Saturday, July 31, 2010

REUTER MONEYGRAPH-IMF SDR RATES-Feb twenty-four US 1.53148

Wed Feb 24, 2010 9:40am EST

FEB 23 FEB 22 FEB 23 FEB 22U.S. 1.52943 1.53089 IRANIAN 14124.30 15360.90EURO 1.12649 1.12351 KUWAIT 0.44094 0.44136U.K. 0.99268 0.98946 NORWEGIAN 9.03555 9.02739AUSTRALIA 1.69729 1.69872 S. AFRICAN 11.7613 11.7955JAPANESE 139.331 140.291 SWEDISH 10.9125 11.0415CANADIAN 1.60850 1.59641 SWISS 1.65377 1.64907DANISH 8.38497 8.36295 SAUDI 5.73536 5.74082 CLICK ON USLD16 FOR FULL LIST OF SDR RATES UPDATED DAILY

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Wednesday, July 28, 2010

Im going to die! Manchester City striker Emmanuel Adebayors content to relatives

Emmanuel Adebayor

The thrill has gone: Togo captain Emmanuel Adebayor does not feel the same joy when he scores

Manchester City striker Emmanuel Adebayor has revealed he sent hisparents a text message saying he was about to die in last month"sterrorist attack on the Togo team bus at the African Nations Cup.

Togo pulled out of the tournament after a gun attack on the team bus left two people dead.

And Adebayor revealed: "I sent texts to my mum and dad saying "I"m going to die".

"To explain what happened (on the coach) is difficult... you can"t imagine the sound of the bullets.

"I have one more chance to be alive - but what God has given to you he can take back."

The 25-year-old admits his recent subdued goal celebrations with City are as a result of his changed outlook following the attack.

Prior to the attack Adebayor had celebrated goals enthusiastically, notably on September 12 when he netted twice against former club Arsenal at Eastlands and was fined 25,000 and given a suspended two-match ban for his reaction.

Emmanuel Adebayor

On target: Adebayor back in scoring form against Bolton

He continued on BBC1"s Football Focus: "When I came back to Manchester City all the players were very nice to me - they gave me more confidence. But I have a different perspective on everything now. I"m happy to be alive.

"When I scored a goal before the joy came into my body, it was an emotion. That"s gone, I don"t know why. I hope it comes back.

"I haven"t lost my motivation for scoring goals but when I hear the noise (of the crowd celebrating) it"s not giving me anything inside my body at all."

Togo were banned from taking part in the next two editions of the African Nations Cup and hit with a fine following their withdrawal from this year"s tournament.

They have appealed against to the Court of Arbitration for Sport against the decision, which has dismayed Adebayor.

Headded: "We went to play in the African Nations Cup and suffered aterrorist attack where two people died, our goalkeeper is still inhospital and we don"t know if he can play again, some players havebullets in their body - and we got banned.

"Every single night I try to understand what is going on - but I can"t."

More...Villa midfielder Salifou disgusted by Togo"s Africa Cup of Nations banTogo"s football team handed six-year Africa cup ban... for being shot at by rebelsTogo to appeal against African Cup ban following terror attacksMANCHESTER CITY FC: All the latest news from across the web

Tuesday, July 27, 2010

Liberty considers sale after bid approaches

Liberty & Co at the dilemma of Regent Street

Emily Ford & , : {}

Liberty, the 135-year-old dialect store, reliable currently that it had perceived approaches from a series of bidders, eight months after commencement a vital examination of the business.

The company, that trades from the particular mock-Tudor construction off Regent Street in London, pronounced that it was as well early to criticism on either a grave suggest would be done for the business.

Liberty, that is 68 per cent-owned by MWB Group Holdings, began a vital examination of the commercial operation in Jul last year and allocated Cavendish Corporate Finance and Global Leisure Partners to see for new investors to move collateral and imagination in to the company.

Liberty, that has a marketplace capitalisation of 59.9 million, has additionally hinted that it might commence a sale and leaseback of the important store.

Related LinksLloyds bets on government to revive De Vere valueRivals shove in expectancy of Peel Hunt saleMWB checking out of dual of the hotels

There has been conjecture that Marco Capello, the former handling senior manager of Merrill Lynch"s in isolation equity division, plans to buy the commercial operation in a 40 million sale and leaseback understanding by BlueGem Capital Partners, his investment fund.

Other intensity bidders are pronounced to embody Robert Bensoussan, former arch senior manager of Jimmy Choo and owner of Sirius Equity, and the tellurian sell retailer Li Fung.

Drapers, the sell magazine, reported that Mr Capello had significantly outbid the foe to turn the front-runner in any intensity deal.

The association asserted that the financials were strong, observant that revenues for the year to Dec 2009 had grown by twenty per cent, that the revamp of the flagship store had increasing walk and that the online code remained profitable.

Arthur Liberty proposed the commercial operation with a 2,000 loan from his father-in-law.

Originally, he sole ornaments and fabrics alien from Japan. The sites signature mock-Tudor see was combined later, utilizing element from the warships HMS Impregnable and HMS Hindustan.

hair wig

Britains retrogression is over but the moneymen still see difficulty ahead

Alistair Darling

Gr�inne Gilmore, Economics Correspondent, and Ian King, Deputy Business Editor & , : {}

The bruise sank again yesterday as total display that Britain had emerged from retrogression some-more strongly than initial thought simply lifted fears of a supposed double-dip.

News that the economy grew by 0.3 per cent during the last 3 months of 2009 up from the prior guess of usually 0.1 per cent lighted concerns that this additional expansion had been borrowed from the initial 3 months of 2010 as shoppers brought brazen purchases to kick the climb in VAT at the finish of last year.

Economists pronounced this increasing the probability that total for the initial 3 months of 2010 could be worse than those for the finish of 2009.

Economists additionally warned that an additional probable reason for the improved expansion in the last 3 months of 2009 was that the Office for National Statistics additionally revised the guess for what happened from Jul to Sep last year. The ONS pronounced the economy engaged by 0.3 per cent in this duration and not by the 0.2 per cent thought which, economists said, could additionally have contributed to the higher quarter-on-quarter expansion seen from Oct to December.

Related LinksAmerica cheers economy but for how long?Britain stairs out of retrogression as expansion is revised upSt Georges Day wretchedness in store for Gordon BrownMultimediaGRAPHIC: the diseased bruise

Ross Walker, UK economist at Royal Bank of Scotland, pronounced of the ultimate figures: The ceiling rider to GDP was higher than expected, but the item of the interpretation gives climb to poignant concerns. There is meagre justification here of any elemental alleviation in direct or the most indispensable macroeconomic rebalancing.

Adam Chester, economist at Lloyds TSB Corporate Markets, said: I dont think were out of the woods. There is still a graphic probability that we could dump behind in to the red in the initial quarter.

Sterling that has depressed by roughly 7 cents opposite the dollar so far this month forsaken to $1.5151 on the news, the lowest turn given May last year, prior to rallying somewhat to $1.5232. Against the euro, the bruise fell to as low as €1.1185 at one stage, the lowest turn given early January. Against the Japanese yen, argent fell to the lowest turn for eleven months.

Currency experts pronounced the ceiling rider in the GDP data, signalling a stronger rebound than approaching out of the longest retrogression given the Second World War, had not significantly altered the opinion for the pound.

Neil Mellor, banking strategist at Bank of New York Mellon, said: There are mixed factors weighing opposite sterling, in sold the mercantile incident and the awaiting of a hung parliament. We design the bruise to sojourn underneath offered pressure.

Mark Bolsom, head of the UK trade table at Travelex, the banking specialist, added: The GDP figure is right afar historical. Since then, there has been a fibre of unequivocally bad interpretation out. Januarys sell sales were dire, the petitioner equate has shot up and the inhabitant debt has increased. Thats since the bruise forsaken in reply to what is, in theory, great news.

Duncan Higgins, comparison researcher at the brokerage Caxton FX, added: It will take a total understanding some-more than this ceiling rider to equivalent the products of a arching deficit. The expansion figure is still as well unsatisfactory when compared with alternative G20 nations and recessionary pressures are far from over.

Highlighting the economys bad performance, total published usually hours after showed that the US had expansion of 5.9 per cent during the last 3 months of 2009, up from the 5.7 per cent formerly reported.

Economists fright that Britain stays at risk of a double-dip retrogression since Januarys bad weather, the enlarge in VAT and the finish of the car scrappage intrigue are all approaching to have strike mercantile expansion during the initial 3 months of this year.

James Knightley, economist at the investment bank ING Markets, said: The movement we had been anticipating that the UK would be carrying in to 2010 might be descending afar already. Some of the debility will be continue related, but choosing doubt and the implications for taxes and open zone practice is approaching to keep view and wake up subdued,.

While diseased argent is pummelling consumers, who find it some-more costly to go on legal holiday and buy alien goods, there are hopes that it could assistance exporters, as British-made products turn cheaper in abroad markets. There was a spark of goal that this might be starting, as ONS interpretation showed that exports jumped by 3.7 per cent in the last entertain of 2009, the fastest rate of expansion in in scarcely 4 years.

However, the scale of the fee taken on the economy by the downturn was additionally laid unclothed yesterday, as apart revisions to the total suggested that the economy shrank even some-more than formerly thought. The ONS pronounced the peak-to-trough contraction suffered by the economy during the retrogression was right afar 6.2 per cent up from the prior guess of a 6 per cent.

Britains GDP fell by a jot down 5 per cent last year alone, a bigger dump than the 4.75 per cent decrease approaching by the Treasury, and far outstripping the 4 per cent contraction in the Eurozone and the 2.4 per cent decrease in the US.

hair wig

Monday, July 26, 2010

Takeover Panel to see in to Kraft"s closure of Cadbury bureau Business

Workers from Cadbury

Workers from the bureau in Keynsham, nearby Bristol, protesting outward Cadbury"s domicile in London in 2007. Kraft betrothed to retreat the closure but voiced last month that it would close after all. Photograph: Steve Parsons/PA

The Takeover Panel is questioning possibly Kraft pennyless the despotic manners during the conflict to win carry out of Cadbury, as the sale of one of Britain"s best-loved firms to a unfamiliar predator continues to rankle.

The exploration stems from Kraft"s preference to close Cadbury"s Somerdale plant in Keynsham, nearby Bristol, notwithstanding the American firm"s arch executive, Irene Rosenfeld, earnest at the opening of the bid conflict that she would retreat the preference set in sight by the prior management.

Last month, inside of a week of Kraft"s £11.9bn suggest winning shareholder approval, Kraft repelled kinship leaders and politicians by announcing that the plant, that employs 400 workers, would close after all.

The about-face strong kinship doubts over Kraft"s joining to preserving British jobs in the arise of the understanding that saw the confectioner subsumed inside of a $50bn (£33bn) turnover conglomerate. In serve to the Somerdale pursuit losses, up to 150 jobs are in jeopardy at Cadbury"s offices in Uxbridge, west London, and Bournville in Birmingham as Kraft looks to weed out repetitious roles.

If Kraft is found to have breached the panel"s code, it could face a in isolation or open "statement of censure". The row has no powers to meddle in the bid or levy fines.

Kraft"s preference to press on with the closure of Somerdale appeared to come out of the blue with the commercial operation secretary, Lord Mandelson, angry that he had not been forewarned. MPs will subject Kraft management team when they crop up at the Commons business, creation and skills name cabinet after this month.

The review came to light after Jacob Rees-Mogg, the Conservative celebration claimant for North-East Somerset, wrote to the Takeover Panel arguing that Kraft"s shift of heart pennyless manners perfectionist that bidders "prepare statements with the top grade of caring and accuracy" and not have statements that, "while not factually inaccurate, might be misleading".

Rees-Mogg pronounced Kraft"s poise was "shameful". "It gave people in Keynsham fake goal in the prospectus, that was possibly drifting or on purpose misleading," he said.

Explaining the preference to close Somerdale, Kraft argued that Cadbury had invested some-more than £100m in mending the Polish factories, with prolongation of a little lines set to be eliminated as shortly as the summer. Brands done at Somerdale embody Fry"s Chocolate Cream, Double Decker and Crunchie. In a statement, Rosenfeld said: "It became transparent that it is impractical to retreat the closure programme, notwithstanding the strange vigilant to do so. While this is a formidable decision, we have changed fast to finish any serve uncertainty."

A orator for Kraft said: "Throughout the transaction, it has never been the process to criticism on the UK Takeover Panel. Any questions should be addressed to the row itself."

A orator for the Takeover Panel declined to comment.

Sunday, July 25, 2010

The new cool in Milan conform Life and character The Guardian

armani

Emporio Armani on the catwalk in Milan conform week. Photograph: GIUSEPPE ARESU/AP

View a art studio of the majority appropriate looks from Milan

Milan conform week used to be so simple. It did sexy. Molto sexy. Revealing, attention-seeking frocks of the it-does-what-it-says-on-the-tin, hormone-charging variety. Some seasons it was sexy-boho, infrequently it was fierce-sexy, infrequently it was Lolita-sexy, but – in the same approach that Cherry Coke and Diet Coke are still Coca-Cola – the trends stayed loyal to the core brand. Sexy.

The initial pointer that this deteriorate was going to be opposite came on Thursday night, at Prada. Not the lust-stifling A-line skirts, or the nerdy eyeglasses – Miuccia Prada has never marched to the kick of the Milanese conform drum, and has an elegant-geek cultured all of her own – but in the approach each skirt was since an outsize bosom, possibly with farfetched darting or with a quadruple covering of lingerie-style badge frilling. There is zero new in a bit of sex in a Prada show, of course. Miuccia competence not do voluptuous in the bone-headed approach majority alternative Milanese conform designers do, but she mostly plays with notions of sex appeal. This time, however, she wasn"t dabbling, she was parodying. In her own way, she was receiving the mickey out of the culture"s stubborn mania with one sort of beauty.

Backstage afterwards, she told conform editors that the show was about how the preferred of voluptuous is apropos a narrower one, and about "the cliches that women can"t appear to give up". At one point she said: "As a former feminist, I find it tough to assimilate this behaviour." Did you usually call yourself a former feminist, an additional British conform editor asked. She shrugged and pronounced she didn"t know any more. "I feel similar to no one is carrying this debate." She sounded frustrated. They are carrying this debate, of march – nonetheless maybe not so most in Italy.

However, if it hadn"t been for what happened next, this would have left down as usually Miuccia Prada personification for the ungainly patrol again. Two days later, Gucci showed a new pick up that revoked the excesses of the bling epoch and brought to the front precise, slinky tailoring and lush accessories. Instead of short and tight, there was a lapse of mystique. Rather than conceptualizing for a lady who wants to travel in to a room all guns blazing, sartorially speaking, Frida Giannini, Gucci"s inventive director, seemed to refocus on someone who competence wish to win people"s courtesy in some-more pointed ways. Every outfit had a torpedo behind perspective – a lace-backed blouse with a span of bottom-lifting trousers, for instance. Rather than "result" dresses, these felt similar to garments for a lady who competence feasible select to leave a celebration alone.

And afterwards there was Dolce Gabbana. Its show was the delight of the week, a gorgeous, grown-up intrigue that reminded the 1,000-strong assembly since the universe fell in love with this tag in the initial place: not for big hair, small dresses and jangly handbags but for a worldly high regard of the womanlike form and of female allure, one that starts with hourglass tailoring and with a tailor"s take on the paradoxical ideals of peculiarity of being female – maternal, virginal, sacred, scurrilous – embedded in the designers" homeland of Sicily. When it finished, there was howling acclaim and afterwards a impulse when zero of the assembly seemed to wish to catch anyone"s eye – until we realised that everybody else was blinking behind tears too. Doesn"t occur mostly at a conform show, I promise.

Milan competence be carrying a shift of heart about the sincerely passionate cultured it had turn identified with, but I don"t hold for a notation this is a make a difference of principle. This is about money. It is no fluke that the shift occurred usually when the light loss of standing that has been chipping afar at this city"s on all sides in the general conform monthly calendar over the last couple of years was thrown in to pointy concentration by Anna Wintour"s purported proclamation that she wished to outlay usually 4 days in the capital. The who-said-whats of this squabble are still being debated, but what the row highlighted was that Milan does not right away have anything similar to the poke or certainty of Paris, that this deteriorate will run a full eight-day schedule, starting tomorrow.

There are most reasons for the decline, most of small seductiveness to any one outward the industry, but one cause has been that the Wag cultured – short, tight, bright, sparkly garments for Cristal-drinking celebration girls – has played itself out. A see that was aspirational 4 years ago is no longer so – or not, at least, to the wealthy women these brands need to woo. Take a see at the Queens of Baden-Baden 4 years ago: Victoria Beckham in her sharp, androgynous, roughly David Bowie-esque conformation is right away unrecognisable from her Wag days. Cheryl Cole is a Wag no more. Toni Terry competence be unresolved on in there, but no one"s seeking at her these days and meditative that looks similar to fun. The banking of voluptuous has devalued faster than a Zimbabwean banknote; "glamour girl" has clearly downmarket connotations these days.

In the arise of this, Italian conform is rediscovering what it meant prior to it came to meant rhinestones. Tailoring was at the heart of the shows. Giorgio Armani, who has been experiencing a rebirth right away that the coupler is once again a key square in the wardrobes, gave us structured jackets for day, and loose waterfall-draped jackets for dusk at the Emporio Armani show. At Giorgio Armani, superb velvet trousers and bubbly beverage dresses gently draped opposite the hip sat well in the new stylish mood. MaxMara had each fathomable cloak you competence wish for subsequent winter, from commanding belted greatcoats to soft hooded jumbo cords, to lush blond sheepskin, whilst Sportmax had a cocoon-shaped mount duffle and a luxe-countrywear cloak of the sort everybody who saw Burberry last week has been spooky with, in the form of a silky parka with complicated tweed trim and stout bullion hardware.

The conformation at Jil Sander and Bottega Veneta was structured at the top, dissolving in to fluidity at the bottom: Bottega had tanned hide shoulder harnesses, whilst Jil Sander non-stop with jackets sealed in at the neck, with add-on fastenings and high collars. The crisp, ultra-deliberate tailoring of Jil Sander and the peculiarity and workmanship shown in the Bottega tanned hide pieces served to remind audiences of the good ability and qualification there is at the base of conform in Milan. Alberta Ferretti was grand and magnificently pretty, the parsimonious pintucks and feather-light hold of elaboration an additional masterclass in achieved fashion. Marni had all the quirks for that the label"s most fans venerate it: corpulent ribbon-tied necklaces, droll specs, on purpose formidable styling around the calf area (ankle hosiery over perfect knee-highs, anyone?), unbonded edges and gloriously loopy, unusual 50s prints. The colours – egg-yolk yellow, chopped tomatoes red, mustard, dry rose and poison immature – were a sum joy.

If I have got you fretting where on earth you are going to buy your microfrock subsequent season, never fright – there were still designers you do molto sexy. Pucci springs to mind, as it would, being one of the usually shows I have ever seen where the dresses were notation sufficient to show both bottom disruption and the really tip of the middle thigh at the same time. Roberto Cavalli, that proposed in a earnest vein, with a little wealthy black-and-gold printed boho-luxe coats and superb dusk trousers, quickly grown in to a Pocahontas-meets-Little-Mermaid dissonance of floorlength frocks easily flashy with pelts of hair wrapped around ankle boots and unresolved from bags and belts. I urge any small bushy animals in the closeness of Milan to cruise relocating prior to this pick up goes in to production.

But I desired Christopher Kane for Versus, who presented a firmly edited pick up of pleat-skirted, strap-bodiced dresses in kingfisher blue and indigo. Short and sexy, yes, but complicated and quirky sufficient to comparison arm-candy and give the wearer a suggestion and passion of their own. (And for those of us who can"t wear the dresses – check out the implausible shoes.) Kane came out palm in palm with Donatella, who had presented her own Versace pick up progressing in the week. Versace, of course, stayed loyal to itself this week: think tanned hide motorcycle trousers, neon biker jackets, and dresses with cut-outs along the shoulder, hip or spine. There was zero remotely reconstructed about this collection, but at Versace it works, simply since Donatella"s celebrity permeates the tag so emphatically. The engineer Marco Zanini, who worked for Donatella for 10 years, put it ideally in a new talk with the New York Times: "Donatella is the usually chairman on this world who can do what she does in a plausible way." Maybe, usually maybe, the rest of Milan is starting to realize the law of this.

Saturday, July 24, 2010

Sulaiman al-Fahim resigns as Portsmouth"s non-executive authority Football

Sulaiman al-Fahim

Sulaiman al-Fahim owned Portsmouth for 43 days. Photograph: Frances Leader/Action Images

Sulaiman al-Fahim, the man who acquired Portsmouth from Alexandre Gaydamak at the begin of the season, has quiescent as the club"s non-executive authority and settled that he will give his 10% shareholding to the Pompey supporters trust.

"This is a village bar and should be owned by the fans and supporters," Fahim told the Guardian. "They should be concerned and have full clarity in their club. The supporters should have a contend in it. And the bar should be managed with monetary transparency."

Portsmouth had voiced warn at the proclamation of Fahim"s depart as they are nonetheless to listen to from the 32-year-old without delay but have supposed his decision.

Club officials are, though, thought to faraway at Fahim"s timing and his settled goal to give his shareholding to the supporters certitude as it is accepted that the South African consortium meddlesome in shopping the bar instruct to squeeze 100% of shares.

Fahim"s regard at the club"s monetary government is additionally causing fluster as there is a perspective on the south seashore that as owners for 43 days this season, he contingency bear a little shortcoming for Portsmouth"s unsafe predicament.

The bar are due in the high justice subsequent Monday, when the Her Majesty"s Revenue and Customs winding-up apply to will be heard. Portsmouth"s 112-year story could be finished then.

A abdication minute from al-Fahim to Portsmouth has been published on the arabianbusiness.com website