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Thursday, December 13, 2007

Victoria Wyndham was one of the most seasoned and accomplished actresses in daytime soap opera television. She played Rachel Cory, the maven of Another World‘s fictional town, Bay City, from 1972 to 1999 when the show went off the air. Wyndham talks about how she was seen as the anchor of a show, and the political infighting to keep it on the air as NBC wanted to wrest control of the long-running soap from Procter & Gamble. Wyndham fought to keep it on the air, but eventually succumbed to the inevitable. She discusses life on the soap opera, and the seven years she spent wandering “in the woods” of Los Angeles seeking direction, now divorced from a character who had come to define her professional career. Happy, healthy and with a family she is proud of, Wyndham has found life after the death of Another World in painting and animals. Below is David Shankbone’s interview with the soap diva.

Monday, May 3, 2010

Wikinews reporter Iain Macdonald today interviewed Petros Tzomakas, a Greek far-left activist and member of Xekinima, which is the Greek division of the Committee for a Workers’ International. The party is a member of Coalition of the Radical Left (SYRIZA).

Tzomakas also sits on his local 5th Athens Municipal District committee, which is a joint effort by left-wing parties including SYRIZA, the Anticapitalist Left Cooperation for the Overthrow and a number of other political parties to oppose austerity measures proposed by the government. All left-wing parties in the country except the Communist Party of Greece (KKE) are involved. Tzomakas explained that the KKE prefers not to co-operate with other radical left-wing groups.

The interview comes amid tensions in cash-strapped Greece, where the government is introducing controversial austerity measures to try to ease the nation’s debt-problem. An international rescue package has been prepared by European Union member states and the International Monetary Fund – should Greece require a bailout; protests have been held against government attempts to manage the economic situation.

Friday, June 19, 2009

Total S.A., a French oil company has fired 900 contract workers at Lindsey Oil Refinery in North Killingholme, North Lincolnshire, England in response to a wildcat strike which took place at the facility this week. Total is calling the strike “illegal” and “unofficial”; the oil workers, meanwhile, accuse Total of having broken an agreement not to cut jobs by giving 51 workers redundancy. Total claims no such agreement exists. The workers were employed by Jacobs Engineering Group Inc., a contractor at the site, who are constructing a new hydro-desulfurization unit.

“Total can confirm, with regret, that our contractors have now started the process of ending the current employment contracts for their workforce”, the company said in a statement e-mailed to the media.

Workers were informed of the termination decision on Thursday and will have until Monday, June 22, to re-apply for their former jobs.

The strike at Lindsey this week sparked sympathy strikes by workers in energy and the chemical industry around the United Kingdom, which draws extensive revenues from North Sea oil. Attempts by the UK government-sponsored Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service to resolve the dispute between Total and the Lindsey workers failed. Trade union Unite said that it was “extremely concerned about the ramifications” of the firings, while GMB urged both sides to return to the discussion table. Total has made an end to the strike a precondition of a resumption of negotiations; meanwhile, the Lindsey workers’ demands include a withdrawal of the 51 redundancies, an end to overtime, and sharing out of the remaining work at the construction project without layoffs.

Lindsey was the site of labor strife earlier in the year, with a week long strike in February brought about over employees’ protests at foreign labor being brought to the refinery to undercut British workers’ wages. IREM, an Italian construction company working at the site, has made heavy use of the Posted Workers Directive, which as interpreted by the European Court of Justice allows companies to make use of foreign labor from within the EU in one country while paying them only the minimum wage and offering only the coverages and benefits applicable in the employees’ home countries.

The plant, which refines 221,000 barrels of oil each day, will remain at full capacity.

According to its annual report, Total had a 2008 net income of €13.9 billion. Since the firings were announced, shares of Total have gone up in price 0.94% to €39.315 in morning trading.

Wednesday, November 1, 2006

A new strain of Avian Flu or Bird Flu has been discovered in China and has also infected some humans. The virus also “spreads fast” and has covered a “big geographic region” according to Chinese health officials.

It is not known how dangerous the new virus is and whether it is stronger or deadlier than the current H5N1 virus. Despite being detected in humans, no evidence has turned up to suggest that the virus can be spread easily from human to human.

“The new variant doesn’t indicate any increased risk for people other than the fact it seems to be pretty widespread,” said World Health Organization‘s [WHO] Global Influenza Program, which is located in Zurich, Switzerland, Doctor Michael L. Perdue.

“This virus seemed to spread very fast over a big geographic region. However, we don’t have any evidence to show whether this virus is more dangerous or less dangerous than any other H5N1 viruses,” said State Key Laboratory of Emerging Infectious Diseases at the University of Hong Kong in China director, Yi Guan.

The strain was discovered during April and June of 2006 in China’s Fujian Province when Guan’s team examined ducks, chickens, geese and other birds at a market in the province. At least 95% of the birds Guan and his team looked at were infected with the new strain and vaccines formulated to fight the H5N1 virus have not worked.

“This novel variant may have become dominant … because it was not as easily affected as other strains by the avian vaccine used to prevent H5 infection. This [means] that H5 avian vaccines are not able to prevent infection by this virus as efficiently as they do with other types of H5N1,” added Guan.

The team is continuing surveillance on the area where the strain was discovered and according to Guan the virus “is not causing widespread infection outside of our surveillance area” but the new strain is reported in Thailand, Laos, Hong Kong and Malaysia.

Scientists also say that current vaccines used in birds for the H5N1 virus might have caused the new strain to develop.

Wednesday, November 2, 2005

Australian agencies under the responsibility of the federal Treasurer, Peter Costello, spent approximately $17,000 AUD on massage services in 2004, namely the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) and the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC).

The Australian Labor Party member Christopher Bowen asked the Treasurer for details on massage services in a question on notice, and received the answer on October 31.

637 ASIC staff made use of massages, compared with only 50 in the ABS, who however spent more on massages than ASIC. ABS staff paid $15 for 15 minutes and $10 for 10 minutes, while ASIC staff paid only $10.86 per massage.