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Saturday, December 24, 2011

On Wednesday the Lansing, Michigan Capital Region International Airport and surrounding land was designated as an “aerotropolis” by the Michigan Economic Development Corporation Strategic Fund board. The Next Michigan Development program allows the airport to offer tax incentives in order to attract manufacturing, distribution, and technology businesses to the surrounding area.

Incentives can include property tax abatements or the elimination of most state and local taxes for a specified period of time. To qualify for the incentives, a company would have to start a new venture on airport property or expand an existing one. Additionally, companies need to use a minimum of two out of four transportation modes – freight, air, rail, or water.

The airport, in DeWitt Township, is the second in Michigan to receive an aerotropolis designation. The state’s other aerotropolis is located in the area surrounding Detroit Metropolitan and Willow Run airports. In October the city of Lansing and DeWitt Township approved a 425 tax-sharing agreement on the property, designating approximately 850 acres (344 ha) of land as available for future development.

Monday, September 20, 2010

Leonard Skinner, the namesake of rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd, has died at the age of 77. Skinner was a gym teacher and basketball coach and taught members of the group. His death was announced by his son, also named Leonard Skinner, who also said that he was suffering from Alzheimer’s disease.

Skinner died at the St. Catherine Laboure Manor nursing home in Riverside at 02.30 a.m. His son said that he had a bowl of ice cream shortly after midnight. He had been at the home for about a year.

The coach taught the members of the group in the 1960s and was reportedly hard on the students. He later said in a 2009 interview that “he was just following the rules”. He disputed the rumours that he was extra tough on them or that he kicked them out of school.

In later years he opened up his own bar and became friends with some members of the group and even introduced them at one of their concerts in Jacksonville.

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Sunday, July 20, 2008

The last day of the Wikimania 2008 conference saw Saturday morning sessions on a variety of topics. Wikinews attended a presentation by Eric M. Johnson from the United States Department of State. Eric, a former NCO in the U.S. Marines, is the lead for the Knowledge Management Action team in the department’s Office of eDiplomacy, and involved in department’s use of Web 2.0 technologies for knowledge management. This includes blogs, and the key focus of his talk, Wiki culture in the U.S. Department of State.

Eric opened his presentation with an introduction to the U.S. State Department, one of the oldest agencies of the American government, which today has around 57,000 employees worldwide. When formed in the 18th century their offices and diplomatic staff operated largely autonomously due to lack of ability to communicate rapidly. By the mid-20th century this had changed with the advent of telegraph lines, and changed again with the Cold War and security concerns bringing to the fore the well-known term, “need to know”.

Now, in the 21st century, the volume of internal communication generated by the department is a staggering 1,800,000 cables a year, 1.5 billion emails, production of around 500,000 print volumes, and maintenance of approximately one thousand websites. Both internal and externally facing.

A pilot project was set up, Diplopedia, a MediaWiki wiki running on the department’s internal network, which outside of the department of defence is one of the largest private networks operated by the U.S. government.

A grassroots effort, this project to promote knowledge sharing differs from the well-known Wikipedia in that it does not allow anonymous edits. There are around 1,000 registered users who have contributed over 4,400 pages. Integration with the Department of State’s internal search engine prioritises results from the wiki, increasing the popularity of the site such that it has received over 650,000 page views. Like Wikipedia, users are required to provide sources for entered information at the foot of the article, and users are warned that it is a starting point and not an authoritative source of information. Data on visa requirements and information from other static department sites has been incorporated into the wiki.

Eric described the project as just reaching critical mass and attracting increasing interest from other departments. Among the ingredients leading to the success of the project were the cultural change with increasing awareness of the technology from Wikipedia, the formation by the community of a welcoming committee, and the taking on of roles to carry out tasks such as drafting. A number of staff act as “gardeners” tending to the wiki content, keeping it fresh, and well cross-referenced. The continual updating is a novel concept to many of their employees.

Unlike Wikipedia, and many other projects using MediaWiki, none of the Diplopedia pages are locked or protected. This even includes their main page. To date there have been none of the content disputes that have been an issue on Wikipedia, and the use of the wiki to replace traditional websites which are far more time consuming to maintain is seen as a logical extension of the project.

Carried out with no outside help, and by learning from others’ mistakes, the department has adopted mechanisms for assuming that contributions are well-intentioned, and has a body for oversight in the event of a dispute.

With the success of the project, eDiplomacy plans to introduce a separate, classified wiki. They will also expand the effort to compile biographies of foreign leaders, which was pioneered by the U.S. missions in Italy and Germany. This effort has proven valuable when combined with a version of the site available on portable devices such as the Blackberry.

The future holds moves to seek more support from management and integration with their primary authentication system. Among the features on the main page to keep the project interesting to staff is a “Diploquiz” which poses a weekly trivia question which can be answered from somewhere within the wiki.

Friday, February 2, 2018

On Wednesday, English football club Arsenal FC announced signing Gabonese striker Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang from German club Borussia Dortmund (BVB) on “a long-term contract” which runs until 2021. The deal is worth about £56 million, making Aubameyang the costliest player in the history of the club.

The 28-year-old striker joined Borussia in 2013 from French club Saint-Etienne, and since then, scored 141 goals in 213 matches for BVB. In German Bundesliga, he scored 98 goals, scoring one goal in 116 minutes on average. During his tenure at the Signal Iduna Park, the Gabonese captain won the 2017 DFB-Pokal (German Cup).

Aubameyang scored 31 goals in Bundesliga last season. Aubameyang was named 2016 Bundesliga player of the year. A year earlier, in 2015, he won African Footballer of the Year award. He has 56 international caps with Gabon and has netted 23 goals.

Via their official website, Arsenal announced Aubameyang is to wear jersey number 14, previously worn by Theo Walcott until last month when he moved to Everton FC. The Gabonese, who has already scored 21 goals in 24 games this season, reunites with Armenian midfielder Henrick Mkhitaryan. They were teammates at Dortmund until 2016, when Mkhitaryan moved to Manchester United. Mkhitaryan’s transfer to the London club came in exchange of Chilean forward Alexis Sanchez moving from Arsenal to their rivals Manchester in a swap deal.

Dortmund had signed Belgian footballer Michy Batshuayi from Chelsea on loan before Aubameyang’s deal was agreed upon. With Aubameyang’s arrival, French forward Olivier Giroud moved to Arsenal’s cross-town rivals Chelsea. In summer, Arsenal had signed Alexandre Lacazette for a then-club record fee of around £46.5 million.

Thursday, July 3, 2014

Ian Narev, the CEO of the Commonwealth Bank of Australia, this morning “unreservedly” apologised to clients who lost money in a scandal involving the bank’s financial planning services arm.

Last week, a Senate enquiry found financial advisers from the Commonwealth Bank had made high-risk investments of clients’ money without the clients’ permission, resulting in hundreds of millions of dollars lost. The Senate enquiry called for a Royal Commission into the bank, and the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC).

Mr Narev stated the bank’s performance in providing financial advice was “unacceptable”, and the bank was launching a scheme to compensate clients who lost money due to the planners’ actions.

In a statement Mr Narev said, “Poor advice provided by some of our advisers between 2003 and 2012 caused financial loss and distress and I am truly sorry for that. […] There have been changes in management, structure and culture. We have also invested in new systems, implemented new processes, enhanced adviser supervision and improved training.”

An investigation by Fairfax Media instigated the Senate inquiry into the Commonwealth Bank’s financial planning division and ASIC.

Whistleblower Jeff Morris, who reported the misconduct of the bank to ASIC six years ago, said in an article for The Sydney Morning Herald that neither the bank nor ASIC should be in control of the compensation program.

Sunday, October 6, 2013

On Tuesday, South Korea staged a huge military parade to mark its armed forces’ 65th anniversary in a display of long-range missiles considered a direct threat to North Korea. 11,000 troops and 190 different weapons systems were on display in the parade. Wikinews interviewed several specialists about the parade’s possible significance.