September 2009

Geithner makes case for quick reform (Politico)

Posted Tue, 09/29/2009 - 14:52 by admin

With time on the legislative calendar running short, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner on Tuesday made his best case for Congress to pass the Obama administration’s financial regulatory reform proposal before the year is out.
“We want to get this done as quickly as we can,” Geithner said.
He spoke at a moment at which a new bull market is at work on Wall Street and emboldened financial institutions are seeking to use that new momentum to blunt the pace of reform in Washington.
Geithner knows his window of opportunity to pass a financial overhaul is diminishing. “As you let the memory of the crisis fade,” he said, “It’s easier for people to fight reform. The best strategy our opponents can adopt is to slow things down.”
The Treasury Secretary spoke to a small group of reporters at his Pennsylvania Avenue offices on the one-year anniversary of one of the key moments of the 2008 financial meltdown: The initial House of Representatives vote to reject the Bush Administration’s $700 billion rescue program. That tally, carried live on C-Span on the floor of the stock exchange, horrified Wall Street and sent the Dow Jones Industrial Average plunging by 778 points on September 29, 2008.
Both the topic and the setting for Geithner’s comments showed how far removed Washington is from those vertiginous days of global financial panic a year ago. Geithner, who was not yet in his current job during the financial meltdown of 2008, sat surrounded by the accoutrements of the Treasury Department’s long history: an ornate fireplace, gilt-framed dollar bills from bygone eras, and even a five-shot pistol that once belonged to Al Capone, which is displayed in a wall case.
Geithner said he thinks the administration has the upper hand in the debate. “It’s a very hard argument to make that the system worked and we should just tinker at the margins,” Geithner said. “We must come out of this with a stronger financial system, not a weaker one.”
He said that everything the administration has proposed so far is designed to solve one problem, known as “too big to fail,” in which financial institutions grow so large and interconnected that any one failure threatens the entire financial system. That threat is what forced the Bush and Obama administrations to bail out huge sectors of the financial industry with taxpayer dollars over the past year.
Although some critics have called for Washington to break up the big banks whose failure could threaten the nation’s economy, Obama’s financial team has not pursued that route, instead arguing for a tougher set of standards for the large interconnected banks. The Administration believes that its proposed “resolution authority,” which would allow the government to step in and wind down a failing bank in an orderly way, will help solve the too-big-to-fail problem, because bankers will know that the government doesn’t have to bail them out, it can instead shut them down.
“The most important thing to do is make sure banks and investors don’t live with the expectation the government is going to bail them out,” Geithner said. “We have to make sure we build into our system the capacity to let institutions fail without igniting an inferno.”
The Administration also plans to implement tougher regulatory standards on large interconnected banks, arguing that their potential threat to the global economy means they should be held to a higher standard. But some critics have complained that designating such so-called “Tier 1” institutions creates a government approved list of banks that are too big to fail, which will enable them to attract more capital and out compete their smaller competitors.
The administration counters, however, that the Tier 1 designation is not something banks will want – because it will come with onerous government requirements. “This so-called designation is a burden, not a privilege,” Geithner said.
Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank (D-Mass.) has said he hopes to have the administration’s complete package on the House floor this winter, although he will miss an earlier projected date. “December is the new October,” Frank said.
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Are investors missing out on sub-Sahara Africa? (The Christian Science Monitor)

Posted Tue, 09/29/2009 - 13:51 by admin

Washington –
Here's some good, if counterintuitive, news for American investors.
Normally, by the time an investment tip makes its way into a newspaper, conventional wisdom says the money is already off the table. Not so in the case of sub-Saharan Africa. American investors and companies are overlooking an investment opportunity in plain sight. And the smart money will climb aboard before the economic tide rises. The rest will miss a fast-moving boat.
Market-friendly reforms in Africa are happening at a faster pace in this decade than at any time since most African nations achieved independence in the latter half of the 20th century. They reflect a serious and sustained commitment by African governments to meet the needs of local entrepreneurs as well as foreign investors – because they recognize that the fastest path to prosperity for their people is through investment and self-sustaining economic growth.
Western media typically cast sub-Saharan Africa in terms of conflict, corruption, AIDS, and poverty – and the present food and energy picture understandably dominates the news. But read behind the headlines and you can see some of the most attractive investment environments in the world. Foreign direct investment from all countries into sub-Saharan Africa grew by 60 percent in 2007, to nearly $27 billion. Total private capital flows have grown eightfold since 2002.
Investment-led growth in Africa will enable that continent to contribute to the recovery from the global recession affecting individual Americans as well as improving the lives of Africans.
The opportunity isn't going unnoticed by investors in other parts of the world. China is poised to overtake the US in pace of investment in Africa. Kuwaiti interests purchased Africa's Celtel for $3.4 billion. Moscow investment bank Renaissance Capital announced plans to double its investments in Africa to at least $1 billion. French firm SoSuMar is building a sugar-processing factory in Mali, where they expect an internal rate of return of nearly 58 percent.
The territory in most business sectors is wide-open. Prime areas include agriculture, healthcare, infrastructure, information technology, tourism, telecommunications, and textiles.
Are US investors aware of striking changes in Africa? Sweeping reforms have been launched in 40 African nations since the 1990s: pro-business policies, strong judicial systems, better standards, respect for intellectual property rights. Debt relief has markedly improved Africa's credit worthiness. Monetary policies have pushed inflation down from the 19 percent average of the 1980s, to 7 to 8 percent today. Fiscal policies have turned country budget deficits into an average budget surplus of 2 percent of Africa's gross domestic product.
Despite the headlines in Sudan, Zimbabwe, and Congo, the great majority of African countries enjoy thriving democracies and stability, with governments that have earned public confidence through audited elections. Last year more than 54 million Africans voted in 19 peaceful presidential and parliamentary contests.
The result? Real economic growth in 2 out of 5 sub-Saharan countries was triple that of the US economy last year, on a pace that rivals that of Southeast Asia in 1980. African economies from Senegal to Benin to the Democratic Republic of Congo are more diversified. Growth in the region is expected to hit 6.5 percent this year.
To be sure, there are still serious risks, challenges, and constraints for smart money to navigate: shortages of electricity and skilled talent; countries where reforms are fragile and postconflict governments less secure. Successful investors and entrepreneurs enter these markets aware that differences in culture and shortages of investor-ready information and institutional capacity put a premium on patience and collaboration. There is no substitute for due diligence.
But help is available. By working with USAID, American firms can help shape programs that serve both the aspirations of Africa's citizens and the interests of investors. Most African governments have streamlined business registrations and launched one-stop shops to help potential investors.
The Overseas Private Investment Corporation makes loans of up to $250 million for projects in emerging markets. The Millennium Challenge Corporation provides powerful incentives to countries promoting good governance. And for US exporters, the Trade Information Center offers targeted country and market research as well as counseling and export assistance centers.
This growth story is in its first chapter, much as Asia's was three decades ago, with all of the attendant risks and potential rewards. Investors worldwide are aggressively entering and operating in sub-Saharan Africa as the last great investment frontier. American firms should take a much closer look.
Alonzo Fulgham is serving as acting administrator for the US Agency for International Development (USAID).

Skull piece thought to be Hitler's is from woman

Posted Tue, 09/29/2009 - 13:18 by admin

HARTFORD, Conn. – A piece of skull with a bullet hole through it that Russian officials claimed belonged to Adolf Hitler actually came from a woman, scientists at the University of Connecticut concluded.
The cranium fragment is part of a collection of Hitler artifacts preserved by Soviet intelligence in the months after Hitler and Eva Braun reportedly committed suicide in a Berlin bunker in April 1945.
The collection, now housed in the Russian State Archive in Moscow, also includes bloodstained pieces of the sofa where Hitler reportedly shot himself after taking a cyanide pill. The artifacts were put on public display in 2000.
Connecticut archaeologist Nick Bellantoni was asked to examine the skull and blood samples for a History Channel documentary on Hitler's death that aired this month.
Bellantoni said his initial forensic exam of the skull fragment showed it didn't match what he knew of Hitler's biology.
"The bone was very small and thin, and normally male bones are much more robust in our species," Bellantoni said Tuesday. "I thought it probably came from a woman or a younger man."
Bellantoni then took several pinhead-size pieces of the skull fragment and swabs of the blood stains back to the university for analysis.
Linda Strausbaugh, a professor of molecular and cell biology, got help from two former students who work in the New York City medical examiner's office. The former students, Craig O'Connor and Heather Nelson, are experts in working with challenging DNA samples and were able to extract enough DNA from the bone pieces to do a forensic study, Strausbaugh said.
She said they determined that the DNA came from a 20- to 40-year-old woman. The skull fragment could have come from Braun, but to know that, the lab would need samples of her DNA, she said. Also, the DNA samples were very degraded, making identification unlikely, Strausbaugh said.
Witnesses never reported Braun being shot in the head, Bellantoni said, and she is thought to have died of cyanide poisoning.
"This person, with a bullet hole coming out the back of the head, would have been shot in the face, in the mouth or underneath chin," he said. "It would have been hard for them to miss that."
DNA from the bloodstain swabs showed at least some of it came from a man, Strausbaugh said.
"The DNA is relatively degraded and we don't have a full range of markers that we'd like to have," she said.
Russian officials have said Hitler and Braun's bodies were removed from a shell crater outside the bunker shortly after he died.
An autopsy allegedly showed Hitler's body was missing part of his cranium. A Soviet team went back to the crater in 1946 and allegedly found the piece of cranium that the UConn scientists examined.
Russian officials have said the rest of Hitler was buried beneath a Soviet army parade ground in the former East German city of Magdeburg. They said his remains were exhumed in 1970 and incinerated, and the ashes were flushed into the city's sewage system.
Both Strausbaugh and Bellantoni said there is nothing in their findings that significantly challenges the conclusion that Hitler died in the bunker.
"My gut feeling is he did commit suicide there, and maybe the blood sample we found is his," Bellantoni said.

"What this does is it raises a question: If this is not him who is it?" he later added. "And, two, what really happened there?"

A mai tai with the Mai Mai?

Posted Tue, 09/29/2009 - 12:57 by admin

KINSHASA (Reuters) –
Congo's army has suspended an officer accused of drinking with the enemy ahead of a militia attack that the United Nations said left six soldiers dead, a top army commander said Tuesday.

Local Mai Mai militia fighters attacked an army camp in the town of Nyamilima, near Democratic Republic of Congo's eastern border with Uganda, early Sunday.

The army's head of operations in North Kivu province said Nyamilima's battalion commander, known as Major Leon, was suspended for negligence in the execution of his functions.

"He was drinking in the camp with the Mai Mai that then came and attacked," Colonel Bobo Kakudji told Reuters.

Congo's U.N. peacekeeping mission, known as MONUC, said eight people died in the fighting, including six soldiers, one Mai Mai, and a civilian. According to the army, one government soldier, a civilian woman, and four Mai Mai were killed.

Government forces are battling Rwandan Hutu rebels the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) in U.N.-backed operations in the eastern border provinces of North and South Kivu.

However, the offensive, launched earlier this year, has led to increased tension among government loyalists and the various rebel factions and militias brought into the army under a peace deal intended to help boost its capacity to take on the FDLR.

The army's previous commander at Nyamilima was transferred earlier this month after hundreds of former rebels deserted and went on a looting spree.

Last week, 20 eastern militia groups suspended their participation in the peace deal, accusing the government of failing to honor pledges to grant them command positions in the army.

(Reporting by Joe Bavier; Editing by Daniel Magnowski)

Club Management Software

Posted Tue, 09/29/2009 - 10:48 by admin

Computer software is often regarded as anything but hardware, meaning that the "hard" are the parts that are tangible while the "soft" part is the intangible objects inside the computer. Software encompasses an extremely wide array of products and technologies developed using different techniques like programming languages, scripting languages or even microcode or a FPGA state. The types of software include web pages developed by technologies like HTML, PHP, Perl, JSP, ASP.NET, XML, and desktop applications like OpenOffice, Microsoft Word developed by technologies like C, C++, Java, C#, etc. Software usually runs on an underlying software operating systems such as the Linux or Microsoft Windows. Software also includes video games and the logic systems of modern consumer devices such as automobiles, televisions, toasters, etc.

Computer software is so called to distinguish it from computer hardware, which encompasses the physical interconnections and devices required to store and execute (or run) the software. At the lowest level, software consists of a machine language specific to an individual processor. A machine language consists of groups of binary values signifying processor instructions that change the state of the computer from its preceding state. Software is an ordered sequence of instructions for changing the state of the computer hardware in a particular sequence. It is usually written in high-level programming languages that are easier and more efficient for humans to use (closer to natural language) than machine language. High-level languages are compiled or interpreted into machine language object code. Software may also be written in an assembly language, essentially, a mnemonic representation of a machine language using a natural language alphabet. Assembly language must be assembled into object code via an assembler.

Club Management Software

Mariah Carey finds freedom being 'imperfect'

Posted Tue, 09/29/2009 - 08:48 by admin

NEW YORK – Lee Daniels had so much faith in Mariah Carey's acting that when the director's first choice to play a dowdy, no-nonsense social worker — Oscar-winner Helen Mirren — backed out, he quickly asked Carey to step in.
But Daniels was well aware that in hiring Mariah Carey, the actress, he was also likely to get Mariah Carey, the diva — a high-maintenance sideshow that would include an entourage of makeup artists, assistants, publicists and other hangers-on, running counter to the energy he wanted the superstar to exude in his searing drama "Precious." He had cast her as the lead in last year's film "Tennessee."
So, as he gave her the role, he also issued a warning: Leave the diva act at home.
"If you come with a strip of makeup on," he recalls telling her, "I will have a backup (actress)."
"I knew that she would be out of her safety zone, and I knew that there would be no one for her to rely on, to say, 'Get me this, get me that,'" he said. "I could see in her eyes_ 'What is Lee doing to me?' But I knew that she trusted me."
By putting her faith in Daniels, Carey — who famously flopped in her movie debut "Glitter" in 2001 — may have finally proven to critics that formidable talent extends to more than just her voice. She's garnered high praise for her turn in the film, which is being released nationwide on Nov. 6.
But more importantly for Carey, the role helped her shed some of the insecurities that not only hindered her in acting, but in her real life.
"That was such a freeing experience for me," Carey says during a recent interview. "By making me look so bad he brought out the ability to never be self-conscious again, and that was a gift that he gave me."
After years of striving to reach an ideal — from her personal life to her music career — Carey, 39, is embracing life's imperfections, an attitude summed up by the title of her latest album, "Memoirs of an Imperfect Angel."
Producer Tricky, responsible for hits like Rihanna's Grammy-winning "Umbrella," was one of the main writers and producers of the "Memoirs of an Imperfect," along with Carey and The-Dream. Tricky says Carey is "is kind of letting people know, I'm not this perfect angel.
"She has sexual songs and stuff like that that allude to stuff that she's never really touched on before."
But Carey herself points to a something else that shows her new outlook — the fact that she's dropped of one of her most infamous diva demands, that she only be photographed on her right side.
"I don't feel like, 'Oh, I have to be on this side, or I have to be on this side — I really had specific things that someone told me when I was 19 starting in the business and I listened to them. ... I don't care anymore," she says, laughing.
"Sometimes I like that side — and Nick likes that side better anyway," she adds.
Nick, of course, is her husband of almost a year and a half — the actor and producer Nick Cannon. The pair married after dating a little over a month: It was a union few took seriously at first.
That's in part because of the 12-year age gap between them (Cannon is 27), but also because they seemed to come from two different worlds. Cannon was seen as a teen star thanks to his Nickelodeon vehicles; Carey is a Grammy-winning superstar and one of the industry's most profitable artists.
"I didn't know what to make of the marriage," said Daniels, a good friend of Carey's, though now he proclaims their bond to be genuine.
"You see her in a place of complete and utter bliss. I want to throw up; I roll my eyes," he says, laughing, before adding with a serious note: "I've seen a changed woman in front of my eyes — you see what love does to someone."

Sitting on a couch while wearing snakeskin Gucci stilettos and sporting curly locks reminiscent of her "Vision of Love" days, Carey talks about how Cannon has changed her life, as he naps in the bed behind her.

"Nick is just a really supportive, very unique man who no matter what the differences are between us, he has been just such, like, a helping hand for me as a human being and a husband," she says. "I feel like I'm not by myself anymore, and no matter who I was with I always felt alone."

Carey took her union to Cannon so seriously that she lowered her profile right after they got married, even though she had just started to promote "EMC2," the follow-up to her multiplatinum, Grammy-winning triumph "The Emancipation of Mimi."

While "EMC2" had the hit "Touch My Body," it seemed to fade after she wed.

"I took a slight break because we just wanted to be together," she says. "(With) 'Mimi,' that's all I was focused on.'"

Carey says today, "everything is different, I'm in a different place in my life. I really enjoyed being in the studio and coming home and playing songs for Nick and talking about them.

"We have a lot of conversations about music and just listening and dissecting the songs. It's sort of a new thing for me so I really, really enjoyed it."

Cannon may have had input on the album, but he's nowhere on the credits. While they have no musical project in the works, there's been rampant speculation that there might be another Carey-Cannon production in the making — a baby.

On those rumors, Carey says coyly: "Well, we enjoy practicing."

But after a good laugh, she says now would "not be the right time" because of the pair's busy lives.

As far as working on something else together, like a movie, Carey doesn't rule it out.

"We have to make sure the movie was a stone winner otherwise they would kill us," Carey says.

"It'd have to be a comedy," interjects Cannon.

"It'd definitely have to be — our life is a comedy anyway," she says, as they laugh together.

___

On the Net:

http://www.mariahcarey.com

Disney offers free entry to 1 million volunteers

Posted Tue, 09/29/2009 - 08:39 by admin

NEW YORK – Disney is offering a free day's admission to 1 million guests who complete a day of volunteer work next year.
The "Give a Day, Get a Disney Day" program will provide certified volunteers with a one-day ticket to any park at Disneyland in Anaheim, Calif., or Walt Disney World near Orlando, Fla., in 2010.
Disney is partnering with HandsOn Network, a clearinghouse for volunteer opportunities, to connect people with projects and to certify that the work was done.
"We are trying to inspire 1 million people to volunteer in their communities and we're inspiring them to do that by giving them a free day at a Disney park," Jay Rasulo, chairman of Walt Disney Parks and Resorts, said in a phone interview with The Associated Press.
Rasulo called the promotion "very timely," citing the increased needs of nonprofits in the weak economy, as well as President Obama's national volunteering initiative.
"The spirit of our country is very much behind that, whether it's the first family or whether it's the average family," Rasulo said.
Duncan Dickson, who teaches theme park management at the University of Central Florida's Rosen School of Hospitality Management in Orlando, said the volunteer initiative is "a smart marketing move."
Dickson said Disney will get good buzz for encouraging volunteerism plus free publicity from the nonprofits that benefit. And even when theme parks let people in for free, they make their money back in other ways, Dickson said.
"You make a lot of money in popcorn and T-shirts and other things," Dickson said.
Some guests who come in for free would have bought tickets anyway, but the free offer will also bring in visitors who wouldn't otherwise have made the trip, and they'll bring paying guests with them, Dickson added. "Anything that pushes the turnstiles is good for business," Dickson said.
HandsOn Network has 70,000 affiliated agencies, from Habitat for Humanity to local food banks, churches, health care centers, and educational programs. Once their service is verified by HandsOn, volunteers print out an online certificate that can be redeemed at a Disney park.
The free admission offer is part of a larger trend in the tourism industry, using everything from free hotel nights to two-for-one discounts to attract visitors in the weak economy. Disneyland this year offered two free nights with the purchase of three nights at a Disney resort, and all the U.S. Disney parks have allowed guests in free on their birthdays this year.
Rasulo said that 3.5 million people registered for the birthday promotion and about 30 percent of them have taken advantage of it so far.
Disney kicked the volunteer promotion off Tuesday by sending 1,000 volunteers, including employees from Disney and Southwest Airlines, to work on projects around the country, from a Habitat for Humanity site in Los Angeles to the Bethune School of Excellence in Chicago.
Would-be volunteers must register online with Disney and must be residents of the U.S., Canada or Puerto Rico to be eligible for the free admission. The work must be performed in 2010, and the park visit must take place by Dec. 15, 2010. Participants must be 18 or older to sign up for the program, but volunteer work done by children ages 6-17 qualifies for a free ticket as long as kids are accompanied by an adult when volunteering. Unused admission certificates can be donated to a charity designated by Disney.
Examples of volunteer opportunities currently listed on HandsOn's Web site range from drivers and bingo callers to a book drive organizer at a senior center in Scranton, Pa., to a docent at the Oregon Maritime Museum in Portland.
Volunteers who have multiday tickets or annual passes can get a special FASTPASS for up to six people in lieu of the voucher.
Financial analysts who follow Disney said there was no downside to the promotion. "It's a nice thing, it's a very socially responsible thing," said Michael Nathanson of Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. in New York.

"I don't look at this as a tremendous cost for Disney," said Alan Gould of Natixis Bleichroeder Inc. in New York. "It could stimulate some incremental demand as well. It certainly is good publicity and economically it could make sense."

___

On the Net:

http://www.DisneyParks.com

In Canada: http://www.DisneyParks.ca

Williams' NJ prosecutors take witness stand

Posted Tue, 09/29/2009 - 07:51 by admin

SOMERVILLE, N.J. – The tables have turned on New Jersey prosecutors who brought manslaughter charges against former NBA star Jayson Williams.
Current and former employees of the Hunterdon County Prosecutor's Office are taking the witness stand as part of a probe into whether the case against Williams, who is black, has been racially biased.
Hunterdon County Prosecutor J. Patrick Barnes, who is white, was the first witness Tuesday. Former assistant prosecutor Steven Lember, who tried Williams in 2004, also is expected to testify.
The hearings stem from the disclosure of a racial slur used by an investigator to describe Williams after a fatal shooting at his mansion in 2002.
Williams was acquitted of aggravated manslaughter but faces a retrial on a reckless manslaughter count.

Hair Salon Equipment

Posted Tue, 09/29/2009 - 07:51 by admin

Massage for the body is a popular beauty treatment, with various techniques offering benefits to the skin (including the application of beauty products) and for increasing mental well-being and relaxation.

The term spa salon refers to a salon where spa treatments are done. Spa treatments are also offered in some beauty salons. Treatments may include holistic theraphy or Reiki Treatments alongside hair removal techniques like electrolysis and waxing.

Go

'Thirty dead' as bus hits mine in Afghanistan

Posted Tue, 09/29/2009 - 03:57 by admin

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (AFP) –
At least 30 civilians were killed when a bus hit an improvised explosive device in Kandahar province in southern Afghanistan on Tuesday, the interior ministry said.

The dead included 10 children and seven women, the ministry said, revising an earlier toll from the local governor's office.

"Thirty people were killed," the ministry said in a statement, adding that 39 others were wounded.

Officials blamed the blast on Taliban insurgents, whose weapon of choice is the improvised bombs that have claimed hundreds of lives in Afghanistan.

"A bus travelling between Herat and Kandahar hit a home-made mine in the district of Maywand," the governor's office said in an earlier statement.

"The mine was placed by enemies of the country," an expression used to refer to Islamic insurgents, it said.

Kandahar is a Taliban stronghold and has seen some of the worst violence in the militants' battle against Western troops and the internationally-backed Afghan government.