Tuesday, January 16, 2007
Large parts of Victoria were hit with power outages after bushfires near Benalla knocked out power transmission lines connecting the state to the national electricity grid at approximately 4:00 p.m. local time. Melbourne, Geelong, Ballarat and Bendigo were all affected.
Paul Price from the national electricity grid supervisor NEMMCO said that today set an all-time record for electricity demand.
Emma Daniell, from the power supplier SP AusNet said the result of the fires “prompted an automatic load reduction system to kick in, reducing power supply to customers”. These rolling blackouts are occurring across the surrounding suburbs lasting one hour a time.
The blackout affected about 200,000 homes, 1,200 traffic lights and “mobile base stations”. Trains and trams were reduced to a crawl, with buses replacing trains between Essendon and Kensington railway stations, and on the Werribee loop.
Geelong was the region worst affected, with the entire city losing power from 4 p.m. Power was restored to the central business district area shortly after 5 p.m., however many parts of the city were not restored until 8 p.m.
The Australian Open tennis tournament was not affected.
Monday, February 2, 2009
An international credit ratings agency has downgraded the creditworthiness of British bank Barclays LSE: BARC
The bank’s shares fell on the news that Moody’s had cut long-term debt ratings from “Aa1” to “Aa3” on the back of fears of nationalization, significant losses and write downs of more bad loans as the recession bites. The bank’s financial strength was also downgraded from “C” to “B”. Last week, another agency, Fitch, downgraded the bank one step to “AA-minus”.
Barclays is one of the few major “High Street” banks in the UK not to have taken any government capital support. The support is given in return for shares, giving the government significant – sometimes even controlling – stakes in other banks, such as Lloyds Banking Group and the Royal Bank of Scotland Group.
Moody’s said that the downgrades “reflect [our] expectation of potentially significant further losses at Barclays as a result of write-downs on credit market exposures as well as an increase in impairments in the UK, which could weaken profitability and capital ratios… [we consider] the systemic importance of the bank and the likelihood of receiving government support in case of need to be high.”
The bank has forecast a pre-tax profit of £5.3 billion for 2008. It has £36 billion in committed capital equity and expects gross write downs of £8 billion. The bank has recently been referred to the UK’s Serious Fraud Office over allegations of breaching South Africa’s foreign exchange controls, something the bank denies.
Friday, March 28, 2008
2008 Taipei International Cycle Show (Taipei Cycle) & Taipei International Sporting Goods Show (TaiSPO) not only did a best reunion with conjunctions of the launch of Taipei World Trade Center Nangang Exhibition and the concurrent cycling race of 2008 Tour de Taiwan but also provide opportunities and benefits for sporting goods, bicycle, and athlete sports industries to establish the basis of the sourcing center in Asia and notabilities on the international cycling race.
Although the Taipei cycle was split from the TaiSPO since 1988, but the trends of sporting good industry in Taiwan changed rapidly and multiply because of modern people’s lifestyles and habits. After the “TaiSPO Innovation Award” was established since 2005, the fitness and leisure industries became popular stars as several international buyers respected on lifestyle and health.
For example, some participants participated Taipei Cycle and TaiSPO with different product lines to do several marketing on bicycle and fitness equipments, this also echoed the “Three New Movements” proposed by Giant Co., Ltd. to make a simple bicycle with multiple applications and functions. As of those facts above, Wikinews Journalist Rico Shen interviewed Ideal Bike Corporation and Gary Silva, designer of “3G Steeper” to find out the possibilities on the optimizations between two elements, fitness and bicycle.
Monday, January 18, 2010
The Benet Academy Redwings boys basketball team defeated the Oswego High School Panthers 40–34 Saturday night at Benet’s historic Alumni Gym.
Located at Lisle, Illinois, United States, the gymnasium is home to Benet’s winning streak of 102 consecutive home games. The statewide record lasted from November 26, 1975 until January 24, 1987, when Naperville North High School defeated the Redwings 47–46. Benet also achieved 96 consecutive victories in the Western Suburban Catholic Conference at that time.
The school continued to use the facility, colloquially referred to as the “Old Gym” or the “Small Gym”, until the end of the 1994 season, when a newer athletic center was built on campus. It wasn’t until the late 1990’s when then-coach Marty Gaughan decided to play one game per year in the Alumni Gym to remind the school of its history. “There is just an electricity, and you feel it when you are in there,” said Gaughan, who coached the team from the 1989–1990 season to the 2007–2008 season.
This tradition continued until the 2006–2007 season, when the Redwings played against long-time rival St. Francis High School. Renovations prevented the gym from being used for athletic events over the past two seasons. This game was Benet coach Gene Heidkamp’s first opportunity to coach in the older gym. “So much history and winning has taken place there, which makes it so special. It is something the entire school community is excited about,” said Heidkamp.
Saturday’s game was played at the Alumni Gym at the request of Oswego assistant coach Jim Bagley. He wanted his son, senior forward Chris Bagley, to experience the same atmosphere he had as he played for Benet in the 1978–1979 season. Greg Kwiatkowski was also Jim Bagley’s teammate in Benet, and his son, Joe Kwiatkowski, was in the Panthers’ starting lineup as well. “Two of us who played at Benet together and now our son’s play on [Oswego] together and for them to have a chance to play where we played is going to be a great night and great experience,” said the senior Bagley.
Alumni Gym apparently still had its charm in the second half for the Redwings, whose 15–17 score at halftime worsened into an 11-point deficit in the third quarter. Benet fell behind with a score of 21–29 at the start of the fourth quarter. From that point, the Redwings’ defense began to kick in. Oswego could make only 2 of its 13 field goals in the third quarter. Benet’s offense also gained momentum as center Frank Kaminsky scored all of his 9 points in the fourth quarter. A shot by senior Mike Runger brought the score to 31–31, and two consecutive driving layups by David Sobolewski gave Benet the lead that would last for the rest of the game.
“We hit a dry spell there, but let’s give credit where credit is due. Defense wins games and they are the best defensive team we’ve faced all year,” said Oswego coach Kevin Schnable.
Benet’s Matt Parisi led his team with 15 points, and Sobolewski scored 12. Oswego’s Andrew Ziemnik also scored 12.
Monday, January 25, 2010
Sales of previously owned homes in the US fell at the fastest rate ever recorded last December, according to data from the National Association of Realtors (NAR).
According to the association, existing home sales fell 16.7% last month, to an annual rate of 5.45 million, the largest crash since 1968. The figure was less than the 5.90 million units, or an eleven percent drop, predicted by most analysts.
Sales of homes went up for the entire of 2009 to 5.156 million units, or 4.9% for the year, and prices dropped from 2008 by 12.4%.
NAR chief economist Lawrence Yun described the figures as being “probably the largest annual drop since the Great Depression”. He said that “the market is going through a period of swings driven by the tax credit. We’re likely to have another surge in the spring. Job creation is the key to a continued recovery in the second half of the year.”
Pierre Ellis, a senior economist for Decision Economics in New York, commented on the figures, saying: “The drop in home sales is the payback for the acceleration of sales that occurred with the original first-time home buyers tax credit. […] There is an issue as to whether the decline represents a fundamental weakening.”
“The housing market continues to face significant headwinds, including high unemployment, record delinquencies and foreclosures, the specter of rising mortgage rates as the Fed’s [mortgage-backed securities] purchase programs comes to a close in late March, and tight credit,” Omair Sharif, an economist for RBS Securities, noted.
“Still, the resale market showed resilience in the second half of 2009, and the expansion and extension of the tax credit to April 30 could boost purchases during the spring selling season,” he said.
“We’ll see a pickup in existing home sales in the next couple of months as people take advantage of the tax-credit extension”, economist Adam York of Wells Fargo Securities LLC in Charlotte, North Carolina claimed. He fore-casted a pace of 5.4 million. He said that there were unlikely to be buyers of homes, despite the fact that the U.S. was “past the bottom.”
All four regions of the country saw a decline in sales. In the Northeast, sales fell 19.5 percent, in the Midwest, they plunged 25.8 percent. The South, the country’s largest region, saw a 16.3% decline, while in the West, sales waned by 4.8%.
US stocks fell slightly after the announcement, but went back up later in the day.
Submitted by: Michelle Barkley
A business is like the culmination of the dreams and vision of an entrepreneur and it is natural for the individual to put in the best efforts and resources to make it a successful and profitable venture. Now, a business needs the strong inputs of multiple divisions in order to make it into a profit making organization and some of the crucial divisions are the human resource, marketing, planning and strategy, finance and of course accounting. Every business needs to keep track of each minute expenditure of the organization on a day to day basis. If the business employs in-house staff to manage such day to day accounting, it will be an expensive affair to provide the salaries and other employee benefits to the accounting division. Many businesses have therefore, developed the smart alternative of the accounting outsourcing process.
Many third party vendors have introduced the concept of accounting outsourcing services which they offer to organizations that require their accounts to be maintained in an accurate and systematic manner on a daily basis, but would not like to devote an entire division to maintaining such accounts. The reason behind more and more companies opting for accounting outsourcing services from vendors are the multiple benefits which it offers to the business. The primary benefit is the financial advantage which a business owner gains by outsourcing their accounting work. The vendors offering such services usually are from countries like India or China, where the cost of labor is much cheaper than that in the western countries. Hence, a business owner would have to pay a lot less to the vendor than he would have to otherwise pay if he had an in-house staff for an accounting division.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ub4ONoA6_rs[/youtube]
The vendor providing the accounting outsourcing services hires qualified professionals to handle the accounting work of the client. The professionals are trained to use every kind of accounting software that is available in the market and hence, the client has no problem in specifying the kind of software which he would like to vendor to use to maintain the company accounts. Also, since the accounts are maintained on a day to day and in a systematic manner, the client can get instant access to the accounts, as and when he requires.
When the business owner opts for accounting outsourcing services, he has the instant access to accounts, whenever the need arises. Such systematic accounting helps the business in crucial times like company audits, tax filing and tax returns. The auditors, clients, customers, vendors, suppliers and the general public always have more faith in any company which maintains its accounts in an accurate and transparent manner and outsourcing a company accounts helps the business gain this faith from all and sundry. However, the only concern that a business should have is about the vendor’s reliability and competency as the vendor would be handling financial accounts of a business, which are highly confidential in nature. A little groundwork and basic research over the Internet or through the yellow pages can however, help a business select a reliable vendor and keep his accounts in place.
About the Author: Michelle Barkley is a CPA who advises people on tax preparation and tax calculation. She specializes in bookkeeping outsourcing and outsourced accounting. To know more about accounting outsourcing and small business bookkeeping outsourcing to use the services visit
ifrworld.com
Source:
isnare.com
Permanent Link:
isnare.com/?aid=269803&ca=Advice
Tuesday, May 15, 2007
According to the Christian Post, Don Levine, the creator of the G.I. Joe, will be creating a line of action figures based on characters from the Old Testament. Released this month are action figures of Samson, David, Noah, Moses, and dolls of Queen Esther and Deborah the Warrior. The toys come with their own Bible storybook. By the fall, the line will expand to 35 products. Levine has began developing a DVD series and television show.
While certainly not the first action figures, dolls, or animated programs based on Biblical characters, it is perhaps the first to launch with a full-fledged licensing program. Already a comic book, narrated CDs, wallet, flashing pins, dog tags, and necklaces have been released.
Levine created G.I. Joe for Mattel in 1963, after a licensing agent suggested soldier figures might have the same success as their Barbie line.
Saturday, July 21, 2018
A team of researchers from China, Canada, the United States, and Australia published on Wednesday their discovery of an early fossilized baby snake, reportedly the oldest ever found, in a piece of amber in the middle of a sandstone deposit in Myanmar. The findings appeared in the journal Science Advances.
The specimen, a piece of amber, was found in a sandstone deposit by fossil hunters who contacted scientists in 2016, and later donated it to the Dexu Institute of Paleontology in Chaozhou, China, where scientists were able to examine it closely. The snake skeleton itself, though missing a head, is about 1.9 inches long (47.5 mm). The scientists said a scrap of skin also found suggests another snake, and bits of plant and insect matter indicate the area may have been forest at the time the snake was preserved. They dated the fossil to the Cretaceous period, roughly 99 million years ago, the same period as Tyrannosaurus rex, Triceratops, and early mammals, sharks, and flowering plants. The specimen represents a previously undiscovered species, which the scientists named Xiaophis myanmarensis, or “dawn-snake of Myanmar.”
Co-author Michael Caldwell of the University of Alberta noted, “It’s spectacular to have a baby snake in the fossil record because, of course, they’d be such tiny, delicate things.” The researchers concluded it was in fact a snake and not a mere legless lizard by studying the vertebrae, which were found with their ribs intact, in each part of the snake’s body.
The findings, said scientists, indicate fauna from the prehistoric megacontinent Gondwanaland migrated to Laurasia. This is also the earliest snake to be found in a forest environment, suggesting that snakes had become reasonably biodiverse by the Cretaceous.
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
On Sunday, Wikinews interviewed creator of memorial site LisaMcPherson.org, former Lisa McPherson Trust employee and long time Scientology critic Jeff Jacobsen.
LisaMcPherson.org is a memorial site created in 1997 containing information on her death and the resulting legal case against the Church of Scientology.
Lisa McPherson died in 1995 while in the care of the Church of Scientology. After a car accident, she became mentally unstable. Scientologists removed her from the hospital and placed her in the Introspection Rundown, she died 17 days later while still in care of the Church. She was used as an icon during Project Chanology, the protest of the Church of Scientology by Anonymous. Protesters were pictured with signs that said “Remember Lisa McPherson” and “Ask Scientology Why Lisa McPherson Died”, other protesters had posters with her picture on it.
Friday, September 9, 2005
New Orleans, Louisiana —After Category 4 storm Hurricane Katrina slammed into New Orleans, on the night before August 29, 2005, several flood control constructions failed. Much of the city flooded through the openings. One of these was the flood wall forming one side of the 17th Street Canal, near Lake Pontchartrain. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) is the primary agency for engineering support during such emergencies. A USACE team was assessing the situation in New Orleans on the 29th, water flow was stopped September 2nd, and the breach was closed on September 5th.