Newspaper Briefing, including 'Irish bonds cut to junk status on bail-out ...

Pre Market Briefing informs you of what is happening before the market opens. We believe our Pre Market Briefing is an invaluable tool to set up your trading day, therefore giving you an edge. Our Pre market briefing is just the start of our trading day at Guardian. We work with our clients to provide them with information and guidance to enhance their trading decisions. Guardian will provide you with an individual service together with the most suitable and expert advice at a fair and reasonable cost. Gilts: A choppy session left U.K. government bonds little-changed. Worries about the Eurozones debt crisis briefly pushed them to a contract best before profit-taking and hopes for progress at an emergency EU summit on Friday pared gains. The September gilt future settled seven ticks lower at 122.98, while ten year gilt yields marked time at 3.08%. Victory for people power as banks reprieve the cheque: Tradesmen, charities and the elderly have helped to save the cheque after flooding MPs with complaints about plans to abolish it. The outcry that greeted the decision to axe cheques by 2018 led to a u-turn by the Payments Council, which set the deadline two years ago, before investigating alternatives. Made in Britain and heres the stamp to prove it: Confusion about the provenance of certain iconic products has led a group of manufacturers to launch a Made in Britain brand to certify goods that are genuinely produced in the U.K. The marque, unveiled, has been backed by MPs after research showed that 48% of British consumers are unsure about which supposedly homegrown names actually manufacture their products in Britain. Mobile phones with long-life batteries give newcomers the edge in rural India: Western telecoms giants have been accused of failing to cater for millions of potential customers in the worlds second-largest mobile phone market, opening the way for a fierce battle with new, local rivals. With 830 million subscribers, India trails only China in market scale and sales of handsets are experiencing explosive growth. Google finally takes on Facebook by invitation only: Googles new social network has gained ten million new users in only two weeks the first sign that the company is finally mounting a credible challenge to Facebook. The popularity of the new system, called Google+, follows a positive reception by analysts and commentators. It will also come as a relief to Google, which has seen its previous efforts at social networking fail. Bank protection plan increases risks: Proposals to make British banks safer by ring-fencing their retail operations may actually make them more vulnerable to collapse. Standard Chartered has warned the Independent Commission on Banking that its main ring-fencing proposal increases the risks of failure by weakening the resilience of individual banks, increases taxpayer exposure and would impose a significant cost to the U.K. economy. Judges warn eBay et al to be vigilant over fakes: Online shopping sites will have to be more vigilant about people using them to sell fake handbags, cosmetics and clothes after a landmark ruling by Europes highest court. The European Court of Justice said that internet marketplaces could be liable if they failed to act promptly to stop sellers breaking trademark law. Huhnes green energy bet on fuel prices staying high: Chris Huhne bet 110 billion on fossil fuel prices remaining high when he announced a huge outlay on new wind farms and power stations. Revealing the biggest shake-up of the electricity market since privatisation, he guaranteed that low-carbon generators such as wind, nuclear and low-emission coal and gas would receive more than the market rate for their electricity to make it economic for companies to build such facilities. Rate rise before 2012 unlikely as inflation registers surprise fall: Inflation unexpectedly eased last month, reducing the chance of an interest-rate rise this year. Consumer price inflation (CPI) fell 0.1% from the previous month, the first June decline since 2003, as retailers cut the prices of electronics such as computer games, toys and other leisure items. EU attacked for plan to gag rating agencies: European politicians have cast doubt on a proposal that would protect bailed-out countries from debt downgrades by credit-rating agencies. Michel Barnier, the European Unions commissioner in charge of financial services, on Monday called for rating agencies to be barred from ranking countries that have been rescued in internationally agreed deals. Amazon fights against sales-tax law: Amazon is appealing directly to the residents of California to overturn a new law that requires it to charge sales tax on online purchases made in the state. The internet retailer has been fighting lawmakers across the United States who want to end the tax break that gives the company its big advantage over bricks-and-mortar retailers. Luminar warns as youth stay away: Luminar, the nightclub operator, issued a profit warning after it reported a further fall in sales as it struggles to get young people through its doors. The company announced a 12% fall in like-for-like sales for the 18 weeks to 02 July, worse than expected. For the nine weeks to July 2, outlet sales fell by 9.7%. News Corp: buy-back: News Corp investors biggest concern last year was to see the companys cash put to good use. Rupert Murdochs plan to spend most of it on the 61% of British Sky Broadcasting his company did not already own was clever. But the attempt to execute it has been shambolic, as Tuesdays announcement of a $5 billion share buy-back tacitly acknowledges. Mondays decision to shove the BSkyB deal into the clutches of the U.K.s Competition Commission delayed it for at least another 6 months. In turn, that delays News Corps ability to spend its money on anything else exactly what its shareholders did not want. And all this for a company that it already in effect controls and for which there are no other conceivable bidders. The buy-back is aimed at appeasing investors while leaving News Corps options open: large enough to grab headlines; small enough still to allow the company to buy the 61% stake in BSkyB, which is worth about $12.2 billion at current market prices. Only $3.2 billion of the announced buy-back is new, leaving a substantial and growing pile of cash on a lightly geared balance sheet. Cisco: purge or a diet?: On its earnings call in May, Cisco Systems leadership signalled that, in response to revenue and margin pressures, jobs would be cut. On Tuesday, reports suggested the reductions could reach 10,000, a significant number both as a proportion of the total Cisco workforce (15%) and for the individuals who will be out of work. The question is whether the cuts are part of a fundamental rethink of Ciscos business, or an example of the periodic pruning that all mature technology companies should undergo. It looks more like the latter. It is true that over the past five years, Ciscos headcount has grown at a greater average annual rate (13%) than sales (10%). Sales per employee have therefore dropped, from about $650,000 to $570,000. This is less than ideal, but Cisco cannot be singled out in this area. At Hewlett-Packard, for example, the drop in sales per employee has been even more dramatic as the conglomerate has shifted towards services and digested acquisitions. And sales per employee at Cisco remain well above those of its smaller, faster-growing peers in the networking sector, Juniper and Brocade. Both of those companies have also seen sales per employee drop since 2005, if only by a bit. Italy: The Eurozone is 100 basis points away from meltdown. The yield on 10-year Italian bonds briefly rose above 6% on Tuesday. Even though the yield fell sharply later on, this was too close for comfort to the 7% level beyond which investors become reluctant to fund sovereign borrowers, as Ireland and Portugal discovered. Italy has about 1,800 billion of total public debt, or 120% of gross domestic product. That is the worlds third most liquid bond market after the U.S. and Japan. If buyers refuse to finance Italy, the Eurozone will be overwhelmed. Matters do not have to get that bad. Italys economy is dismally sluggish productivity is a third less than Germanys yet labour costs are a quarter higher. Boosters point out that it is Europes second biggest exporter behind Germany, glossing over the fact that Germanys growth rate is far more robust. Thomas Cooks problems are close to home: The hotel looked fine on the net. But the photos did not show you the building work, the broken shower and the surly staff. Same thing with shares in Thomas Cook. These tumbled 28% on Tuesday following a severe profits warning. What had once looked like a steady investment in a mature U.K. travel group has exposed investors to insurrections in the Middle East, spiralling fuel prices and skittish U.K. consumers. These cannot be held solely responsible for the wince-inducing scale of the profits downgrade. Forecast full year earnings before nasties will be some 60 million lower than expectations at 320 million. That suggests worryingly poor visibility of sales within the business, even allowing for the brinkmanship of late-booking British and French holidaymakers. The business, whose estimated net debt now exceeds its market capitalisation of under 770 million, looks exposed to opportunistic bidders. Irish bonds cut to junk status on bail-out worries: Irelands beleaguered economy has suffered another blow after its credit rating was cut to junk status on fears that it will need further bail-outs. The country joins Portugal and Greece to become the third euro-area nation to be reduced to non-investment grade. The downgrade by Moody's came as it emerged European leaders will hold an emergency summit on Friday in an effort to contain fallout from the sovereign debt crisis sweeping the Continent. U.S. Federal Reserve faces split if economy fails to pick up: The Federal Reserve risks a split over what to do if the U.S. economy fails to regain momentum, minutes of its last meeting suggest. The FOMC last month ended its controversial policy of quantitative easing, which saw the central bank buy $600 billion (377 billion) of government bonds from banks and insurance companies in an effort to keep long-term interest rates low. FTSE 100 suffers sharp fall on Euro contagion fears: Financials and commodity stocks led a sharp fall on Britains FTSE 100 on Tuesday as nervous investors extended a recent sell-off on heightened worries that Europes debt problems would spread beyond Greece, Portugal and Ireland. Eurozone finance ministers on Monday promised cheaper loans, longer maturities and a more flexible rescue fund in an effort to prevent debt contagion in Italy and Spain. U.S. trade deficit tops $50 billion on rising oil prices: The U.S. trade deficit widened sharply in May, topping $50 billion for the first time since October 2008, helped by surging oil prices, official data showed on Tuesday. The trade gap expanded to a seasonally adjusted $50.2 billion from a downwardly revised $43.6 billion in April, according to figures released by the Commerce Department. Drive into emerging markets pays off for Michael Page: Recruitment consultant Michael Page issued a trading update that showed sector-leading growth. Michael Page has moved into these fledgling economies with good timing so the business is operating in markets that are growing rapidly with little competition. Steve Ingham, Chief Executive, says that in people-led businesses such as recruitment, promoting the right people from within the business with experience is the only way to expand into new territories. This strategy resulted in the group posting a rise in gross profit of 29.6% to 147.8 million. This was just 3% below the companys record quarterly gross profit figure in the second quarter of 2008, before the financial crisis really took hold. Net cash as of 30 June stood in the region of 25 million. Research from Citigroup has shown that, during up cycles, Michael Page tends to widen its operating margins by 200 to 300 basis points a year, as well as delivering double-digit compound growth over the cycle. The company also unveiled a number of board changes, the most important of which is that Stephen Puckett, Finance Director for more than 10 years, is stepping down for personal reasons, but will continue in the role until a new appointment is made. Analysts expect good growth over the next few years from the company and this can be seen in the sharp fall off of its earnings multiples. In the current year the multiple is 22.5, which is steep, but this falls to 15.4 in 2012 and 11.7 in 2013. The prospective yield is just 1.8%. Michael Page International at 530p -3p. Questor Says Buy. The market is falling but dont panic!: Markets have seen sharp falls all week but the most important thing an investor must do is not to panic. One of the hardest things to do is to remove your emotions from your investment decisions but it is vital because emotion trumps logic. This could result in you making the wrong decision for the wrong reasons. There are a number of good reasons not to sell. These include dealing costs and the fact that you may be crystalising a tax liability. Paper losses are not real losses until the share is sold. Therefore it is best not to sell shares in a falling market unless you are forced to for a specific reason. Markets recover from crashes as we have seen over the last few years. The FTSE 100 is up about 66% since its low of 3512 on 03 March, 2009. If the shares are showing a loss, it may also be an opportunity to average down. This strategy involves buying extra shares at a lower price to bring down the average price of your purchase. It means that the shares have to recover less ground to be back in profit. As far as new investments go falls allows you to purchase what are fundamentally sound investments at a bargain price. However, the most important thing to remember to ease your panic is that history shows markets always recover over time. News Corp plans $5 billion share buyback: News Corp has announced plans to buy back $5 billion (3.2 billion) of its shares in an attempt to halt the slide in value of Rupert Murdochs media empire. The growing phone hacking scandal has sent News Corp's shares down 13% since the story first broke. The share price collapse had wiped more than $5bn off the market value of News Corp. British sandwich maker Greencore seals 113 million deal to buy Uniq: Britains biggest sandwich maker Greencore is to gobble up pudding manufacturer Uniq in an agreed 113 million deal that has already won the support of almost all the shareholders of its smaller rival. The unprecedented level of backing so early in the bid process is because one investor is in the unusual position of owning a 90.2% stake in Uniq. M&S to face down vote against Marc Bollands 1 million golden hello: Marks & Spencer faces another battle with shareholders over its Bosses multi-million pound pay packages as activists pledged to vote against granting the deals at the retailers AGM. The M&S board will have to face down activist shareholders from lobby group Pirc who object to proposals that include a one-off 1 million payment to new Chief Executive Marc Bolland as well as performance-related share awards for him and Finance Director Alan Stewart. Starbucks plans foreign sales lift: Starbucks has unveiled reorganisation plans as it seeks to increase sales outside the U.S. The Seattle-based company currently generates 20% of its revenues from overseas. Instead of two divisions, US and international, it will have three divided between the Americas, China and Asia Pacific, and Europe and the rest of the world. Yell teams up with Microsoft in online bid: Struggling Yellow Pages publisher Yell has teamed up with software giant Microsoft to supply online advertising services to small and medium-sized businesses. Yell is forming an alliance with Microsoft to provide online search and mobile services to businesses through Bing and Yahoo Search, as well as Microsoft business software such as Office 365. Di Maggios agrees Clydesdale package: Scottish restaurant chain Di Maggios has agreed a 15 million refinancing package for its property arm from Clydesdale Bank, shifting borrowings away from Royal Bank of Scotland. A spokesman for Clydesdale emphasised Di Maggios, which is owned by publicity-shy Mario Gizzi and Tony Conetta, had no axe to grind with RBS. Aquapharm in deal to create skin Products Company to use marine microbes in cosmetics: Scottish marine biotechnology company Aquapharm Biodiscovery has struck a new deal with Croda International, the chemicals and cosmetics group, to develop next generation skincare products from marine microbes. The company, which is based at Dunstaffnage, near Oban, said the first of these products is expected to be on the market by 2013. Few savers able to beat cost of living: Just 12 savings accounts give basic rate taxpayers a return that outstrips both tax and rising prices, despite the surprise inflation fall last month. It was revealed that the consumer prices index measure of inflation fell from 4.5 to 4.2% in June. Savers paying basic rate tax need an account paying 5.25% a year to beat the effects of inflation and tax, while higher rate taxpayers need at least 7%. Banking: Ethical banks cash in on switch from the mainstream: If Actions spoke louder than words, then the UK's biggest banks would have suffered a mass exodus of customers over the past three years. That hasn't materialised. But as anger lingers over the activities of our high street banks, not least the size of executive bonuses, evidence suggests a growing number of people want to bank with organisations that will use their money responsibly and with transparency. Trade deficit surge hints at more QE from Bank: Britain's trade deficit took a surprise lurch for the worse in May, figures revealed, increasing the likelihood that the Bank of England will have to pump more money into the flagging economy. The gap between imports into the UK and exports shipped to the rest of the world surged to 8.5 billion in May from 7.6 billion the previous month, catching out economists who had predicted a fall to 7.2 billion. Jeff Salway: Energy firms must be held to account over price hikes: The price hike announced by British Gas on Friday was an expected blow for which we were braced. For ScottishPower, however, it may have come as a relief. In the month since it unveiled its own price increase - coming into force on 1 August - the supplier has waited in vain for others to follow its lead. Brewing up a boost for BrewDog: Iconoclastic craft beer maker BrewDog has confirmed plans for a second fundraising to generate 2.2 million from private investors for a state-of-the art brewery outside of Aberdeen. The Fraserburgh-based firm has renewed its inventive online fundraising scheme "Equity for Punks" aimed at the beer maker's own customers. Cairn sells next tranche of Indian shares: Cairn Energy has sold a further 10% stake in its Indian oil and gas operation to mining giant Vedanta Resources for $1.4 billion (855 million). The sale of 191.9 million shares leaves Edinburgh-based Cairn holding a majority 52.2% stake in Cairn India, and gives London-listed Vedanta an aggregate 28.5% interest. Buy it or lose it is message for public: The message to British consumers from TV presenter and pig farmer Jimmy Doherty was stark and to the point. Referring to home produced pigmeat, he said: "You have to buy it or you will lose it." Doherty's support for the UK pig industry came as he visited an Angus pig farm as part of VION Food Group's "Put Pork On Your Fork" campaign. Potash quotas ended: George Lyon, MEP described the decision to remove limits on the tonnage of potash coming in from Russia and Belarus as "common sense" as the restrictive importation tariffs set 20 years ago were no longer relevant in 's world where farmers were facing hugely increased fertiliser prices. "I am glad this restriction has been removed. It no longer made sense to have anti dumping duties and quotas being imposed when the market has completely changed," he said Not so sunny as Thomas Cook issues fresh profit warning: Thomas Cook warned on profits for the third time in a year after it was hit by the squeeze in consumer spending and turmoil in the Middle East and North Africa, wiping almost a third from its market value. Shares in Europe's second biggest travel firm slumped by 28.4%, or 34.85p, to close at 87.85p after the tour operator said full-year profits will be some 60 million less than previously expected. Bolland faces questions over 'signing-on fee': Marks & Spencer Chief Executive Marc Bolland faces his first AGM since taking the helm and is expected to come under pressure over remuneration after one shareholder group rang the alarm bell over "excessive" pay and bonuses. Bolland and Chairman Robert Swannell - who is also heading into his first annual meeting with M&S shareholders - are likely to face questions after Pirc queried the hefty recruitment incentives offered to both Bolland and the high street stalwart's new finance director, Alan Stewart. Teknek is latest Scots firm to be snapped up by a US giant: A Scottish technology company that has been at the cutting edge of the electronics industry since the 1970s was yesterday snapped up by a New York- listed rival. Inchinnan-based Teknek - which in May revealed it was "in discussions with a third party" - has been bought by the giant Illinois Tool Works (ITW) for an undisclosed sum.

EU Split Widens as Aggressive Abortion Promotion Roils UN ...

&Nbsp; NEW YORK, March 6, 2008 (CFAM.org)- A split in the European Union (EU) over abortion continued to shape negotiations at the UN this week during the annual meeting of the Commission at the Status of Women (CSW) in New York.  Last week non-EU member Norway, likely acting as a stalking horse for pro-abortion EU countries, proposed inclusion of the term “sexual and reproductive health and rights” in the draft agreed conclusions. Norway’s move caused increasing dissent among EU members.   Last week Poland and Malta spoke out against Norway’s proposal causing Slovenia, the president of the EU, to announce that the normally unified EU bloc would not have a common position on the Norwegian proposal. While the majority of the EU member states strongly supported inclusion of “sexual and reproductive rights” in the document, Poland, Ireland and Malta broke ranks from their EU colleagues and called for the deletion of the Norwegian language.   The term “sexual and reproductive health and rights” has never been agreed to in any negotiated UN document but certain UN committees and officials have misinterpreted the term "reproductive health" as including abortion.  During negotiations, the United States stated that the term was extremely problematic for many delegations and that insistence on its inclusion might prevent a consensus. , which date back to a 1996 meeting in Geneva, call for “safe and legal abortion” and for protective law “to reduce human rights violations against men having sex with men…These measures should include providing penalties for vilification of people who engage in same-sex relationships, giving legal recognition to same-sex marriages and/or relationships with consistent property, divorce and inheritance provisions.” an African regional document which mentions female genital mutilation, but also contains abortion rights.  The International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) helped draft the protocol which stipulates that “States Parties shall take all appropriate measures to… protect the reproductive rights of women by authorizing medical abortion in cases of sexual assault, rape, incest, and where the continued pregnancy endangers the mental and physical health of the mother or the life of the mother or the fetus.” The majority of African nations have not ratified the protocol.

China rising, will the West be able to cope? : the real long-term challenge of the rise of China

... OUT CAR MAKERS OR FACE MASSIVE JOB CUTS'' “SPLIT WIDENS OVER EUROPEAN RECOVERY ... of billions of taxpayers' dollars to prop up the sinking US economy . ...

The Current digest of the post-Soviet press

Fradkov holds work session on lowering VAT; split with Kudrin and Gref widens. 57:08(06.1)113C. Putin orders consolidation of Russia's aircraft ...

Data Protection in EU and US Criminal Cooperation, A Substantive Law Approach to the EU Internal and Transatlantic Cooperation in Criminal Matters Between Judicial and Law Enforcement Authorities

It reminds us of the speciality principle in the field of extradition that ... Member States of the European Union, OJC, 29 December 2000, issue 379, 27. ...

Britain and the Middle East, from imperial power to junior partner

... 'Gap widens between US, Europe on Iranian nuclear program,' Agence France Presse, 17 November 2003; T. Fuller, 'Wider Split between US and Europe over ...

Methods and models in transport and telecommunications, cross Atlantic perspectives

For example, if the EU is interested in labour inputs such as truck driver's hours, on freight modal split, and this is a factor in parent US studies, ...