Monday, February 12, 2007

Cars drove home the big prize last night, from the 34th Annual Annie Awards. The animation industry’s highest honor, ASIFA-Hollywood’s Annies recognise contributions to animation, writing, directing, storyboarding, voice acting, composing, and much more.

As mentioned, Pixar took home the big prize last night, after facing stiff competition from four other Happy Feet, Monster House, Open Season, and Over the Hedge.

But the biggest winner of the night didn’t get a “Best Animated Feature” nod at all. Flushed Away won five feature animation categories including Animated Effects (Scott Cegielski), Character Animation (Gabe Hordos), Production Design (Pierre-Olivier Vincent), Voice Acting (Sir Ian McKellan as Toad), Writing (Dick Clement, Ian La Frenais, Chris Lloyd, Joe Keenan, and Will Davies).

Over The Hedge won awards for Directing (Tim Johnson and Karey Kirkpatrick), Storyboarding (Gary Graham), and Character Design (Nicolas Marlet).

Of little surprise, Randy Newman won an Annie for Cars in the “Music in an Animated Feature Production” category. Newman has won many Oscars for his movie music, and has a nomination this year for the song “Our Town”. Newman didn’t attend the Annies, instead picking up a Grammy for “Best Song Written For Motion Picture, Television Or Other Visual Media”.

DisneyToon Studios’ Bambi II won “Best Home Entertainment Production”, while “Best Animated Short Subject” went to Blue Sky Studios’ No Time For Nuts, which is based on Ice Age.

“Best Animated Video Game” went to Flushed Away The Game, while a United Airlines ad named “Dragon” won a “Best Animated Television Commercial” Annie for DUCK Studios.

Wednesday, April 6, 2022

File:President Gotabaya Rajapaksa official photograph.jpg

On Monday, the Sri Lankan 26-minister cabinet resigned except for President Gotabaya Rajapaksa and Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa as the government faced backlash from the public over the ongoing economic crisis.

Earlier, the President requested all political parties unite to form a national unity government. The proposal was rejected by two political parties, Samagi Jana Balavegaya (SJB) and Janatha Vinukthi Peramuna (JVP) who wanted the president to resign.

After the Cabinet resigned, the Governor of the Central Bank of Sri Lanka Ajith Nivard Cabraal also announced his resignation.

The economic crisis drove the government to block imports in March 2020 in an attempt to preserve its foreign exchange reserves. Sri Lanka had only about USD2 billion in reserve as of February, down 70% in the last two years. Sri Lanka needed USD7 billion to finance its USD51 billion debt this year.

In the last few weeks, the country has seen an acute shortage of fuel, particularly diesel, leading to protests and empty fuel stations.

In March, the Sri Lankan inflation rate reached 18.7% and food prices rose by 30.1%. Its currency, the rupee, has lost 30% of its value against the US dollar since it was devalued last month ahead of talks with the International Monetary Fund for a bailout.

A compilation of brief news reports for Thursday, November 13, 2008.

A new study has found that people storing extra fat around their waist have a strongly increased chance of early death, even if their overall weight is average. The study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine today, found that for each addition 5 cm on the waist, the chance of early death is increased by between 13% and 17%.

In the study, 360,000 people from across nine countries in Europe were surveyed.

One of the study’s authors, Professor Elio Riboli of Imperial College London, commented on the findings. “We were surprised to see the waist size having such a powerful effect on people’s health and premature death,” he stated.

Sources

• “‘Love handles’ raise death risk” — BBC News Online, November 13, 2008
• Ian Sample. “Waist, not just weight, shows risk of premature death, study says” — The Guardian, November 13, 2008
• Tobias Pischon et al. “Abstract: General and Abdominal Adiposity and Risk of Death in Europe” — New England Journal of Medicine, November 13, 2008

The European Commission, the executive branch of the European Union, has today lifted its ban on unusually shaped fruits and vegetables, in what the EU’s agriculture commissioner has called “a new dawn for the curvy cucumber and the knobbly carrot”.

The regulation has previously been criticized as an example of the EU’s bureaucracy by critics of the organisation.

The products affected by the deregulation are apricots, artichokes, asparagus, aubergines, avocadoes, beans, Brussels sprouts, carrots, cauliflowers, cherries, courgettes, cucumbers, cultivated mushrooms, garlic, hazelnuts in shell, headed cabbage, leeks, melons, onions, peas, plums, ribbed celery, spinach, walnuts in shell, water melons and witloof/chicory.

Sources

• “EU slices up ‘ugly fruit’ rules” — BBC News Online, November 13, 2008
• “Europe Relaxes Rules on Sale of Ugly Fruits and Vegetables” — New York Times, November 13, 2008

A vase purchased at a car boot sale for £1 has sold for £32,450, following advice from experts on the BBC‘s Antiques Roadshow television program. The vase was sold in an auction at Christie’s.

The vase was found to be a 1929 work made by the French designer Rene Lalique.

Sources

• “Car boot sale vase nets £32,450” — BBC News Online, November 13, 2008
• “£32,449 profit for car boot sale vase by Lalique” — Times Online, November 13, 2008

Recent anonymous press briefings by US State Department officials indicated that its arms control division may punish Blackwater Worldwide for improper paperwork.

The Directorate of Defense Trade Controls has the power to fine or agree voluntary penalties with exporters of certain weapons, who do not follow correct procedures. Blackwater Worldwide, a private military company, exported automatic weapons to Iraq that became the subject of a federal investigation first disclosed in 2007.Concern was expressed by the unnamed officials that paperwork errors may make the weapons untraceable, and that some reached Iraq’s black market.

Sources

• “Blackwater Faces Millions in Fines for Weapons Shipments (radio show transcript)” — Democracy Now!, November 13, 2008
• Knight Ridder / McClatchy Newspapers. “Blackwater faces Fines over Arms Deal” — Military.com, November 13, 2008
• Dan Friedman, Congress Daily. “Blackwater could face sanctions for improper arms shipments” — Government Executive, November 7, 2008

Wednesday, July 21, 2021

Wikinews correspondent J.J. Liu spoke with Technological University Dublin (TUD) senior lecturer at the School of Surveying & Construction Management, Dr Lorcan Sirr on Friday regarding the supply of housing in the Republic of Ireland and relevant parallels across the rest of Europe, as well as recent developments by the government and private sector that are causing a rise in rents and home prices in the Irish real estate market.

Dr Sirr is a regular contributor to The Irish Times and has provided commentary to Irish radio station Newstalk, national broadcaster Raidió Teilifís Éireann (RTÉ) and various other publications. In addition to being a chartered planning and development surveyor and assessor to the Society of Chartered Surveyors, Dr Sirr is a Peace Commissioner and former external examiner for the Galway-Mayo Institute of Technology, according to his profile on Worky.

Dr Sirr was a lecturer and former head of research for the Faculty of the Built Environment at the Dublin Institute of Technology, which entered a merger with two partner institutes to become TUD January 1, 2019. He received his bachelor’s degree in estate management at the University of Greenwich, United Kingdom, and master’s degree in urban design and PhD in town planning at the University of Manchester. He has a second master’s in literature from KU Leuven, Belgium, and speaks French.

Tuesday, May 2, 2006

According to the Washington Post, nearly sixty percent of the federal government’s workforce will be eligible for retirement over the next ten years; with ninety percent of senior executive service officials expected to do so. Besides depleting Social Security funds, baby boomers will once again leave a big impression on the American workforce and economy. Calling it a “federal retirement tsunami,” the United States Office of Personnel Management (the bureau responsible for government human resources) is preparing for this event in a few manners. In a news release today by the bureau, Director Linda Springer announced that the office would be releasing a major media campaign in efforts to recruit future employees.

With only twenty four percent of United States citizens with a bachelor degree or higher, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, it’s no wonder it has been difficult to attract qualified or interested employees for federal government positions; particularly young people. “We’ve been hearing for so long about how incompetent and shady the government is, but a lot don’t understand the benefits,” said Howard University sophomore Victoria Hooks.

“The challenge is clear, and we are hard at work… with a 21st Century approach to the workplace, the federal government will ride the retirement wave and set the standard for a modern workplace… It will be a modern workplace, one that requires innovative training and encourage more flexibility by managers. The federal workforce will be one that the American people can count on,” said Springer in support of the initiatives for recruitment. Other efforts for recruitment will also include additional employment benefits such as special salaries and relocation bonuses, especially for women.

The recruitment advertisements will reveal themselves in a series of four commercials around the country beginning in mid May 2006.