| CityPac trade halt as shares halved
ONE of the country's biggest non-bank loan providers, City Pacific, has been placed in a trading halt after its shares lost half their value yesterday on fears that it will not be able to repay the bulk of a $240 million loan facility due next month. There are also concerns that its directors might face margin calls on their shares. City Pacific yesterday revealed it had to repay an instalment of $90 million to the Commonwealth Bank by the end of March, and another $149.9 million by the end of April. The remaining $100,000 is due by the end of May. City Pacific also has to stump up $49 million by April 4 for Mariners Cove, located in Southport, Queensland, which it agreed to buy from property group Ariadne last August. The deal was meant to be finalised in February but City Pacific announced it would be delayed until April, without explaining why.
9News Report: Storing Personal Data Online
A new Internet company is gaining national attention for charging people to store their personal information online. But in a time when hackers are stealing people's identities, is it a good idea to store your personal information in cyber space? 9News anchor Bernard Watson is On Your Side with a look at a new website and whether you can trust it.
Reported by: Bernard Watson
Photographed by: 9News
Web produced by: Neil Relyea
It sounds like a good idea. A place to store your e-mail passwords, social security number, bank account numbers just about anything. Then when you pass on, your loved ones are given access to the information and instructions on what to do. YouDeparted.com says it's totally safe and just what we all need.
That's the ballgame: Toshiba bows out of HD DVD
The good news, I'm buying every discounted HD-DVD I can get my hands on. Hopefully they will be under ten bucks. -------------- I'll even be the better man and say congratulations to Benjamin / Dave. Your character is shown by your actions, this place will stink of his farts for a long time as he gloats. Score: 0 .
PlusNet owns up to security breach
PlusNet is undergoing an overhaul of its webmail platform following a security breach earlier this month. The ISP used a Service Status message on its website to inform customers its existing webmail system has been migrated to a Squirellmail platform on Saturday to ensure an earlier breach in its customer email address database does not happen again. Is there a skills shortage? Tell us what you think of the IT workforce in silicon.com's 2007 Skills Survey. PlusNet discovered the breach on 9 May. It involved an undisclosed number of customer email addresses and customer contact lists being disclosed to a third party. As a result, these customers received an unusually large amount of spam, including offers for cut-price pharmaceuticals. The ISP said a small number of customers may also have downloaded a Trojan horse in the process.
No lifeline here
Now is the time to throw a lifeline to consumers, who can barely keep up with the bills, let alone invest. Instead, Finance Minister Jim Flaherty gave us Tax-Free Savings Plans, where starting in 2009 we can sock away $5,000 a year using cash, GICs, mutual funds, bonds, stocks and any other investment that's eligible for RRSPs, and the taxman can't tax the gains. The difference between RRSPs and these new babies is there is no immediate tax refund. For example, it you invest $2,000 in a RRSP by midnight tomorrow and if you're in a 40% tax bracket, you'll get a $800 tax refund when you file your 2007 income taxes. But, unlike an RRSP that you invest in until age 71, you can cash out your savings account and pay no tax. Question is: Where do you park your money -- RRSPs or tax-free savings accounts? And what about RESPs? "It's a balancing act, but people should sit down with an adviser and figure out what works best for them," said Linda Knight, president of BMO Mutual Funds.
Tazewell Grand Jury hands down 93 indictments
During this session of the grand jury, the Commonwealth presented 93 indictments on 88 individuals. Ninety-three true bills, totaling 1,235 counts, were returned, according to a press release from the Commonwealth Attorney's Office.Ten individuals named in the indictment list released Wednesday were indicted on various drug-related charges, including possession and distribution of various controlled substances, as well as prescription fraud.Of the individuals indicted, 55 reside in Tazewell County; 33 reside outside the county, including 20 who are residents of West Virginia.Samantha Perry writes for the Bluefield (W.Va.) Daily Telegraph. - Click to discuss this story with other readers on our forums. .
Dawgs here, brought football weather
LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. _ Greetings on a chilly, windy morning at Dark Star, where the weather can't dampen the mood on the first gameday of spring training. The UGA 'Dawgs are in town, and the Braves are deploying most of their regular lineup, at least for the first few innings. That includes Mark Kotsay in center field, batting sixth behind Jeff Francoeur and ahead of designated hitter Joe Borchard. All other projected starters are in except catcher Brian McCann (former 'Dawgs catcher Clint Sammons is getting a bone tossed his way, so to speak), and left fielder Matt Diaz, whose wife had a baby yesterday. Bobby Cox hasn't said yet whether Diaz and Brandon Jones will platoon, but there are indications that Diaz could get the majority of playing time in left, at least early.
The Lynch effect has Autonomy bubbling up
On Friday, the company will update the market and investors are expecting even more good news.
It is the leader in a rapidly growing market offering companies technology to search and archive unstructured data - the "human-friendly" information locked in formats such as e-mails, voicemail, and video footage, rather than the more easily searchable databases of the past.
Last year, Autonomy added Boeing, Shell, Oracle and News Corporation to an already impressive client list. Analysts now rave about the company. Almost half the houses covering it rate the shares a strong buy despite their sky-high multiple of almost 50 times next year's earnings. It was not always thus. Autonomy was one of the poster-children of both the dotcom boom and bust.
The Day of the Bull
Top-of-the-line formals, spiffy shoes and a shiny new laptop encased in a Hidesign leather bag. He is neither known to be corrupt nor run a business on the side. All it took Fernandes was a demat account with a prominent brokerage six years ago and rudimentary knowledge about the share market to rake in the moolah. Fernandes reaches office nearly an hour early so that he is ready and waiting when the markets open a little before 10 am. "I have a lot of friends who tip me off on shares that will move and we bet on those stocks," says Fernandes. Tips come from fellow commuters on Mumbais local trains, brokerage reports and analysts on television channels. "I have not lost money in the six years I have started trading," says Fernandes. Others would simply call him lucky because the stocks he picked Blue chips like Reliance Industries and Reliance Petroleum Ltd have fetched phenomenal returns.
Société Générale loses $7 billion in trading fraud
I do believe that the free, unbridled, greed driven pursuit of commercial banks playing in off-the balance sheet games with exotic financial arrangements is showing itself to be a recipe for disaster. I think we in the west and east need to have an honest and open discussion about regulation, national banking (possibly renationalizing as most are independent), usury, etc. Most banking, at least in the US, is done ultimately with the authority of the federal gavernemnt (Federal reserve system, corporate limited liability laws, etc.), and since [the US] is a republic, it in theory should be in the interest of the republic. It is questionable if this interest is being best served in the day to day operations of the current banking system Mark Wyatt www.siv0.com .
Presidential Watch – Daily – Friday, February 1
They certainly do not include Sen. Thad Cochran, R-Miss. Over the weekend, he announced he cannot endorse his colleague for the White House and is endorsing Gov. Mitt Romney instead. "The thought of him being president sends a cold chill down my spine," Cochran said. "He is erratic. He is hotheaded. He loses his temper and he worries me." Perhaps Cochran can't appreciate the maverick in McCain. But the same can't be said of Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, a noted reformer and friend of whistle-blowers. Grassley said in a recent interview that he was so upset by a McCain tirade that he didn't speak to him "for a couple of years." McCain got in his face and shouted an obscenity at him. Read article. Rudy defeat marks end of 9/11 politics Ben Smith & David Paul Kuhn, Politico.com Rudy Giuliani's distant third-place finish in Florida may put an end to his bid for president, and it seems also to mark the beginning of the end of a period in Republican politics that began on Sept.
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