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Thursday, May 28, 2009

The United States automobile manufacturing firm General Motors announced on Wednesday that most of its bondholders did not exchange GM’s US$27 billion debt for a ten percent share in the company’s stock.

The automaker, in financial straits, has a June 1 deadline to finish a government restructuring plan that includes plant closures and other debt reduction measures. U.S. President Barack Obama’s administration said it would not give more financial aid to the firm unless 90% of GM’s bondholders would agree on compromises that would significantly reduce the firm’s costs.

“The principal amount of notes tendered was substantially less than the amount required by GM to satisfy the debt reduction requirement,” GM said in a statement.

“They said no. That’s it. They tried. That’s why they’re going to have to file for bankruptcy,” said a university professor from the University of Michigan who specializes in bankruptcy.

Saturday, March 26, 2005

Beijing’s city legislature has approved a bill, one year in the making, to safeguard the historical and cultural heritage of old Beijing. The new 41-article set of regulations will come into effect May 1, requiring the city to protect listed heritage sites and unlisted sites deemed of historical or cultural value. It also guarantees protection for the area within the city’s Second Ring Road.

Director of the Beijing Administrative Bureau of Cultural Heritage, Mei Ninghua, said “the most encouraging content of the regulations is that Beijing will pay more attention to protecting the old city’s landscape in its entirety, rather than just focussing on scattered heritage sites.” This means the old city layout, colours of buildings, and the names of houses and lanes will have legal protection.

“We took measures to protect the city’s siheyuan courtyard houses by tagging protection plates on more than 650 of them in 2003, preventing them from being demolished or damaged during the city’s massive housing reconstruction projects,” said Mei.

“Now the new regulations give legal buttress to the protection of siheyuan courtyard homes, as well as other unmovable ancient treasures, that have yet to be listed but are at risk of being demolished during urban renovation.”

Modern Beijing, capital of China for 850 years, was built by Mongul Emporer Kublai Khan in 1267 AD. In the vicinity of the current city once was Ji (?), the capital of the State of Yan (?), a power of the Warring States Period – but it has been lost in the mists of time.

Saturday, October 22, 2016

Mohammed Rashid Saeed-Alim, a failed English suicide bomber better known by his birth name Nicky Reilly, has died while serving a life sentence. He was 30.

Originally from Plymouth, Alim attempted to bomb the Giraffe restaurant in Exeter in 2008 when he was 22. He used glass bottles filled with nails, caustic soda, and paraffin but one went off prematurely as he prepared them in the restaurant’s bathroom.

Alim was hospitalised with facial wounds that required skin grafts, then prosecuted for the bombing. He admitted attempted murder and preparing an act of terrorism later that year and was sentenced to life with a minimum term of eighteen years. He had considered alternative targets including a police station.

Alim had a mental age of around ten. He also had Asperger’s syndrome and his mother said he had been manipulated by others. Police said at the time he discussed his plans online and they suspected Pakistani individuals to be responsible for his radicalisation following conversion to Islam. Alim himself left a note in his bedroom saying amongst other things he had not been manipulated. His mother pursued a complaint against police in 2010 over claims he had told people of his plans to perform a bombing but police allegedly ignored this.

His body was found on Wednesday at HMP Manchester. Greater Manchester Police said there were “no suspicious circumstances” while the Prison Service simply noted the Prisons and Probation Ombudsman will carry out a routine investigation. The Plymouth Herald reported unconfirmed claims Alim was found hanged.

Alim served most of his sentence at Broadmoor high-security psychiatric hospital. This July he was sentenced for an attack on Broadmoor nurses with an accomplice. The pair used mugs and snapped DVDs as weapons after a change to rules on group Muslim prayers. One of the victims was Muslim.

Last year Kazi Islam, 19, was sentenced to eight years after being convicted of trying to pressure an autistic man into building a pipe bomb. Islam said he was inspired by Alim’s case.

Monday, November 26, 2007

In the 18 months since Andrea Muizelaar was crowned winner of the reality TV series Canada’s Next Top Model, her life has been a complete whirlwind. From working in a dollar store in her hometown of Whitby, Ontario, to modeling haute couture in Toronto, she had reached her dream of becoming a true Top Model.

But at what cost? Unknown to casual television viewers, Muizelaar had been enveloped in the eating disorder anorexia nervosa, which inevitably became too much for her to bear. She gave up modeling and moved back to Whitby, where she sought treatment for her disorder, re-entered college, and now works at a bank. Where is she now? Happy and healthy, she says.

Recently Andrea Muizelaar sat down with Wikinews reporter Mike Halterman in a candid interview that stretched to nearly two hours, as she told all about her hopes and aspirations, her battle with anorexia, and just what really happened on Canada’s Next Top Model.

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