Sunday, August 16, 2009

Pakistani Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gillani has launched Pakistan’s first international container train service from Islamabad to Istanbul via the Iranian capital, Tehran, as a trial project of the Economic Cooperation Organization to boost Pakistan’s trade with Turkey and Iran.

The train is carrying 20 containers on its first journey from Islamabad railway station, delivering 14 to Tehran and 6 to Istanbul and will cover 6,500 kilometres in two weeks.

Minister for Railways Ghulam Ahmed Bilour said a successful trial phase of the freight train service would be followed by a passenger train service in an effort to boost tourism in the region.

There are also hopes the route will eventually provide a link to Europe and Central Asia.

The time is 18:00 (UTC) on July 15th, 2006, and this is Audio Wikinews News Briefs.

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Tuesday, August 23, 2016

The following is the third edition of a monthly series chronicling the U.S. 2016 presidential election. It features original material compiled throughout the previous month after an overview of the month’s biggest stories.

In this month’s edition on the campaign trail: two individuals previously interviewed by Wikinews announce their candidacies for the Reform Party presidential nomination; a former Republican Congressman comments on the Republican National Convention; and Wikinews interviews an historic Democratic National Convention speaker.

Friday, December 12, 2008

Top broker and Wall Street adviser Bernard L. Madoff, aged 70, was arrested and charged by the FBI on Thursday with a single count of securities fraud, also known as stock fraud and investment fraud. He allegedly told senior employees of his firm on Wednesday that his $50 billion business “is all just one big lie” and that it was “basically, a giant Ponzi scheme (since at least 2005).” Mr. Madoff faces up to 20 years imprisonment and a fine of up to $5 million. FBI agent Theodore Cacioppi said Mr. Madoff’s investment advisory business had “deceived investors by operating a securities business in which he traded and lost investor money, and then paid certain investors purported returns on investment with the principal received from other, different investors, which resulted in investors’ losses of approximately $50 billion dollars.”

The former chairman of the Nasdaq Stock Market is also the founder and primary owner of Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC, the closely-held market-making firm he launched in 1960. The firm is one of the top market maker firms on Wall Street. He founded his family firm with an initial investment of $5,000, after attending Hofstra University Law School. He saved the money earned from a job lifeguarding at Rockaway Beach in Queens and a part time job installing underground sprinkler systems.

A force in Wall Street trading for nearly 50 years, he has been active in the National Association of Securities Dealers (NASD), a self-regulatory organization for the U.S. securities industry. His firm was one of the five most active firms in the development of the NASDAQ, having been known for “paying for order flow,” in other word paying a broker to execute a customer’s order through Madoff. He argued that the payment to the broker did not alter the price that the customer received. He ran the investment advisory as a secretive business, however.

Dan Horwitz, counsel of Mr. Madoff, in an interview, said that “he is a longstanding leader in the financial-services industry with an unblemished record; he is a person of integrity; he intends to fight to get through this unfortunate event.” Mr. Madoff was released on his own recognizance on the same day of his arrest, after his 2 sons turned him in, and posting $10 million bail secured by his Manhattan apartment. Without entering any plea, the Court set the preliminary hearing for January 12.

Madoff’s hedge fund scheme may rank among the biggest fraud in history. When former energy trading giant Enron filed for bankruptcy in 2001, one of the largest at the time, it had $63.4 billion in assets. The scheme would dwarf past Ponzis, and it would further be nearly five times the telecommunication company WorldCom fraud and bankruptcy proceedings in 2002.

The Securities and Exchange Commission filed a separate civil suit on Thursday against Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities and its eponymous founder Mr. Madoff. It was docketed as “U.S. v. Madoff,” 08-MAG-02735, by the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York (Manhattan). SEC, New York associate director of enforcement, Andrew M. Calamari, asked the judge to issue seizure orders on the firm and its assets, and appoint a receiver. The SEC pleads, among others, that “it was an ongoing $50 billion swindle; our complaint alleges a stunning fraud that appears to be of epic proportions.” It further accused the defendant of “paying returns to certain investors out of the principal received from other, different investors” for years. Madoff’s hedge fund business had previously claimed to have served between 11 and 25 clients and had $17.1 billion in assets under management. But virtually all of the assets were missing.

United States District Court for the Southern District of New York Louis L. Stanton on Thursday appointed Lee Richards, a Manhattan lawyer, as the firm’s receiver. A hearing is set for Friday, for a ruling on the SEC’s petition to grant plenary powers to the receiver over the entire firm, and an absolute asset sequestration.

Doug Kass, president of hedge fund Seabreeze Partners Management said that “this is a major blow to confidence that is already shattered — anyone on the fence will probably try to take their money out.”

Friday, December 10, 2010

Leaked diplomatic cables between Australia and the US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, have raised controversy in the Australian community. The documents were released by the whistle-blowing website Wikileaks. The cables between the then prime minister of Australia, Kevin Rudd, and the US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, revealed that China may need to be forced to integrate into the international community. The secret documents also contained information of a conversation between Clinton and Rudd in Washington. In the interview, Rudd stated that China was “paranoid” about Taiwan and Tibet.

The sensitive documents may place a strain on diplomatic relations between Australia and China. Despite this, Kevin Rudd reassured the public that the “robust” relationship between Australia and China wouldn’t sustain any substantial damage to the relations between the two countries. At this stage, Prime Minister Julia Gillard has provided no further comment on the matter, other than to ensure that the relationship between China and Australia would allow opinions to be expressed without any threat to either side.

At the heart of the leaks is Australian founder, Julian Assange. Wikileaks have now released 821 of their promised 251,287 US diplomatic cables. The cables are being released on a stage-by-stage basis. Earlier this week, Assange was arrested on suspicion of rape in London under a Swedish arrest warrant placed on him from a court in Stockholm on November 18.

Saturday, January 7, 2012

Six people have died after a shooting incident Thursday in a Deeper Life church located in Gombe, in the north east of Nigeria. Gombe state police spokesman Ahmed Muhammad reported that eight other individuals had also been wounded during the shootings.

The wife of the pastor of the church was amongst those killed in the attack, which happened as a prayer service was in progress. Theresa Munyok, self-identified as daughter and brother of two of those shot dead, spoke of the events which occurred. “The only thing I heard was my mommy shouting,” Munyok explained. “She told me that it was gunshots and that my dad is not even breathing. She called and called and he did not wake up,” she said.

No groups were reported to have claimed responsibility for the incident. It is reportedly suspected that Boko Haram, a Muslim sect, carried out the attack. On Sunday, an individual presumed to be a representative of Boko Haram gave a warning to the Christian citizens of the north of Nigeria, which is mainly Muslim, ordering them to depart from the region within three days. Boko Haram translates from Hausa to English as ‘Western education is sacrilege’. The group was reportedly responsible in 2011 for over five hundred killings. The group accepted responsibility for the attack of a Catholic church near the Nigerian capital Abuja on Christmas Day, in which at least 37 people died, as well as a suicide bombing at a United Nations building in the same city, where 25 people were killed as a result.

Goodluck Jonathan, the president of Nigeria, placed various areas of the country in a state of emergency on December 31, 2011, including areas in Yobe, Plateau, Borno and Niger state. Gombe was not included amongst these states. Authorities in these areas can now arrest individuals without requiring evidence to do so. Similarly, searches can be made by authorities without requiring warrants to do so.

Wednesday, April 7, 2021

Wikinews extended invitations by e-mail on March 23 to multiple candidates running in the Texas’ 6th congressional district special election of May 1 to fill a vacancy left upon the death of Republican congressman Ron Wright. Of them, independent candidate Adrian Mizher agreed to answer some questions by phone on March 30 about their campaigns and policies. The following is the interview with Mr Mizher.

Mizher describes himself as a senior loan closer on his LinkedIn profile at BBVA USA, a Birmingham-based subsidiary of Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria. He has lived in Kennedale, Texas for five years and the Dallas-Fort Worth metropolitan area for 16 of the last 24 years. A cum laude graduate of Southwestern Adventist University, he grew up in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and has lived for eight years in Albuquerque, New Mexico. He endeavours to bring “a never ending fight for fidelity to the Constitution and promotion of our Conservative values”, speaking to Wikinews on matters ranging from the economy to immigration.

An Inside Elections poll published on March 18 shows Republican candidate Susan Wright, the widow of Ron Wright, is ahead by 21% followed by Democrat Jana Sanchez with 17% and Republican Jake Ellzey with 8% with a 4.6% margin of error among 450 likely voters. The district is considered “lean Republican” by Inside Elections and voted 51% in favour of Donald Trump in last year’s US presidential election. This is down from 54% for Trump in 2016’s presidential election, the same poll stated.