Global Realty Portal

A proposal for a party leaders' 2015 election debate to be staged on the internet is being launched by a unique alliance of YouTube, the Guardian, and the Telegraph. The initiative for a debate broadcast through YouTube would break the monopoly of existing broadcasters and allow innovative forms of audience participation for the political parties. The proposal, using the hashtag #onlinedebate, has been in preparation for months and was sent to the main party leaders on Thursday following informal talks with politicians. The cross-platform collaboration would put an online debate before the vast majority of the UK's 55 million internet users, and would be aimed at engaging a younger and more interactive audience. A live feed could be embedded on any media site and be carried by any broadcasters on traditional TV and radio. Until now, there has been an assumption that any 2015 election debates will be screened by the existing range of TV channels. But the new all...

China is considering plans to build a high-speed railway line to the US, the country's official media reported on Thursday. The proposed line would begin in north-east China and run up through Siberia, pass through a tunnel underneath the Pacific Ocean then cut through Alaska and Canada to reach the continental US, according to a report in the state-run Beijing Times newspaper. Crossing the Bering Strait in between Russia and Alaska would require about 200km (125 miles) of undersea tunnel, the paper said, citing Wang Mengshu, a railway expert at the Chinese Academy of Engineering. "Right now we're already in discussions. Russia has already been thinking about this for many years," Wang said. The project – nicknamed the "China-Russia-Canada-America" line – would run for 13,000km, about 3,000km further than the Trans-Siberian Railway. The entire trip would take two days, with the train travelling at an average of 350km/h (220mph). The repo...

Heathrow Airport has unveiled plans for a third runway built over the M25.  Heathrow would tunnel a 14-lane stretch of the M25 underneath a new third runway in an attempt to make its expansion plans work, the airport has announced. It unveiled a revised £15.6bn plan for Britain's biggest airport on the deadline for submission to the government's Airports Commission, which will choose between Heathrow and Gatwick for an extra runway in south-east England. Gatwick said its £7.8bn scheme for a second runway and new terminal was the only politically deliverable option. The third Heathrow runway, which would allow up to 260,000 extra flights a year, would be slightly south of the site previously outlined to the north-west of the existing airport perimeter. The revised location would mean two historic buildings and 200 homes would be spared demolition in the village of Harmondsworth, where 750 homes would be destroyed. A 600-metre, 14-lane tunnel would replac...

TO ensure fairness and transparency in the divestment process of Mainstreet Bank Limited being implemented by Assets Management Corporation of Nigeria (AMCON), the Corporation has selected reputable world-class firms, Barclays/Afrinvest Consortium and Banwo & Ighodalo, as financial and legal advisers.   Also, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Governor-designate, which is critical in granting regulatory approval for the eventual acquirer, is also being fully briefed on the issue with the view to ensuring a seamless divestment process.   AMCON’s Chief Communications Officer, Kayode Lambo, revealed this development yesterday in reaction to the reported investors’ concerns on the Corporation’s timelines for sale of Mainstreet Bank.   According to Lambo, with regards to the on-going divestment exercise of Mainstreet Bank, interested bidders were only invited to submit their expression of interest within 9 days of the publication of the invitation in the acquisit...

THE Lagos State Government has created 10 Job Registration Centres within 10 Local Government Secretariats in the state, as part of government’s efforts to tackle the problem of unemployment and avail those at the grassroots the opportunity to benefit from its job creation and youth empowerment programmes.    Dr. Wale Hammed, Commissioner for Special Duties disclosed this at the 2014 Ministerial Press briefing in commemoration of the 7th Year in Office of Governor Babatunde Fashola (SAN), adding that the centres are saddled with the responsibilities of registering job applicants, issuing them identity cards, collating data and providing applicants with available jobs in the state.   He explained that the Skill Acquisition Centres, which are specifically created for the compilation of data banks for unemployed youth, men and women who are seeking job placements and skill acquisition, are located within the local government secretariats of Agege, Ikeja, Lagos ...

A massive rescue operation has been launched to rescue hundreds of miners trapped underground after an explosion and fire in western Turkey which left at least 70 of their colleagues dead. Fresh air was being pumped into the mine in the town of Soma, about 75 miles north-east of the Aegean coastal city of Izmir, where the local mayor said that the actual death toll was as high as 157. Rescue teams from neighbouring regions were making their way to the site on Tuesday night while a visit to Albania was cancelled by Turkey's prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, following the accident in the western province of Manis. Twenty people initially made it out of the privately owned mine, where a power distribution unit was said to have exploded, but authorities said that between 200 and 300 workers were still underground. The accident happened about 2km inside the mine, according to Turkey's NTV television, while the rescue efforts were being hampered by the fact that it was...

CRITICISM has greeted the Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria’s (AMCON’s) limited time given to interested parties in the acquisition of Mainstreet Bank limited, to submit their Expression of Interest (EOI). In advertorials in the media last week, AMCON said the EOI should be submitted not later than next Friday, May 16, 2014.   Some prospective investors and shareholder groups who had stake in the defunct Afribank Plc before its transmutation to Mainstreet Bank, have expressed concern that the one - week deadline set by AMCON  is not sufficient  for any meaningful evaluation and due diligence to be done on the bank. They are urging the CBN , currently being headed by Dr. Sarah Alade as acting governor and the Presidency to prevail on AMCON to allow  interested buyers more time to prepare their EOI.  But the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of AMCON , Mustapha Chike Obi  said yesterday that Expression of Interest (EOI)  was not a big dea...