Tuesday, August 31, 2010
Underground heroes Pere Ubu are out to repair entertainment with a low-pitched version of the fool around that gave them their name.
Saturday, August 28, 2010
Brazil c.bank weakens genuine with second dollar proposal
(Recasts, adds 2nd dollar auction, comments)
Stocks&&&&Bonds&&&&Global Markets
SAO PAULO, Apr fifteen (Reuters) - Brazil"s genuine fell onThursday after the executive bank called a second auction to soakup the supply of U.S. dollars, stepping up efforts to tame theLatin American currency"s gains.
Dealers pronounced the move -- the initial time in roughly threeyears that the bank has hold dual such auctions on the same day-- stirred investors to take increase on gains progressing in thesession.
The genuine (BRBY) lost 0.3 percent to 1.754 per U.S. dollarafter the executive bank announcement. It had strengthened nearly0.7 percent progressing in the day.
Traders pronounced the move signaled policymakers" eagerness tocurb gains that could mistreat internal exporters and could preventinvestors from augmenting bets on serve gains in thecurrency.
"Definitely they don"t wish the genuine gaining as well fast below1.74-1.75," pronounced Pedro Tuesta, comparison Latin America economistat investigate organisation 4Cast Inc in Washington. "This will scarethose people prolonged on the real."
A prolonged on all sides on the genuine is a gamble the banking willstrengthen serve opposite the dollar.
Brazil"s benchmark Bovespa batch index .BVSP forsaken 0.4percent to 70,705.74 as renewed concerns about Greece"s debtcrisis led to warning between investors. (Reporting by Elzio Barreto; modifying by Patrick Graham)
Stocks Bonds Global Markets lampshade for acne to phone help this mullsFriday, August 27, 2010
Blue formula of overpower breaks after cover of New Orleans shootings
They are well known as the Danziger Seven, a society of military officers connected by a shameful tip but stable by a blue formula of silence. Only now, four and a half years after they shot passed dual trusting people during the anarchy that came after Hurricane Katrina, has the deception by New Orleans police officers started to uncover after 3 burst underneath the vigour of a federal investigation.
On Sep 4, 2005, officers from the New Orleans Police Department discharged at a organisation of with bare hands survivors of the charge and flooding that had scorched the city. One of the passed was Ronald Madison, 40, a mentally infirm man. To cover their marks the officers and their colleagues built reports, planted justification and framed their victims. Lance Madison, 49, Ronalds brother, who was between those injured, was locked up for multiform weeks on fraudulent charges of attempted attempted attempted attempted attempted murder after officers claimed that he had discharged first, despite his never carrying a weapon.
Last month dual carnage detectives caved in and gave evidence. I have conjunction imagined nor listened of some-more fraudulent or inhuman control by law enforcement officers, US District Judge Lance Africk said, after Jeffrey Lehrmann, the former major and one of the dual strange whistleblowers, pleaded guilty when he was charged with covering up a crime.
You, and others similar to you, by an blow up swindling of deception and obstruction, have caused an lavish grade of mental agonise and suffering ... You have compounded the repairs caused by Hurricane Katrina in an immeasurable way. You have ashamed your badge.
Related LinksPolice charged with Katrina murdersJazz wake for the last victims of KatrinaIn their sworn statement Lehrmann and his former co-worker Lieutenant Michael Lohman, 42, described colleagues concocting statements from self-existent witnesses, creation up names and sum and referring to a gun that they had planted at the stage of the sharpened as a ham sandwich.
They treated with colour it similar to a fun ... the positively overwhelming to listen to about the casual approach in that these officers went about destroying peoples lives, said Mary Howell, a polite rights counsel who represents the Madison family.
Yesterday one of the shooters was charged with deterrent of probity and knowledge of a crime. Michael Hunter, 33, is the initial military military military officer present when the killings happened to face a court.
Six days after Katrina left most of New Orleans underneath water, abandoned of communications and care and in a state of disharmony and paranoia, military were called to the Danziger Bridge, that spans the Industrial Canal in the east of the city. They were responding to reports, that valid false, that two officers had been shot. They explain that when they arrived they came under glow and were forced to fire in self-defence.
However, the Madisons were with bare hands and had simply been attempting to cranky the bridge to find preserve at their brothers dental surgery. Police explain that Ronald was shot once as he reached to his waistband and incited towards them to shoot. Yet a autopsy hearing found 7 bullets in his body, including five in his back.
At the alternative finish of the overpass Leonard Bartholomew, his mother Susan, their children, nephew and crony James Barsat, 19, were perplexing to find food when police bullets strike five of them. Mr Barsat was killed.
Were all on the belligerent and all you can see is red blood everywhere. You can listen to everybody hollering, moaning, Mrs Bartholomew told National Public Radio a year after in her usually interview. My right arm was on the belligerent lying subsequent to me ... it had been shot off. Her nephew, Jose Holmes, 19, claimed that after he was struck by dual bullets an military military officer leant over the petrify barrier where he had sought shelter, put a purloin to his go through and pulled the trigger twice.
When alternative military arrived to examine the shooting, together with Lehrmann and Lohman, they realised that their colleagues had been concerned in a bad shoot of with bare hands people. The cover that followed enclosed equivocating statements from the Bartholomews observant that Mr Holmes had shot at military first.
According to Lehrmann, one sergeant drafted sworn statement from a of doubtful authenticity witness, Lakeisha Smith, that the Madisons had been looting and robbing and that Ronald had been about to fire military when he was felled.
Meetings were hold for officers to consult on removing their stories straight, spent bullet casings were kicked off the overpass to fall short justification and officers discussed how they could have use of Hurricane Katrina as an forgive for failures in the review of the Danziger Bridge shootings and thereby use the charge to assistance have the complete incident go away, justice papers reveal.
In 2006 the 7 officers concerned in the shootings were charged with attempted attempted attempted attempted murder and attempted murder. However, colleagues and military unions rose in anger, vaunting them as wronged heroes. A decider discharged the charges in 2008, citing bungle by prosecutors. This led to open snub and intervention by sovereign authorities who have betrothed an no holds barred track for the truth.
The power of the review is increasing, David Welker, a FBI special representative said, adding that the review would aggressively aspire to the justification wherever it leads.
Going in to Hurricane Katrina, the military dialect was already in really serious trouble, Mrs Howell said.
There are a series who have conducted themselves in an honest and decent approach but the not an considerate series that were concerned in a little kind of misconduct, killings and framings. Its not a couple of bad apples; the a critical reflection on the complete department.
She added: This military dialect has to be spotless out ... this cover was in cold blood, it was working out and it concerned mixed officers.
Lehrmann and Lohman will be condemned at a after date. Mr Hunter faces eight years in jail and a $500,000 (330,000) excellent if convicted.
Other police-involved killings and unexplained deaths are additionally being looked into among accusations from the public, lawyers and village leaders that the New Orleans Police Department is decaying to the core.
This has non-stop up a Pandoras Box, Dr Romell Madison, the hermit of Lance and Ronald, said. The routine of closure has started, but Im some-more delighted about the actuality that crimes similar to this that didnt usually affect me but a lot of alternative people here in New Orleans will be looked at.
I know members of the military force, a little of them and their family groups are my patients and they disclose in me that the law will come out. I discuss it them I just goal it comes out in my lifetime.
Big Easy tough times
Hurricane Katrina approached the Florida seashore on Aug 25, 2005, and picked up gait as it veered towards Louisiana, attack land 4 days after at 125mph (200kph)
About 80 per cent of New Orleans was flooded, 770,000 people replaced and some-more than 1,500 killed
Tens of thousands took retreat in the Superdome, New Orleanss immeasurable sports stadium, and in the days after the hurricanes reports widespread of looting, attack and passionate assault. Many rumours were false, but Louisiana gangsters who fled to Houston increasing the attempted attempted attempted attempted murder rate there by twenty-eight per cent during their stay
At the rise of the service effort, some-more than 40,000 infantry were deployed along the Gulf coast. The liberation bid cost $110 billion. The population has still not returned to pre-Katrina levels
Louisiana residents hailed a big step in the citys liberation in February when their American football team, the Saints, won a overwhelming victory over the Indianapolis Colts in the 2010 Super Bowl the initial time in the 42 years in the National Football League that the group had reached the last
Sources: Bloomberg; Reuters; Times archives
Thursday, August 26, 2010
Teachers authorised to make use of earthy force
Teachers can have make use of earthy force opposite pupils if they are fighting, refusing to leave a classroom or disrupting a propagandize sporting event, supervision discipline ruled yesterday.
The guidelines, published by the Schools Secretary, Ed Balls, are an try to raze the "myth" that teachers cannot hold pupils. They additionally have it transparent that teachers can have make use of force but parental agree and target to plunge into the "fear factor" between teachers that they will face attack allegations from pupils if they meddle to forestall them fighting.
Teachers welcomed the superintendence yesterday. Mike Grant, an partner head clergyman from north Lincolnshire who chairs the National Association of Schoolmasters/Union of Women Teachers" authorised committee, said: "What has happened in new years is that teachers have been fearful off from you do anything."
"If an claim of attack is done that is false, they can be dangling for a poignant volume of time. Even when they are exonerated, they can find it formidable to go behind to the classroom. Careers can be ruined."
The request creates it transparent that schools should not adopt "no contact" policies, as a little internal authorities have unofficially advised.
Iran council approves Ahmadinejad bill
EDITORS" NOTE: Reuters and alternative unfamiliar media are theme to Iranian restrictions on withdrawal the bureau to report, movie or take cinema in Tehran. Iran"s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad attends an central assembly in Tehran Mar 8, 2010.
Credit: Reuters/Raheb Homavandi
TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran"s council authorized President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad"s 2010/11 check on Monday, state air wave reported, but a little lawmakers pounded the plan, observant programmed cuts in subsidies could hint exile inflation.
World
"It was approved," orator Ali Larijani said. The Mehr headlines group pronounced 151 deputies out of 290 authorized the outlines of the check after creation a little amendments. Larijani pronounced usually 226 members were benefaction at the vote.
A comparison central has pronounced the supervision projects revenues of 596 trillion rials (about $59.6 billion) in mercantile 2010/11, that will outcome in a $6 billion deficit.
That includes plans to proviso out dear subsidies on food and appetite during mercantile 2010/11 -- that starts Mar twenty-one -- that the supervision has already pronounced will supplement fifteen commission points to the normal acceleration foresee of 10 percent in 2010/11.
Analysts guess the cuts could send acceleration arching behind to thirty percent or some-more and lead to a repeat of rioting seen in 2007.
"Do we have any resolution to quell the inflationary stroke of this plan to compromise the people"s problems?" assuage MP Mostafa Kavakebian pronounced during Monday"s discuss on the check in parliament, promote on state radio.
"According to supervision officials, the acceleration rate in the subsequent year will reach twenty-five percent, whilst experts hold it will be higher than this figure."
Inflation right away stands at 8.9 percent but is on the climb again after entrance down from scarcely thirty percent given late 2008.
"The supervision and the council outlayed days on this check bill ... and were aiming at dwindling the inflationary stroke as well as augmenting the rate of mercantile expansion in the most appropriate probable manner," supervision deputy Ebrahim Azizi pronounced in a debate prior to the choosing by casting votes took place.
SOCIAL PROGRAMMES
Iran is the world"s fifth-largest wanton oil exporter, but whilst oil prices have surged Iran"s economy has slowed as a outcome of the tellurian mercantile downtown, domestic siege and sanctions over the chief appetite program. Analysts guess it probably will have grown only 0.5 percent in the year finale Mar 2010.
Prominent lawmaker Ahmad Tavakoli pronounced supervision plans to discharge oil revenues without delay to amicable programs for the poorer sectors of the race -- a move dictated to alleviate the funding cuts -- could explode if the oil cost slips.
"What if the oil income falls and the supervision cannot compensate the pre-planned money to the people?" he said. "The inflationary stroke of this check is dangerous as experts hold the acceleration rate competence reach 50 percent."
Iran"s ISNA headlines group pronounced council authorized on Monday to bottom the check on an oil cost of $65 per barrel, higher than last year"s $37.5 per barrel. On Monday, the oil cost surfaced $82.
Iranian media reported last week that a parliamentary cabinet had questioned the government"s calculation of $40 billion assets by funding cuts, observant $20 billion was some-more realistic.
Critics credit Ahmadinejad of spendthrift asset oil revenues Iran warranted when wanton prices soared in the initial half of 2008, withdrawal the nation some-more exposed right away that it faces probable one more U.N. sanctions over the chief program.
(Writing by Andrew Hammond; Editing by Ron Askew)
WorldMonday, August 23, 2010
Falcon can furnish drifting finishRacing Sport
The phoney fight is roughly over. While the Festival does not begin until Tuesday, the initial big esteem will be contested at Sandown this afternoon, when the Paddy Power Imperial Cup leader will turn authorised for a �75,000 reward if following up in any competition at Cheltenham. The outcome is a formally indigestible aperitif for punters scheming for subsequent weeks banquet.
Martin and afterwards David Pipe are the usually trainers to have won the reward to date, and their fast had the curtain taken from underneath the feet when Hunterview longed for the cut. He is transposed as prime by Qaspal, who himself usually crept in to the competition on 10st 3lb. Tony McCoy, whose lowest roving weight over the past year has been 10st 5lb, will as if do but that second raisin for breakfast.
Since subordinate for a medium rating in beginner hurdles, Qaspal has not come off the check in dual encumber starts and it is unfit to know how majority some-more he competence have in hand. But he has been lifted 14lb to encounter softened horses, whilst dropping behind in area on softened ground. So whilst he could simply shaft up, his constant contingency contingency be pristine guesswork.
Aather additionally stays unexposed but hinted at Cheltenham last time that he competence cite a crook test, whilst Tocca Ferro needs to brush up his jumping to gain on a symbol he will certainly surpass in time. For all the some-more on-going sorts in the field, the maestro Tender Falcon (3.05) seems foul not asked at 33-1. The actuality is that he stays flattering easily raced over jumps, and posted a career majority appropriate when usually knocked about a neck at Ascot last time, his mad finish suggesting he will be at home on the mountain at Sandown.
Some poetic prospects lend towards to assemble for the opener, between that Aberdale (2.0) will certainly have hulk strides after reception a flattering devotedly attached preparation on his approach to a initial encumber rating.
Up at Wolverhampton, meanwhile, a little decent competition reminds us that Flat racing on territory resumes really shortly after the Festival. This weekend, moreover, both those superb American females, Zenyatta and Rachel Alexandra, have their reappearance with that big showdown in mind, in Arkansas on 9 April. The dominant Zenyatta will be surrender copiousness of weight to her rivals at Santa Anita; Rachel Alexandra is opposite by only 4 in New Orleans.
Over here all eyes sojourn bound on Cheltenham. Binocular finished his conspicuous rebirth yesterday when appreciative McCoy amply in his work to be reliable an dictated curtain in the Smurfit Champion Hurdle on Tuesday. With the preference of Nicky Hendersons alternative dual runners, Barry Geraghty has stayed constant to last years winner, Punjabi, withdrawal Zaynar to Andrew Tinkler.
Hes a equine thats finished it on the big stage, Geraghty reasoned. More critical still, he only gave me the majority unimaginable feel at Kempton. I"m certain he is simply a open horse. My preference should not simulate at all on Zaynar, as I"m certain he"ll run a big race. And the good Andrew rides; he deserves the possibility on a well-fancied float in a championship race.
Turf account: Chris McGrath
*Nap
Stormin Exit (2.40 Ayr)
Looks an softened equine for his new stable, a smooth leader switched to fences at Newcastle prior to losing movement when hampered dual out here last time in the routine seeking developed for a lapse to this longer trip.
*Next Best
Redford (2.15 Wolverhampton)
Has betrothed some-more than he has delivered so far but his new tutor sets him a test, switched to this aspect turn a bend, that looks certain to fool around to his strengths.
*One To Watch
Miss Saffron (Mrs S Gardner) had no possibility opposite a abounding opposition at Wincanton on Thursday but showed because she was well corroborated for her encumber entrance by violence the rest readily.
*Where The Moneys Going
William Hill halved Tocca Ferro from 16-1 to 8-1 for the Paddy Power Imperial Cup today.
Friday, August 20, 2010
Carry on claiming: On Expenses Features TV & Radio
It was The Dailywhat finished it, right?
It was Middle Englands prime broadsheet that so uncharacteristically got the hands unwashed and drip-fed us, sunrise after sunrise after morning, the sordid, petty, vast and often comic sum of the MPs" losses scandal. Well, yes, loyal in a clarity but where was all this report about the dishonesty of Parliament entrance from? Or, to put it an additional way, since was there any report accessible to be leaked in the initial place? The short answer is this: Heather Brooke.
Brooke is the great unsung brave woman of the Great Westminster Expenses Scandal, nonetheless that is about to shift with the delivery of a BBC4 fool around that sum Brookes five-year debate to force MPs to come purify about their allowances. This is the alternative great thing about the story: the in all unknown, says Tony Saint, the bard of On Expenses, that stars Anna Maxwell Martin as the heroic truth-seeker. It contingency have been utterly frustrating for Brooke that no one seemed hugely worried about it until the proposed leaking the details. They got the assemblage of it and that became a story in itself the scale became a story, I suppose.
Brooke had been an determined American publisher vital in London when, in 2004, she proposed operative on a book to happen at the same time with the key of the Freedom of Information Act in the UK, a citizens" guide called Your Right to Know. Used from her tyro broadcasting days in the US to a pure element of domestic expenses, Brooke took a penetrating seductiveness in the own ambiguous parliamentary process of reimbursing itself.
I"ve regularly been in love with old-style inquisitive journalism, she pronounced last year, as the liaison claimed scalp after scalp. You know those movies in the 1930s and 40s about the press in Chicago featuring hard-bitten hacks with hearts of gold, similar to Hildy Johnson in His Girl Friday? I regularly longed for to be that kind of reporter. I"m not certain if an assault of sum about bath plugs and porn movies was how I envisioned the great review of my career, but afterwards there are high beliefs at stake.
Indeed there are, and I contingency confess that my heart sank when I review that On Expenses was going to be a funny fool around about a story that has hurt a lot some-more people than it has amused. What is it (the bequest of Private Eye and Spitting Image perhaps?) that equates to anything to do with Right Honourable Members (oo-er) contingency be automatically incited in to a Carry On farce? I was perplexing to constraint what seemed to me to be a unequivocally British clarity of humour about it all, says Tony Saint, who additionally wrote the robust 2007 Margaret Thatcher biopic, The Long Walk to Finchley.
Happily, On Expenses isnt any sort of Carry On Paying for My Duck Pond; it turns out to be pacy (the 60-minute using time helps) and interesting authority to the total contemptible state of affairs, distinguished a great change in between fool around and humour. But what unequivocally creates it mount out from your common hot-off-the-headlines, kneejerk fool around throng is a little critical casting.
Although they share usually dual speechless scenes together, Brian Cox as Speaker Michael Martin, the superficial of parliamentary intransigence, and Maxwell Martin as his don"t-take-no-for-an-answer nemesis element one alternative beautifully.
Set up as the comic boundary in early scenes personification bagpipes in his bureau and blending Irn Bru with his blockade Cox endows Martin with an astonishing pathos. It will be up to those who essentially know the man to contend either it is deserved, but Cox obviously believes he should be postulated a satisfactory hearing.
Clearly he done errors in the approach he rubbed the situation, Cox says. But I additionally think theres never been any fashion for that kind of thing. And he was an old traffic kinship man when a politician was needed. But I think he was a kind of tumble guy, and I longed for to fool around his charitable side.
Maxwell Martin, some-more used to portraying duration characters in TV dramas such as Bleak House and North and South, is feisty, voluptuous and sporting an American accent utterly distinct Brooke"s. (You can check the genuine one out on YouTube.)
Heather essentially has a hybrid accent, half English and half American and I attempted it have it some-more American since I didnt think her hybrid would interpret unequivocally well, says the actress, adding that Brookes nationality was the key to her determination. She came over here and was shocked, really, at how most we cover up the heads in the silt about things.
The requisite disclaimer at the begin of On Expenses is since an comical slant, saying that this movie is formed on genuine characters and events. Some scenes have been imagined... a little dates compressed. But often you couldnt have it up. The drive-in theatre director, Simon Cellan Jones (Generation Kill; The Trial of Tony Blair) agrees. Its utterly a surreal story in that the people who voted in the Freedom of Information Act were the unequivocally people that attempted to get themselves free from it.
On Expenses is on BBC4 on Tuesday, 10pm
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
Oslo to examine all EU CO permits traded in Norway
OSLO (Reuters) - Norwegian taxation authorities plan to examine all companies" exchange of European Union allowances (EUAs) in the Nordic nation as piece of a examine in to suspected taxation fraud, a comparison taxation central pronounced on Tuesday.
The Norwegian review is piece of a wider EU examine in to an estimated 5 billion euro ($6.75 billion) rascal where companies paid for CO emissions permits in one nation but profitable worth combined tax, and afterwards sole in an additional adding taxation to the cost but pocketing that disproportion for themselves.
"We are not going to review all of them, but we are going to take a see at all the exchange and we will have the moves from there," pronounced Oeyvind Bakken, emissary executive of the monetary services dialect at the taxation management for Oslo and eastern Norway.
"There aren"t most companies trade in CO allowances so we competence be means to get a consummate see in to some-more or less all in the market," he told Reuters on Tuesday. Bakken estimated about 200 companies have traded EUAs in Norway.
Spanish military pronounced on Tuesday they had arrested 9 people and charged dual some-more with avoiding 50 million euros in taxation related to trade in CO credits.
On Monday, Norwegian military told Reuters they had charged five men with income laundering and taxation fraud.
The probes were piece of a wider review in to taxation rascal relating to CO emissions trade that European military group Europol pronounced cost treasuries up to 5 billion euros ($6.72 billion) in lost revenues.
Bakken pronounced the taxation authorities would see in to the EUAs traded in Norway once they had finished their ongoing review in to dual firms whose resources they have seized.
"It will take until may be Jun or Jul prior to we can see at the alternative transactions, but it could be faster or slower," Bakken said. "We are perplexing to hang this as fast as we can."
Tax officials are now examining the businesses of Gct AS (www.gct.no) and Green Plus Energy AS (www.greenplusenergy.no).
They are claiming 190 million Norwegian crowns ($31.95 million) from the firms -- 127 million crowns for the purported rascal and 63 million crowns in penalties.
"We are stability to examine the dual companies that we have been means to seize resources from," pronounced Bakken.
"They were trade all over Europe," he said, but naming that countries were involved.
A counsel representing Green Plus Energy told Reuters on Mar 9 the organisation was not concerned in VAT rascal and pronounced the organisation was auxiliary with the military and operative toward suspending the justice statute frozen the firm"s accounts.
Gct AS was unreachable on Tuesday. It did not lapse phone calls formerly done by Reuters.
(Editing by Amanda Cooper)
Bit DefenderWednesday, August 11, 2010
Blairs journal to be published in September
LONDON (AP) -- Will he display the understanding critics think carried Britain and the United States to fight in Iraq? Take target at those who dubbed him President George W. Bush"s poodle? Describe his mad arguments with inheritor Gordon Brown?
Probably not. But Tony Blair betrothed Thursday to give the open insinuate discernment in to his decade as British Prime Minister when his much-anticipated memoir, "The Journey," is published in September.
Publisher Random House paid an estimated 5 million pounds ($7.5 million) for Blair"s personal comment of his time in power, after a behest fight that Washington well review power-broker Robert Barnett — an profession whose clients embody President Barack Obama, his prototype George W. Bush and both Bill and Hillary Clinton — described as between the majority extreme in memory.
The book will be closely review for revelations about the pull to fight in Iraq, moving negotiations to win assent in Northern Ireland and Blair"s infrequently uneasy attribute with Brown, who succeeded him in 2007.
"I have attempted to write a book that describes the human as most as the domestic measure of hold up as budding minister," Blair pronounced in a statement. "Though indispensably retrospective, it is an try to surprise and figure stream and destiny meditative as most as a chronological comment of the past."
Random House pronounced the book would be published in Britain underneath the Hutchinson imprint, and in North America by Knopf. Blair himself will recount the audiobook version.
The timing equates to Blair"s journal won"t crop up prior to Britain"s subsequent inhabitant election, that contingency be hold by early June. Blair won 3 choosing victories for his Labour Party, commencement in 1997.
Gail Rebuck, arch senior manager of Random House, pronounced the book would mangle new ground.
"His book is frank, open, revealing, and created in an insinuate and permitted style," pronounced Rebuck, whose father Philip Gould is a former confidant to Blair.
Blair will lift out an general promotional debate for the book, that will cost twenty-five pounds ($38).
Andrew Lake, the domestic customer for Waterstone"s book store chain, pronounced Blair"s book "should be the most appropriate offered domestic discourse given Margaret Thatcher"s."
Blair has been the theme of countless books, particularly the best-seller "The Blair Years," by Alastair Campbell, his former press secretary. Blair himself put out "New Britain: My Vision of a Young Country," a pick up of speeches and articles from 1997, when he won power.
Random House reliable that Blair wrote "The Journey," himself, but a spook writer.
Brown"s spokesman, Simon Lewis, declined to contend either the stream budding apportion programmed to sequence a copy.
"He hasn"t privately referred to that book, but I know he has a wide-ranging seductiveness in books," Lewis told reporters.
Critics have lampooned the book"s pretension and a honest Blair mural on the coupler sleeve. Conservative Party romantic Iain Dale — a former bookseller — pronounced it looked similar to "the memoirs of a has-been soap star."
,,,Sunday, August 8, 2010
Jim Jubak: Emerging-market bonds that compensate dividends - MSN Money
When emerging stock markets hand you lemons, make lemonade.
Specifically, dividend-paying lemonade.
So far, 2010 hasn"t exactly been kind to emerging-market stocks. An index-tracking exchange-traded fund, iShares MSCI Emerging Markets Index (EEM, news, msgs), declined 6.4% from Dec. 31 through Feb. 8.
Individual emerging-market ETFs did even worse. The iShares MSCI Brazil Index ETF (EWZ, news, msgs) dropped 15.8% over the same period. The iShares FTSE/Xinhua China 25 Index ETF (FXI, news, msgs) fell 12%. The iShares MSCI BRIC Index ETF (BKF, news, msgs) of stocks from Brazil, Russia, India and China went down 13.4%.
Find a broker who"s right for youSo how do you make lemonade from these lemons? Especially when it"s not clear whether these markets, which have tumbled on worries about a slowdown in China"s economic growth and on fears that the budget crisis in Greece could spread to the rest of the European Union, are done falling?
Think dividends.I grant you that dividends and emerging-market stocks aren"t two concepts that immediately jump to mind together. Most emerging-market stocks don"t pay dividends for the same reason that most startup companies anywhere don"t pay dividends: They"ve got plenty of extremely profitable places to invest every bit of internally generated cash.
Other emerging-market companies don"t pay dividends because nobody else does in their local stock market or because it"s not in the culture, or, well, for countless reasons that have to do with what can be the ins and outs of convoluted ownership structures.
Still, some emerging-market companies do pay dividends, largely in the electric utility and telecommunications sectors.
Even in emerging markets, the shares of companies like these use dividends to attract investors because they"re in capital-intensive businesses and are constantly on the lookout to raise capital. Dividends are one way to ensure they have a steady demand for new shares.
Find foreign telecom stocks
Sometimes dividends are paid in sectors and industries you probably wouldn"t expect. For example, I don"t know why China Nepstar Chain Drugstore (NPD, news, msgs), the largest retail drugstore chain in China, has paid a hefty 5.63% dividend over the past year, but it has.In the rest of this column, I"ll give you some caveats for dividend investors that are especially important to investing for yield in emerging markets, then identify four dividend plays -- three for further research and one that I"m going to add to my dividend income portfolio on Friday. (For some help in figuring out an asset allocation that includes these emerging-market plays, see my blog post "How to build a global portfolio.") Yes, dividends, but when? Cash flows from dividends in emerging-market stocks can be unevenly distributed during the year. So it"s smart to pay close attention to when they"ve paid dividends historically. You can wind up waiting a long time between a company"s payouts or discover that you"d just missed one of only two payouts during the year or the biggest of the year"s uneven payouts.
Look at the pattern at Brazilian electric utility Centrais Elétricas Brasileiras (Electrobrás) (EBR, news, msgs), for example. In the past two years the company has paid out two sets of dividends. On May 5, 2009, Electrobrás paid out a cash dividend of 2.66 cents a share and a special cash dividend of 61.84 cents a share. This year, on Feb. 1, the company paid out a cash dividend of $1.1947 a share and a special cash dividend of $1.329. I couldn"t tell you exactly how long you"d have to wait for the next payout or what it might be.
Remember that these are emerging markets and that the fortunes of even a stodgy utility or telecommunications company in the United States or Japan can turn on a dime on a change in regulation or a shift in government that favors one player over another.
That"s exactly what overtook Turkcell Iletisim Hizmetleri (TKC, news, msgs). The Turkish government introduced mobile phone number portability (so that users who switch carriers get to keep the same phone number) in November, and that"s set off a war. Turkcell has maintained its subscriber growth rate, but increased churn (as customers switch providers) and deeper discounts to attract new customers have cut average revenue per user by about 20% in the fourth quarter. I don"t think that endangers the stock"s current 4.8% yield, but it could well keep a lid on any price appreciation in the shares.
Do your research