Tuesday, March 13, 2007

According to Russia’s Federal Atomic Energy Agency (RosAtom) further progress on Iran’s Bushehr nuclear power plant, which Russia has been working to complete, will be delayed because Iran fell behind in the payment schedule.

The decision threatens to put Iran’s atomic project in jeopardy, just as it faces the threat of more UN sanctions over its controversial nuclear program.

“The fact is that there is no money, and it is impossible to construct without money,” RosAtom spokesman Sergei Novikov told Interfax News Agency. Iran suspended payments on January 17 and “therefore, our Iranian partners should not be surprised by an extension of the deadline for the launch of the first unit at Bushehr,” he said.

Under an agreement reached last September, Russia was to deliver nuclear fuel to Bushehr in March and the power station would open in September and begin generating power in November.

When the payment delay was first reported in February Mohammad Saeedi, the deputy head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, denied that Tehran had been late in making payments. “Iran has had no delay whatsoever in making payments for the Bushehr nuclear power plant,” Mr. Saeedi was quoted as saying by Islamic Republic News Agency. Mr. Novikov said the Iranians blamed the delay on the need to switch payments from dollars to euros.

The announcement from RosAtom came after talks between Russian and Iranian officials last week in Moscow failed to reach agreement on the dispute over funding.

Sunday, October 28, 2007

Whether the Civil War, World War II or the Iraq War, it can be challenging to face how conflict penetrates the psyche of a nation and surfaces in the nuances of life. There are thousands—if not millions—of individuals who indulge in fantasies others would deem perverse that have their nascence in some of the darkest moments of human history. It is possible someone you know pays a person to dress like a German Nazi to treat them like a “dirty Jew”, or to force them to pick cotton off the floor like a slave.

An S&M dungeon is a place where these individuals act out such taboos. Businesses that operate to meet their needs are often hidden, but they do exist and are typically legal. The clients want to remain confidential for fear of ostracism in their respective communities. As Sigmund Freud wrote, “Anyone who has violated a taboo becomes taboo himself because he possesses the dangerous quality of tempting others to follow his example.”

Last week Wikinews published the first in a two part series on the BDSM business: an interview with Bill & Rebecca, the owners of Rebecca’s Hidden Chamber. This week we publish the second part: an interview with three dungeon employees, Mistress Alex, Mistress Jada and Mistress Veronica. In their world, BDSM is a game, a harmless pursuit of roleplaying exercises that satiate the desires of the tabooed. These Dominatrixes are the kind of women men fantasize about, but they all look like they could be babysitting your children this Saturday night. Most likely, they will not be.

Mistress Alex has a distinctive sheen when David Shankbone walks into the room. Her moist skin cools quickly from the blow of the air conditioner she stands in front of. Just having finished an hour and a half session, she is dressed in a latex one-piece skirt and matching boots. Mistress Jada, a shapely Latina dressed in red, joins the conversation and remains throughout. When Alex needs to tend to a client, Mistress Veronica, who looks like she would be as comfortable teaching kindergarten as she would “tanning a man’s hide”, takes over for her.

The interview was neither sensational nor typical, but what you read may surprise, repulse, or even awaken feelings you never knew you had. Below is David Shankbone’s interview with three Dominatrixes.

Thursday, February 24, 2005

A paste containing synthetic tooth enamel can seal small cavities without drilling. Kazue Yamagishi and colleagues at the FAP Dental Institute in Tokyo say that the paste can repair small cavities in 15 minutes.

Currently, fillers don’t stick to such small cavities so dentists must drill bigger holes. Hydroxyapatite crystals, of which natural enamel is made, bond with teeth to repair tiny areas of damage.

Yamagishi and colleagues have tested their paste on a lower premolar tooth that showed early signs of decay. They found that the synthetic enamel merged with the natural enamel. The synthetic enamel also appears to make teeth stronger which will improve resistance to future decay. As with drilling, however, there is still the potential for pain: The paste is strongly acidic to encourage crystal growth and causes inflammation if it touches the gums.

The paste is reported in the journal Nature.

Thursday, May 11, 2006

The Australian House of Representatives heard the traditional right-of-reply to the Budget released May 9, from the Australian Labor Party, led by Kim Beazley (Labor, Brand), plus Budget replies from minor parties in the Australian Senate.

While the Budget is politically popular, having as one of its main features significant tax reform, Beazley focused on the omissions in the Budget, such as the failure to address a skills shortage.

Thursday, August 16, 2007

The name Robert Cailliau may not ring a bell to the general public, but his invention is the reason why you are reading this: Dr. Cailliau together with his colleague Sir Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web, making the internet accessible so it could grow from an academic tool to a mass communication medium. Last January Dr. Cailliau retired from CERN, the European particle physics lab where the WWW emerged.

Wikinews offered the engineer a virtual beer from his native country Belgium, and conducted an e-mail interview with him (which started about three weeks ago) about the history and the future of the web and his life and work.

Wikinews: At the start of this interview, we would like to offer you a fresh pint on a terrace, but since this is an e-mail interview, we will limit ourselves to a virtual beer, which you can enjoy here.

Robert Cailliau: Yes, I myself once (at the 2nd international WWW Conference, Chicago) said that there is no such thing as a virtual beer: people will still want to sit together. Anyway, here we go.

Thursday, June 29, 2006

The United States Federal Reserve has announced an increase of 25 basis points (0.25%) in the federal funds rate bringing it to 5.25 percent. It also announced its approval of a 25 basis point increase in the discount rate to 6.25 percent.

The federal funds rate is the interest rate at which depository institutions such as banks lend balances they maintain at the Federal Reserve (called federal funds) to other banks overnight. The discount rate is the interest rate that an eligible bank is charged to borrow short term funds directly from the central bank through the discount window.

In its statement, the Fed said that growth is moderating from its quite strong pace earlier in the year, which it partly attributed to a cooling of the housing market and the delayed effect of increases in interest rates and energy prices. The Fed noted that inflation measures were “elevated” in recent months and that while productivity gains have held down increases in labor costs and inflation expectations “remain contained”. However, it pointed out that high levels of resource utilization and high energy and commodity prices have the potential to sustain inflation pressures.

In its outlook over its future moves, the Fed statement said “Although the moderation in the growth of aggregate demand should help to limit inflation pressures over time, the Committee judges that some inflation risks remain. The extent and timing of any additional firming that may be needed to address these risks will depend on the evolution of the outlook for both inflation and economic growth, as implied by incoming information.”

Saturday, September 15, 2007

Nervous savers have re-formed queues this morning outside many branches of Northern Rock, after the £2.68 billion bank took an emergency loan from the Bank of England, the UK central bank.

Shares in the bank had dropped 25% by lunchtime yesterday in London – and stood nearly 60% lower from their high of February – after the Bank of England acted in its capacity as “lender of last resort” to provide Northern Rock with short-term financing to enable it to continue operations.

The Bank of England hasn’t acted as lender of last resort since 1973, when the collapse of Cedar Holdings – a pioneer of second mortgages to UK home-owners – threatened a crisis in the country’s banking industry.

Northern Rock has been hit hard since June this year by the turmoil in world credit markets. Although only 0.24% of its assets are exposed to subprime US housing debt, the bank’s business model saw it grow its loan book by 43% in the first six months of this year. Rather than lending money deposited with it by savers, Northern has borrowed aggressively in the short-term capital markets.

“Northern Rock is not a reckless lender,” said Angela Knight, head of the British Bankers Association on national radio this morning. Urging the bank’s savers not to withdraw their money in panic, “the mortgage lending it does well and it does in a high quality, high calibre way,” she added.

But savers queuing to withdraw their money from Northern Rock today said they were “horrified” by the Bank of England needing to step in.

“I am going to take out the lot, every penny,” said one Northern Rock saver to Bloomberg as he queued outside the bank’s West End branch in London.

Tuesday, February 12, 2008

The 2008 Taipei International Book Exhibition (TIBE 2008), organized by the Taipei Book Fair Foundation (TBFF), will start tomorrow and end next Monday (Feb. 18) at the Taipei World Trade Center in Hall 1 & 3 and in the Taipei Show (TWTC Hall 2). Before the opening of the main show, the TIBE changed significantly.

Since the Preview Exhibition was held in 1992 in Jhonghe City, Taipei County with the “History of books in China” theme, the preview exhibition wasn’t eventually held before the main show every year.

This pre-main-show exhibition style was replaced by a consuming battle between bookstores from actual to virtual (via Internet) and reading festivals from municipal libraries in Taiwan that the Ministry of Education of the Republic of China promoted. But in 2008, after the TBFF was regrouped last year, the preview exhibition finally returned on Feb 2 & 3 with the “Book Market” and “Arts and Crafts” in the Huashan Culture Park, Taipei. With the preview exhibition, the reading population is expected to expand rapidly and widely in Taiwan.

To gather on different cultures, the TBFF not only arranged a variety of seminars from book-cover designing, changes of publishing industry, publishing style, and strategies from global publishing industry, but also invited executives from the publishing industry worldwide such as Michel Le Bris, Gilles Lapouge, Shaun Tan, Markus Zusak, Tony Wheeler, and Maruen Wheeler and executives from the Frankfurt Book Fair.

Apart from seminars and executives, the Stiftung Buchkunst (Book Art Foundation) will showcase several awarded books from “Giant of Japanese Design” and some book design awards in the “Most Beautiful Book Designing” pavilion. Two book design awards by TBEE named the “2008 TIBE Prize” and “2008 Golden Butterfly Award” will be successively announced on Feb 13 & 14.

Not only on book-designing and pavilions, even though Australia was named as the main international pavilion, the TBFF chose the opening movie “What My Eyes Have Seen” from France and a closing movie named “The Edge of Heaven“ from Germany, those selected movies including the opening and closing ones will be screened at the movie pavilion. The Travel Literature Pavilion will show a different style varied from the 2007 Taipei International Travel Fair, not only just about traveling but also mixed with cultures and literature.