Wednesday, March 8, 2006
Zahira Sheikh, the main prosecution witness in the high-profile Best Bakery case, has been sentenced to a year in prison for lying in court and a fine of Rs. 50,000. Zahira Sheikh changed her testimony many time. A committee appointed by the Supreme Court said it believed she had been bribed to lying in court.
Friday, May 26, 2006
In February of 2006, the Savarino Services Construction Corp. proposed the construction of a seven million dollar hotel on Elmwood and Forest Avenues in Buffalo, New York. In order for the hotel to be built, at least five properties containing businesses and residents would have to be destroyed. It was not certain whether the properties were owned by Savarino or by the landlord Hans Mobius. The hotel was designed by Karl Frizlen of the Frizlen Group, and is planned to be a franchise of the Wyndham Hotels group.
Elmwood Avenue is known by the community as a popular shopping center, and Nancy Pollina of Don Apparel (who is “utterly against” the construction) claims it’s the only reason why students from Buffalo State College leave campus. Additionally, Michael Faust of Mondo Video said he did not want to “get kicked out of here [his video store property].”
In 1995, a Walgreens was proposed to be built on the same land, but Walgreens later withdrew its request for a variance because of pressure from the community. More recently, Pano Georgiadis tried to get the rights to demolish the Atwater House next to his restaurant on Elmwood Avenue, but was denied a permit due to the property’s historical value. He has since been an opponent to the hotel construction.
In the process of debating the hotel, it was thought that a hotel had previously existed on the proposed site, however; research done at the Buffalo and Erie County Historical Society had shown that no hotel had previously existed on the site.
Thursday, May 4, 2006
The Greek Premier Kostas Caramanlis and his counterpart of Turkey, Rejep Tayyip Erdogan, had a meeting, for 45 minutes, in Thessaloniki, northern Greece, in the sidelines of the Inter-Balkan Cooperation Summit. Caramanlis and Erdogan had the opportunity to discuss the bilateral issues between Greece and Turkey, such as the Cyprus Issue, the dispute between the two countries in the area of Aegean Sea as well as the process of Turkey’s efforts to become a member of the European Union. Today, the Prime Minister of Turkey will have the opportunity to visit the Turkish Consulate of Thessaloniki; the house in which the founder of the Republic of Turkey, Kemal Ataturk, was born.
Except from the Caramanlis-Erdogan meeting, important discussions took place in Thessaloniki between the leaders of Southeast Europe countries. The Bulgarian Prime Minister denied the reports in Bulgarian Media, whereby the Bulgarian public sector was backing out of the Burgas-Alexandroupolis oil pipe construction. In addition, the leaders welcomed the signing of the agreement for constructing a state-of-the-art railroad network in Southeast Europe, which as he said, would modernise rail transport, reduce travel time and increase the quality of the services provided in the region.
Japan, a major contributor to Balkan reconstruction projects, has guest status at the meeting, represented by Deputy Foreign Minister, Akiko Yamanaka. The Summit focused on the European prospects of the Southeast European countries, economic relations, the issue with Kosovo, and the political crisis in Serbia, following the failed arrest of wanted General Mladic and the freezing of negotiations with the European Union.