dozen smaller segments for removal. At the time of the collapse, authorities reported that 2 vehicles were trapped under the debris. Around midnight, the two vehicles were removed from the debris, and the five occupants of both vehicles were pronounced dead on the site.

Transport Quebec and Sûreté du Québec have reported that around 9:30 a.m. local time, people called 911, reporting that small chunks of concrete had fallen from the Boulevard de la Concorde (Concorde Boulevard) overpass over Autoroute 19, and Transport Quebec sent a crew to inspect. At around 11:55 a.m., Transport’s Québec patrol arrived at the overpass confirming the facts. The patroller moved the chunks off the highway and produced a report, sent to the Transports Quebec branch responsible for Laval.

The incident happened at approximately 12:30 p.m. local time, local residents described what sounded like “an earthquake”. It is not known at this time how the collapse occurred, or when it might be repaired. It is currently assumed that the cement bondings to the steel rods which held the overpass to its approaches gave way, and with nothing to hold the overpass’ central span up, it collapsed.

This isn’t the first overpass collapse in Laval. In 2000, a section of the Highway 15 overpass collapsed, killing one and injuring two others. It was later determined that the collapse in 2000 was caused by a manufacturing defect.

Tuesday, March 15, 2005A federal jury found Bernard Ebbers guilty on all nine counts in an indictment for fraud, conspiracy and false regulatory filings. The verdict was handed down by a New York jury after 8 days of deliberation on the former WorldCom CEO and mastermind behind the accounting scandal that brought down the telcom giant.

AP writer Erin McClam reported that when the verdict was announced, “Ebbers’ face reddened.”

Sentencing is set for the second Tuesday of next week when he could receive 85 years in prison for the conviction.

Ebbers who took the stand in his own defence, said he left the details of the company’s accounting to others and that he had no knowledge of shady practices. But Scott Sullivan, the ex-chief financial officer of the company and key prosecution witness, directly linked Ebbers to the fraud. Sullivan agreed to co-operate with prosecutors in the hopes of receiving a lenient sentence for his own involvement in the scandal.

The fall of WordCom sparked a massive class action law suit by investors. The plunge in WorldCom’s stock changed the capitalized value of the company in the range of $11 billion as the scandal unravelled. Secuities fraud cases stemming from the suits will probably break new legal ground where the involvement of investment banks and public accounting firms who would normally check company irregularities will be called into legal question.

Wednesday, November 1, 2006

The third and last bidder for Singapore’s Sentosa Integrated Resort (IR) project, Eighth Wonder, submitted its development plan yesterday: a SGD 5.5 billion(USD 3.52 billion) eco-friendly casino known as “Harry’s Island”.

Harry’s Island will boast 10 luxury, family-oriented hotels, a tree house with family suites, and a 7,500-seat Caldera theater which will feature nightly spectacular shows.

Eighth Wonder says it wants to make Harry’s Island a world-class, must-see tourist destination and has roped-in several big names in its tender. If selected, the resort will have spas and health centers run by health guru Deepak Chopra, Vera Wang hotels with access to her entire wedding collection, and a soccer academy with Brazilian soccer icon Pele giving his input.

Harry’s Island will create around 15,000 jobs, including 5000 in the food and beverage industry.

The company believes it can recover its investments by 2015 by generating over $5.6 billion in five years; it hopes to bring nearly 15 million visitors annually by 2014.

The Sentosa IR project is the second of two IR tenders offered by the Singapore Government: the first was located in Marina Bay.

The Singapore government is expected to announce the winner in December.

Monday, March 19, 2007

A 34 year old obstetrician from Forestville on Sydney’s Northern Beaches has escaped after he was robbed, car-jacked and locked in the boot (trunk) of his BMW, which was set alight. Police say the doctor was locked in the boot while his car was set alight, but was allowed to escape before flames engulfed the vehicle.

The Doctor was believed to have been heading to The Mater Hospital in North Sydney when he was waiting at the intersection of West and Falcon Streets in Chatswood around 3:15AM AEDT when a small red sedan with two men claiming to be police officers signalled him to stop. After crossing the intersection, the doctor stopped his car at the side of the road.

The doctor was then approached by the two men and when he asked to see identification, one man grabbed the keys from his car’s ignition before they both pulled the doctor out of his vehicle, hit him in the stomach with a hammer and stole his mobile phone and wallet. The robbers also demanded his key and credit cards along with their access codes before locking him in the boot.

Police allege that the men drove to several locations to withdraw cash and buy things before driving to Carisbook Street in Linley Point at around 4 a.m. local time where they set the car alight with the doctor still in the boot.

Crime Manager of the Harbourside Local Area Command, Detective Inspector Houlahan said that the doctor then “heard a click in the boot area and he heard someone call out: ‘Get out of the car'”

“When he pushed the boot up he found his car engulfed in flames.”

Det. Insp. Houlahan said the doctor told police he did not unlock the boot himself, and it appeared the man’s captors unlocked it before fleeing.

Det Insp Houlahan said that the doctor appeared to be “very distraught” and tired after the ordeal, and wanted to get home and see his wife and two young daughters.

He could only provide police with a vague description of his captors, but said the men were both Caucasian males aged in their 20s, and that one of them was about six feet tall (183cm) with short blond hair and medium build said Det. Insp. Houlahan.