| Your Comments : Voreqe: Election still on
But of course guidelines set to have any thief, beggar man , fijian chief contest the elections. 28 days & 2 hrs agoSuggest removalPermalink ex Fiji tourist of Australia says… "The military council feels strongly that convicted people should not stand for elections," explains army Legal Director Colonel Mohammed Aziz. I wonder if he has discussed this with chaudrhy, the convicted deadly driver. 28 days & 2 hrs agoSuggest removalPermalink Semi Meo of Australia says… Most of us woke up this morning with a glitter of HOPE beckoning us in the horizon...hope that Mr. Bainimarama and his Interim Government may just keep the Election 03 '09 promise!! As a reciprocal act of goodwill for the common good, may be, it is time for Mr.
LITTWIN: McCain rewrites his own history
MYRTLE BEACH, S.C. – It wasn't just a primary they held here in South Carolina. It was more like a group exorcism. John McCain did more than beat Mike Huckabee here. And he did more than just beat Mitt Romney. And he did much more than just beat Fred “This Campaignin' Stuff Is Harder Than I Thought" Thompson. What McCain did, mostly and most memorably, was to beat back the demons that have haunted him since 2000. The demons, though, once again made it uncomfortably close. Anyone – particularly in this Republican campaign – can win a primary. But hardly anyone wins a chance to rewrite his own history. “You know, it took us a while," McCain told a cheering crowd in Charleston, “but what's eight years among friends?" It wasn't so friendly eight years ago. In 2000, McCain lost in one of the dirtiest campaigns in history, a campaign in which many of us were introduced to Karl Rove's particular style of campaigning.
On The HUSTINGS
Senator Obama's campaign said yesterday it had raised $32 million in January, the most money any candidate has raised in a single month during the 2008 presidential race. The Illinois senator was boosted by victories in the Iowa caucuses and the South Carolina primary, but his campaign manager, David Plouffe, said the most money poured in after his surprise loss to Senator Clinton in New Hampshire. The campaign added 170,000 new donors to its rolls, bringing its total to more than 650,000, Mr. Plouffe told reporters in a conference call. The cash infusion, which matches the campaign's biggest haul for a three-month period in 2007, allows Mr. Obama to buy advertising not only in most of the 22 states that vote February 5, but also in several that hold primaries soon afterward, including Maryland and Virginia.
Comeback time for the 'value' American funds
The main hangover from 2007 will be the number of unsold homes in the US, which has been caused by falling house prices and tightening credit conditions," says Jenny Jones, the manager of Schroders' US Small and Mid Cap fund. "This, combined with several large investment banks announcing losses amounting to several billion dollars and high oil prices, has increased fears of a recession. In fact, consensus appears to be pretty finely balanced as to whether the US will enter a recession in 2008 or narrowly avoid it." Last week Merrill Lynch, the Wall Street giant, said the latest employment figures showed that America was already in the first month of a recession. Economists rarely agree, of course; Lehman Brothers, for example, claims that Merrill Lynch's conclusions are too pessimistic.
NAB, Telstra in mobile services
WITH Australian banks under pressure to bring mobile banking to market, National Australia Bank has teamed up with Telstra to develop an SMS-based platform, which may be accessible only to customers of both companies. The pair started working on the project more than 12 months ago, and it is understood NAB customers who want to use the service may have to be on the Telstra network. A spokeswoman for NAB did not rule out that the service would only be available for the bank's customers using Telstra mobiles. But "if NAB was to develop a solution, it's unlikely to be only on one carrier's network", she said. The banks are expected to launch some sort of mobile banking services this year, as consumer appetite for the technology grows, and the pressure has been on the big four banks since ANZ revealed plans to roll out a platform later this year.
Possible US recession?
Global stock markets swooned last week on fears of a US recession. They recovered somewhat after the US central bank, the Federal Reserve, cut short-term interest rates by a hefty 0.75 per cent. Later in the week, President George W Bush and Congress agreed on a stimulus package of US$150 billion. Is the US in a recession? If a recession is unavoidable, how severe is it likely to be? What effect will a US recession have on the global economy? The truth is we dont know the answers to any of these questions. American politicians, especially Democrats running for the presidency, speak as though the US economy has already fallen into a recession, but such talk is fueled more by political calculation than by economic facts. Technically speaking, a recession is defined as two quarters of negative growth.
Chavez, China, and the coming startup squeeze
Rape and pillage" would be fair descriptors of the economic effects of OPEC's publicly stated acquiescence over today's new oil prices. Oil cost around $14 per barrel a decade ago, but is hovering around the $100 mark now. Having set the devil of overpricing in motion, he then re-nationalized PdVSA at home, followed by nearly all the oil fields in Venezuela. When this wasn't aggravation enough to keep prices high, he threatened to cut off all oil supplies to either the U.S. or Exxon earlier this month. China, meanwhile, simultaneously has been on a path to acquire the greatest future oil volume possible from OPEC providers through forward contracts -- done very quietly -- with the similar result of raising futures prices, and then spot prices, of oil. Higher oil prices have a double-negative effect upon healthy Western economies: They cause gross inflation, and they slow down the economy, even as they are masked as increased GDP -- usually a good thing (oops).
WORLD at 1000GMT
COLOMBIA-FARC LAPTOP. Seized laptop shows Chavez-rebel ties. LEBANON-GETTING BY. Lebanon somehow chugs along despite political, security instability. CHINA-POLITICS-ENVIRONMENT. Premier promises to cut pollution. NIRELAND-AFTER PAISLEY. Paisley's retirement raises successor questions. TOP .
ORU faculty vote 'no confidence' in president Richard Roberts
A quorum of tenured Oral Roberts University faculty voted “no confidence" in President Richard Roberts and voted in favor of “greater faculty governance and transparency of university finances" in a 3 1/2-hour meeting Monday night. Donald R. Vance, professor of biblical languages and literature and one of three authors of a summary of the meeting, said tenured professors want to help ORU's board of regents do what is right. The professorsµ motions let regents know the voice of the faculty, Vance said. The vote of no confidence in Roberts as president and CEO of the university was made “without regard to the outcome of the current lawsuit against the university" and “is not to be construed as a judgment of guilt or innocence with regard to the present lawsuit against the president and the university," according to the list of motions and summary of the meeting faxed to media by an attorney ' Gary Richardson ' for the three former professors who are suing ORU, Roberts and other ORU leadership.
Cable TV, satellite to gain in switch
What's happening a year from Sunday is they'll switch off the analog signals. No one with cable or satellite service will be affected, nor will anyone who gets stations over the air with a newer TV with a digital tuner. Those who will be affected are the 13 million or so households that get TV broadcasts exclusively over the air and have a TV more than a few years old -- or even a newer TV that's relatively small. Also affected are TVs not connected to cable, even if a home has cable. A Nielsen Co. study released Friday found that 16.8 percent of all U.S. households have at least one analog television set that would not work following the switch. And Hispanics are nearly twice as likely as whites to be without TV reception. Affected households can get a digital converter box, buy a new television or sign up for cable or satellite service or one of the newer cable-like services being offered by phone companies.
|
