Get your daily scoop here

the shop name always remind mi of a newspaper

i like the ice cream and the exciting flavours

personal fav : Cherry Brandy – a boozy blackforest with brandied cherries and a dark chocolate brandy swirl

i wana try more flavours :

Ginger Crumble – give your tastebuds a treat! sweet ginger ice cream with a sprinkling of crystallized ginger

Honey Vanilla – and when things need a little kick

HQ, u should try these 2

cha – savour the flavour in this earl grey tea sherbet

Bailey’s® Choc Chip – a light coffee ice cream with a strong dose of Bailey’s® Irish Cream

 

Waffles Day

it’s half price for waffles at gelare every tue so i jio-ed the gang for some waffles

the normal price of one waffle is 7.40! so exp!

and i tink so-so onli….i miss daily scoops’ waffle and the exciting ice cream flavours!

Yellowstone quakes

30 Dec 08

Yellowstone National Park was jostled by a host of small earthquakes for a third straight day Monday, and scientists watched closely to see whether the more than 250 tremors were a sign of something bigger to come.

Swarms of small earthquakes happen frequently in Yellowstone, but it’s very unusual for so many earthquakes to happen over several days, said Robert Smith, a professor of geophysics at the University of Utah.

“They’re certainly not normal,” Smith said. “We haven’t had earthquakes in this energy or extent in many years.”

Smith directs the Yellowstone Seismic Network, which operates seismic stations around the park. He said the quakes have ranged in strength from barely detectable to one of magnitude 3.8 that happened Saturday. A magnitude 4 quake is capable of producing moderate damage.

“This is an active volcanic and tectonic area, and these are the kinds of things we have to pay attention to,” Smith said. “We might be seeing something precursory.

“Could it develop into a bigger fault or something related to hydrothermal activity? We don’t know. That’s what we’re there to do, to monitor it for public safety.”

The strongest of dozens of tremors Monday was a magnitude 3.3 quake shortly after noon. All the quakes were centered beneath the northwest end of Yellowstone Lake.

A park ranger based at the north end of the lake reported feeling nine quakes over a 24-hour period over the weekend, according to park spokeswoman Stacy Vallie. No damage was reported.

“There doesn’t seem to be anything to be alarmed about,” Vallie said.

Smith said it’s difficult to say what might be causing the tremors. He pointed out that Yellowstone is the caldera of a volcano that last erupted 70,000 years ago.

He said Yellowstone remains very geologically active — and its famous geysers and hot springs are a reminder that a pool of magma still exists five to 10 miles underground.

“That’s just the surface manifestation of the enormous amount of heat that’s being released through the system,” he said.

Yellowstone has had significant earthquakes as well as minor ones in recent decades. In 1959, a magnitude 7.5 quake near Hebgen Lake just west of the park triggered a landslide that killed 28 people.

my sotong kia

YY was supposed to tell my bro to shift the car parked on the highest deck

when bro msged mi at 5PM to check which deck the car is on, i knew my sotong son didn’t do his job

i saw bro online shortly after and IM-ed him ‘my son is very sotong’

the reply came quickly ‘yyhere. hehe’

he came up wif some ’sotcats’ which includes ‘aladys’

the day has come when i can IM YY

is tis a sign?

i was asked a strange question by a colleague a while back. i was quite taken aback when she told mi wat she thot of my foto

strangely enuff, she again asked mi abt the same topic and wif reference to the same foto

how did she arrive at tis conclusion?

i’ll wait

 

since u asked and i promised

wait for wat exactly?

sing : for the moment……….it only…….takes a moment

Protecting Obama When the Lights Go Out

i juz luv reading obama news

What happens when the President-elect is vacationing in your state and suddenly a major electrical outage occurs? Apart from the embarrassment, there’s the immediate issue of security. On Friday night in Honolulu, Mother Nature took all of Barack Obama’s power as the future first family was one of 293,000 customers left in the dark by an electric storm that knocked out practically the entire island of Oahu. The $11 million rental property where Obama is staying lost power at 8:08 p.m. Friday night, prompting a security scramble by Honolulu police, the U.S. Secret Service and the U.S. military.

Honolulu Mayor Mufi Hannemann ordered the Honolulu police department to beef up patrols in the area around Obama’s beachfront compound while the Hawaiian Electric Company sent a portable generator to the home to ensure that Obama’s family and staff were powered up. “We understand he’s O.K. in his compound,” said Hannemann, speaking Friday night. “Where he is staying has to be one of the most secure spots on the island.” Hawaii Governor Linda Lingle said an undisclosed branch of the military provided communications equipment to Obama’s security detail while state civil defense worked to ensure the generator was operating by 11:30 p.m. Friday night. “We stayed until we were certain that he was all taken care of,” said Lingle.

By noon Saturday, more than two-thirds of Oahu had power restored, 18 hours after the blackout started. The outage shuttered shopping malls and businesses and forced the Honolulu airport to cancel flights. Traffic signals went down leaving motorists crawling through streets with no lights. The Honolulu Police Department called in all available officers in for duty, blanketing the island with their force of more than 1,300 men and women. Long lines formed at a few grocery stores with backup generators as residents shopped for candles, bottled water and ways to pass the time. “Power was restored to the residence during the 6 o’clock hour this morning,” said Ben LaBolt, Obama’s spokesman on Saturday. “The Obama family is grateful for the offers of assistance from local officials.” (See Obama’s family tree.)

Obama’s welfare during the blackout, which lasted through the night and well in Saturday morning, was of major concern for many Oahu residents. Callers inquired about his safety during an emergency radio show on the one station able to broadcast on AM frequencies and local radio personalities watched his compound from afar, searching for signs of light. “Right now, he’s safer than he was before the lights went out,” said Larry Price, a KSSK radio host speaking to a caller asking about the President-elect. Some residents even worried that the blackout was part of a conspiracy to attack the President-elect while he vacations on this island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

During a conference call with members of the local media Saturday, Governor Linda Lingle dispelled any talk of an elaborate plot to undermine the incoming administration. The state and city had contact with Obama’s team and they expressed confidence and calm, she said. “There was never any talk like that from the civil defense headquarters,” said Lingle, responding to a reporter’s question. “It was thought to be something to do with a lightning strike.”

It was dark ending to a bright day for the Obama family, who spent Friday out and about on Oahu during their most public day since arriving home for the holidays December 20. At midday, Obama decided to take family and friends out for a dose of shave ice, a local refreshment, and a visit to Sea Life Park, a popular aquarium located on a rocky point near a lighthouse on Oahu’s Windward side. Tourists who were inside showed pool reporters photographs they took of Obama and his family and friends. Obama was wearing a casual cream-colored shirt tucked into olive shorts, and sandals. The Obamas and friends were seen attending the dolphin show, tourists said, an interactive show featuring dolphins and their trainers in a large tank overlooking the ocean. About five hours after they got back home, the lights went out.

Saturday was more of the same, once the lights were back on. Obama, accompanied by his wife Michelle and Chicago friends Valerie Jarrett, Eric Whitaker and Martin Nesbitt, went to the Semper Fit Center for a morning workout. When Obama emerged at about a quarter to 9 a.m., his Chicago White Sox cap backwards, he briefly flashed the “shaka,” a Hawaiian gesture that means everything from “hey there,” to “hang loose.”

Semper Fit is a gym at Marine Corps Base Hawaii and Obama has made an effort to mingle with the U.S. Marines stationed there. Every morning but Christmas Day Obama has worked out at the Semper Fit workout facility and has paused afterwards to greet servicemen and their friends and family who gather near his motorcade to take pictures and shake his hand. On Christmas Eve, Obama greeted the crowd outside the gym with a hearty “Mele Kalikimaka!,” the Hawaiian word for Merry Christmas.

Before sitting down to a Christmas dinner of turkey and ham with his family and friends from Chicago, Obama spent about an hour with more than 100 Marines in Andersen Hall at Marine Corps Base Hawaii. Dressed in a blue shirt and dark slacks, Obama walked among the Marines at a dining facility at Anderson Hall on the base for about an hour starting at about 4 p.m. Service members stood to greet Obama, smiled, posed for photographs and some were able to coax a few autographs out of their incoming commander-in-chief. “I am especially pleased that President-elect Obama has gone out of his way during his family vacation to spend time with our men and women in uniform and to let them know how important they are to our nation,” said Governor Lingle.

xmas card

 

 

zc asked tis over douhua one nite ‘did sy msg u for ur add?’

i replied ‘no’ to which he said ‘i tink he msged mi wrongly. i didn’t reply him’

few days later, the answer arrived in our mail. wat a pleasant surprise it was to find the card from SY/XM/SY

so sweeeeeeeeeet of my fren

it’s been a while since i got a card, other den those from my insurance agents

so my beautiful card is nw hanging at my desk

 

cycling

 

is the one sport tat i truly enjoy

actualli i dun even tink of it as a sport. no, i don’t appreciate racers and bicycle tights though the latter would reli come in useful to prevent abrasion. i luv the fact tat u can cycle in most outfits & shoes.

to mi, it’s also a mode of transport tat’s healthy and earth friendly

as wif most things, it is always hard to start

after a long break of more den 10 yrs since i used to cycle almost daily as i dashed to elias mall for my part-time job, my first ride gave mi a sore bottom…the seat seems to b made of steel

surprisingly, when i cycled a 2nd time soon after, my bum wasn’t so sore as before

in the space of the past 1 wk, i haf cycled 4 times

i enjoyed the cycling at the reservoir and to east coast park the most coz i like to b actualli heading somewhere rather den juz zipping up & dwn east coast park

and i enjoyed the nite cycling the most. the nite breeze minus the ppl on the bicycle tracks was great. i miss the feeling of the wind in my hair and on my face

i will try to cycle more on the road coz i found the transportation of the bicycle by car to b reli cumbersome coz my bike is heavy

i guess the most logical and sensible thing to do is to actually cycle from point A to B den try to drive, cycle and drive back

bliss is

sharing some 鲍鱼鸡汤面 for supper

omg! bro’s noodles smell so good….from the living room even

and he is very persistent in asking mi to share in tis sinful supper

i had a late dinner, if i eat more noodles, no amt of cycling is gonna help lor

It Only Takes a Moment

i luv tis song that was played in Wall-E

It only takes a moment
For your eyes to meet and then
Your heart knows in a moment
You will never be alone again

That it only took a moment
To be loved a whole life long!

it reminds mi of ah mei’s 一眼瞬间 which i translated as one glance one fleeting moment

it’s beautiful moments tat help us decide who is the special one

burning up

my 24 hrs cellulite gel is so…powderful tat i cannot use it for 2 days in a row even

the reaction is slightly delayed so i tend to put a little too much each time i apply it

in 10 mins, i end up burning up…i keep staring at my thighs and legs expecting to see them in flames coz tat is exactly how i feel. my skin feels like it’s on fire or i’m being bitten by an army of red ants! the gel burns so badly, yet looks so mild and doesn’t cause any allergy

but i ALWAYS regret applying it when i’m burning up

i tink tat for any slimming products to work, esp gels and creams, the min period is 2 wks

but i reli CANNOT bear the thot of applying the gel again the following day

new background

 

i hate the way the dark background theme was messing up my blogroll

time for a change since i can do wifout the falling snowflakes nw

你是我的月亮

 
好不好?  当然好.

可是, 是我的吗?

717 trading

Saw a feature on tv about tis durian cake shop that set up factory in the prison. 

i strongly support gifing the inmates another chance.  do support the cake shop if u crave for yummy durian cakes

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Unisys to cut 1,300 jobs, consolidate plants

23 Dec 2008

BLUE BELL, Pa. – Unisys Corp. said it will slash 1,300 jobs globally as part of an effort to cut costs by more than $225 million a year.

The technology services provider has struggled as demand for its services has waned due to tightening credit and curbed customer spending. In November Standard and Poor’s said it was taking the company off its S&P 500 index.

Unisys said late Monday that the job cuts would continue into next year.

Aside from the work force reduction, Unisys said it was taking several other steps to lower its selling, general and administrative expenses and labor costs including consolidating plants, freezing most 2009 salary increases and suspending 401(k) matches, which totaled approximately $50 million a year.

Unisys anticipates the actions will lead to a fourth-quarter charge of $80 million to $85 million.

 

Toyota projects first operating loss since 1941

 

22 Dec 2008

 

Toyota Motor Corp. projected its first-ever operating loss since it began such reports, acknowledging Monday that its nine-year stretch of global vehicle-sales growth had stalled.

Crashing auto demand, especially in its key U.S. market, and the profit erosion from a surging yen proved too much for Japan’s top automaker, which had been booming on the success of its fuel-efficient models, incluading the Camry sedan and Prius gas-electric hybrid.

Gloom dominated the annual news conference by Toyota’s president, who in recent years had outlined ambitious expansion plans. This year, Toyota President Katsuaki Watanabe even refused to give a worldwide vehicle sales goal for 2009.

“The tough times are hitting us far faster, wider and deeper than expected,” he told reporters at Toyota’s Nagoya office. “This is an unprecedented crisis requiring urgent action.”

Watanabe also blamed the strong yen, which has risen to 13-year highs against the dollar to about 90 yen recently.

Toyota lowered its net profit forecast to just 50 billion yen ($555 million) for the year through March 2009 — a tiny fraction of the 1.7 trillion yen it earned the previous fiscal year.

Toyota expects to lose money on an operating basis of 150 billion yen ($1.66 billion) for the fiscal year ending March 2009. Toyota has never reported an operating loss since it began giving such figures in 1941. The only such loss it has had is an internal calculation for the year ending March 1938, a year after the company was founded.

Operating income reflects a company’s core business performance. Last fiscal year, Toyota had a whopping operating profit of 2.27 trillion yen.

Toyota also lowered the number of vehicles it expects to sell globally this calendar year to 8.96 million, down 4 percent from a year ago. Earlier this year, Toyota had expected to sell 9.5 million vehicles around the world in 2008.

Initially, it had an even more aggressive target of 9.85 million, and expectations had been growing that the tally would reach 10 million in coming years — allowing Toyota to dethrone General Motors Corp. as the world’s top automaker.

Watanabe vowed Toyota would grow so lean it would realize profitability even if its worldwide sales slid to as low as 7 million vehicles — what he called the basic “bottom line” for Toyota.

“We must change to become more slim, muscular and flexible,” he said.

Tsuyoshi Mochimaru, auto analyst for Barclays Capital in Tokyo, warned worse may be ahead. U.S. auto sales won’t start recovering until toward the end of 2009, and the dollar may lag further, he added.

“The problem is next year,” said Mochimaru. “It’s unmistakable that things are extremely tough for Toyota.”

Watanabe and other executives said production plans and other investment will be on hold, including a new plant in the southern U.S. state of Mississippi and expansion plans in India.

The automaker will focus on hybrids and small cars, and invest in ecological technology to prepare for long-term growth, they said.

Mitsuo Kinoshita, a Toyota executive, said he hoped the results for the fiscal year through March would mark a bottom, partly with the help of dropping material prices. Soaring prices of steel and oil had hurt automakers, but such costs have fallen back in recent months.

But unfavorable currency shifts will slash 200 billion yen ($2.2 billion) from its results for the fiscal year through March, while marketing activities, including measures to deal with sinking sales, trimmed another 570 billion yen ($6.3 billion), according to Toyota.

While Japan’s automakers are in far better financial shape than their cash-strapped American counterparts, the global slowdown is hitting them hard.

At a similar news conference last week, Takeo Fukui, president of No. 2 Japan automaker Honda Motor Co., also lowered profit and sales forecasts and declined to give a vehicle sales goal for 2009.

Toyota said it will reduce temporary workers at its Japan plants to about 3,000 by March from an earlier 6,000. Full-time employees will have job security.

Toyota is a relatively old-style Japanese company that offers lifetime employment, and only in recent years has hired and let go of temporary workers to adjust production. It was reviewing overseas jobs but had not reached a decision, it said.

Monday marks the second time Toyota reduced its forecast. Initially, it had projected 1.25 trillion yen ($13.9 billion) in net profit for the year through March 2009, but last month lowered that to 550 billion yen ($6.1 billion). It lowered its fiscal sales forecast to 21.5 trillion yen ($239 billion), down about 18 percent on year.

Toyota’s U.S. vehicles sales plunged by a third on year in November, when overall sales fell to their lowest level in more than 26 years. And there is little hope for a quick fix as consumers hold back big purchases amid a credit crunch, rising unemployment and fears about the future.

“The change that has hit the world economy is of a critical scale that comes once in a hundred years,” Watanabe said.

The company’s stock fell 5 yen, or 0.17 percent, to 2,895 yen in Tokyo.

where did the bailout $ go to?

 

22 Dec 2008

 

It’s something any bank would demand to know before handing out a loan: Where’s the money going?

But after receiving billions in aid from U.S. taxpayers, the nation’s largest banks say they can’t track exactly how they’re spending the money or they simply refuse to discuss it.

“We’ve lent some of it. We’ve not lent some of it. We’ve not given any accounting of, ‘Here’s how we’re doing it,’” said Thomas Kelly, a spokesman for JPMorgan Chase, which received $25 billion in emergency bailout money. “We have not disclosed that to the public. We’re declining to.”

The Associated Press contacted 21 banks that received at least $1 billion in government money and asked four questions: How much has been spent? What was it spent on? How much is being held in savings, and what’s the plan for the rest?

None of the banks provided specific answers.

“We’re not providing dollar-in, dollar-out tracking,” said Barry Koling, a spokesman for Atlanta, Ga.-based SunTrust Banks Inc., which got $3.5 billion in taxpayer dollars.

Some banks said they simply didn’t know where the money was going.

“We manage our capital in its aggregate,” said Regions Financial Corp. spokesman Tim Deighton, who said the Birmingham, Ala.-based company is not tracking how it is spending the $3.5 billion it received as part of the financial bailout.

The answers highlight the secrecy surrounding the Troubled Assets Relief Program, which earmarked $700 billion — about the size of the Netherlands’ economy — to help rescue the financial industry. The Treasury Department has been using the money to buy stock in U.S. banks, hoping that the sudden inflow of cash will get banks to start lending money.

There has been no accounting of how banks spend that money. Lawmakers summoned bank executives to Capitol Hill last month and implored them to lend the money — not to hoard it or spend it on corporate bonuses, junkets or to buy other banks. But there is no process in place to make sure that’s happening and there are no consequences for banks who don’t comply.

“It is entirely appropriate for the American people to know how their taxpayer dollars are being spent in private industry,” said Elizabeth Warren, the top congressional watchdog overseeing the financial bailout.

But, at least for now, there’s no way for taxpayers to find that out.

Pressured by the Bush administration to approve the money quickly, Congress attached nearly no strings on the $700 billion bailout in October. And the Treasury Department, which doles out the money, never asked banks how it would be spent.

“Those are legitimate questions that should have been asked on Day One,” said Rep. Scott Garrett, R-N.J., a House Financial Services Committee member who opposed the bailout as it was rushed through Congress. “Where is the money going to go to? How is it going to be spent? When are we going to get a record on it?”

Nearly every bank AP questioned — including Citibank and Bank of America, two of the largest recipients of bailout money — responded with generic public relations statements explaining that the money was being used to strengthen balance sheets and continue making loans to ease the credit crisis.

A few banks described company-specific programs, such as JPMorgan Chase’s plan to lend $5 billion to nonprofit and health care companies next year. Richard Becker, senior vice president of Wisconsin-based Marshall & Ilsley Corp., said the $1.75 billion in bailout money allowed the bank to temporarily stop foreclosing on homes.

But no bank provided even the most basic accounting for the federal money.

“We’re choosing not to disclose that,” said Kevin Heine, spokesman for Bank of New York Mellon, which received about $3 billion.

Others said the money couldn’t be tracked. Bob Denham, a spokesman for North Carolina-based BB&T Corp., said the bailout money “doesn’t have its own bucket.” But he said taxpayer money wasn’t used in the bank’s recent purchase of a Florida insurance company. Asked how he could be sure, since the money wasn’t being tracked, Denham said the bank would have made that deal regardless.

Others, such as Morgan Stanley spokeswoman Carissa Ramirez, offered to discuss the matter with reporters on condition of anonymity. When AP refused, Ramirez sent an e-mail saying: “We are going to decline to comment on your story.”

Most banks wouldn’t say why they were keeping the details secret.

“We’re not sharing any other details. We’re just not at this time,” said Wendy Walker, a spokeswoman for Dallas-based Comerica Inc., which received $2.25 billion from the government.

Heine, the New York Mellon Corp. spokesman who said he wouldn’t share spending specifics, added: “I just would prefer if you wouldn’t say that we’re not going to discuss those details.”

The banks which came closest to answering the questions were those, such as U.S. Bancorp and Huntington Bancshares Inc., that only recently received the money and have yet to spend it. But neither provided anything more than a generic summary of how the money would be spent.

Lawmakers say they want to tighten restrictions on the remaining, yet-to-be-released $350 billion block of bailout money before more cash is handed out. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said the department is trying to step up its monitoring of bank spending.

“What we’ve been doing here is moving, I think, with lightning speed to put necessary programs in place, to develop them, implement them, and then we need to monitor them while we’re doing this,” Paulson said at a recent forum in New York. “So we’re building this organization as we’re going.”

Warren, the congressional watchdog appointed by Democrats, said her oversight panel will try to force the banks to say where they’ve spent the money.

“It would take a lot of nerve not to give answers,” she said.

But Warren said she’s surprised she even has to ask.

“If the appropriate restrictions were put on the money to begin with, if the appropriate transparency was in place, then we wouldn’t be in a position where you’re trying to call every recipient and get the basic information that should already be in public documents,” she said.

Garrett, the New Jersey congressman, said the nation might never get a clear answer on where hundreds of billions of dollars went.

“A year or two ago, when we talked about spending $100 million for a bridge to nowhere, that was considered a scandal,” he said.

handmade xmas pressies

 

for my sweet sweet lunchmates at work

quite proud of my idea and i tink the handphone trinkets look gorgeous…hope they like it too!

cycling

 

THE sport for mi

luv the wind in my hair.  it wasn’t taxing at all coz i went at a very leisurely pace.  i was more worried when crossing the rds den abt the distance to cover

i was quite wobbly at first and totally can’t manage to take picts using my fone while moving along.  but it all came back to mi and i was able to snap some shots wifout having to stop

i didn’t even noe it’s gravel path coz i haf not been there since SY or HQ’s bday in sec skool

but the seat is really too hard and gave mi a sore bum…how to cycle 20km on such a hard seat?   unless i stand up all the time

and i nbr tried a bike wif gears b4 so it was quite fun to learn

london choco roll

 

i actualli dun mind the london swiss roll, a cheap and good snack

u noe the kiddos r watching too much tv when they start singing to the ad “London Choco Roll….London Choco Roll….Choco Roll….Choco Roll…”

sing song sang

 

YY’s first visit to ktv

it was a teatime package at abt 16 ringgit per pax for 4 hrs inclusive of 1 drink and 1 food item eg. thick toast.  we all went for freshly made waffles wif ice-cream

in the end, so bz eating tat we juz chose a bunch of songs to watch mv and listen to analog

study finds $1.6B went to bailed-out bank execs

 

22 Dec 2008

 

Banks that have their hands out in Washington this year were handing out multimillion-dollar rewards to their executives last year.

The 116 banks that so far have received taxpayer dollars to boost them through the economic crisis gave their top tier of executives nearly $1.6 billion in salaries, bonuses and other benefits in 2007, an Associated Press analysis found.

That amount, spread among the 600 highest paid bank executives, would cover the bailout money given to 53 of the banks that have shared the $188 billion that Washington has doled out in rescue packages so far.

Some banks trimmed their executive compensation in the face of faltering performance that foreshadowed the current economic crisis, but they still granted multimillion-dollar packages. Benefits included cash bonuses, stock options, personal use of company jets and chauffeurs, home security, country club memberships and professional money management, the AP review of federal securities documents found.

Such bonuses amount to a bribe for executives “to get them to do the jobs for which they are well paid in the first place,” said Rep. Barney Frank, the Massachusetts Democrat who chairs the House Financial Services committee.

“Most of us sign on to do jobs, and we do them best we can,” said Frank. “We’re told that some of the most highly paid people in executive positions are different. They need extra money to be motivated!”

The review of annual reports that the banks file with the Securities and Exchange Commission found that the average paid to each of the banks’ top executives was $2.6 million in salary, bonuses and benefits.

Among other findings:

• Lloyd Blankfein, president and chief executive of Goldman Sachs, took home nearly $54 million in compensation last year. The company’s top five executives received a total of $242 million.

This year, Goldman’s seven top-paid executives will work for their base salaries of $600,000, with no stock or cash bonuses, the company said. Last spring, before Wall Street’s staggering losses and layoffs mushroomed, Goldman described its pay plan as essential to retain and motivate executives “whose efforts and judgments are vital to our continued success, by setting their compensation at appropriate and competitive levels.” Goldman spokesman Ed Canaday declined to comment beyond that written report.

The New York-based company, after gains last year, on Dec. 16 reported its first quarterly loss since it went public in 1999. It received $10 billion in taxpayer money on Oct. 28.

• Even where banks cut back on pay, some executives were left with seven- or eight-figure compensation that most people can only dream about. Richard D. Fairbank, the chairman of Capital One Financial Corp., took a $1 million hit in compensation after his company had a disappointing year, but still got $17 million in stock options. The McLean, Va.-based company received $3.56 billion in bailout money on Nov. 14.

• John A. Thain, chief executive of Merrill Lynch, topped all corporate bank bosses with $83 million in earnings last year. Thain, a former chief operating officer for Goldman Sachs, came to Merrill Lynch in December 2007, avoiding the blame for a year in which Merrill lost $7.8 billion. Since he began work late in the year, he earned $57,692 in salary, a $15 million signing bonus and an additional $68 million in stock options.

Like Goldman, Merrill tapped taxpayers for $10 billion on Oct. 28.

The review comes amid sharp questions about the banks’ commitment to the goals of the Troubled Assets Relief Program, a law designed to buy bad mortgages and other troubled assets. Last month, the Bush administration changed the program’s goals, instructing the Treasury Department to pump tax dollars directly into banks to prevent wide economic collapse.

The program set restrictions on some executive compensation for participating banks, but did not limit salaries and bonuses unless they had the effect of encouraging excessive risk to the institution. Banks were barred from giving golden parachutes to departing executives and deducting some executive pay for tax purposes. Some banks are forgoing bonuses and restricting other compensation.

The records detailing last year’s pay packages show that personal financial advice was among the executive perks. Wells Fargo of San Francisco, which took $25 billion in taxpayer bailout money, gave its top executives up to $20,000 each to pay financial planners.

At Bank of New York Mellon Corp., chief executive Robert P. Kelly’s stipend for financial planning services came to $66,748, on top of his $975,000 salary and $7.5 million bonus. His car and driver cost $178,879. Kelly also received $846,000 in relocation expenses, including help selling his home in Pittsburgh and purchasing one in Manhattan, the company said.

Goldman Sachs, paying as much as $233,000 for an executive’s car and driver, told its shareholders that financial counseling and chauffeurs were needed so executives would have more time to focus on their jobs.

JPMorgan Chase chairman James Dimon ran up a $211,182 tab for private jet travel last year when his family lived in Chicago and he was commuting to New York. The company received $25 billion in bailout funds.

Banks cite security to justify personal use of company aircraft for some executives. But Rep. Brad Sherman, D-Calif., questioned that rationale, saying executives visit many locations more vulnerable than the nation’s security-conscious commercial air terminals.

Sherman, a member of the House Financial Services Committee, said pay excesses undermine development of good bank economic policies and promote an escalating pay spiral among competing financial institutions — something particularly hard to take when banks then ask for rescue money.

He wants them to come before Congress, like the automakers did, and spell out their spending plans for bailout funds.

“The tougher we are on the executives that come to Washington, the fewer will come for a bailout,” he said.

morning sun

 

beautiful day on thurs morn

 

 

Mass. investor saw inside Madoff scam

 

19 Dec 2008

His repeated warnings that Wall Street money manager Bernard Madoff was running a giant Ponzi scheme have cast Harry Markopolos as an unheeded prophet.

But people who know or worked with Markopolos say it wasn’t prescience that helped him foresee the collapse of Madoff’s alleged $50 billion fraud. Instead, they say diligence and a strong moral sense drove his quixotic, nine-year quest to alert regulators about Madoff.

“He followed through on everything he ever did. He never let up,” said his mother, Georgia Markopolos, in an interview Thursday. “Some kids just let it go if it’s too hard, but he wouldn’t do that.”

“He feels very sorry for these people that got taken,” she added. “It wouldn’t have happened if they would have listened to him long ago.”

Markopolos waged a remarkable battle to uncover fraud at Madoff’s operation, sounding the alarm back in 1999 and continuing with his warnings all through this decade. The government never acted, Madoff continued his ways, and people lost billions.

Markopolos reached his conclusion with the help of mathematicians like Dan diBartolomeo, whose analysis of the Madoff’s methods in 1999 helped fuel Markopolos’ suspicions.

“People should have seen the writing on the wall,” diBartolomeo said.

Markopolos did not respond to multiple e-mail or phone requests for an interview.

The 52-year-old resident of Whitman, about 20 miles south of Boston, grew up in Erie, Pa., the oldest of three siblings.

His mother said her son was a little nerdy as a child, as well as occasionally mischievous and unfailingly honest. She recalled an incident where he pelted his elementary school with eggs in the middle of winter, but no one saw him. Time passed with no confession from anyone, until Markopolos stepped forward, admitted he did it, and cleaned the school himself.

Markopolos became an adept hunter and fisherman as he grew up, like many from the rural area, but also showed early aptitude at academics, as well as a willingness to question authority.

“He used to challenge the teachers,” his mother said with a laugh. “He’d tell them he had the right answers, but they had the wrong questions.”

Markopolos graduated from Cathedral Prep in Erie in 1974, then in 1981 from Loyola College in Maryland, which his mother said he paid for on his own. After time in the Army and in the financial services field, he earned a graduate management degree from Boston College in 1997.

By 1999, he was working for Rampart Investment Management Co. and charged with doing competitive research on Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities, which was using a similar investment strategy as his company, but far outperforming it. Part of Markopolos’s research included a visit to diBartolomeo, whom he knew from his professional circle.

“I think he was curious about how his competitor was doing so much better than they were,” diBartolomeo recalled.

Researching Madoff’s numbers, using data the firm distributed to prospective investors, diBartolomeo concluded within hours that it was impossible for Madoff to get the returns he reported while using the strategy he said he used.

“As the market goes up and down, this strategy should have done a little better or a little worse, just like everybody else,” he said. “Instead, it appeared to be indifferent as to whether the market went up or down. They made money all the time.”

Markopolos complained to the SEC’s Boston office in May 1999, saying it was impossible for the kind of profit Madoff was reporting to have been gained legally.

But Madoff continued to thrive, even as Markopolos continued to pursue the case.

In 2005, he submitted a report to the SEC saying it was “highly likely” that “Madoff Securities is the world’s largest Ponzi scheme.” In the report, he says he knew his research could ruin people’s careers and asked the SEC be discreet about circulating the report and his name.

“I am worried about the personal safety of myself and my family,” he wrote.

The report highlights 29 “red flags” about Madoff’s business, among them the returns of a third-party hedge fund managed by Madoff’s firm which had negative returns in just seven on the 174 months Markopolos analyzed.

“No major league baseball hitter bats .960, no NFL team has ever gone 96 wins and only 4 losses over a 100 game span, and you can bet everything you own that no money manager is up 96% of the months either,” he said.

His warnings were heard too late, and he’s become a symbol of a botched oversight of Madoff by the SEC. His mother says the father of three boys under 5 has been bombarded by media requests. Now, a man who tried to be heard for years is going to lay low for a bit, she said.

“Right now, he’s out relaxing some place,” he said. “I can’t even get in touch with him.”

Panasonic to buy Sanyo in $9 billion deal

 

19 Dec 2008

 

Panasonic aims to acquire Sanyo with $9 billion tender offer in Japan electronics alliance

 

TOKYO (AP) — Panasonic has begun a 800 billion yen ($9 billion) takeover of Japanese rival Sanyo, hoping that transforming into one of the world’s biggest electronics companies will help it weather the toughest business conditions in a century.Top shareholders, including Goldman Sachs, had been haggling over the price with Panasonic Corp. since it expressed interest in Sanyo last month, but Friday revealed they’d settled on a tender offer price of 131 yen ($1.47) a share.

The deal would also allow Panasonic, which makes Viera TVs and Diga Blu-ray disc players, to take advantage of struggling Sanyo’s green businesses in solar panels and rechargeable batteries.

Panasonic President Fumio Ohtsubo said that taking over Sanyo will provide an opportunity for his company to become more competitive to ride out the worsening global downturn.

“The alliance with Sanyo will provide an engine for growth for us,” he said at a news conference in Osaka, central Japan, shown via satellite in Tokyo.

Sanyo President Seiichiro Sano told reporters that the deal “is opening a way to fight these tough times that come only once in a 100 years.”

Sanyo, founded by a brother-in-law of Panasonic founder Konosuke Matsushita, is a popular brand but has struggled to keep pace with bigger rivals in Japan’s competitive electronics sector.

Sanyo’s July-September profit dwindled to about a third of what it was a year earlier to 4.4 billion yen ($49 million) as a stronger Japanese currency, rising raw material costs and declining gadget prices hurt earnings. Panasonic’s quarterly profit slumped 16 percent to 55.5 billion yen ($624 million).

Goldman, Daiwa Securities SMBC and Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp. together own stocks and preferred shares equal to 4.3 billion common Sanyo shares or 70.5 percent of voting rights. Sanyo has about 6.1 billion outstanding shares in total.

In 2006, Goldman, Daiwa, and Sumitomo Mitsui rescued struggling Sanyo with a 300 billion yen bailout. At the tender price, their part of the deal is valued at more than 560 billion yen ($5.7 billion).

Kazumasa Kubota, analyst with Okasan Securities Co. in Tokyo, said Panasonic was getting a good deal at the tender price.

The acquisition should eventually be a plus for Panasonic but shedding overlapping businesses will add to short-term costs, he said.

“The synergies are there in the long run,” Kubota said. “The solar business is a definite positive for Panasonic, and it can also hope to gain all the patents Sanyo has in rechargeable batteries.”

Panasonic said in a joint statement with Sanyo that it will start the tender offer soon for all shares of Sanyo, with hopes of completing the deal by February.

New York-based Goldman Sachs said it agreed to the bid.

“Given the rapidly changing environment, we came to the conclusion to sell our stake for the benefit of all Sanyo stake holders,” Goldman Sachs spokeswoman Hiroko Matsumoto said.

Although long the premier investment bank on Wall Street, even Goldman has been hit by the markets turmoil set off by the U.S. financial crisis. Earlier this month, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. reported its first quarterly loss since going public in 1999, losing $2.29 billion during its fiscal fourth quarter.

Daiwa spokesman Kenichi Kanda said the company viewed the bid favorably, welcoming the Panasonic-Sanyo alliance “as boosting the companies’ value and being positive for the Japanese economy.”

Sumitomo Mitsui also said it was moving toward accepting it, evaluating the planned alliance as a good one.

Sanyo shares dipped 3.6 percent to 136 yen ($1.50) while Panasonic shares gained 2.9 percent 1,051 yen ($11.8). The companies announced the tender plans shortly after trading ended in Tokyo.

GM and Chrysler seen near loan deal

 

19 Dec 2008

 

General Motors Corp and Chrysler are close to securing emergency loans as part of a U.S. government aid package that would demand sweeping restructuring at the troubled automakers, according to sources familiar with the talks.

Bridge loans to carry the companies for several months could be announced as early as Friday, said the sources, who were not authorized to publicly discuss the negotiations.

That would stave off the prospect of an “orderly” bankruptcy, one option being considered by the U.S. government after more than a month of wrangling.

The aid package being spearheaded by the White House would demand that both automakers restructure by seeking new concessions from unions and creditors, two people briefed on the talks said.

Both GM and Chrysler have been forced to idle plants and lay off thousands of workers across North America as they try to shore up cash and have warned they could face bankruptcy without federal assistance.

No automakers have been spared in the brutal global sales slump.

Japan’s Toyota Motor Corp could report its first annual parent-only operating loss in 71 years in the year to end-March, and may issue a profit warning at a scheduled year-end news conference on Monday, Japanese media reported.

Toyota, which declined to comment on the reports, last posted an operating loss in its first year of operation in 1937/38.

Shares of Toyota lost 2 percent.

Automakers everywhere are under huge pressure to cut costs as a global recession and tight credit strangle demand, and Japanese carmakers are feeling the extra pinch from a strong yen.

In perhaps the strongest protest since the dollar soared to a 13-year high recently, Honda Motor Co CEO Takeo Fukui warned a strong yen would cripple Japanese industry and trigger mass layoffs, forcing the automaker to shift production offshore if it persisted.

“If the government is saying, ‘We don’t care about the export industry’, then that’s fine — we’ll act accordingly,” Fukui said in a group interview.

“GOOD MONEY AFTER BAD”

Even without currency pressures, U.S. automakers are bleeding cash, raising the prospect of a bankruptcy that would severely disrupt the entire industry, add to growing jobless lines and deepen a global economic slowdown.

In a pair of interviews on Thursday, U.S. President George W. Bush said he was concerned about the impact a “disorderly bankruptcy” might have on markets and the economy.

“I’m also concerned about putting good money after bad,” Bush told C-SPAN. “And, therefore, it’s going to be very important that whatever we do, that there be a plan that the autos — that would be management as well as dealers as well as labor — show how they could be viable for the future.”

In further bad news, the Wall Street Journal reported that bond fund Pacific Investment Management (Pimco) had turned down a debt-exchange offer from GMAC LLC, owned 49 percent by General Motors Corp, threatening the finance company’s bid to qualify for government funds as a bank.

CHRYSLER QUESTION

One remaining uncertainty is where an emergency federal bridge loan would leave Chrysler, widely considered the weakest of the big three U.S. automakers.

Chrysler Chief Executive Bob Nardelli said last month the privately held automaker needs both taxpayer-backed loans and an alliance with one or more automakers to survive.

More recently, Nardelli has said the automaker could restructure to emerge as a stand-alone competitor, but most analysts are skeptical of that because of Chrysler’s heavy reliance on the deeply depressed U.S. market and its inability to fund new vehicle development programs.

Cerberus Capital Management, the private equity firm that bought 80 percent of Chrysler from Daimler AG, has retained advisors to study a range of options for the No. 3 U.S. automaker, including selling off its most valuable assets, including its Jeep brand and its minivan line.

From Friday, the No. 3 U.S. automaker will be shutting all 30 of its plants for at least a month in order to keep inventories of unsold vehicles from building further.

BANKRUPTCY THREAT

Both GM and Chrysler have said a bankruptcy filing is not an option they would chose because of the risk that it would drive more consumers away from their brands.

The Detroit-based automakers have also said a bankruptcy filing by one could topple suppliers and endanger the remaining two companies because of the overlap in their key parts suppliers.

Ford Motor Co is not seeking emergency loans but has asked the government to consider standby credits it could draw on if its own position worsens more than expected in 2009 or if Chrysler or GM were to fail.

Both GM and Chrysler have been hard hit by the sudden tightening of credit since September, a development that has made it harder for their dealers to carry inventory and for consumers to find financing.

GM’s sales in the U.S. market dropped 41 percent in November and are down 22 percent so far this year, while Chrysler sales have dropped 28 percent.

Bailout approved: Bush says say government will give automakers $17.4B in loans

19 Dec 2008

Citing danger to the national economy, the Bush administration approved an emergency bailout of the U.S. auto industry Friday, offering $17.4 billion in rescue loans in exchange for deep concessions from the desperately troubled carmakers and their workers.

The government will have the option of becoming a stockholder in the companies, much as it has with major banks, in effect partially nationalizing the industry.

At the same time, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said Congress should release the second $350 billion from the financial rescue fund that it approved in October to bail out huge financial institutions. Tapping the fund for the auto industry basically exhausts the first half of the $700 billion total, he said.

President Bush said, “Allowing the auto companies to collapse is not a responsible course of action.” Bankruptcy, he said, would deal “an unacceptably painful blow to hardworking Americans” across the economy.

Some $13.4 billion of the money will be available this month and next, $9.4 billion for General Motors Corp. and $4 billion for Chrysler LLC. Both companies have said they soon might be unable to pay their bills without federal help. Ford Motor Co. has said it does not need immediate help.

Bush’s plan is designed to keep the auto industry running in the short term, passing the longer-range problem on to the incoming administration of President-elect Barack Obama. The last $4 billion of the loans announced Friday would depend on release of the second half of the big Troubled Asset Relief Program fund.

Bush said the rescue package demanded concessions similar to those outlined in a bailout plan that was approved by the House but rejected by the Senate a week ago. It would give the automakers three months to come up with restructuring plans to become viable companies.

If they fail to produce a plan by March 31, the automakers will be required to repay the loans, which they would find all but impossible.

“The time to make hard decisions to become viable is now, or the only option will be bankruptcy,” Bush said. “The automakers and unions must understand what is at stake and make hard decisions necessary to reform.”

He said the companies’ workers should agree to wage and work rules that are competitive with foreign automakers by the end of next year.

And he called for elimination of a “jobs bank” program — negotiated by the United Auto Workers and the companies — under which laid-off workers receive unemployment benefits and supplemental pay from their companies for 48 weeks. If they remain laid off beyond that, they move to a jobs bank in which the company provides about 95% of their pay and benefits. Until the most recent contract, people could remain in the jobs bank for years. Early this month, the UAW agreed to suspend the program.

Under terms of the loan, GM and Chrysler must provide the government with stock warrants giving it the option to buy GM and Chrysler stock at a specific price.

In addition, the automakers would be required to agree to limits on executive pay and eliminate some perks such as corporate jets.

Paulson said that with the help for the carmakers, the government will have allocated the first half of the largest government bailout program in history.

He said he was confident that the Treasury Department, Federal Reserve and Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. have the resources to address a significant market crisis if one should occur before Congress approves the use of the second half of the rescue fund.

Paulson said he would discuss the process with congressional leaders and Obama’s transition team “in the near future.”

Friday’s rescue plan retains the idea of a “car czar” to make sure the auto companies are keeping their promises and moving toward long-term viability.

The short-term overseer will be Paulson. But the White House deputy chief of staff, Joel Kaplan, said that if the Obama team wants someone else installed to bridge the administrations, Bush is open to that.

The White House package is the lifeline desperately sought by U.S. automakers, who warned they were running out of money as the economy fell deeper into recession, car loans became scarce and consumers stopped shopping for cars.

The carmakers have announced extended holiday shutdowns. Chrysler is closing all 30 of its North American manufacturing plants for four weeks because of slumping sales; Ford will shut 10 North American assembly plants for an extra week in January, and General Motors will temporarily close 20 factories — many for the entire month of January — to cut vehicle production.

Bush said the automakers have faced serious challenges for many years: burdensome costs, a shrinking share of the market and plunging profits. “In recent months, the global financial crisis has made these challenges even more severe,” he said.

The president said that on the one hand, the government has a responsibility not to undermine the private enterprise system, yet on the other hand, it must safeguard the broader health and stability of the U.S. economy.

“If we were to allow the free market to take its course now, it would almost certainly lead to disorderly bankruptcy and liquidation for the automakers,” he said.

“Under ordinary economic circumstances, I would say this is the price that failed companies must pay,” the president said. “And I would not favor intervening to prevent the automakers from going out of business. But these are not ordinary circumstances.

“In the midst of a financial crisis and a recession, allowing the U.S. auto industry to collapse is not a responsible course of action.”

Chrysler CEO Bob Nardelli thanked the administration for its help.

In a statement Friday morning, Nardelli said the initial injection of capital will help the company get through its cash crisis and help eventually return to profitability. He said Chrysler was committed to meeting the conditions set by Bush in exchange for the money.

Ford President and CEO Alan Mulally said his company would not seek the short-term financial assistance but predicted the aid would stabilize the industry.

“The U.S. auto industry is highly interdependent, and a failure of one of our competitors would have a ripple effect that could jeopardize millions of jobs and further damage the already weakened U.S. economy,” Mulally said.

General Motors said the short-term loans would help preserve jobs and “lead to a leaner, stronger General Motors.”

“We know we have much work in front of us to accomplish our plan. It is our intention to continue to be transparent as we execute our plan, and we will provide regular updates on our progress,” the automaker said.

souffle

 

in case u girls missed the feature in last sun’s straits times, there is nw a pub wif MALE HOSTS at south bridge rd

andie and i did a site visit tis evening at the risk of him being mistaken for leaving for the greener pastures here

we found out tat the pub has only been in business for 1 mth and is popular for hen parties…exactly wat we had in mind

and we got to meet some of the male hosts…hunky and cute men avg 25, even got 1 korean man which marie is totally excited to meet

we oredi foresee tat the hens at the hens’ party will devour the men instead of the bride-to-be

the place is nicely done up, booth seats tat r not too high and 2 private ktv rooms tat can b booked for 3 hrs at $80.   if u meet a min spend, the room charge is waived

the bigger room can hold up to 8 ppl.  and the deco is pink and off white wif pink cushions, very cosy and sweet

personally, i prefer the smaller room coz i like the sliding door but abit too small for our group

the rates for the hosts r $35 for 1 host to come in randomly to play card games and chat or $100 for the host to sit in all nite

girls, wat do u say if we canx the kbox next wk, abandon the guys and check out tis place instead?  of course, the guys r welcome to come along if they want to…hehe…who needs kbox buffet when u can haf eye candy buffet instead?

follow ur heart

in everything u do, be it work or r/s or frenship

the one person u shouldn’t lie to or shortchange is urself, not anybody else

u onli live once and not for tat many no. of yrs for tat matter so cherish ur time

Dollar dives to 13-year low against yen after Fed cut

18 Dec 2008

The dollar slid to a 13-year low point against the yen on Wednesday after the Federal Reserve slashed interest rates to near zero as it struggled to curb an accelerating economic downturn, dealers said.

Meanwhile, sterling slumped to another record low point against the euro of 1.090 euros, after new gloomy economic data sparked renewed speculation about more interest rate cuts from the Bank of England.

The US currency dropped to 88.18 yen in Asian trade before rebounding slightly to 88.39 yen in morning European trade, which was still down from 88.98 yen in New York late Tuesday.

The euro rose to 1.4095 dollars, up from 1.4018 dollars late in New York on Tuesday.

The US Federal Reserve lowered its target federal funds rate on Tuesday from 1.0 percent to a range of zero to 0.25 percent after a raft of bad data, including a historic plunge in housing starts.

“The dollar took another hit as the FOMC established a target range for the Fed Funds target rate of zero percent to 0.25 percent,” said Calyon analyst Stuart Bennett.

“Against the yen, the dollar hit a thirteen-year low, with euro/dollar braking through the 1.40 mark.”

The cut lowered US borrowing costs below the 0.30 percent in Japan, which for years has had the world’s lowest interest rates.

Currency players were pessimistic over the dollar’s outlook because lower interest rates have a negative impact on currency values.

The dollar “fell off a cliff early this morning after the Federal Reserve announced a more aggressive policy easing than expected,” wrote NAB Capital strategist John Kyriakopoulos in a note to clients.

The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) in a statement said on Tuesday that it expected to keep the federal funds rate “exceptionally low” for some time because of markedly declining inflationary pressures.

The pound dropped to 1.090 euros on Wednesday — hitting the lowest level since the creation of the European single currency in 1999.

Analysts predicted that sterling was on course to reach parity against the euro amid spreading concern that Britain was very close to recession.

“Sterling/euro is still the one to watch,” said Piers Cracknell, commercial director at currency specialists Moneycorp in London.

“With record lows nearly every day, one pound for one euro is clearly visible on the radar.

Official data showed on Wednesday that the number of people claiming jobless benefits in Britain leapt in November by the biggest monthly amount for more than 17 years, in the latest sign of a sharp economic slowdown.

It also emerged that Bank of England policymakers mulled an even steeper cut when they voted unanimously to slash interest rates by a full percentage point to 2.0 percent earlier this month.

In trading in London on Wednesday, the euro changed hands at 1.4095 dollars against 1.4018 dollars late on Tuesday, at 124.61 yen (124.74), 0.9092 pounds (0.8990) and 1.5728 Swiss francs (1.5754).

The dollar stood at 88.39 yen (88.98) and 1.1157 Swiss francs (1.1236).

The pound was at 1.5504 dollars (1.5581).

On the London Bullion Market, the price of gold rose to 855.15 dollars an ounce from 838.25 dollars late on Tuesday.

Clinton foundation donors

interesting list but i applaud the courage and transparency displayed in disclosing the list

18 Dec 2008

WASHINGTON – Former President Bill Clinton’s foundation has raised at least $41 million from Saudi Arabia and other foreign governments that his wife Hillary Rodham Clinton may end up negotiating with as the next secretary of state.

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia gave $10 million to $25 million to the William J. Clinton Foundation, a nonprofit created by the former president to finance his library in Little Rock, Ark., and charitable efforts to reduce poverty and treat AIDS. Other foreign government givers include Norway, Kuwait, Qatar, Brunei, Oman, Italy and Jamaica.

The foundation disclosed the names of its 205,000 donors on a Web site Thursday, ending a decade of resistance to identifying the sources of its money. While the list is heavy with international business leaders and billionaires, some 12,000 donors gave $10 or less.

Clinton agreed to release the information after concerns emerged that his extensive international fundraising and business deals could conflict with America’s interests if his wife became Obama’s top diplomat. The foundation has insisted for years it is under no legal obligation to identify its contributors, contending that many expected confidentiality when they donated.

The list also underscores ties between the Clintons and India, a connection that could complicate diplomatic perceptions of whether Hillary Clinton can be a neutral broker between India and neighbor Pakistan in a region where President-elect Barack Obama will face an early test of his foreign policy leadership.

The former president did not release specific totals for each donor, providing only ranges of giving. Nor did he identify individual contributors’ occupations or countries of residence.

Donors gave Clinton’s foundation at least $492 million from its inception in 1997 through last year, the most recent figures available.

After negotiations with Obama’s transition team, Clinton promised to reveal the contributors, submit future foundation activities and paid speeches to an ethics review, step away from the day-to-day operation of his annual charitable conference and inform the State Department about new sources of income and speeches.

Representatives of the foundation, including CEO Bruce Lindsay and attorney Cheryl Mills, met privately Wednesday with aides to incoming Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry of Massachusetts and ranking Republican Dick Lugar of Indiana to discuss the foundation’s activities and review a memorandum of understanding drawn up by the Clinton and Obama teams.

The Foreign Relations Committee will hold hearings and vote on Hillary Clinton’s nomination before sending it to the full Senate. Shortly after Obama tapped Clinton, Lugar said he would support her, though he said there would still be “legitimate questions” raised about the former president’s extensive international involvement.

“I don’t know how, given all of our ethics standards now, anyone quite measures up to this — who has such cosmic ties,” Lugar said.

Some of the donors have extensive ties to Indian interests that could prove troubling to Pakistan. Tensions between the two nuclear nations are high since last month’s deadly terrorist attacks in Mumbai.

Amar Singh, a donor in the $1 million to $5 million category, is an Indian politician who played host to Bill Clinton on a visit to India in 2005 and met Hillary Clinton in New York in September to discuss an India-U.S. civil nuclear agreement.

Also in that giving category was Suzlon Energy Ltd. of Amsterdam, a leading supplier of wind turbines. Its chairman is Tulsi R. Tanti, one of India’s wealthiest executives. Tanti announced plans at Clinton’s Global Initiative meeting earlier this year for a $5 billion project to develop environmentally friendly power generation in India and China.

Two other Indian interests gave between $500,000 and $1 million each:

• The Confederation of Indian Industry, an industrial trade association.

• Dave Katragadda, an Indian capital manager with holdings in media and entertainment, technology, health care and financial services.

Other foreign governments also contributed heavily to the foundation.

AUSAID, the Australian government’s overseas aid program, and COPRESIDA-Secretariado Tecnico, a Dominican Republic government agency formed to fight AIDS, each gave $10 million to $25 million. Norway gave $5 million to $10 million. Kuwait, Qatar, Brunei and Oman gave $1 million to $5 million each. The government of Jamaica and Italy’s Ministry for Environment and Territory gave $50,000 to $100,000 each.

The biggest donations — more than $25 million each — came from two donors. They are the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation, a London-based philanthropic organization founded by hedge fund manager Chris Hohn and his wife Jamie Cooper-Hohn and dedicated to helping children, primarily in Africa and India; and UNITAID, an international drug purchase organization formed by Brazil, France, Chile, Norway and Britain to help provide care for HIV-AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis patients in countries with high disease rates.

The foundation’s donor list is heavy with overseas business interests.

Saudi businessman Nasser Al-Rashid gave $1 million to $5 million. Friends of Saudi Arabia and the Dubai Foundation each gave $1 million to $5 million, as did the Taiwan Economic and Cultural Office. The Confederation of Indian Industry and the Swedish Postcode Lottery gave $500,000 to $1 million each. China Overseas Real Estate Development and the U.S. Islamic World Conference gave $250,000 to $500,000 apiece.

The No. 4 person on the Forbes billionaire list, Lakshmi Mittal, the chief executive of international steel company ArcelorMittal, gave $1 million to $5 million. Mittal is a member of the Foreign Investment Council in Kazakhstan, Goldman Sachs’ board of directors and the World Economic Forum’s International Business Council, according to the biography on his corporate Web site.

Among other $1 million to $5 million donors:

_Harold Snyder, director for Teva Pharmaceutical Industries, the largest drug company in Israel. His son, Jay T. Snyder, serves on the U.S. Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy, which oversees State Department activities, and served as a senior U.S. adviser to the United Nations, where he worked on international trade and poverty.

_No. 97 on the Forbes billionaire list, Ethiopian-Saudi business tycoon Sheikh Mohammed H. Al-Amoudi.

_Issam Fares, a former deputy prime minister of Lebanon.

_Mala Gaonkar Haarman, a partner and managing director at the private investment partnership Lone Pine Capital.

_Lukas Lundin, chairman of oil, gas and mining businesses including Tanganyika Oil Company Ltd., an international oil and gas exploration and production company with interests in Syria, and Vostok Nafta Investment Ltd., an investment company that focuses on Russia and other former Soviet republics.

_Victor Pinchuk, son-in-law of the former president of Ukraine. Clinton spoke in 2007 at an annual meeting of Yalta European Strategy, a group Pinchuk founded to promote Ukraine joining the European Union.

The top ranks of Clinton’s donor list are heavy with longtime Democratic givers, including some who are notable for their staunch support of Israel.

TV producer Haim Saban and his family foundation, who donated between $5 million and $10 million, splits his time between homes in Israel and California. “I’m a one-issue guy and my issue is Israel,” he told The New York Times in 2004.

Slim-Fast diet foods tycoon S. Daniel Abraham, a donor of between $1 million and $5 million, has been a board member of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, which promotes Israel’s interests before the U.S. government.

The American Jewish Committee and the United Nations Foundation donated $100,000 to $250,000.

Clinton thanked his donors in a statement for being “steadfast partners in our work to impact the lives of so many around the world in measurable and meaningful ways.”

According to the memorandum negotiated by the foundation and top Obama advisers, Bill Clinton agreed to publish the names of all past and future contributors to his foundation during Hillary Clinton’s tenure as secretary of state.

The former president also agreed to step away from direct involvement in the Clinton Global Initiative, an annual charitable conference where businesses and many foreign governments pledge donations to help ameliorate AIDS, poverty and other social ills. He will continue serving as CGI’s founding chairman but will not solicit money or sponsorships. The CGI will cease accepting foreign contributions and will not host events outside the United States.

Clinton started raising money for his library before leaving the White House. Over the years, the Clintons repeatedly refused to identify all the foundation donors, and continued to do so during Hillary Clinton’s 2007-08 presidential campaign.

Names surfaced nonetheless. Several news organizations unearthed foreign-government donors, and in 2001, Bill Clinton turned over a list of 150 top foundation donors to a House committee investigating his pardon of fugitive businessman Marc Rich, whose ex-wife, Denise Rich, gave the library foundation at least $450,000.

___

On the Net:

Clinton Foundation contributors: http://www.clintonfoundation.org/contributors

Scarlett Johansson puts snotty tissue on eBay

OMG! how gross!

18 Dec 2008

How snotty: Scarlett Johansson blew her nose on a tissue, and now the tissue is being sold on eBay.

Johansson appeared on NBC’s “Tonight” show Wednesday to promote her new movie, “The Spirit.” The actress said she’d caught a cold from co-star Samuel L. Jackson, and felt her illness had value because it had been passed down from one celebrity to another.

Host Jay Leno then handed her a tissue, and Johansson announced she would sell it on eBay to raise money for the hunger relief charity USA Harvest. She blew twice, depositing some lipstick and mucus.

As of Thursday morning, the dirty tissue had snagged more than 60 bids, with the highest bidder putting up $2,050. The online auction ends Monday.

New York oil price falls below $38 a barrel

and i was juz telling ZY in the car tat the onli good thing of the whole economic crisis is petrol finally going dwn to acceptable levels.

18 dec 2008

The price of New York crude oil sank under 38 dollars per barrel on Thursday, hitting the lowest point for four and a half years as traders fretted over weak global demand despite an OPEC output cut.

On the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX), light sweet crude for delivery in January dived to 37.71 dollar a barrel ahead of the contract’s expiry on Friday. The low point was last seen in July 2004.

roald dahl

YY discovered roald dahl and is a fan now

i got him fantastic mr fox which is for younger readers and the complete adventures of charlie and mr willy wonka

i told him to do a book review so he is diligently reading charlie tdy. his progress? 131 pages liao

book wrapping

mi haben been very diligent tis wk so still left wif 5 unwrapped home assessment books to b wrapped

i dun dare to open the box containing the skool books. tink i will bring some to office on sat as planned and wrap them while i wait for server to b up

gathering

always good to see old frens

it was over simple but totally delicious hawker food and unpretentious douhua (which i muz complain coz standard dropped!)

but the most impt factor is the effort put in by all to drop by and haf a quick meet up and chat

the bonds of a group is onli as strong as the ppl’s willingness to gif each other attention and time and share wat’s happening in each another’s life

TLC

my aching neck needs some TLC and kneading to release the tension knots tat r building up

i need a good good massage

feet misery

since tue from my zero style and zero comfort pair of pumps

if my feet can talk, they would b screaming wif pain and protesting wif every step i take

can’t wait for fri to put on some comfy shoes !

Your Life Path Number is 5

how true! and i luv turquoise !

Your Life Path Number is 5

Your Life Path Number represents the path you should take through life and the talents and skills you have to make your journey a rewarding one.
Having a Life Path Number of 5 makes you a keen traveler with a love for freedom. Change is good in your life and is something you strive for. Your heightened curiosity, and love of life, keeps you on the move. Although, you are sometimes perceived as lacking discipline.

Positive Traits
Freedom, Enthusiasm, Clever, Sensual, Adventurous, Prolific

Negative Traits
Rash, Impulsive, Trite, Undirected, Dull
Associations

Tarot: Hierophant
Astrology: Mercury, Venus, Taurus, Leo
Rune: Raidho
I Ching: #15 Ch’ien
Tree of Life: Geburah, Severity (Power)
Hebrew Letter: He’, Nun
Shamanism: Bull Elephant
Element: Air, Fire
Alchemy: Earth/Man
Aura: Earth tones
Color: Turquoise
Gemstones: Turquoise, Aquamarine
Crystals: Muscovite, Hornblende
Month: May
Week Day: Tuesday
Lucky Numbers: 1, 3, 7, 9, 14, 23, 32, 41, 50, 59, 68, 77, 86, 95, 104
Flora: Carnation, Gardenia, Primrose

10 yrs

it’s funny how karen and i ended up in the same office (but different companies) and on the same floor so many yrs later

tis is exactly how we started our frenship back den

of gold

after CASE released the names of the 5 goldsmiths whose goods did not meet the stated gold content, i felt quite disgusted tat such a thing happened

firstly becoz when i decide to buy gold, i pay such a premium for it and i want it to keep its value

by shortchanging on the gold content, it’s downright fraud and deceit !

so i decided to get silver for berri

tdy, the verification authorities announced tat of the additional goldsmiths who submitted 5000 pieces of jewellery for verification, 10% do not need the stated content

Madoff pyramid fraud puts US finance system in spotlight

17 Dec 2008

Financial commentators let loose on the US financial system Tuesday as more firms announced losses in the suspected multi-billion-dollar swindle run by ex-Wall Street heavyweight Bernard Madoff.

Four Japanese financial firms joined the growing list of those caught up in the scandal that already includes some of the world’s largest banks.

Aozora Bank said its exposure might amount to 12.4 billion yen (137 million dollars, 101,000 million euros).

Several Japanese insurers, including Nipponkoa Insurance Co. and Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance Co., also said they might have lost money, while Daiwa Securities Group said was caught up in the alleged scam.

The latter three firms stressed, however, that their losses were expected to be at most several hundred million yen — relatively small sums compared to the sums announced by some major banks on Monday.

Spain’s biggest bank Santander announced exposure of more than three billion dollars to Madoff Investment Securities in New York, sending its shares plunging.

“The supposed meticulous supervision by the SEC has failed in the task of preventing massive fraud,” Spanish newspaper El Pais said Tuesday.

“It must asked how it is possible that no one had detected anything abnormal about his (Madoff’s) activities,” said the newspaper La Vanguardia.

“Neither the assessment agencies nor the auditors nor the stock market authorities were capable of noticing that the high profits that were being offered were based on a pure pyramid system.”

Madoff was arrested Thursday and allegedly confessed to defrauding investors of 50 billion dollars in a scam that collapsed after clients asked for their money back due to the global financial crisis.

Global finance giants have admitted huge potential losses in the suspected pyramid fraud scam run by the 70-year-old Wall Street veteran.

US authorities allege that Madoff delivered consistently strong returns to clients by secretly using the principal investment from new investors for payments to other investors.

US Vice President Dick Cheney said in a radio interview Monday that the alleged scam by the former Nasdaq chairman was “very disturbing” and blamed a few “bad apples.”

But Dominique Strauss-Kahn, director general of the International Monetary Fund, expressed shock Monday that US regulators failed to spot the red flags.

British investment fund Bramdean Alternatives Limited, which revealed it had invested about 31.2 million dollars in Madoff’s company, also said the scandal raised “fundamental questions” about the US financial regulatory system.

Other big losers included Britain’s HSBC , the world’s third-biggest bank by market capitalisation, and the Dutch Bank Fortis. Both said they had exposure of about 1.0 billion dollars.

A string of other European banks have announced investments in the tens and sometimes hundreds of millions of dollars with Madoff.

Prosecutors say Madoff hid his illegal business on a separate floor of the Manhattan building housing his company’s booming brokerage arm.

The accounts for the multi-billion dollar enterprise were handled at a tiny, obscure accountancy firm in New City, New York state.

The Securities Investor Protection Corporation (SIPC), which provides a Congress-authorized special reserve fund to help investors at failed brokerage firms, said Monday it was liquidating the Madoff company .

“It is clear that the customers of the Madoff firm need the protections available under federal law,” said a statement from Stephen Harbeck, SIPC president and CEO.

Madoff’s greatest asset appears to have been his insider credentials.

He was a prominent member of the securities industry throughout a career stretching back to 1960, serving as vice chairman of the National Association of Securities Dealers (NASD) and sitting on the board of governors.

He was also a member of NASDAQ Stock Market’s board of governors, its executive committee and served as chairman of its trading committee, according to a statement from the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

Madoff reportedly played golf at exclusive clubs like Old Oaks outside New York and Palm Beach Country Club in Florida, owned three homes and a yacht in the Bahamas.

But he also had a reputation as a philanthropist, donating generously to Jewish and pro-Israeli charities.

Goldman reports $2.12 bln loss

16 Dec 2008

Wall Street giant Goldman Sachs on Tuesday reported a 2.12 billion dollar net loss in the fiscal fourth quarter to November, the first loss since the investment firm went public in 1999.

It reported a loss per share of 4.97 dollars, much more that market expectations of 3.50 dollars.

It compared with a record net income of 3.2 billion dollars, or 7.01 dollars a share, a year earlier.

Goldman and Morgan Stanley were the last of two major independent investment banks which became bank holding companies earlier this year in a bid to have easier access to credit to survive the current financial crisis.

Goldman chief executive Officer Lloyd Blankfein blamed the firm’s first loss as a publicly traded company on the deteriorating financial environment but emphasized that it remained profitable.

“Our results for the fourth quarter reflect extraordinarily difficult operating conditions, including a sharp decline in values across virtually every asset class,” he said.

“While our quarterly performance obviously didn’t meet our expectations, Goldman Sachs remained profitable during one of the most challenging years in our industry’s history,” he added.

Goldman’s financial result Tuesday begins what is expected to be another round of weak earnings from key companies amid turmoil stemming from a home mortgage meltdown.

Following the result, ratings agency Moody’s Investors Service downgraded the long-term debt ratings of Goldman Sachs to A1 from Aa3, saying the “outlook remains negative.”

The downgrade reflects “the increased vulnerabilities that the ongoing credit market crisis has exposed in the model of Goldman Sachs and other wholesale-funded investment, commercial, and universal banks,” Moddy’s said.

It said a persistent difficult operating environment “will continue to challenge the firm.”

sg vs my prices

went to mph in msia and got QQ a book of chinese nursery rhymes for MYR12.90

went to popular sg and it was going for SGD6.90

i decide to get the other 4 books in the series from msia

—————————————————————————————————

there’s a nose at citylink hall selling their shops and bags at myr prices but converted at 1:1 to sgd!

i saw the clutch bag i got in jan at KL and it was going for SGD45

omg! i certainly didn’t pay over MYR100 for tat bag. in fact, i rem it was quite cheap and most prob work out to 20 to max 30SGD

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y do singaporeans brave the jam to go msia?

coz the things r reli cheaper and it’s cheaper to eat/watch a movie there too

most imptly, we r spolit for choices there. it gets quite boring to shop in sg when every mall has the same shops! and sales r not as good

Slow progress in restoring power to Northeast

15 Dec 2008

BOSTON – Utility crews worked around the clock to restore electricity Monday to more than 400,000 homes and businesses in six states still without power three days after the region’s devastating ice storm.

Many public schools, including those in Worcester — the state’s second largest city — were closed with local emergency declarations still in effect in dozens of communities.

James Mannion, spokesman for the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency, said conditions in some of those areas made it too dangerous to hold school.

“Roads aren’t safe to drive on and there might be power lines down. It isn’t safe for kids to get around,” Mannion said early Monday.

Power companies in New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Maine, Connecticut and upstate New York reported Sunday and early Monday a total of 423,200 customers were still without power. Crews from Canada and as far away as Virginia and Michigan were assisting in restoring power lines.

While some took refuge in shelters, others have been checking in to hotels and motels, including the Howard Johnson Inn in Hadley.

“Half of our rooms have been taken by families coming with their kids and even some dogs,” Rick Kim, guest services agent for the hotel, told The Republican newspaper of Springfield.

President George W. Bush declared a state of emergency in New Hampshire and in nine of Massachusetts’ 14 counties, directing the Federal Emergency Management Agency to provide relief assistance.

New Hampshire, Massachusetts, New York and Maine declared either limited or full states of emergency Friday. Crews across the region reported the ice had destroyed utility poles, wires and other equipment, but said the extent of damage was unclear because some roads still were impassable.

As of 4 a.m., Mannion said there were approximately 118,500 electric customers in Massachusetts without power, down from a peak of 350,000 in the immediate aftermath of the storm on Friday.

New Hampshire, the hardest-hit state, was down to about 168,000 customers without power Monday morning, compared to a peak of 430,000 on Friday, utilities reported. There was also 94,400 without power in New York; 35,000 in Maine; 6,195 in Vermont and 1,104 in Connecticut.

Access to downed power lines and poles remains the biggest obstacle for workers. While the major roads are cleared, many secondary roads in rural areas remain blocked by fallen trees and tree limbs.

The potential for high winds and rain over the next 24 to 36 hours is likely to affect efforts to restore power and may also create additional outages in Massachusetts, National Grid said in a statement.

Mannion said an estimated 2,200 residents without heat or electricity spent the night at 62 emergency shelters around Massachusetts.

In Kennebunk, Maine, Holmes Tree Farm closed on Friday but reopened Saturday. Diane Holmes said people were getting antsy in their homes and needed fresh air. They also needed to return to their holiday traditions. By Sunday, several hundred trees had been sold.

Holmes said the ice-laden balsam firs sparkled in the sunlight, but the ice made them heavy. “I’m telling people, bring a lot of muscle,” she said.

In Vermont, Green Mountain Power President Mary Powell was touring affected areas and helping distribute lunches to the line crews. She said the damage caused by the storm rivaled or even exceeded the 1998 ice storm that hit northern Vermont.

“Whenever you get this kind of ice accumulation, there’s just nothing from a utility perspective you can do to protect your customers from devastating damage,” Powell said.

Emergency management officials reported four storm-related deaths. A Danville man died of carbon monoxide poisoning from the generator he was using after his power went out Thursday night. Carbon monoxide from a gasoline-powered generator killed a couple in their 60s at Glenville, N.Y., police said Saturday.

The body of a Marlborough, Mass., public works supervisor was recovered from a reservoir Saturday, a day after he went missing while checking on tree limbs downed by the ice.

back to skool

time flies! it’s been a mth into the hols and though i got YY’s new books bright and early tis yr, i haben got ard to wrapping them

i started wrapping YY’s new chinese assessment books instead tonite. i haf to start on the skool books tml but thankfully most of them come wif ready made wrappers so easier to wrap. will do tat during the dbl episode of the little nonya : )

i was browsing at popular wif QQ and spotted the SAP 3A and 3B titles. i know tis series coz it contains all the new vocabulary of each chapter wif hypy and gifs both meanings and sentences showing the context the phrases can b used. very useful for sentence construction. somemore next yr’s come wif cd roms

i meant to but haven’t started drilling YY on his p2 chinese syllabus except nagging him. i feel tat he needs to get his foundation rite before he can move on wif confidence

i tink he reli needs a lot of guidance and attention to get thru his chinese revision which is my focus for the bal of dec

friends

 

last wk was pretty eventful for friendship

ah cai irritated the shit out of mi wif his sarcastic remarks.  it was totally uncalled for and i m very offended still.  mayb he was even trying to b funny but i cannot appreciate his brand of humour in such situations

i got quite upset/jealous/felt abit used by the badminton and fri dinner incident but it’s behind mi nw…in fact i m adding tis paragraph after my first posting coz it onli came to mi now
when i did meet up wif the culprit, the matter blew over quite naturally.  after all, there is a natural tendency for good frens to stick tog and i m happy to see my fren still

saw the girls and met up wif ah mun *and javier! on thurs.  very happy to haf the chance to meet up.  it’s tough!  for us to find a common day to meet up and for her to bring bb to town so i tink it’s very 难得.

didn’t get to go to javier’s 1st birthday party coz i was needed at home wif our 4 monsters and guests

sometimes life and life events take its toll on friendship

i rem having tis conversation abt transitional frens.  there r many such examples i can tink of be it, from work or other environments coz i m honestly not the type who will bother to go out of my way to sustain a frenship

many of such frens r frens of convenience.  ppl tat u get along better wif thus the r/ship is elevated to frenship.  but if the frenship fades away quite easier, u noe these r transitional ppl who r very impt at certain periods of our lives

i strongly believe the 2c gang is an exception to tis.  though we may not always see eye to eye on matters, though our schedules may not always b able to accomodate a full reunion but most of us will try our utmost to meet up when we can.  we dun juz meet for birthdays nw, sometimes even a dinner wif good turnout feels very very heartwarming too.

 

and part of the beauty of a long frenship is the ability to b more spontaneous.  if u r wif less familiar frens, they may b offended if u wana meet at short notice.  i guess it boils dwn to how much u wana see the other party too.  if u would reli love to see the other party and u happen to b free, y would u b offended tat no appt was made 2 wks in advance?
but of course i realise i speak from a ENTP’s point of view.  P’s r extremely adaptable to changing timelines so J’s who love schedules may hate such adhoc arrangements

we learn to fit outings wif travel schedules too.  after the mumbai incident, i m very very glad none of my frens r the worse for it and i hope everyone stays safe always.  luckily we don’t reli haf ppl in the group who haf to b away for extended periods of time or even relocated so it has been slightly easier on the group.

but wif all things, sometimes we take certain things for granted, especially family and good frens.  the rationale is often tat family and good frens will always forgive us.
perhaps the yr end is a good time for us to reflect on the richness our frenship has brought us and count our blessings in the # of good frens we haf

immortal fertility

 

11 Dec 2008

yes, fertility is preserved but wat abt mortality?    i hope to b ard to take care of my grandchildren one day.  

wat ppl dun realise is when they haf children late, their children r likely to haf to deal wif the grief and loss of their parents at a much younger age and it’s much much tougher for the children they leave behind one day

 

Doctors in St. Louis said they have successfully transplanted a full ovary from a volunteer, allowing her infertile twin sister to give birth to a healthy baby girl on November 11.

It is the first time an entire ovary has been transplanted and resulted in a live birth, the researchers said. Writing in the New England Journal of Medicine, they said the method may offer a way to preserve fertility for cancer patients or for women who want to wait until they are older to start families.

One twin went into early menopause at age 15, but the transplanted ovary from her sister restored full fertility and she gave birth at the age of 38, Dr. Sherman Silber of the Infertility Center of St. Louis and his colleagues reported.

Previously they had transplanted the outer shell of the ovary and found that, even if the tissue is frozen, it can restore fertility.

Although six babies were born to eight women using those techniques, about two-thirds of the eggs die from lack of blood flowing through the tissue, and the women quickly slip into menopause after about three years.

Hoping to avoid those problems, the Silber team used a full ovary and reconnected two veins and one artery to feed the graft, which is a challenge because the blood vessels are so tiny.

Silber said although the work has involved identical twins where one had become prematurely infertile, the technique could eventually benefit two groups of women if frozen ovaries turn out to be as viable.

“One is the young cancer patient who is about to lose all her ovarian function as she’s about to undergo chemotherapy. We just take that ovary out, freeze it and transplant it back. That’s one big payoff,” he said in a telephone interview.

The other, he acknowledged, is more controversial: extending the time a woman is fertile.

Women in their 20s could have one of their two ovaries removed so it can be frozen. “If she’s 40 or 45 when she has it transplanted back, it’s still a 25- or 30-year-old ovary, so she’s preserving her fertility,” he said. “We’ve actually done it for quite a few patients. I think there will be many more women who will want to do that.”

The infertility rate at age 25 is only about 6 percent. It jumps to 70 percent by age 40 and is about 95 percent at age 43, said Silber.

Obama appeals for auto industry aid

 

11th Dec 2008

 

President-elect Barack Obama is appealing for approval of an assistance package for the auto industry.

Obama says the government can’t just stand by and watch the industry collapse. He says it would have a “devastating ripple effect” throughout the economy.

He told reporters in Chicago that he understands the “anger and frustration” over the situation in which the auto companies find themselves. He says leaders of those companies failed to move quickly enough to change.

But Obama says he thinks the government should provide short-term assistance to avoid a collapse of the companies, while holding them responsible and protecting the interests of the taxpayers.

Obama says the package under consideration in Congress is a “step forward.”

 

OMG!

 

 

A middle aged woman had a heart attack and was taken to the hospital.

While on the operating table she had a near death experience.

Seeing God She asked “Is my time up?” God said, “No, you have another 43
years, 2 months and 8 days to live”

Upon recovery,the woman decided to stay in the hospital and have a
Facelift, liposuction, and a tummy tuck. She even had someone come in and
change her hair color.

Since she had so much more time to live, she figured she might as well
make the most of it.

After her last operation, she was released from the hospital. While
crossing the street on her way home,she was killed by an ambulance.

Arriving in front of God, she demanded, “I thought you said I had another
40 years? Why didn’t you pull me from out of the path of the ambulance?”

(You’ll love this!!!)
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God replied,

“I didn’t recognize you.”

yahoo retrenches

 

not exactly unexpected

found~!

 

fotos from roz’s wedding

onli a few but better den nuthing since nobody has any fotos from the wedding

QQ

was browsing and saw tis…i realise mi got so many funny picts of kiddos

unread mails

 

still got 100 more to go !

bibs

kerri conned mi into getting the bibs from ikea…of course, she didn’t use it

first lady = free labour

When incoming President Barack Obama meets with a world leader, attends a diplomatic dinner or reads to a roomful of rapt schoolchildren, he’ll be doing the work of the nation as well as earning his $400,000 annual salary. But when his wife attends the same functions at his side — or in his stead — she’ll be doing it for love.

Because being first lady means you don’t get paid.

While the position carries no official duties, the president’s spouse has long been expected to serve as a highly visible goodwill ambassador for the nation, performing a wide range of ceremonial and quasi-diplomatic jobs. The work involved is not insubstantial: Although Hillary Rodham Clinton was accused during her presidential campaign of having inflated her policy efforts as first lady, she wasn’t just at home baking cookies, either.

Her 11,000-page schedule implies a fair amount of time and energy put in on behalf of her husband and the country.

Yet because they are presidential spouses, first ladies are expected to volunteer their assistance. So on Jan. 20, Michelle Obama will go from being a high-profile, highly compensated professional to serving as her husband’s full-time, unpaid … helpmeet? Resuming her previous work for the University of Chicago Hospitals would be difficult in her husband’s conflict-averse regime. But giving up her paycheck and re-envisioning herself in the role of hostess in chief will undoubtedly be an adjustment for the Harvard Law grad.

“It is really very old-fashioned, right down to the title itself,” said Robert Thompson, professor of media and popular culture at Syracuse University in New York. “When people hear ‘first lady,’ the first thing they think of is china — not the country.”

Yet as anyone who has ever been to a cocktail party knows, being gracious to strangers requires both effort and art, and when the first lady hosts dinners, receives visitors or occupies the wives of foreign leaders, she is performing vital if unsung services for the administration — services that would otherwise have to be performed by salaried staff.

Janette Kenner Muir, an associate professor at New Century College at George Mason University in Virginia who has written about first ladies and their rhetoric, said the job of first lady is such a “major” and “essential” one that “if there wasn’t a first lady, they would invent one.”

The post isn’t all tea and small talk, either. As the travel demands on the president have grown, the first lady has increasingly become a stand-in for her spouse. “They have to have that role in the White House,” Muir said. “There are many cases where the first lady becomes a diplomat. Where the president can’t go, they may go and represent the United States at major events around the world.”

Or as Hillary Clinton put it more wryly in her book “Living History,” “My staff used to tease me, suggesting that the State Department had a directive: If the place was too small, too dangerous or too poor — send Hillary.”

And when it comes to women such as Hillary Clinton or Michelle Obama, it is hard to argue that their time has no economic value.

Without Barack Obama’s books, the Obamas’ 2006 tax returns show that Michelle Obama would have been the hands-down breadwinner in the household, bringing home $316,000, or nearly double Barack Obama’s Senate salary of $165,000. While Laura Bush, a former librarian, had not been employed for quite some time before she became first lady, Hillary Clinton also had the more lucrative job before her husband became president: In 1990, her income from the Rose Law Firm was more than $100,000; her husband’s salary as governor of Arkansas was $35,000, plus a public relations appropriation of $19,000.

There is precedent, too, for considering the first lady an “employee” of the administration.

When Hillary Clinton headed the National Task Force on Health Care Reform, a doctors group sued to have the panel’s secret meetings opened to the public, arguing that the closed doors violated the Federal Advisory Committee Act because the group was not composed of government officials exclusively. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled that the secrecy was legal because the first lady was a “de facto” federal officer or employee who could be used to carry out responsibilities that might otherwise be performed by an assistant to the president. The court also noted that first ladies had long served as “advisers and personal representatives” for their spouses.

So why don’t we see the role of first lady as a job?

One problem is that the tradition of first-lady-as-unpaid-support-staff reflects long-standing attitudes about married women’s work in general. Said Muir: “It is that typical devaluing of the work women do generally, especially in the home and in supporting the spouse.”

Historically, the responsibilities of the first lady have fallen into the same category as traditional wifely tasks such as housekeeping and childcare; they aren’t considered “jobs” unless they are performed by someone outside the home — even if the home happens to be the White House.

Another stumbling block, said Thompson, is that there is no job description for a first lady, so it is hard to put an economic value on the work.

“Each first lady has brought to it anywhere from the intense, aggressive policy work of a Hillary Clinton to the just-say-no, force-behind-the-throne of a Nancy Reagan, and everyone inflects it with their own personality,” Thompson said. “It kind of becomes the job you make it.”

Myra Gutin, first lady historian and professor of communication at Rider University in New Jersey, agreed, noting that while the role is “kind of a throwback and anachronistic,” it needn’t be a “straitjacket.”

She estimated that the duties of being first lady probably consume 15 percent to 20 percent of the average presidential spouse’s time. “I think it is fair to say that we don’t expect the first lady to hide out in the White House,” she said. But the role needn’t be all-consuming, either. As to whether the first lady should draw a salary, Gutin demurred: “I’ve thought about it for years, and I still don’t know entirely how I feel about it.”

Writer and policy consultant Naomi Wolf believes that the role is inherently about duty not to one’s significant other but to one’s country.

“I think sometimes people are just called upon to perform a category that’s service to country, and I see the first spouse role as falling into that,” she said.

At least we can acknowledge that, whatever the particulars, being first spouse is “a lot of work,” said Thompson. “A first spouse cannot afford those days when you call in sick, eat ice cream and watch ‘Oprah.’ Or, at least, not many of them.”

What will change our view of the role? On that, there is consensus: a first laddy.

“The time will come, too, when we have a first gentleman,” said Gutin. “Will a man give up his work to be an official spouse? My guess is the answer is no.”

“First husband will solve it,” agreed Thompson.

Said Muir: “It [will take] a man in that role to redefine it, and to push it and say, ‘What we do here is of value. It is richer than serving tea and cookies.’”

Violence breaks out during Greek teen’s funeral

9 Dec 2008

ATHENS, Greece – Riot police fought running battles with mourners Tuesday after the funeral of a teenager whose shooting by officers triggered Greece’s worst rioting in decades.

Officers fired heavy amounts tear gas to dispel dozens of youths throwing stones and sticks and setting trash cans on fire. No injuries were reported from the clashes, which started outside the cemetery and spread to a nearby district.

Dozens of local residents gathered on the streets, shouting at police to stop firing tear gas in the residential area

Some 6,000 people attended the funeral Tuesday, applauding as 15-year-old Alexandros Grigoropoulos’ body was carried out of the church in a flower-covered white coffin.

Hundreds of teenagers pelted police with rocks and scuffled with officers in front of Parliament Tuesday as Socialist leader George Papandreou called for early elections, saying the conservative government could no longer defend the public from rioters.

The government has a single-seat majority in the 300-member Parliament and opposition parties blame hands-off policing for encouraging the worst rioting the country has seen in decades.

“The government cannot handle this crisis and has lost the trust of the Greek people,” Papandreou said. “The best thing it can do is resign and let the people find a solution … we will protect the public.”

The circumstances surrounding Grigoropoulos’ shooting are unclear, but the two officers involved have been arrested; one has been charged with murder and the other as an accomplice. A coroner’s report shows the boy was shot in the chest.

Schools and universities across Greece were closed and hundreds of teachers, university lecturers and students rallied in central Athens. In the western part of the city, officials said groups of high-school students attacked four police stations but riot police did not respond and no injuries were reported. In Thessaloniki, Greece’s second-largest city, police clashed with self-styled anarchists after a protest march.

Commentators say the growing hostility by young Greeks toward authority is fed by public discontent over low wages, frequent public corruption scandals and a strong historic distrust of government rooted in past political upheavals.

“It’s very simple — we want the government to fall. This boy’s death was the last straw for us,” Petros Constantinou, an organizer with the Socialist Workers Party, said as he left a protest in central Athens. “This government wants the poor to pay for all the country’s problems — never the rich — and they keep those who protest in line with police oppression.”

Saturday’s fatal shooting drove angry students to join with violent anarchist groups who have a long-standing animosity with police.

The worst violence occurred late Monday when gangs of masked and hooded youths screaming “Cops! Pigs! Murderers!” set up burning barricades across Athens streets and fought pitched street battles with riot police firing volleys of tear gas.

Police said rioters damaged or destroyed 200 stores and 50 banks in Athens, while 20 buildings were damaged by fires, including downtown hotels that were temporarily evacuated late Monday.

A further 100 stores were damaged in the northern city of Thessaloniki.

There was more rioting across Greece, from cities in Crete and the holiday island of Corfu, to Thessaloniki, where fresh violence broke out Tuesday leaving two protesters with light injuries.

There was more rioting across Greece, from Thessaloniki to cities in Crete and the holiday island of Corfu. By early Tuesday, hundreds of stores, cars, banks and buildings in about a dozen cities had been torched, smashed or looted.

“Everyone has let our children down … Every day I see that students are becoming more hostile toward us and figures of authority,” said Christos Kittas, who resigned as the dean of Athens University after the rioting spread to campuses.

Riot police used tear gas and clashed with rioters but stood back as youths smashed windows and torched stores along Athens’ main commercial streets. Athens police announced 89 arrests late Monday, while more than 100 other people were detained for questioning. Twelve police officers were injured.

Greece’s interior minister insisted police had successfully protected human life, and Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis said there would be no leniency for the rioters.

“No one has the right to use this tragic incident as an alibi for actions of raw violence, for actions against innocent people, their property and society as a whole, and against democracy,” he said after an emergency meeting with the country’s president, Karolos Papoulias.

Athens Mayor Nikitas Kaklamanis angrily criticized “worthless rioters” who set the city’s Christmas tree alight late Monday.

“These people respect nothing, look what they have destroyed,” Kaklamanis said. “These people cannot be considered Greeks.”

He said Christmas celebrations would take place as planned.

On Tuesday, the Bank of Greece announced a 12-month delay on interest payments for loans by shopkeepers affected by the rioting. But the Athens Traders Association encouraged its members to sue the government, saying police had failed to protect them.

to iron or not to iron

not to iron prevails

ironing is not difficult but i juz find it very hard to feel motivated enuff to get to it

so clothes tat require ironing get very little mileage in my wardrobe : )

i tink i should get more skirts tat r crease free and look great sans ironing

unread mails

mi got backlog of personal mails again

so scary! mi is considering from mypoints…too many mails liao and sometimes mi is so lazi to read and clear

oredi deleted so many expired offers and brought the no. of unread mails dwn from 300++ to 100++

i shall clear everything tonite

Ireland recalls pork products after toxins found

oh no! poisonous pork too !

6 Dec 2008

The Irish government said Saturday it was recalling all pork products made in the Republic of Ireland after the discovery of a toxic substance in slaughtered pigs.

The Food Safety Authority of Ireland (FSAI) advised consumers not to eat Irish pork and bacon products until it knew the extent of the contamination by dioxins, which have been linked to cancer.

It was not yet clear which countries would be affected beyond Ireland, but official figures for 2006 showed Britain was the biggest importer of Irish pigmeat, followed by Japan, Germany, Russia, France and the United States.

“The government today announced that laboratory results of animal feed and pork fat samples obtained this afternoon by the Food Safety Authority of Ireland confirmed the presence of dioxins,” a government statement said.

“Consequently, the FSAI is requiring the food industry to recall from the market all Irish pork products produced from pigs slaughtered in Ireland.”

FSAI spokesman Alan O’Reilly said the level of the dioxins found was 80 to 200 times the safe level.

Exposure to very high levels — such as during an industrial accident — has been associated with increased incidence of cancer, but officials said the risk to consumers posed by the current contamination was “extremely low”.

The contamination is thought to have come from a feed mixture, and was identified at the end of November following routine testing. All pork products produced since September 1 have been recalled.

O’Reilly said a range of foods including sausages, bacon and pizza toppings should be destroyed, adding: “The whole idea is to try and limit the exposure of consumers to this form of chemical.”

Dioxins are persistent chemical contaminants in the environment. They can be formed naturally, such as in forest fires, but are usually by-products of certain industrial combustion and chemical processes.

The recall is likely to hit Ireland’s pig industry hard, at a time when the economy as a whole is in recession. About 5,000 people work in the sector, which is worth about 400 million euros (500 million dollars).

Padraig Walshe, president of the Irish Farmers’ Association, said the situation was “an absolute disaster” for the country’s pork producers.

“The Christmas market is the most important time of the year for the pig sector with a lot of people contemplating buying hams along with turkey for the Christmas market,” he told the RTE state broadcaster.

But he said he supported the government’s action, adding that he expected Irish pork products to be back on the market as early as next week.

Ireland’s food minister Trevor Sargent said he was working to ensure this happened as soon as possible but said ministers had no choice but to act.

“Food safety and the consumer’s interest have been the main priority behind this government action,” he said.

Britain’s Food Standards Agency said it was monitoring the situation, but said there was no cause for alarm.

“From the information that we have at this time we do not believe there will be a significant risk to UK consumers,” a spokesman said.

bird flu in hk (again!)

9 Dec 2008

Hong Kong health authorities raised the city’s bird flu alert level to “serious” Tuesday after the H5 virus killed dozens of chickens at a farm, prompting the cull of 80,000 birds.

Laboratories in the city were now trying to determine the precise identity of the virus. A leading expert said it was likely to turn out to be the highly pathogenic H5N1 strain, which turns up regularly in flocks in Asia, parts of Europe and Africa.

“It’s highly likely it’s the highly-pathogenic H5N1 strain because others (other H5 strains) don’t kill chickens like this. But this has to be confirmed,” virologist Malik Peiris at the University of Hong Kong said.

Although H5N1 is mainly a disease among birds, it may mutate into a form that spreads easily among people.

If that happens, it could trigger a pandemic and kill millions. Even in its current hard-to-catch form, H5N1 has infected 387 people since 2003, killing 245 of them.

The city’s Health Secretary York Chow said the affected farm was in Hong Kong’s northern Yuen Long district near the border with China, which reported the unusual deaths of 60 chickens Monday.

“After a series of tests, we have confirmed this morning that the chickens died from the H5 virus,” Chow told reporters, adding three dead chickens were tested and 20 faeces samples were taken.

CULLING

Workers clad in masks, white medical suits and black rubber gloves began the mass cull of some 80,000 birds at the farm on Tuesday afternoon, and were shown stuffing piles of chicken carcasses into black bin bags.

All chickens within a 3 km radius of the farm will be destroyed, along with birds at a wholesale market, Chow said.

Chicken farms in Hong Kong observe strict biosecurity measures to prevent disease and cross-infection between species, and chickens are vaccinated against the H5N1 .

It was not immediately known how the chickens became infected. “It could be injection (of the virus) from wild birds. These (incidences) increase in winter. But it is not the only possibility,” Peiris said.

The scenes were reminiscent of previous culls in 1997 and 2001, when the H5N1 virus prompted the slaughter of more than one million birds each time. In the 1997 outbreak, six people died.

Chow also ordered a precautionary three-week ban on poultry imports to contain any potential spread of the virus.

“We will ban all the outlets of all chickens from our farms for 21 days and also suspend all the imports of chicken and poultry including birds for the next 21 days,” Chow added.

The last bird flu outbreak at a Hong Kong farm occurred in early 2003.

debate over obama’s citizenship

9 Dec 2008

The Supreme Court has turned down an emergency appeal from a New Jersey man who says President-elect Barack Obama is ineligible to be president because he was a British subject at birth. The court did not comment on its order Monday rejecting the call by Leo Donofrio of East Brunswick, N.J., to intervene in the presidential election.

Donofrio says that since Obama had dual nationality at birth — his mother was American and his Kenyan father at the time was a British subject — he cannot possibly be a “natural born citizen,” one of the requirements the Constitution lists for eligibility to be president.

Donofrio also contends that two other candidates, Republican John McCain and Socialist Workers candidate Roger Calero, also are not natural-born citizens and thus ineligible to be president.

At least one other appeal over Obama’s citizenship remains at the court. Philip J. Berg of Lafayette Hill, Pa., argues that Obama was born in Kenya, not Hawaii as Obama says and Hawaii officials have confirmed.

Berg says Obama also may be a citizen of Indonesia, where he lived as a boy. Federal courts in Pennsylvania have dismissed Berg’s lawsuit. Federal courts in Ohio and Washington state have rejected similar lawsuits.

Allegations raised on the Internet say the birth certificate, showing that Obama was born in Hawaii on Aug. 4, 1961, is a fake.

But Hawaii Health Department Director Dr. Chiyome Fukino and the state’s registrar of vital statistics, Alvin Onaka, say they checked health department records and have determined there’s no doubt Obama was born in Hawaii.

The nonpartisan Web site Factcheck.org examined the original document and said it does have a raised seal and the usual evidence of a genuine document.

In addition, Factcheck.org reproduced an announcement of Obama’s birth, including his parents’ address in Honolulu, that was published in the Honolulu Advertiser on Aug. 13, 1961.

sony cutting 8000 jobs

9 Dec 2008

unexpected? not exactly. nobody/no company is spared during tis global financial meltdwn

TOKYO – Sony is slashing 8,000 jobs, or 4 percent of its global work force, aiming to cut costs by $1.1 billion a year as an economic downturn and a stronger yen batter profits at the Japanese electronics maker.

Sony Corp., which has 185,000 employees worldwide, said Tuesday it will complete the job cuts — all in the electronics sector — by the end of March 2010.

The company will close several plants, including one in Dax, France, cut investment in electronics and outsource some work. The moves will deliver more than 100 billion yen ($1.1 billion) in savings a year by March 2010, the company said.

The global financial crisis is hitting the U.S., European, Japanese and emerging nations’ economies, said Senior Vice President Naofumi Hara.

“Now we are all facing a recession together,” he said. “It is impossible to predict how much longer the situation will last.”

Sony’s announcement comes amid similar news from other Japanese manufacturers, which face plunging demand at home and abroad, as well as falling gadget prices and currency fluctuations. But Sony’s job cuts are Japan’s biggest since the U.S. credit crunch hit over the summer.

Kazuharu Miura, electronics analyst at Daiwa Institute of Research in Tokyo, warned that the measures may not be enough to offset the damage from sliding profits.

“The entire high-tech market is being seriously hurt,” Miura said. “Japanese companies are all in trouble because of this unexpected worldwide slowdown.”

Sony — maker of the Walkman portable player and PlayStation 3 game console — is particularly vulnerable to the strong yen since about 80 percent of its sales come from overseas. The dollar has dropped to about 93 yen from 117 yen last year, eroding with it Sony’s foreign income.

Hara said the ways the job cuts will be carried out will vary by country, but he did not provide a breakdown. Sony’s electronics business employs about 160,000 workers. The company also has movie, video game and financial businesses.

Sony has adjusted production and lowered inventories, but tough times demand more drastic efforts, it said in a statement.

The cost-cutting plan includes postponing an investment to boost production of liquid crystal display TVs in Slovakia because of a plunge in European demand for flat-panel TVs.

“These initiatives are in response to the sudden and rapid changes in the global economic environment,” Sony said.

Sony will end production at some plants, including one in France that makes tape and other recording media and will continue moving electronics production to lower-cost countries. Manufacturing sites will be reduced by about 10 percent, or five or six plants, from 57 today.

Sony will also trim spending in semiconductors, and will outsource a portion of the production it had planned for image sensors for mobile phones.

The cost of the job cuts and plant shutdowns will be disclosed next year when the company updates its forecast for the fiscal year, the company said.

Hara said Sony will reduce investment in electronics by 30 percent for the following fiscal year ending March 2010. But he said specific numbers and details had not been decided.

Apart from the 8,000 electronics job losses, Hara said Sony would cut at least 8,000 temporary jobs in the same sector by the end of March 2010. He said temporary workers are not counted in the tally of Sony’s global work force.

Sony recently slashed its full-year earnings projection, citing weaker consumer demand and a stronger yen. For the fiscal year through March 2009, it is expecting a 150 billion yen ($1.5 billion) profit, down 59 percent from the previous year.

Hara said it was unclear whether a further revision will be needed for the current fiscal year.

Sony’s July-September profit plunged 72 percent from a year earlier to 20.8 billion ($224 million).

The announcement came shortly after trading ended in Tokyo, where Sony shares rose 3.9 percent to 1,896 yen ($20).

teaching

news tdy reported the 8000 jobs sony is cutting and 2000 vacancies for teachers recruitment

whenever the mkt is bad, there is a huge influx of teachers from fresh grads and ppl doing a career switch which usually translates to a huge outflux of newly trained teachers when mkt conditions improve

i haf always felt strongly abt teaching. i believe tat teaching and nursing are 2 professions tat r very very tough to do well/enjoy wifout true passion. both r such noble and impt roles and my utmost respect go to those who do their best in this profession with passion and love

Pelosi likes idea of ‘car czar’ to audit bailout

9 Dec 08

WASHINGTON – House Speaker Nancy Pelosi touted the notion of a ‘car czar’ to supervise an auto industry bailout, saying Tuesday that Big Three executives haven’t adapted well to changing conditions.

As United Auto Workers President Ron Gettelfinger voiced fresh confidence that an accommodation will be reached on a $15 billion bailout bill, Pelosi told interviewers it’s more critical than ever that change in Detroit be forced.

“I think it’s very important,” Pelosi told NBC’s “Today” show, because little would be accomplished if company executives are “left to their own devices.”

Pelosi appeared on morning television after a night of intense Capitol Hill discussions aimed at narrowing differences on legislation to rush short-term loans to the struggling carmakers. The plan would require that the industry reinvent itself to survive — and that it pay back the government if it doesn’t. The package could come to a vote as early as Wednesday.

Pelosi said she thought taxpayers should consider it “a second chance” for the industry, rather than a bailout.

Robert Lutz, GM’s vice president of global product development, also said he could accept a federally appointed czar to supervise implementation of a restructuring plan.

“Well, whether we need it or not, I think it’s reasonable that when the federal government steps in with taxpayer money, they’re not going to–they’re not going to lend us the money and just say, `Do the best you can with it and tell us when you need more.’ Obviously, there’s going to be some kind of oversight and I think that’s a reasonable thing to expect,” he said on CBS’s “The Early Show.”

He said the industry’s chief problem involves “short-term liquidity” and said it crucial that the government revitalize the economy as well as steadying his industry.

The measure being discussed in Congress would put a government overseer named by President George W. Bush in charge of setting guidelines for an industrywide overhaul, with the power to revoke the loans if the automakers fail to do what’s necessary to become viable. The White House was seeking tougher consequences, including allowing the overseer — being called a car czar — to force the companies into bankruptcy if they weren’t doing enough to cut labor costs, restructure their debt and downsize to stay afloat.

Pelosi, D-Calif., said she had no candidates for the job, but said that Paul Volcker, a former Federal Reserve chairman and how an economic adviser to President-elect Barack Obama, would be a good choice. She said he enjoys the public’s confidence.

Despite optimism on both sides that Congress and the White House could reach a swift agreement on the rescue package, it was still a tough sell on Capitol Hill. With lawmakers in both parties bitter over the administration’s use of the $700 billion Wall Street bailout, many of them were preparing to hold their noses and vote for yet another federal rescue to avert deeper economic disaster.

“While we take no satisfaction in loaning taxpayer money to these companies, we know it must be done,” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said. “This is no blank check or blind hope.”

Gettelfiner, who appeared Tuesday on CBS, declined to say whether his union would demand a seat on GM’s board of directors in exchange for contract concessions. But he did say that “if we’re gonna be asked to give up more, and it appears that we are, then we should have an equity stake in the company.”

Gettelfinger said in an interview with Detroit’s WWJ-AM that the union is “hopeful that the Democrats and hte White House can come to a compromise here very quickly.”

The developing plan would dole out auto industry loans right away, drawing the money from an existing program meant to help the carmakers retool their factories to produce more fuel-efficient vehicles. Then the czar would write guidelines, due on the first of the year, for restructuring the companies.

The proposal would attach an array of conditions to the auto bailout money, including some of the same restrictions imposed on banks as part of the Wall Street rescue. Among them are limits on executive compensation, a prohibition on paying dividends, and requirements that the government share in future profits and taxpayers be repaid before any other shareholders.

There also would be rigorous government oversight, with the special inspector general monitoring the Wall Street rescue also keeping tabs on the carmaker bailout. The Senate on Monday confirmed Neil M. Barofsky, a federal prosecutor in New York, to be the special inspector general.

The proposal gives the car czar say-so over any major business decisions by the automakers while they’re taking advantage of federal aid. The companies would have to open their books to the government, including informing the overseer of any transaction of $25 million or more.

Also under discussion is a requirement that the carmakers taking federal aid get rid of their corporate jets — which became a potent symbol of the industry’s ineptitude when the Big Three CEOs used them for their initial trips to Washington to plead before Congress for government assistance.

Still, the White House wanted clearer consequences for the automakers if a company was not meeting its own promises for long-term viability, according to officials who would comment on the continuing negotiations only on condition of anonymity.

Under Democrat’s proposal, if the Big Three didn’t come up with suitable restructuring plans by the end of March, the czar would have to submit his own blueprint to Congress for a government-mandated overhaul.

Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., a key ally of the auto industry, said getting the roughly 15 Republicans needed to support the plan was an uphill battle.

“This is a real hill to climb even if we can get agreement between the White House and congressional leaders,” he said.

Even sympathetic Republicans weren’t ready to sign on. Sen. George Voinovich, R-Ohio, has “numerous concerns” about the bill, including the strength of the taxpayer protections and the role of the car czar, said spokesman Chris Paulitz.

let it snow! let it snow! let it snow!

yea! winter has come early tis yr and the best part is coz i turned on the falling snow last yr, i got the snow once it became available

i need to change my background colour to bring out the best of the falling snow

new dashboard

i luv the new look and layout!

it’s so fast to toggle bet all categories and most used categories and having the tags on the right is easier den scrolling dwn

having a new more intuitive look is not juz abt wordpress having a facelift but also abt the fact tat it’s a company tat’s serious abt improving the user experience and i appreciate tat a lot

i hate blogger…the look is so outdated

海角天涯七号宅

 

tis show is reli nice~!  SY, u should watch tis !
there are 2 storylines going on at same time. and coz the female leads in both storylines are called Tomoko, i got abit confused

the characters i like :
Aga’s name sounds quite jap
Tomoko’s chinese is quite painful lor
fav part is still 大大 singing 爱你爱到死 in the lift and the representatives tapping their feet in time wif the music
and her keyboard playing in church wif amen at the end. she is so cute and has so much altitude for a 10yo. and claiming tat the lord kicked her out of her church
malasa, the hakka salesman selling millet wine. hardworking wif nbr say die spirit
frog who is infatuated wif the lady boss wif triplet sons and a drunken husband
the elderly postman who is determined to go on stage as he is of ‘national treasure’ status
aga’s stepdad, the representative who loves aga and his hometown

fav scenes : everyone delivering letters on aga’s behalf, his stepdad doing it by car
the on-stage performance wif the crowd and band all being wild

there is obviously some parts missing coz shino mentioned she did something terrible to her grandmum tomoko but no further explanation beyond

 

http://www.wretch.cc/blog/lainan/20487508

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cape_No._7

海角七号 – 爱你爱到死

 

i luv tis song tat 大大 sang in the lift

Oh Oh Oh 爱你 爱到不怕死 Baby
爱我 请你让我疯狂一次
爱是什么东西 不过就是种游戏
情是什么玩意 不就是玩玩而已
Honey Darling Baby 或是叫我小亲亲
只要哄我高兴 冥王星都陪你去
Oh 爱你 爱到不怕死
但你若劈腿 就去死一死
Oh Oh Oh 爱你 爱到不怕死 Baby
爱我 请你让我疯狂一次
爱是什么东西 不过就是种游戏
情是什么玩意 不就是玩玩而已
Honey Darling Baby 或是叫我小亲亲
只要哄我高兴 冥王星都陪你去
Oh 爱你 爱到不怕死
但你若劈腿 就去死一死
Oh Oh Oh 爱你 爱到不怕死 Baby
爱我 请你让我疯狂一次
Oh 爱你 爱到不怕死
但你若劈腿 就去死一死
Oh Oh Oh 爱你 爱到不怕死 Baby
爱我 请你让我疯狂一次

Old People Feel 13 Years Younger Than They Are

Older people tend to feel about 13 years younger than their chronological age, a new study finds.

 

The seniors in the study, all 70 and over, also thought they looked about 10 years younger than their numerical age, with women perceiving their appearances to be closer to their actual age than men.

 

“People generally felt quite a bit younger than they actually were, and they also showed relatively high levels of satisfaction with aging over the time period studied,” said researcher Jacqui Smith, a psychologist at the University of Michigan Institute for Social Research.

 

She added, “Perhaps feeling about 13 years younger is an optimal illusion in old age.”

 

The results, which will be published in a forthcoming issue of the Journals of Gerontology: Psychological Science, have implications beyond the psychological. Past research has shown that feeling youthful is linked with better health and longer life, the researchers say.

 

Spring chickens

 

Smith and her colleagues analyzed information collected from surveys of 516 men and women age 70 and older who participated in the Berlin Aging Study. The survey tracked how seniors’ perceptions about age and their satisfaction with aging changed over a six-year period ending in 1998.

 

(Even though the study was conducted on Berlin residents, Smith said the same results should apply to Americans. And in fact her recent research on Americans is showing similar results.)

 

Some of the oldest participants actually felt even younger than the average delightful self-deception in the study. This could be due to the fact that individuals on the older side, say 85, experienced less overall decline with age. And that’s why they survived, while their 70-year-old counterparts perhaps didn’t have so much longer to live.

 

Those in poor health reported a smaller gap between how old they felt and their actual ages.

 

“The way that we feel about our age is in part a reflection of the message we are getting from society about what people our age ought to be doing,” Smith told Livescience, “and it’s also an indication about how we interpret our biological aging to be.”

 
Lookin’ good

 

The researchers also assessed how old people thought they looked by asking, “How old do you feel when you look at yourself in a mirror?” Participants indicated an age on a scale that ranged from 0 to 120 years.

 

At the start of the study, the seniors said they looked on average 10 years younger than their actual age and about seven years younger by the end of the study.

 

In general, women perceived their appearance as being closer to their actual age.

 

“Women saw themselves as about four years older than their male peers,” Smith said. “There are several likely reasons for this gender gap in subjective physical age. One is that women may be more aware of their appearance than men, especially given the negative stereotypes of older bodies.”

 

Another possible reason for the gender difference is that men typically die at a younger age compared with women. So the oldest men would’ve been in the best physical shape to live so long.

 

“Those men who live for a very long time are the fittest men, so they’re usually much stronger than the women physically, and they may actually look better than many 80-year-old women physically,” Smith said.

Participants also rated the extent to which they agreed with statements about satisfaction with aging. Results showed that initially, men were more satisfied than women with their own aging. But over the six-year period, men’s satisfaction decreased more than women’s did. Poor health magnified these patterns, Smith said.

Indian airports on high alert after new warning

 

4 Dec 2008

MUMBAI, India – Airports in India went on high alert Thursday following fresh attack warnings as officials said India suspects two senior leaders of a banned Pakistani militant group orchestrated the deadly Mumbai attacks.

The alert comes as Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari promised the visiting U.S. secretary of state his country would take “strong action” against any elements in his country involved in the siege.

The new alert that warned of possible airborne attacks focused on three major airports — New Delhi, Bangalore and Chennai — but security was stepped up across the country. No details about the threat were released.

“This is a warning which we have received. We are prepared as usual,” India’s air force chief, Fali Homi Major, told reporters Thursday.

Heavily armed guards from India’s Rapid Deployment Force manned roadblocks outside airports, while others patrolled inside airport buildings among passengers.

Several extra layers of security were set up and some passengers had bags scanned with devices to check for explosives before entering terminals.

“Passengers have been asked to pass through six-stage security checks,” said Brij Lal, a senior police official organizing security at the airport in the northern city of Lucknow.

Nirmala Sharma, a passenger who flew from New Delhi to Lucknow, said her bags were checked half a dozen times and she went through a metal detector three times. “Sometimes it seemed tedious, but it seems to be the need of the hour,” she said.

Meanwhile, officials continued to probe the attacks.

Evidence collected in probes so far has pointed to two members of outlawed Pakistani group Lashkar-e-Taiba as masterminds in the attacks, according to two Indian government officials familiar with the matter.

The men, Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi and Yusuf Muzammil, are believed to be in Pakistan, the officials said. Lakhvi was identified as the group’s operations chief and Muzammil as its operations chief in Kashmir and other parts of India.

The lone surviving gunman in the assault, Ajmal Amir Kasab, 21, told police Lakhvi recruited him for the operation, and the assailants called Muzammil on a satellite phone after hijacking an Indian vessel en route to Mumbai. During the attacks, the gunmen used mobile phones taken from hotel guests to place calls to the Pakistani city of Lahore.

The Indian officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to talk publicly discuss the details.

Kasab told police that he and the other nine attackers had trained for months in camps in Pakistan operated Lashkar.

The revelations added to the growing evidence linking the attacks to Pakistani-based militants, and came as Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice met with leaders in Islamabad Thursday after visiting India’s capital — part of a U.S. effort to pressure Pakistan to share more intelligence and pursue terrorist cells believe rooted in the country.

“I have found a Pakistani government that is focused on the threat and understands its responsibilities to respond to terrorism and extremism,” she said after meeting Zardari.

In the meeting, Zardari “reiterated that the government will not only assist in (the) investigation but also take strong action against any Pakistani elements found involved in the attack,” his office said in a statement.

He said Pakistan was “determined to ensure that its territory is not used for any act of terrorism,” the statement said.

U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mike Mullen, who was pushing the same message as Rice in Pakistan on Wednesday, was to meet with officials in India during his trip.

Last week’s attacks were carried out by 10 suspected Muslim militants against upscale hotels, a restaurant and other sites across Mumbai.

Government security forces have come under intense criticism they missed warnings and bungled their response to the Nov. 26-29 attacks.

On Thursday, police said an unexploded hand grenade was found outside a hospital that was the scene of an attack during last week’s siege on the city. The grenade may have been left by the gunmen, but an investigation has not yet been completed, said Senior Police Inspector Shashi Pal.

The discovery came after police detected two bombs at Mumbai’s main train station Wednesday, nearly a week after they were left there by the attackers.

It was not clear why the bags at the station were not examined earlier. The station, which serves hundreds of thousands of commuters, was declared safe and reopened hours after the attack.

Fallout from the attacks widened Thursday as the chief minister of Maharashtra state, where Mumbai is located, stepped down. The country’s top law enforcement official resigned last week.

“I regret that we could not have saved more lives, that regret will remain with me,” the minister, Vilasrao Deshmukh, told reporters.

With public anger over the attacks rising by the day, Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee on Wednesday adopted a more strident tone against India’s longtime rival, saying there’s no doubt the assailants were Pakistani and their handlers in Pakistan.

Many Indians wanted more than just harsh words.

“Pakistan has been attacking my country for a long time,” protester Rajat Sehgal said at a candlelight gathering in Mumbai, one of a series of rallies across India. “If it means me going to war, I don’t mind.”

AT&T to cut 12,000 jobs, 4 percent of staff

 

4 Dec 2008

 

NEW YORK – AT&T Inc. joined the recession’s parade of layoffs Thursday by announcing plans to cut 12,000 jobs, about 4 percent of its work force.

The Dallas-based telecommunications company — the nation’s largest — said the job cuts will take place in December and throughout 2009. The company also plans to reduce capital spending next year.

Spokesman Walt Sharp said the layoffs will be “across the company and across the country,” but would not specify what departments and cities would be most affected. These layoffs come on top of 4,600 jobs the company said in April it would eliminate.

The new cuts come as AT&T finds itself pulled by two currents at once. Not only is the recession leading businesses and consumers to curtail spending, but a long-term trend in the telecom industry is also at play: AT&T, which provides local phone coverage in California, Texas and 20 other states, has been seeing many customers defect from landline phones to wireless services. In the last quarter, AT&T basic voice lines in service dropped 11 percent.

Reflecting that shift, the company noted Thursday that even as it slashes some jobs, it would still be hiring in 2009 in parts of the business that offer cell phone service and broadband Internet access. AT&T, whose shares are down about 30 percent this year — while the Dow Jones industrial average is off 35 percent — remains profitable, and benefits from being the sole U.S. wireless carrier for Apple Inc.’s popular iPhone.

AT&T plans to take a charge of about $600 million in the fourth quarter to pay for severance costs. The company noted that many of its non-management employees have guaranteed jobs because of union contracts. All affected workers will receive severance “in accordance with management policies or union agreements,” the company said.

Its shares were down 2.5 percent in pre-market trading, at $28.35.

 

Couples staying together because of poor economy

 

3 Dec 2008

Running into your ex is almost always awkward and stressful. David Snyder and Nancy Partridge deal with it nearly every day.

The Denver couple divorced after six years of marriage but have been forced to live together for months because they can’t sell their place or afford to set up separate households in this slumping economy.

Snyder gets the master bedroom, while Partridge gets a smaller one. Snyder watches TV on one end of the house, Partridge on the other. The two split the grocery bill and kitchen duties. Sometimes they eat dinner together, sometimes apart. There are awkward silences, or worse.

“We’ve had tremendous arguments over things like who gets to park in the garage, but at this point, it’s kind of settling down into a routine,” said Partridge, 45, who works in public relations. “It’s the lesser of two evils. I think the financial stress of a foreclosure, which would probably also lead to a bankruptcy, would be worse.”

With the recession and the collapse of the housing market, more and more couples who have broken up are continuing to live under the same roof, according to judges and divorce lawyers. Some are waiting for housing prices to rebound; some are trying to get back on their feet financially.

The phenomenon is being felt around the country but most keenly in areas hit harder by foreclosure, such as the Sun Belt.

When the real estate market was booming, couples would promptly sell their home, split the profits and go their separate ways.

These days, Florida Judge John C. Lenderman said, about a third of his cases involve homes that are in foreclosure or that a family is struggling to sell. Lenderman said he has never seen anything like it in 40 years as a lawyer and judge.

“They just can’t do anything, financially,” he said. “I’ve actually got a number of people, guys who are saying they’re sleeping in their cars or pickup trucks, not paying their child support or anything. I’ve got some folks here who are down to flipping burgers.”

Sometimes the financial implications of a divorce are so grim that a couple whose marriage is on the rocks decide to give it another try.

Kent Peterson, a longtime divorce mediator in Wayzata, Minn., said a young couple from the Minneapolis area were moving toward separation until they got a look at all the costs involved in divorce.

“The thinking was they need to work a little harder and stay together because of the changing asset picture,” he said.

Linda Melville filed for divorce from John, her husband of 13 years, in August. Four months later, the estranged couple are still living on the same property in St. Petersburg, Fla.: she in the main, two-story brick house, surrounded by mementos of their marriage; he in a one-bedroom apartment that stands about 75 feet back.

Linda was laid off from her job in October and said she cannot afford to rent a place on her own. And so, while she looks for a job and tries to start the next chapter of her life, she remains in the home where the couple — who had no children together — celebrated holidays, put in a back deck and laid flagstone steps together outside the front door.

“Living as close as we do, it really makes it difficult to achieve closure,” she said recently.

Despite the close quarters, the couple rarely cross paths. Linda Melville said they hadn’t spoken to each other for a month before meeting about their divorce in late November. “The only conversation that takes place is via the lawyers,” she said. “Even negotiating a day to do laundry.”

When the morning paper arrives, whoever reads it first sets it out for the other. John Melville keeps up with the pool and lawn maintenance. Now that it gets dark earlier, his wife rarely even knows whether he has arrived home from work.

“We’re respectful of each other,” Linda said. “I don’t go out of my way to violate his space. And I don’t think he does.”

Snyder and Partridge, the reluctant housemates in Denver, divorced last January. When the house failed to sell and Partridge ran out of money to pay for an apartment and her half of the mortgage, she moved back in with Snyder over the summer.

The childless couple brought their house, a two-story baby blue home with brick trim on a corner lot covered with cottonwoods, for just under $179,000 in 2001 and tried to sell it for just under $200,000. During the nine months it was on the market, two people looked at it “and laughed at the price,” Snyder said.

The couple didn’t want to lower the price and take a hit. The real estate agent eventually dropped them, and there is no longer a for-sale sign out front.

Partridge is not getting a lot of support from her girlfriends. “They say, `Oh no, let it go to foreclosure. Walk away. Don’t do this,’” Partridge said. But “you have to take a breath and say they don’t understand the full picture.”

Snyder, who works in accounting, is catching grief from his family. “They say I could move on with life if she wasn’t there,” he said.

Neither one is dating again. “But I know it’s going to be awkward when it comes up,” Partridge said.

The two haven’t really talked about how long they’re going to stay in the same house.

“Not until we sell the house or until one of us wins the lottery and can buy the other one out, or until government gets their act together or the banks get their act together,” Partridge said.

Leftover explosives found in Mumbai train station

 

3 Dec 2008

 

NEW DELHI – Police on Wednesday discovered leftover explosives hidden in a bag in Mumbai’s main train station — a stunning new example of botched security after the deadly rampage that left the government open to accusations it missed warnings and bungled its response.

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Islamabad has a “special responsibility” to cooperate with the investigation into the attacks, which Indian and U.S. officials have blamed on militant groups based in Pakistan.

During a joint press conference with Rice, Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee said, “there is no doubt the terrorist attacks in Mumbai were perpetrated by individuals who came from Pakistan and whose controllers are in Pakistan.”

India’s defense minister summoned the army, navy and air force chiefs to warn them to be prepared for terror attacks from the air and the sea in the wake of growing criticism about slack security.

The bomb squad defused the two four-kilogram (8-pound) bombs, said Assistant Commissioner of Police Bapu Domre, but it was not immediately clear why the bombs hadn’t been found earlier.

The suspected militants sprayed Chhatrapati Shivaji train station with gunfire last Wednesday night, but authorities reopened it and declared it safe Thursday morning. The crowds of commuters quickly returned the station, one of the country’s busiest, and it has been serving millions of passengers in the days since.

Rice, in New Delhi as part of a U.S. effort to ease tensions in the region following the attacks, said the United States expects all “responsible governments” to help with the investigation and “Pakistan has a special responsibility to do so and to do so transparently, urgently and fully.”

“The responsibility of the Pakistani government should be one of cooperation and of action,” she said.

Mukherjee vowed to bring the suspected Muslim militants to justice but said “what action will be taken by (the Indian) government will depend on the response that we have from the Pakistan authorities.”

Defense Minister A.K. Antony told his military chiefs that they needed to improve intelligence coordination so that security forces can act on all credible threats, according to a ministry statement.

The statement said Antony discussed beefing up maritime security and “reviewed in detail the preparedness against any possible terror threats from air.”

Defense Ministry spokesman Sitanshu Kar said the moves were a precaution and not based on concrete intelligence.

“We saw how they came through the sea routes,” Kar said. “We are not ruling out any threats. It’s a preventive measure.”

Authorities believe the gunmen responsible for last week’s attacks reached Mumbai by boat after launching from Karachi, Pakistan.

Indian and U.S. officials have blamed Pakistani-based groups for the attacks and have pressured Islamabad to cooperate in the investigation.

“I have said that Pakistan needs to act with resolve and urgency, and cooperate fully and transparently,” Rice said during a press conference in New Delhi. “I know too this is a time when cooperation of all parties who have any information is really required.”

Rice said it was too early to say who was responsible for the attack, but: “Whether there is a direct al-Qaida hand or not, this is clearly the kind of terror in which al-Qaida participates.”

India has called on Pakistan to turn over 20 people who are “fugitives of Indian law” and wanted for questioning, but President Asif Ali Zardari said the suspects would be tried in Pakistan if there is evidence of wrongdoing.

“At the moment, these are just names of individuals — no proof and no investigation,” he said Tuesday in an interview with CNN’s Larry King. “If we had the proof, we would try them in our courts and we would try them in our land and we would sentence them.”

A week after the attacks, more details of intelligence failures began to emerge, drawing further criticism to authorities already blamed for moving slowly and ineptly during the 60-hour siege carried out by 10 gunmen.

Navy chief Sureesh Mehta earlier called India’s failure to act on multiple warnings “a systemic failure.”

India had received a warning from the United States that militants were plotting a waterborne assault on Mumbai, according to a U.S. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of intelligence information.

India’s foreign intelligence agency also had warnings as recently as September that Pakistan-based terrorists were plotting attacks on Mumbai, according to a government intelligence official familiar with the matter.

The information, intercepted from telephone conversations apparently coming out of Pakistan, indicated that hotels might be targeted but did not specify which ones, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk publicly about the details.

Authorities said Tuesday that ex-Pakistani army officers trained the gunmen behind the attacks — some for up to 18 months.

India has stepped up the pressure on its neighbor after interrogating the only surviving attacker, who told police that he and the other nine gunmen had trained for months in camps in Pakistan operated by the banned Pakistani militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba.

Ajmal Qasab told police his group trained for about six months in Lashkar camps in Pakistan, learning close-combat techniques, hostage-taking, handling of explosives, satellite navigation.

The training was “meticulous and rigorous,” said a security official who spoke on the customary condition of anonymity.

The official said the gunmen sailed from Karachi in a Lashkar vessel that brought them to the waters near an Indian vessel they hijacked, the MV Kuber.

They killed three crew members and dumped their bodies in high seas, but kept the captain alive so that he could guide them into Mumbai.

The captain was killed some three nautical miles off Mumbai’s coast, the official said.

Police were questioning the owner of the MV Kuber, from which investigators recovered a global positioning system that belonged to the attackers.

American officials said there is reason to suspect that the terror attacks were the work of a group at least partly based in Pakistan, although they’ve stopped short of mentioning Lashkar by name.

U.S. National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell said Tuesday the same group that carried out last week’s attack is believed to be behind the Mumbai train bombings that killed more than 200 people two years ago.

While he didn’t identify the group, the Indian government has attributed the 2006 attack to Lashkar and the Students Islamic Movement of India.

Last week’s attacks against hotels, a restaurant and other sites across this sprawling city killed 171 people, including 26 foreigners, officials said Wednesday. The death toll was revised down from 172 after authorities realized they had counted a victim twice.

“More bodies being found is ruled out,” Maharashtra state government spokesman Bhushan Gagrani said.

Pirates free Yemeni cargo ship, no ransom paid

 

3 Dec 2008

Somali pirates have freed a Yemeni cargo ship they seized last week after successful talks between regional authorities, clan elders and the gunmen, a local official said Wednesday.

A surge in attacks at sea this year in the busy Gulf of Aden and Indian Ocean off Somalia has pushed up insurance costs, brought the gangs tens of millions of dollars in ransoms, and prompted foreign warships to rush to the area.

“The Yemeni ship was released last night after long discussions,” Ali Abdi Aware, state minister of Somalia’s northern Puntland province, told Reuters. “It left Eyl and is heading to Yemen. The crew are safe and no ransom was paid.”

The MV Amani, owned by Yemeni shipping firm Abu Talal, has seven sailors on board. It was seized on November 25 as it carried 507 tonnes of steel from Yemen’s Mukalla port to Socotra Island.

Eyl is a remote former fishing village on the Puntland coast that has become a well-defended base for the pirates.

There have been nearly 100 attacks in Somali waters this year, despite the presence of several foreign warships. The sea gangs are holding about a dozen ships and nearly 300 crew.

Amomg the captured vessels are a Saudi supertanker loaded with $100 million of crude oil, the Sirius Star, and a Ukrainian cargo ship carrying some 30 Soviet-era tanks, the MV Faina.

Tuesday, the U.N. Security Council renewed its authorization for countries to use military force against the gunmen operating off the anarchic Horn of Africa nation.

FIGHTING ONSHORE

The resolution extended for one year the right of nations with permission from Somalia’s interim government to enter Somali waters to pursue and attack pirates. The U.S.-drafted text was adopted unanimously by the 15-nation council.

France’s U.N. ambassador, Jean-Maurice Ripert, said the move sent a very strong signal and would allow the European Union to begin an air and naval operation off Somalia on December 8.

That mission is expected to involve five to six ships at any given time, plus maritime surveillance aircraft.

Egypt is willing to take part in a U.N. force to tackle piracy “at any time,” a cabinet spokesman said.

A Greek ship freed by the pirates last week arrived in Mombasa, Kenya, Wednesday. The MV Centauri was carrying salt and was hijacked in September. It was released on November 28.

All its 26 Filipino crew members were safe but shaken.

“Although they provided us food, the sound of the cocking guns and sight of them being pointed at us was a horrifying experience,” said junior officer Joland Besana. “Those were torturous and painful days that we’ll not forget very soon.”

The number of attacks at sea has increased this year as chaos has mounted onshore. Islamist rebels have been fighting the deeply divided interim government since the start of last year and have been advancing on the capital Mogadishu.

But the Islamists are also split. At least three people were killed Tuesday in the central town of Gurael as a moderate faction battled hardliners from al Shabaab, which Washington has listed as a terrorist group with links to al Qaeda.

Residents said the battle started after al Shabaab fighters arrested a Koranic teacher aligned with the moderate faction.

“We are known to be Islamic scholars, but al Shabaab is forcing us to shoulder our guns,” Sheikh Hussein Aden, a member of the moderate group, told by phone from Gurael.

“We are warning these pseudo-Muslims of al Shabaab to stop what they are doing or it will be a nationwide war.”

US cruise ship outruns Somali pirates’ guns

2 Dec 2008

 

The luxury American cruise ship steaming across the Gulf of Aden with hundreds of well-heeled tourists just might have been too much for Somali pirates to resist.

But the six bandits, riding in two skiffs and firing rifle shots at the gleaming ship, were outrun in minutes when the captain of M/S Nautica gunned the engine and sped away, a spokesman for the company said Tuesday.

Still, the implications had the pirates hijacked the ship added a new dimension to the piracy scourge, as NATO foreign ministers groped for solutions at a meeting in Brussels and the United Nations extended an international piracy-fighting mandate for another year.

The potential for massive ransom payments from the families of hundreds of rich tourists may encourage similar attempts, especially following the successful capture of a Ukrainian cargo ship laden with tanks and a Saudi oil tanker carrying $100 million in crude.

And the brazen attack also raises questions: What was a cruise ship doing in the pirate-infested waters of the Gulf of Aden? How many such targets are sailing these seas, and how can they be protected?

Even the pirates’ motives were in question: they could simply have been testing the defenses of the massive ship, rather than making a real effort to hijack it.

Sunday’s attack on the M/S Nautica, which was reported Tuesday, comes several weeks after a NATO mission served mainly to underscore the impotence of the world community. A handful of Western ships can do little to prevent attacks in a vast sea, and without the right to board hijacked vessels, they can only watch as the booty is towed to port.

“It is very fortunate that the liner managed to escape,” said Noel Choong, who heads the International Maritime Bureau’s piracy reporting center in Malaysia, urging all ships to remain vigilant.

Some of the world’s leading cruise companies said Tuesday they are considering changing their itineraries to avoid going near the coast of Somalia following news of the weekend attack.

Cunard’s public relations manager Eric Flounders said the company has two liners, the Queen Mary 2 and Queen Victoria, scheduled to go through the Gulf of Aden in March but added the company “will obviously consider changing the itinerary” should the situation not improve.

Spokeswoman Michele Andjel said P&O Cruises is considering whether to reroute the Arcadia, which is due around the Gulf of Aden in January.

Lt. Nathan Christensen, a Bahrain-based spokesman for the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet, said 21,000 ships cross the Gulf of Aden every year, but he did not know how many cruise liners are included in that figure. The gulf links the Mediterranean Sea, the Suez Canal and the Red Sea to the Indian Ocean.

“We are not advising ships to go a different way, but we do advise to go through the international corridor within the Gulf of Aden,” Christensen said, referring to a security corridor patrolled by the international coalition.

Pirates have attacked about 100 ships off the Somali coast this year and hijacked 40 vessels. They still hold 14 ships along with more than 250 crew members, according to maritime officials.

NATO said an Italian destroyer prevented five cargo ships from being hijacked Tuesday in the Gulf of Aden by blocking the small pirate boats from the ships and using a helicopter to disperse them.

The Nautica is not the first pleasure boat to be attacked.

The luxury yacht Le Ponant was attacked earlier this year, and pirates opened fire in 2005 on the Seabourn Spirit off the Somali coast. The cruise ship evaded capture by using its speed and a long-range acoustic device that blasted a painful wave of sound at the pirates.

The Nautica also escaped by speeding up as two small pirate skiffs tried to close in, said Tim Rubacky, a spokesman for Oceania Cruises, Inc., which owns the Nautica. He said one skiff made it within 300 yards (275 meters) of the cruise ship and fired eight rifle shots at the vessel before trailing off.

“When the pirates were sighted, the captain went on the public address system and asked passengers to remain in the interior spaces of the ship and wait until he gave further instructions,” Rubacky said. “Within five minutes, it was over.”

He said the ship still plans to return through the Gulf of Aden.

“We believe this was an isolated incident,” he said. “M/S Nautica is well-equipped to deal with these situations and the crew is well-trained.”

However, Rubacky would not comment on the crew’s training or whether the ship had weapons or other devices to help fight off a hijacking.

The Nautica was on a 32-day cruise from Rome to Singapore, with stops at ports in Italy, Egypt, Oman, Dubai, India, Malaysia and Thailand, according to Oceania’s Web site. Choong said the ship was carrying 656 passengers and 399 crew members.

The liner arrived in the southern Oman port of Salalah on Monday morning, and passengers toured the city before leaving for the capital, Muscat, that evening, an Oman tourism official said.

In New York on Tuesday, the U.N. Security Council extended for another year its authorization for countries to enter Somalia’s territorial waters, with advance notice, and use “all necessary means” to stop piracy and armed robbery at sea.

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is expected to address the Security Council on the subject of piracy at a followup session Dec. 16.

Somalia has not had a functioning government since 1991, and pirates have taken advantage of the country’s lawlessness to launch attacks on foreign shipping from the Somali coast.

In two of the most daring attacks, pirates seized a Ukrainian freighter loaded with 33 battle tanks and other heavy weapons in September and captured the Saudi oil tanker on Nov. 15.

On Tuesday, a Somali pirate spokesman said his group will release the Ukrainian ship and crew within the next two days after a ransom is paid.

Sugule Ali told by satellite phone on Tuesday that a ransom agreement had been reached, but would not say how much. The pirates had originally asked for $20 million when they hijacked the MV Faina.

“Once we receive this payment, we will also make sure that all our colleagues on ship reach land safely, then the release will take place,” Ali said.

Islamist leader calls on pirates to free ships

2 Dec 2008

 

Somalia’s insurgent Islamist leader called on pirates to immediately release a giant Saudi oil tanker and other foreign vessels, while a NATO warship foiled a new attack in the Gulf of Aden.

“We are calling for the immediate release of all international vessels under the command of Somali pirates, who are undermining international peace and trade,” Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys told AFP from the Eritrean capital Asmara.

The pirates have demanded a 25-million-dollar (20-million-euro) ransom for the 330-metre Sirius Star which was carrying two million barrels of crude oil and 25 crew when it was seized on November 15.

The tanker is one of more than a dozen foreign merchant vessels and their crew being held by gunmen on the lawless Somali coast.

In a further illustration of the pirates’ growing audacity on Tuesday, a NATO warship prevented a swarm of more than a dozen pirate boats from hijacking five merchant shipping vessels in the Gulf of Aden, the alliance said.

Alerted by a distress call, the Italian navy destroyer put itself between the ships and a group of pirate “fast boats,” with all vessels using water hoses to repel the pirates.

The Italian warship also used its helicopter against the pirates, dispersing their attack, a NATO official said.

“This is probably the biggest multiple, coordinated attack we’ve seen,” the official said, adding that more than 12 pirate boats were involved, perhaps as many as 20.

Also on Tuesday, a Greek bulk ship released by pirates last week reached the Kenyan port of Mombasa with its 26 Filipino crew.

The Islamist leader’s appeal came a day after a Miami-based company said one of its cruise liners with 600 people aboard narrowly escaped being boarded by pirates as it crossed the Gulf of Aden at the weekend.

The brazen attempts by the heavily-armed pirates have come despite the presence of an international naval force.

NATO has four ships — from Britain, Greece, Italy and Turkey — on patrol in the waters off Somalia, with two protecting UN food aid convoys to the strife-torn Horn of Africa country.

The UN Security Council on Tuesday expressed its support for a European anti-piracy naval mission to begin December 8.

Leader of an umbrella opposition group called the Alliance for the Re-Liberation of Somalia, Aweys said the pirates would have been stamped out if Somalia were still under the control of his Islamist group.

“We are the only force that could eliminate piracy in the Somalia waters but the world refused to give us the opportunity to rule Somalia, despite the will of the vast majority of the people of Somalia.

“If we are given the opportunity to fight piracy and general lawlessness we can do that comfortably. Piracy is part of lawlessness and during our months of Islamic leadership pirates were underground,” he said.

His Islamic Courts Union ruled most of south and central Somalia for six months in 2006 before being ousted by Ethiopian forces who intervened to prop up its neighbour’s weak central government.

The intervention of the influential cleric, designated a terrorist by Washington because of alleged ties to Al-Qaeda, is likely to bring some pressure to bear on the pirates, but he ruled out any direct mediation effort on the part of his organisation.

He said the pirates, also negotiating a multi-million-dollar ransom for an arms-laden Ukraine cargo ship, the “Faina,” as well as a host of other foreign vessels and their crews, “are dealing with the world as if they were legitimate agencies, by talking about ransom money.”

The leader of the gunmen who seized the Saudi supertanker said later Tuesday they were “waiting for a favourable reply from the owners” two days after a November 30 deadline had passed for the ransom payment.

“Unfortunately the company is talking to ghost mediators and elements that have no powers over us.”

“Our men will wait and patiently negotiate but everything in life has its limits,” Mohamed Said told by telephone.

Aweys equated the rampant piracy to the intervention of Ethiopian forces in his country.

“It is so painful to see Somalia taken by Ethiopian colonial occupation and crazy pirates. Both are the same and undermine human value.”

Motivated by the need to fill the vacuum left by the fall of dictator Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991, Aweys founded Mogadishu’s first Islamic court in the mid-1990s.

The Auto Bailout May Wind Up on Obama’s Plate

President-elect Barack Obama’s administration-in-waiting is quietly exploring options for negotiating a bailout of the ailing auto industry when the Democrat takes office in January. While no one is ruling out the possibility of Congress appropriating money next week, a senior Obama aide told TIME, there is a sense that a comprehensive solution is unlikely to come from whatever legislative action Congress may take before the end of the year.

 

For the moment, the CEOs of the Big Three car companies are focused on getting help from Washington sooner rather than later. Later this week, they return to Capitol Hill to make the case for why their companies deserve $34 billion in bridge loans to help rebound from staggering debt loads and enormous losses. Having failed to convince Congress last month, Ford’s Alan Mulally, General Motors‘ Rick Wagoner and Chrysler’s Robert Nardelli are scheduled to testify this Thursday and Friday to present detailed plans on how the American automobile industry can survive the current economic woes and even thrive into the future. See the 50 Worst Cars of All Time.

 

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said two weeks ago that if the Banking Committees in both chambers approve the Big Three’s recovery plans, they would consider reconvening the full Congress for a vote. But hashing out terms of what would amount to an unofficial Chapter 11 reorganization is highly unusual and unwieldy for Congress, especially a lame duck one. The executive branch is better built to handle such talks, and the incoming Obama administration is looking at all options: using money from the $700 billion Wall Street bailout, as many Democrats have been unsuccessfully arguing for; taking funds from the Federal Reserve; or tapping emergency monies similar to the stabilization fund Treasury used in the 1994 Mexico bailout.

 

Obama senior staff has been in contact with senior executives at all three car companies since October, the Obama aide said. The talks consist of phone calls, e-mails and meetings, and the companies have given a power-point presentation on their internal financials. “We’re not negotiating with the auto companies; we’re not saying to them, here’s our plan,” the Obama aide said. “We’re just trying to listen and understand and study a range of options so that we’re ready to move quickly and immediately.”

 

What’s unclear is if the Big Three, particularly GM, can last that long. While Ford, in the recovery plan it submitted Tuesday, said it can survive through 2009 without a loan – provided neither one of its two competitors go bankrupt and drag down the industry’s entire supplier network – Chrysler asked for $7 billion in loans and GM said it would need $4 billion by the end of this month and upwards of another $14 billion next year to survive. All told, the companies have asked the federal government for $34 billion (including a $9 billion emergency line of credit Ford requested) – $9 billion more than they said they needed last month. When pressed about what would happen if GM runs out of money between now and Inauguration Day on January 20, the Obama aide repeatedly refused to discuss hypothetical events.

 

Obama’s team isn’t the only one who recognizes the executive branch could have an easier team pulling off such a rescue operation. On Tuesday Pelosi made it clear that the Bush administration has the authority to act at any time without Congress, saying that “an intervention will happen either legislatively or from the Administration…I think it’s pretty clear that bankruptcy is not an option.” Until now President Bush has been unwilling to consider such an approach. But on Tuesday, the same day the auto makers reported the worst month of sales in 26 years, the White House did not rule anything out.

 

“We’ll want to take a look at their plans in detail and see if they meet a credible test for viability,” deputy press secretary Tony Fratto said. “We’re pleased to see that everyone is now on board with what we’ve been saying for some time – that a credible plan for financial viability is necessary if we’re even to consider taxpayer assistance.”

 

Democrats had been looking to divert $25 billion of the $700 billion bank bailout funds allocated in September to help the auto makers, a move opposed by many Republicans critical of an industry that has long resisted tighter fuel efficiency standards, continued to invest in gas guzzling trucks and SUVs even as oil prices soared and given its union unsustainably generous deals on salary and benefits. “I don’t believe this is a good idea to take $25 billion and give it to the three major car companies, which I think have a business plan that’s doomed to fail,” Senator Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican, told Fox News Sunday, adding that Republican members are not wild about the Democrats’ demand that the Big Three present their plans to Congress. “The idea that you would take three failed car companies, bring [a plan] to 535 members of Congress and let us pass judgment on it doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. I don’t know how to run a car company.”

 

The GOP, for its part, has proposed using the $25 billion appropriated earlier this year in the energy bill to modernize the industry, a move opposed by Dems as forcing Detroit to choose between its present and future. Giving the automakers a second pass at convincing Congress does nothing to resolve this ideological disagreement. What it does do is give them a chance to repair their beaten-down image. In what became an infamous public relations disaster, the executives flew in on private jets last month to beg for money. Then, in two hearings before the Banking Committees, the three appeared to blame everyone but themselves for their current predicaments. Two of the three refused to give up their salaries and a few members openly called for all three CEOs to resign.

 

This time around all three are making a symbolic gesture by driving hybrid cars from Detroit. Ford and GM have pledged to sell at least some of their jets and all three CEOs said they would forgo salaries if they get the help they need, though that may not satisfy critics who claim the companies need entirely new management. More significantly, GM has pledged to consolidate its sprawling number of brands (focusing on Chevrolet, Cadillac, Buick and GMC), cut more than 20% of its remaining jobs, shutter almost a quarter of its factories, and try to reduce crippling labor costs by reopening negotiations with the United Auto Workers. Ford, in its plan, stated that it would roll out all-electric models within two years.

 

Yet the future of the Big Three companies rests in their ability to win over not just the lawmakers but also the public. When Congress was debating on whether to bailout Wall Street, public opinion began to turn when folks lost half their 401k investments practically overnight. Though the failure of just one of the Big Three could have similar repercussions on the stock market, the public is not feeling the pressure just yet to support such a move. A recent USA Today/Gallup poll found that 47% of Americans believe that providing relief to the industry is not very important.

Private sector in US sheds 250,000 jobs in November

NEW YORK – Private employers cut 250,000 jobs in November, the most in seven years, a report by a private employment service said on Wednesday.

ADP Employer Services also said it revised the number of jobs cut in October to 179,000 from the originally reported loss of 157,000.

Economists had expected the ADP report to show 200,000 private-sector jobs were lost in November, according to the median of forecasts in a poll. The 24 forecasts ranged from a drop of 350,000 to a decline of 175,000.

GM exec: bankruptcy not an option for industry

WASHINGTON – A top executive of General Motors Corp. said Wednesday bankruptcy isn’t a viable option, as the United Auto Workers braced for a decision on contract concessions to the endangered Big Three.

Fritz Henderson, president and chief operating officer of GM, said that choosing the bankruptcy route would further erode consumer confidence in the automaker and “we want them to be confident in their ability to buy our cars and trucks.”

Henderson traveled the network morning news show route on the eve of a new set of congressional hearings on some $34 billion the industry is seeking in federal assistance. At the same time, UAW leaders were immersed in intense discussions on possible givebacks for the companies at an emergency meeting in Detroit.

Under consideration were the possibility of scrapping a much-maligned jobs bank in which laid-off workers keep receiving most of their pay and postponing the automakers’ payments into a multibillion-dollar union-administered health care fund.

Henderson said that GM is ready to undertake a host of steps needed to resize. But he also said on NBC’s “Today” show that “to win, you’ve got to win with product and technology. … And we do not want to give consumers a reason not to buy our cars and trucks.”

Chrysler LLC and Ford Motor Co. — as well as GM — have ditched their corporate jets for hybrid cars and replaced vague pleas for federal help with detailed requests for as much as $34 billion in their second crack at persuading Congress to throw them a lifeline.

Henderson acknowledged Wednesday that the initial appearances by the heads of the car makers was a public relations failure.

“Yeah, it certainly was not our finest hour,” he told NBC. “We were not as clear about what we wanted to do.” He also conceded that the decision by the executives to travel to Washington by private jet “was a problem” for lawmakers.

Congressional leaders now are reviewing three separate survival plans from the three automakers as they weigh whether to call lawmakers back to Washington for a special session next week to vote on an auto bailout.

In blueprints delivered to Capitol Hill on Tuesday, GM and Chrysler said they needed an immediate infusion of government cash to last until New Year’s, and both said they could drag the entire industry down if they fail. Ford is requesting a $9 billion “standby line of credit” that it says it doesn’t expect to use unless one of the other Big Three goes belly up.

But Chrysler said it needed $7 billion by year’s end just to keep running. And GM asked for an immediate $4 billion as the first installment of a $12 billion loan, plus a $6 billion line of credit it might need if economic conditions worsen. The two painted the direst portraits to date — including the prospects of shuttered factories and massive job losses — of what could happen if Congress doesn’t quickly step in.

Democratic leaders voiced concern and a desire to do something to avert an automaker collapse, but they made no commitments about helping an industry that’s made few friends lately on Capitol Hill.

“It is my hope that we would” pass legislation to help the automakers, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said he would lay the groundwork Monday for a possible vote on an auto bailout measure.

In their first round of pleas for a government rescue last month, the Big Three executives arrived in Washington on separate private jets and enraged lawmakers who said they failed to take responsibility for their companies’ troubles or justify a federal bailout.

“I think we learned a lot from that experience,” Ford CEO Alan Mulally said.

He, as well as GM CEO Rick Wagoner and Chrysler chief Bob Nardelli, are all road-tripping the 520 miles from Detroit to Washington in fuel-efficient hybrid cars for hearings on Thursday and Friday.

Mulally and Wagoner both said they’d work for $1 a year — something Chrysler’s plan said Nardelli already does — if their firms took any government loan money. Ford offered to cancel management bonuses and salaried employees‘ merit raises next year, and GM said it would slash top executives’ pay. Ford and GM both said they would sell their corporate aircraft.

All three plans envision the government getting a stake in the auto companies that would allow taxpayers to share in future gains if they recover.

Nevertheless, Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., said the mood in Congress “candidly is not supportive” of the automakers, although he called the consequences of just one of them failing “cataclysmic.”

Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, said the automakers still need to prove they can survive and be profitable. “If these companies are asking for taxpayer dollars, they must convince Congress that they are going to shape up and change their ways,” Dodd said in a statement.

His panel is to hear testimony Thursday from the auto executives, UAW chief Ron Gettelfinger, and the head of the Government Accountability Office on the companies’ plans.

The House Financial Services Committee is to hold a similar session on Friday.

The lighter side of the financial crisis

Origami Bank folded last night. Apparently Sumo Fund Managers went belly
up and Bonsai Bank, after a period of stunted growth, now plans to cut
back some of its branches.

Kamikaze Bank took a dive and 1,500 staff at Karate Bank got the chop.
Analysts report that there is something fishy going on at Sushi Bank and
staff there fear they may get a raw deal. Onsen Bank has taken a bath
and even Miso Bank is in hot soup. The share value of Samurai Bank has
been slashed.

Also, Sayonara Bank is saying goodbye after closing its doors for good
yesterday and Haiku bank is selling short. Meanwhile, Anime Bank is
overdrawn and Ninja Bank has no visible assets. Bukkake bank is now
taking on the load. Godzilla bank is rumoured to be mostly responsible
for wrecking the Tokyo exchange.

On the plus side, now is a good time to buy Karaoke Bank, its shares can
be had for a song. Also, shares in Hiroshima & Nagasaki banks have
mushroomed.

Outsourcing No No

 

this is interesting.  it’s isn’t rocket science tat some jobs juz can’t b outsourced.   it’s true, especially in tis internet times tat having a skill will help u more den paper qualifications

i can tink of so many other jobs juz off the top of my head…hair stylists, facial therapists, massuers, cleaners, all technicians, law enforcement officer, judges, court assistants…the list is endless

 

Jobs That Are Here to Stay

Here are nine jobs that are not likely to be shipped oceans away (source: U.S. Department of Labor):

Dental Assistant
It’s tough to clean teeth from across the world. A career as a dental assistant usually begins with an associate’s degree from an accredited college or university.

Pharmacy Technician
People take their health seriously — that’s why a certification as a pharmacy tech is not likely to be outsourced.

Fitness Professional
It’s hard enough to be motivated in-person. Offshore encouragement won’t cut it. A career in fitness can begin with a certificate program.

Teacher Aide
Teachers need live help to care for kids. An anonymous, off-site representative just won’t cut it when it comes to educating our kids.

Auto Repair Technician
Most car troubles can’t be repaired with simple, over-the-phone instructions. An auto tech studies anywhere from 6 months to 2 or more years, and will always have a steady stream of live customers.

Pet Groomer
Along the lines of a dog trainer, pet grooming just must be done in person. This is usually only a certificate program.

Plumber
This career depends fully on local workers — plumbers definitely won’t be phoning in from overseas to unclog your toilet.

Veterinary Assistant
A pet’s health and happiness is of serious importance to most owners, and they won’t be putting it in the hands of foreign workers. You can become a vet assistant by completing a certificate program.

Electrician
This highly technical and hands-on job simply can’t be done any other way, except live and in-person.