Huaxi: The socialist village where everyone is wealthy

 

The sort of oxen you expect to see in Chinese villages tend to be pulling carts or tilling fields, not a beasts made of a ton of gold. This precious cow is located on the 60th floor of a 328m-tall skyscraper in Huaxi, China's richest village, and building that juts out of the eastern landscape like a giant tripod topped by a golden ball. Huaxi is a "model socialist village", according to local officials, and was founded by local Communist Party secretary Wu Renbao in 1961. His foresight was to transform a poor farming community into a super wealthy community, built on its clever adaptations of modern agribusiness methods, then its diversification into steel mills, its logistics firms, and its textile businesses. The commune listed on the stock exchange in 1998 and is now a major corporation in its own right. Its subsidiary companies, built into something that resembles a modern-day conglomerate, exports to more than 40 countries around the world. Huaxi is where Chinese people come to learn how to get rich. At a time when the rest of the world, and indeed much of China, is trying to absorb an economic slowdown, Huaxi is like a parallel universe. "This cow cost 300 million yuan (£31m), but now it's worth 500 million yuan," says our guide, Tina Yao, as she steers us from floor to floor in the Zengdi Kongzhong New Village Tower, which is taller than anything in London. "Zengdi" translates as "increase the land" and the skyscraper cost three billion yuan (£310m). Other floors have giant animals of solid silver. Fearsomely bejewelled chandeliers hang over your head in banquet halls that hold thousands of people. You approach these glittering sites walking on gold-leaf marble, passing aquariums with sharks and stingrays. Far below, you see the villas and theluxury cars. Every villager gets a share of the corporation's profits and is entitled to a car, a house, free healthcare and free cooking oil. The village feels a little like Dubai. It is not big on charm – the replicas of the Arc de Triomphe and the Sydney Opera House – are of questionable taste, but where it is widely different is in how well it is able to meet its people's needs. Mr Wu is keen that Huaxi should showcase China's achievements and now some two million visitors come to Huaxi every year to gaze upon its splendour. The original founding families, who are known as "stakeholders", number around 1,600 and the average household income is around £100,000 a year, once all the bonuses, pensions and wages are factored in. White BMWs are ubiquitous and the murals, instead of depicting socialist realist muscled workers in overalls, have pictures of happy families living in wealthy villas. This is where Huaxi stands apart from so many other villages in China. While the rest of the country suffers from a yawning wealth gap between the rich cities of the eastern seaboard and southern coasts and the rural hamlets, Huaxi took the initiative, driven by Mr Wu's pragmatism, and headed its own way. It behaved like a city, even importing migrant labour. "We only ever wanted what was good for our people," is a dictum of Mr Wu, who is now 86 years old and retired. His son has taken over as party secretary, but the father still gives lectures on socialism every day. He avoids allying himself too closely with either capitalism or communism, though his pragmatism has strong elements of the Chinese Communist Party about it. No one doubts the wisdom of Mr Wu, and looking at the village's wealth, why would they? He broke up the collective system of farming and encouraged people to grow their own crops. Below the stakeholders in the hierarchy come the residents from neighbouring villages that have been absorbed into Huaxi, and then tens of thousands of migrant workers who perform most of the rest of the work. Work and wealth are the crowning ideologies. No one takes weekend breaks, and the streets tend to be deserted of residents because they are all off working. The hard work has clearly paid off and the money raised has helped the villagers diversify into other industry. One of those areas is tourism – wealth tourism – and some of the locals help to meet and greet the two million tourists that come every year to see the village. A new reason to come is to see the skyscraper, which is impressive, although as there is nothing even remotely as tall in the surrounding countryside, it looks strangely incongruous. The reason it is so tall is a useful insight into the mindset of the people here. It is, as Mr Wu said in a recent interview, because the people Huaxi can compete with anyone in the country. "Beijing's tallest building is the 328m-tall World Trade Centre. Huaxi wants to maintain the same height with the Central Committee of the Communist Party," he said. The village's total square area is a little less than one square kilometre, and there are barrack-style dormitories, factories, and pagoda style-buildings for local residents. The skyscraper houses the Longxi International Hotel, which has 2,000 beds and will employ 3,000 people eager to learn how to become wealthy, Huaxi-style. Intriguingly, in the central village park, there are the statutes of five of the true icons of Communism in China, some more controversial than others. The panoply includes the former mayor of Beijing, Liu Shaoqi, who was purged in the period of ideological frenzy that was the Cultural Revolution and whom many believed Mao had murdered. He has never really been rehabilitated and remains outside the pantheon of true revolutionary heroes. But then Mr Wu himself suffered during the Cultural Revolution. He set up factories but the Red Guards paraded him in the village as a "capitalist roader" and locked him up, much in the same way as Liu Shaoqi. Like Deng Xiaoping, who also suffered during the Cultural Revolution, Mr Wu bided his time and soon was back on his capitalist track after Mao died in 1976, except that these ideas became formulated as socialism with Chinese characteristics. All over the village are megaphones blasting out the village anthem, which tells of how communist skies shine down Huaxi, a village of everyday miracles. "I have heard about Huaxi for many years. I have wanted to see it for many years," said one octogenarian visitor from Chengzhou. Two men, both of them employed in security and not stakeholders in the village, say they love what is going on in Huaxi, but they admit they are a bit jealous of the shareholders who get a stake in the village's profits every year. Certainly, there is a lot of bluster in the way Huaxi markets itself. The divisions between the stakeholders and the migrants on the streets are large. But no one in China doubts its importance as a model for the success of the nation. And deny at your peril the wisdom of Mr Wu and of the wider Chinese psyche: The song from the public address system says it proud: "Socialism is best."

Facebook, Twitter addict? Too much Internet may alter your brain

 

This is your brain. This is your brain on Facebook, Twitter, or Match.com. A recent Chinese study found that the brains of people addicted to the Internet may see similar changes to the brains of those addicted to alcohol or drugs. Yahoo News reported that brain scans were conducted of 35 men and women aged between 14 and 21, and 17 of them were identified with Internet addiction disorder. Brain scans of those classified as addicted showed disruptions in the part of the brain that contains nerve fibers, and changes in the brain areas that are used in emotions, decision-making, and self-control. Some of the questions people needed to ask themselves to determine whether they were addicted were, according to the BBC: Do you feel the need to use the Internet with increasing amounts of time in order to achieve satisfaction? Do you use the Internet as an escape from feelings of helplessness, guilt, anxiety and depression? Have you put a relationship, job, or career opportunity at risk because of the Internet? Have you lied to people to hide the amount of time you spend on the Internet? According to safetyweb.com, an Internet monitoring service for parents, teenagers and young adults are the age groups that are more likely to be addicted to the Internet, and they are more likely to neglect work or school than older addicted adults. The Executive director of an Internet addiction recovery center known as restart says overexposure to the Internet can cause these symptoms in anyone’s brain. Hilarie Cash said to technewsworld.com, "We do a combination of psychotherapy and helping these people figure out the skills they need to function in the world. The road to recovery could include plenty of hiking and backpacking to get them both physically fit and reconnected to the world."

Fire, power failures, crime and tragic overboard deaths are common on cruise vacations

 

A luxury cruise ship Costa Concordia leans on its side after running aground the tiny Tuscan island of Giglio, Italy, 

They're often billed as the ultimate in worry-free vacations. But cruise critics say these floating hotels -- some as high as 12 storeys tall -- aren't nearly as safe as claimed.

Fire, power failures, crime and tragic overboard deaths are common on cruise vacations, said Ross Klein, a Memorial University sociologist and author of two books on the cruise industry.

The ships, which can carry more than 4,000 passengers, are as big as towns, Klein said, packed with strangers often bent on having a good time. Many passengers wrongly let their guard down.

"People should go on cruise ships with their eyes wide open, to be aware that there can be accidents." Klein told CTVNews.ca.

Last year, 22 people fell overboard on cruise ships, Klein said. Some were accidents. Others were suicides. The vast majority were fatal, said Klein, who compiles cruise accident data for his website www.cruisejunkie.com.

Fires and power failures are also common, though rarely reported in the mainstream media.

Incidents include:

• In September 2010, an explosion aboard the Cunard's Queen Mary 2 caused a power failure as it approached Barcelona, causing it to drift off the Spanish coast.
• In November 2010, a drunken passenger dropped an anchor on a cruise enroute to Tampa from Mexico.

According to data Klein collected, the risk of sexual assault is nearly 50 per cent greater on a cruise ship than on land in Canada. He used data collected by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and internal industry documents used in lawsuits between 2003 and 2005.

"I believe passengers should go on to a ship well informed," Klein said.

"The industry markets itself as . . . . one of the safest modes of commercial transport in the world. And they want passengers to believe that if they come on a cruise ship they are virtually safe."

An umbrella group for the cruise industry says it's monitoring the latest accident off the Italian coast, where three people have died and dozens are missing.

The website for the Cruise Lines International Association said the group "would like to reassure other cruise passengers that all CLIA member lines are subject to the highest safety standards around the world and according to international maritime requirements."

CTVNews.ca called the association on Saturday, but there was no answer at its Florida office.

U.S. maritime lawyer Jim Walker once represented the cruise industry but switched sides about 15 years ago. Since then, he's represented dozens of passengers and crew members in lawsuits against cruise lines.

Mr. Walker represented the family of George Smith, who vanished from a Royal Caribbean ship while on his honeymoon in 2005. His family suspected foul play and claimed the cruise ship failed to properly investigate the disappearance. His family won a US$1.3 million suit against the cruise line.

Walker also represented a 35-year-old woman who said she was sexually assaulted by a crew member on a Royal Caribbean vessel. Walker said the woman's case resulted in tough reporting rules aboard cruise ships.

Walker urged passengers to be vigilant about crime and safety.

Despite potential dangers, Klein said he loves ocean travel and has taken 30 cruises.

"I love being at sea," he said. "I like to look at the horizon." At sea, he said, "time stands still. It's a wonderful feeling."

The head of the Hell’s Angels in Iceland was arrested yesterday and remand in custody for a week

The head of the Hell’s Angels in Iceland was arrested yesterday and remand in custody for a week, accused of having ordered attacks on a woman. A total of five people connected to the Hell’s Angels are in custody over the case. 

In the early hours of the 22nd December a physical assault in a residential building in Hafnarfjörður, near Reykjavík, was reported to police. Initial stories about the attack stated that a couple in their 30s had burst into the woman’s flat and attacked her violently. She was later transported, unconscious, to hospital. The police arrested the couple and put them in custody.

As the investigation progressed, the spotlight started to pan wider and according to RÚV sources putting the couple behind bars clearly did not work, because the woman was violently attacked again. Extra resources were quickly applied to the investigation and two more people were arrested and put behind bars.

Yesterday the case’s fifth arrested suspect, the head of the Hell’s Angels Iceland organisation, was also remand in custody for one week. According to sources, he is accused of ordering the attacks on the woman – reportedly as revenge for something.

All five in custody while the police continue their investigation are in isolation for the good of the case, so they cannot consult each other on their alibis.

 

Extra Virginity: The Sublime And Scandalous World of Olive Oil, not all virgins are as pure as they might seem — and the world of olive oil is increasingly beset with fraud, smuggling and even poisoning.

According to Tom Mueller, author of a new book on the subject, Extra Virginity: The Sublime And Scandalous World of Olive Oil, not all virgins are as pure as they might seem — and the world of olive oil is increasingly beset with fraud, smuggling and even poisoning.

The problem is that where there’s money, there’s crime, and olive oil is a very valuable commodity. 

Olive oil is graded into several different types for sale, the most common of which is extra virgin

In July, Spanish police arrested the leader of a gang responsible for the theft of more than a million litres of the stuff, siphoned from storage tanks in Murcia, and shipped under false paperwork to Italy for sale. 

Italian newspapers regularly report producers being robbed at gunpoint by drivers who arrive in the middle of the night with tankers.

A few years ago, Bertolli, the biggest olive oil brand in the world, suffered a multi-million euro theft at its plant near Milan — with sophisticated thieves using jammed security cameras, guns and lorries to secure their bounty. 

 

 

Olive oil occupies a unique place in culinary history. Humans have been eating the fruits of these gnarled and tenacious trees for as long as the two of us have coexisted on this planet. 

But since then, too, the olive oil industry has been dogged by fraud. 

Clay tablets found at Ebla, in Syria, describe the activities of a 2,500  year-old anti-fraud squad who were responsible for ensuring the purity of oil, while the classical philosopher and doctor Galen complained of unscrupulous traders adulterating their olive oil with liquid lard to make it go further. 

But ancient foodies were lucky — the Roman Empire had strict controls in place to minimise such double dealing. 

Two thousand years later, olive oil regulation is back in the Dark Ages. 

Olive oil doesn't come cheap - beware of anything under about £6 a litre

As Mueller’s book observes, when you buy wine, you can usually trust that the contents match the label: if it says Chateau Margaux 1949 on the bottle, you’re not going to find last year’s Chilean Malbec inside. 

Olive oil labels, by contrast, give very little information to the consumer: an oil costing £20 a bottle will look, on the shelf, very similar to one retailing at a tenth of the price.

And with one former producer claiming 98  per cent of what is sold in Italy as extra-virgin olive oil is actually nothing of the sort, how on earth can shoppers tell what they’re getting?

In theory, it should be easy: olive oil is graded into several different types for sale, the most common of which is extra virgin. 

Extra virgin olive oil is the highest quality, made from the very best olives. 

Virgin oil, meanwhile, is made with slightly riper olives and so is deemed to have a less superior flavour.

European legislation dictates that any oil labelled virgin must have been extracted from the olive by physical means, such as pressing, rather than by chemical refinement. It also has to pass a taste test conducted by EU experts.

Rigorous enough, you might think — if only the law was properly enforced.

Olive oil doesn’t come cheap —beware of anything under about £6 a litre — and many have succumbed to the temptation to cut a few corners.

The most common fraud involves diluting extra virgin oil with a lesser grade — such as lampante, or lamp-oil, judged unfit for human consumption because of its high acid content.

Another option is to substitute a different type of oil entirely, often originating outside the EU where production is cheaper. 

Last year, two Spanish businessmen were sent to prison for selling extra virgin olive oil that turned out to be 75 per cent sunflower oil, while Mueller recounts the story of a shipment of Turkish hazelnut oil which, after a voyage around Europe, arrived in southern Italy in September 1991 with papers declaring it was Greek olive oil. 

There it was mixed with the real thing, and sold to unsuspecting customers including Nestle, owners of Buitoni oil, and Bertolli for use in their products. 

The substantial profits associated with such fraud, Mueller says, enable crooks to bribe low-paid customs officials and police to turn a blind eye to such arrivals. But this deception isn’t just confined to smugglers and gangsters. 

In 2004, an olive oil producer called Andreas Marz, concerned about the declining quality of Italian olive oil, decided to conduct his own test. 

He bought 31 different kinds of extra virgin olive oil from German supermarkets, and sent them to three expert tasting panels in Florence for analysis. 

Only one was judged to meet extra virgin standards, nine were downgraded to virgin, and the rest, including offerings from several major Italian brands, were graded as lampante.

When Marz published the results, those involved in the revelations found themselves hit with lawsuits by Carapelli, makers of ‘Italy’s most beloved extra virgin olive oil’, who seemed to have friends in some very high places indeed. 

In fact, ‘intimidation’ is the word used by one of the experts concerned. 

No wonder, then, that Marz’s shocking findings changed absolutely nothing. Such adulteration is deceitful, certainly, but pales in comparison to the toxic oil scandal which killed more than 1,000 Spaniards, and seriously injured 24,000 others, in the Eighties. 

They fell ill after consuming rapeseed oil intended for industrial use, which had been rendered inedible by the addition of a toxic compound called aniline, used in the production of plastics.

Only virgin oils can claim the full range of health benefits attributed to olive oil, because the refining process strips lesser oils of its vitamins

Unscrupulous traders had taken advantage of the low price-tag, repackaged it as olive oil, and sold it for culinary use.

Even companies which act within the law are happy to appropriate the premium image of Italian olive oil for lesser blends. 

Don’t be fooled by Italian flags or Tuscan olive groves on a label. Italy is one of the world’s largest importers of olive oil, much of which is then blended, stuck into suitably Italian packaging and re-exported.

About 80 per cent of the oil produced in Jaen, southern Spain, for example, is shipped to Italy, where it can be packaged and sold by Italian brands as ‘packed’ or ‘bottled in Italy’, for a far higher price than poor old Spanish brands can get. 

Indeed, Bertolli, for all its rustic Italian advertising, tells Mueller it actually imports about four-fifths of the oil it uses, mostly from Spain, North Africa and the Middle East. 

While it doesn’t really matter, from a health point of view, whether our olive oil comes from Tuscany or Tunisia, the much vaunted advantages of this cornerstone of the Mediterranean diet — its apparent ability to help protect the body from some forms of cancer and cardiovascular disease — depend very much on the quality of the oil. 

Only virgin oils can claim the full range of health benefits attributed to olive oil, because the refining process strips lesser oils of its vitamins.

But until the EU imposes tighter controls of the kind in place for wine, there seems little incentive for the olive oil industry to clean up its act.

In the meantime, there are a few things the consumer can do to help ensure that the oil they’re buying is of the quality that they’d expect it to be. 

Go for virgin or extra virgin oil, where the golden rule is that sadly, if it seems too cheap to be true, it probably is. 

Look for dark bottles, which will protect the contents from damaging UV rays that make it rancid, and search out the longest sell-by date you can.

Olive oil may be sacred to many British foodies, but it’s not immune to corruption.

It seems that, for the unwary consumer at least, healthy eating is a very slippery business.

SHIP AGROUND: COAST GUARD CONFIRMS 3 DEAD

 

At this time, 3 people are confirmed dead in an accident involving the cruising ship Costa Concordia. The ship left Civitavecchia for Savona yesterday at 7:30 PM and ran aground near the Isola del Giglio. According to Coast Guard sources, the situation is still confused. The ship has been boarded by Coast Guard rescue personnel, firefighters and a Costa officer and checked top to bottom to confirm that everybody has been evacuated. A portion of the passengers was taken on other vessels to Porto Santo Stefano while other went to Livorno by helicopter. The cause of the accident has not yet been ascertained. The grounded ship suffered a blackout just before running aground. . .

'Six feared dead' and thousands evacuated as cruise ship hits rocks off coast of Italy

 

Holidaymakers from France, Italy, Germany and Britain were forced to flee the 1,500-cabin Costa Concordia in lifeboats when it hit a reef less than two hours after leaving port. Some leapt overboard and swam to shore as the ship started to sink into the waters near the island of Giglio, off the Tuscan coast. Francesco Paolillo, the coastguard spokesman, said that at least three bodies were retrieved from the sea and at least three more were feared dead. Pregnant women and young children were among the 3,200 passengers and 1,000 crew on board. Passengers' dinner on Friday night was interrupted by a loud boom at around 8pm and a voice over the loud-speaker system initially claimed that the ship was suffering an electrical failure, before ordering everyone on-board to don life-jackets.

Paul Simon's music takes meandering spiritual journey

 

Paul Simon says there's always been a spiritual dimension to his music. But the overt religious references in his most recent album, So Beautiful or So What, surprised even him. There are songs about God, angels, creation, pilgrimage, prayer and the afterlife. . Simon says he has many questions about God and explores them through his music. Enlarge By Todd Plitt, for USA TODAY Paul Simon performs at Ground Zero during a 10th anniversary ceremony of the 9-11 terrorist attacks. Simon says he has many questions about God and explores them through his music. Ads by Google 1st Dual Core Mini-ITX VIA EPIA-M900 wi Nano X2 CPU, DDR3 up to 8GB, 2 SATA, 8 USB2.0, 4 www.viaembedded.com Simon says the religious themes were not intentional — he does not describe himself as religious. But in an interview with the PBS program Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly, he said the spiritual realm fascinates him. "I think it's a part of my thoughts on a fairly regular basis," he said. "I think of it more as spiritual feeling. It's something that I recognize in myself and that I enjoy, and I don't quite understand it." BLOG: Is heaven Simon's stunning infinity? REVIEW: 'So Beautiful' sums up Simon's latest STORY: 'So Beautiful' is beautifully familiar Simon may not understand it, but he's been writing and singing a lot about it, and that has generated attention. One Irish blogger suggested So Beautiful or So What could be the best Christian album of 2011. Sojourners' Cathleen Falsani, an evangelical who writes frequently about religion and pop culture, called it "one of the most memorable collections of spiritual musical musings" in recent memory. "It's a stunningly beautiful … album, and he's a great surprise to me and frankly a huge blessing," Falsani said. During a career that has spanned half a century, Simon has received numerous awards, including 12 Grammys. His first Grammy came in 1968 for best contemporary vocal duo, along with his musical partner Art Garfunkel. Their 1970 Grammy-winning song Bridge Over Troubled Water was influenced by gospel music. Simon comes from a Jewish background. "I was raised to a degree enough to be bar mitzvahed and have that much Jewish education, although I had no interest. None," he said. Now at 70, he said he has many questions about God. In his song, The Afterlife, he speculates about what happens after death. He imagines waiting in line, like at the Department of Motor Vehicles. As the chorus goes: "You got to fill out a form first and then you wait in the line." But there's a serious aspect as well, as the song continues: "Face-to-face in the vastness of space/ Your words disappear/And you feel like you're swimming in an ocean of love/ And the current is strong." "By the time you get up to speak to God, and you actually get there, there's no question that you could possibly have that could have any relevance," Simon explained. One of the most unusual songs on the album, Getting Ready for Christmas Day, includes excerpts of a sermon preached in 1941 by prominent African-American pastor J.M. Gates. Simon heard the sermon on a set of old recordings and said he was drawn to the rhythms of Gates' "call and response" style of preaching. The song Love and Hard Times begins with the line: "God and His only son paid a courtesy call on Earth one Sunday morning." According to Simon, "To begin with a sentence that is the foundation of Christianity, I said: This is going to be interesting. Now what am I going to say about a subject that I certainly didn't study?" The song ends with a love story, which he says is really about his wife, and a repetition of the line, "Thank God I found you." "When you're looking to be thankful at the highest level, you need a specific and that specific is God. And that's what that song is about," he said. Simon said the beauty of life and of the earth often leads him to thoughts about God. "How was all of this created? If the answer to that question is God created everything, there was a creator, than I say, Great! What a great job," he said. But he said he won't be troubled if it turns out there is no God. "Oh fine, so there's another answer. I don't know the answer," he said. Either way, he added, "I'm just a speck of dust here for a nanosecond, and I'm very grateful." Simon has sought input on his questions from some religious leaders, including the Dalai Lama. He once spent hours talking with British evangelical theologian John Stott, who died last year. Simon said Stott made a big impression on him. "I left there feeling that I had a greater understanding of where belief comes from when it doesn't have an agenda," he said. Many of Simon's songs raise universal questions about things like destiny and the meaning of life. "Quite often, people read or hear things in my songs that I think are more true than what I wrote," he said. Falsani calls Simon a "God-chronicler by accident." "He looks at the world and kind of wonders what the heck is going on, like many of us do. He asks good questions and seems to have his finger on the heartbeat spiritually of a culture," she said. Simon said he's gratified — and somewhat mystified — that some people have told him they believe God has spoken to them through his music. "Is it a profound truth? I don't know," he said. "I feel I'm like a vessel, and it passed through me, and I was the editor, and I'm glad."

RBS to cut 3,500 jobs in investment bank shake-up

 

The Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) has said it is planning to cut 3,500 jobs, with most of them to happen this year. The cuts are part of a reorganisation and shrinkage of its investment bank. The losses, which will be split between its UK and international offices, come on top of 2,000 cuts announced earlier. Its "wholesale banking" business, which provides services to large clients including investment banking services, will be split into separate "markets" and "international banking" divisions. The markets division - which comprises RBS' main trading activities - will focus on the bank's traditional strengths of debt, currency and money markets, the bank said in its statement. The wholesale banking division will provide services for the bank's biggest clients. These will include corporate advisory services transferred from its investment bank - such as helping major companies borrow money by issuing bonds - as well as cash management and payments services. The bank has already shed some 30,000 employees over the last two years, 22,000 of them in the UK. "It is a disgrace that while on a daily basis, stories are emerging about the massive bonuses at the top of the bank, increasing numbers of jobs are being cut from amongst the hard working staff," said David Fleming of the Unite union. Continue reading the main story “ Start Quote For a bank that has shed 30,000 jobs over the past couple of years, a further 3,500 departures may not seem massive” Robert Peston Business editor, BBC News Read Robert's blog Markets took the statement well, although many of the details had been flagged up in advance. RBS's share price rose 6.8% in morning trading, outperforming other banks and other large companies on the FTSE 100 index. Cutting back The bank said that it planned to close or sell off other business lines, such as those dealing with shares and stock markets, as well as its business advising companies on mergers and acquisitions. It is also looking to dispose of its corporate brokerage, Hoare Govett. These business lines were ones that had been added or expanded only in recent years under the leadership of former chief executive Sir Fred Goodwin. Continue reading the main story Royal Bank of Scotland Group RBS also said in its statement that the size of the balance sheet - the total loans and investments - of its former investment banking division would be reduced by more than a quarter, from £420bn to £300bn, over three years. This will enable it to cut its borrowing from wholesale money markets - which evaporated during the 2008 financial crisis, threatening the bank's collapse - by £75bn. "The overall aim is to improve profits and reduce risks," says the BBC's business editor, Robert Peston. "Which matters to most of us, since taxpayers are sitting on losses of £26bn on the £45.5bn they invested in RBS to rescue it." However, he also notes that the business lines being disposed of were not the ones responsible for causing RBS its huge losses during and after the 2008 financial crisis. UK clients RBS said the restructuring was also designed to prepare the bank for new UK regulatory requirements for banks to ring-fence their core UK operations from their riskier investment banking activities. Continue reading the main story Crisis jargon buster Use the dropdown for easy-to-understand explanations of key financial terms: Investment bank Investment bank Investment banks provide financial services for governments, companies or extremely rich individuals. They differ from commercial banks where you have your savings or your mortgage. Traditionally investment banks provided underwriting, and financial advice on mergers and acquisitions, and how to raise money in the financial markets. The term is also commonly used to describe the more risky activities typically undertaken by such firms, including trading directly in financial markets for their own account. Glossary in full The bank's dealings with British small and medium-sized companies will accordingly be transferred away from the new international banking division, and handled via its UK banks. There was no mention of any specific downscaling of its international operations. However, there has been speculation that its operations in the Irish Republic - including Ulster Bank, which RBS bought in 2000 - and in Australia may be affected Chancellor George Osborne announced the change in strategy at the bank in December 2011. "Investment banking will continue to support RBS's corporate lending business but RBS will make further significant reductions in the investment bank, scaling back riskier activities that are heavy users of capital or funding," Mr Osborne told Parliament in December. Mr Osborne's announcement came in the wake of a report into the bank by the Financial Services Authority in December 2011 which pointed to "errors of judgement and execution" by RBS management which led to its failure in 2008. The bank is now 82%-owned by the UK government after taxpayers injected £45.5bn of new capital into RBS.

Thornton Heath man in South American jail after being caught with £20k of coke

 

A young man has been jailed in South America for attempting to traffic drugs just three weeks after sneaking out of his Thornton Heath home without telling his mother. Former Stanley Technical School pupil, Nishit Patel, 21, left his home in Attlee Close, in secret on Christmas Day before flying 4,500 miles to Guyana. The next time his mum, part-time Tesco worker Amita, heard from him was on January 3 phoning from a Guyanese jail after being caught boarding a plane with 29 pellets of cocaine worth more than £20,000 inside him. On Monday, January 9, he was sentenced to four years in jail after he admitted drug trafficking. He was also fined $30,000 Guyanese dollars, about £95. Mrs Patel, 46, said she last saw her son, who changed his name to Nikesh after being teased at school, after lunch on Christmas Day. She said: “I came home and he had bags packed. I asked if he was leaving and he said no. I never know where he is going, he tells me nothing. “I didn’t even know where Guyana was. I asked why did you do it, and he said for the money.” On December 31 Guyana’s Customs Anti-Narcotics Unit (CANU) at Cheddi Jagan International Airport saw Patel acting suspiciously and arrested him. Dennis Mahase a senior supervisor with CANU said Patel, who has spent his whole life in Croydon, missed his earlier flight home and was picked up by officials while he waited. He said: “When the officials began questioning him he complained about feeling unwell. After further question he admitted swallowing the pellets.” Taken to Woodlands Hospital in Georgetown, the country’s capital, Patel, was x-rayed and the pellets, containing 352 grams of the drug with a street value of around £20,000, were found. Mr Mahase added: “He admitted to us he had done this before in November and got away with it.” Mrs Patel said Nishit went off the rails after his grandparents and father died in quick succession four years ago. She said: “He was such a good boy. Very caring. It changed him. A son listens to his father but to his mother, not so much. It was very hard.” The family will now fight to have him extradited to the UK. She said: “I want to be able to see him. I know he has done wrong but he is my son. I have no idea what a jail out there is like.” A foreign office spokesman said: “We can confirm the arrest of a British national on December 31 in Guyana. “We are providing consular assistance.”

Cargo ship runs aground off Sweden, crew suspected drunk

 

The captain and helmsman are both suspected of being under the influence of alcohol and we have launched an inquiry," coast guard spokeswoman Lotta Brandstroem told AFP. It was not immediately known why the Anke Angela, an 82-metre (270-foot) ship loaded with timber, ran aground around 0100 GMT in the Kalmarsund strait between the Swedish mainland and the island of Oeland. "The captain is a German national and the helmsman is Russian, and the other four crew members are from Ukraine and Cape Verde," Brandstroem said, adding that the vessel was en route from Moensteraas to Ireland with a cargo of wood. The ship was listing slightly on Wednesday and the coast guard was assessing the damage.

Wonga stops targeting students after Twitter protests

 

Short-term lender Wonga.com has announced that it is taking down information on student finances from its website following accusations it was encouraging undergraduates to take out one of its high-interest loans. Earlier Wonga.com came under severe criticism after its website claimed that its loans can offer students "a little more financial freedom and independence". The claim attracted outrage on Twitter. One user, Neale Gilhooley, tweeted: "A pox on loan company #Wonga offering students loans at a sharking 4,214pc APR." On the "student loans" section of its website, Wonga.com says these government-backed loans – despite their very low interest rates – could encourage people to borrow too much. Student loans currently attract interest at 1.5pc or 5.3pc, depending on when they were taken out. "It's pretty hard not to get carried away when you're a student on a budget and have the option to borrow large amounts of money with a student loan. But the problem with student loans is that they potentially encourage you to live beyond your means," the website says. "They're intended for living and education costs, but it's all too easy to fritter away the money once you have it. Wonga encourages responsible borrowing because, depending on your trust rating, you can borrow as little as £1 up to £1000, as long as you can repay it within a month."

Outspoken Moroccan rapper awaits assault verdict

 

A Moroccan rapper who has become one of the monarchy's boldest critics on Wednesday awaited a verdict after a trial on assault charges which his lawyers and right activists said were a ploy to muzzle the popular singer. Mouad Belrhouat, better known as El-Haqed, or "The Sullen One", has become the singing voice of a protest movement inspired by Arab uprisings, demanding a constitutional monarchy, an independent judiciary and a crackdown on corruption. The judge adjourned the case on Wednesday after an all-night hearing to consider his verdict, expected on Thursday. The 24-year-old rapper has been in jail since his arrest in September after a brawl with a monarchist. Bail requests by his defence team have been rejected and the trial has been adjourned six times. "The charges are a farce. El Haqed is being persecuted for his critical songs. The state is keeping him in jail and repeatedly adjourning his trial to silence him," said Khadija Ryadi, who chairs Morocco's main human rights group, AMDH. The rapper's cutting lyrics telling Moroccans to "wise up" have angered many monarchists. In one song he raps that the king spends so much time giving orders that he has little time to count his money in Switzerland. However, he has struck a chord with young Moroccans who are disenchanted with poor or non-existent jobs and one song "Bite just as much as you can chew" has received more than 600,000 hits on Youtube. ALL-NIGHT SESSION Belrhouat's trial is a test for the Justice and Development Party PJD.L, which like its Tunisian peers is a moderate Islamist party leading a government for the first time after it won elections in November. In a Casablanca court packed with Belrhouat supporters, the judge begun to hear the case in an unusually late session on Tuesday which continued through the night. Mohamed Bouawine, one of the 24 lawyers who have volunteered to defend the rapper, said his client faces up to three years in jail if found guilty. AMDH's Ryadi says Belrhouat has become yet another case among "dozens of prisoners of conscience" in Morocco. Local and international right groups say hundreds of Islamists have been jailed in what they said were politically-motivated trials rushed through after suicide attacks in Casablanca in 2003, that killed 45 people. Morocco's judiciary is meant to be given more independence under reforms crafted last year by the Arab world's longest-serving monarchy as it sought to preempt a popular revolt. The man whom Belrhouat is alleged to have assaulted said the injury left him incapacitated for 45 days but defence lawyers produced evidence suggesting he recovered far more quickly and was being used as a political pawn. Belrhouat's father Mohamed told Reuters he would not be supporting his son in court had the rapper done anything wrong. "My son was set up. The police and the ambulance turned up five minutes after the incident: This never happens here."

Breast implant scandal: taxpayers face £100 million bill

 

Harley Medical Group (HMG), responsible for one in three operations using the French-made implants, said it would go out of business if made to meet the full cost of removal. HMG's position makes it more likely the other two main players, Transform Cosmetic Surgery and The Hospital Group, will also ignore pleas for private clinics to pay for surgery. Should they follow HMG's lead, the bill to taxpayers could feasibly top £100 million as the NHS will be forced to perform the corrective surgery.The big three firms are likely to have performed around two thirds of enlargement operations using faulty implants in Britain. There are around 40,000 women in the UK who have been fitted with the controversial implants and operations to remove them cost around £3,000. Mel Braham, chairman of HMG, claimed the Government had the "moral responsibility" to pay for removal operations, as the regulator meant to ensure the safety of medical devices had failed in its duty.

Iran car explosion kills nuclear scientist in Tehran

 

BBC's Mohsen Asgari: "It seems a motor cyclist pasted a bomb to his car which he was in with two other passengers Continue reading the main story Iran nuclear crisis Undeclared pursuit? Q&A: Nuclear issue Key nuclear sites Sanctions' impact Watch A university lecturer and nuclear scientist has been killed in a car explosion in north Tehran. Mostafa Ahmadi-Roshan, an academic who also worked at the Natanz uranium enrichment facility, and the driver of the car were killed in the attack. The blast happened after a motorcyclist stuck an apparent bomb to the car. Several Iranian nuclear scientists have been assassinated in recent years, with Iran blaming Israel and the US. Both countries deny the accusations. Continue reading the main story Analysis Frank Gardner BBC security correspondent The assassination on Wednesday of another Iranian nuclear scientist may now prompt Iran to try to respond in kind. The murder in Tehran of Mostafa Ahmadi-Roshan comes on top of a sophisticated cyber sabotage programme and two mysterious explosions at Iranian military bases, one of which in November killed the general known as 'the godfather' of Iran's ballistic missile programme. No-one is claiming responsibility for these attacks but Iran blames its longstanding enemy, Israel, and occasionally the US. Whoever is behind them, Iran is clearly being subjected to an undeclared campaign to slow down its nuclear programme. Frank Gardner's analysis in full Iran's Vice-President Mohammad Reza Rahimi told state television that the attack against Mr Ahmadi-Roshan would not stop "progress" in the country's nuclear programme. He called the killing "evidence of [foreign] government-sponsored terrorism". Local sources said Wednesday's blast took place at a faculty of Iran's Allameh Tabatai university. Two others were reportedly also injured in the blast, which took place near Gol Nabi Street, in the north of the capital

Two-thirds of smokers try to quit in new year

 

Two-thirds of smokers in the UK, approximately six million people, will try and quit the habit in January, but half of them will fail within a week, new research suggests. According to the study, commissioned by Pfizer Limited in support of its Don't Go Cold Turkey disease awareness campaign, one in ten of these attempts will not last beyond 24 hours. Typically, smokers admit to having unsuccessfully attempted to quit three times before, with 51 per cent confident they can kick the habit in the next six months. Some 45 per cent say they attempt to quit by 'going cold turkey' or giving up the immediately and relying on willpower, however only three per cent of these people are found to be smoke free after a year. Nearly a quarter of former smokers recommend that people trying to quit consult a healthcare professional. Dr Sarah Jarvis, BBC medical correspondent and practising GP, said: "Even a brief conversation with their healthcare professional or local stop smoking service can increase [a smoker's] chances of success by up to four times, compared to going 'cold turkey'. "People should consider how they can positively influence their chances of quitting." According to Cancer Research UK, 86 per cent of lung cancer deaths are caused by tobacco smoking.

5 UK men on trial for allegedly distributing leaflets calling for gay people to be killed

 

Five men are on trial in Britain for allegedly distributing leaflets calling for gay people to be killed, charged under a new law that makes such actions a hate crime. The men allegedly gave out flyers titled “The Death Penalty” that showed a noose and said gay people would be punished. Two other leaflets were used to publicize a protest against a gay pride march in the central English city of Derby in 2010. 0 Comments Weigh InCorrections? inShare The Crown Prosecution Service said Wednesday this was the first prosecution for stirring up hatred on the grounds of sexual orientation, under the law that took effect in March 2010. It has long been illegal to incite hatred over disability, race or religion. The maximum penalty for the crime is seven years in jail. Prosecutors said Ihjaz Ali, 42, Mehboob Hussain, 45, Umar Javed, 38, Razwan Javed, 27, and Kabir Ahmed, 28, handed out leaflets near a mosque in Derby and also stuffed them into mailboxes. Prosecutor Bobbie Cheema called the leaflets “frightening and nasty.” “These five defendants were part of a small group of men who distributed horrible, threatening literature, with quotations from religious sources and with pictures on them, which were designed to stir up hatred and hostility against homosexual people,” she said.

Twitter has complained about changes made by Google to integrate its social network Google+ into search results.

 

The new feature, called Search plus Your World, will automatically push results from Google+ up the search rankings.

Tweeting on the news, Twitter's lawyer Alex Macgillivray described it as a "bad day for the internet".

Google is determined to push its social network in the face of continued rivalry with Facebook.

The current changes were about even greater personalisation, it said. It already includes personal search history in its search algorithms.

The three changes are:

• Personal Results - which enable users to find information such as Google+ photos and posts, both their own and those shared specifically with them, that only they will be able to see on their results pages
• Profiles in Search - both in autocomplete and results, users will be able to find people they are close to or might be interested in following
• People and Pages - helps users find people profiles and Google+ pages related to a specific topic or area of interest, and enable people to follow them with just a few clicks.

"Search is pretty amazing at finding that one needle in a haystack of billions of webpages, images, videos, news and much more," said Amit Singhal in the firm's official blog.

"But clearly, that isn't enough. You should also be able to find your own stuff on the web, the people you know and things they've shared with you, as well as the people you don't know but might want to... all from one search box," he added.

Twitter's general counsel Alex Macgillivray tweeted in response to the changes: "Bad day for the internet. Having been there, I can imagine the dissension @Google to search being warped this way."

Mr Macgillivray had previously been employed at Google.

Twitter expanded his point in an official statement.

"For years, people have relied on Google to deliver the most relevant results any time they wanted to find something on the internet.

"Often, they want to know more about world events and breaking news. Twitter has emerged as a vital source of this real-time information, with more than 100 million users sending 250 million tweets every day on virtually every topic. As we've seen time and time again, news breaks first on Twitter; as a result, Twitter accounts and tweets are often the most relevant results.

"We're concerned that as a result of Google's changes, finding this information will be much harder for everyone. We think that's bad for people, publishers, news organisations and Twitter users."

Google hit back at the criticisms.

''We are a bit surprised by Twitter's comments about Search plus Your World, because they chose not to renew their agreement with us last summer and since then we have observed their rel=nofollow instructions," it said in a statement.

This refers to a technical barrier which makes it difficult for Google to rank Twitter information, a spokeswoman explained.

There is also little sharing between Google and its other big rival Facebook.

Search expert John Battelle said in his blog post that social search would mean little until the two settled their differences and offered consumers what they really wanted - Facebook data integrated with Google's search.

"The unwillingness of Facebook and Google to share a public commons when it comes to the intersection of search and social is corrosive to the connective tissue of our shared culture," he said.

Europe Banks Hoarding Cash Resist Draghi Bid to Avoid Crunch

 

Banks are hoarding the European Central Bank's record 489 billion-euro ($625 billion) injection into the banking system, thwarting attempts by policy makers to avert a credit crunch in the region. Almost all of the money loaned to 523 euro-area lenders last month wound up back on deposit at the Frankfurt-based central bank instead of pouring into the financial system, ECB data show. Banks will use most of the three-year loans to meet their refinancing needs for this year and next, analysts at Morgan Stanley and Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc estimate. “It's illusory to think that the measure will translate into credit generation,” Philippe Waechter, chief economist at Natixis Asset Management in Paris, said in an interview. “It will assuage some of the anxiety banks have regarding their liquidity needs. But they've engaged into a massive overhaul of their strategy and shrinkage of their balance sheets, which is, coupled with the deteriorating economy, not compatible with increasing credit.” Governments are urging European banks to keep lending to companies and individuals while requiring them to raise an additional 114.7 billion euros of core capital by June to weather a deepening sovereign-debt crisis. Instead of raising equity, most lenders across Europe have vowed to meet capital rules by trimming at least 950 billion euros from their balance sheets over the next two years, either by selling assets or not renewing credit lines, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. ECB Deposits That has stirred concern among policy makers that banks will cut lending and throttle growth in the euro region. Banks have been parking almost all extra liquidity from the ECB loans back at the central bank. Barclays Capital estimates firms used 296 billion euros of the Dec. 21 three-year loans to replace maturing shorter-term ECB borrowings. That left only 193 billion euros of additional money for the financial system. Overnight deposits with the ECB have jumped by about 223 billion euros since the loans to a record 486 billion euros, suggesting the central bank funds haven't so far reached customers. Banks account for about 80 percent of lending to the euro area, making them “crucial to the supply of credit,” according to recently installed ECB President Mario Draghi. By contrast, U.S. companies rely more on capital markets for financing, selling bonds to investors. Refinancing Needs The ECB lending, and a follow-up loan offering on Feb. 28, won't ease the pressure on banks to shrink, say analysts including Huw van Steenis at Morgan Stanley in London. “The ECB loans will largely be used to pre-fund 2012 and some of 2013's bank refinancing needs, but it will not stimulate lending,” Van Steenis said. They will “just stop it falling off precipitously.” Euro-area banks have more than 600 billion euros of debt maturing this year, the Bank of England said in its financial stability report last month. The first ECB loan offering should help cover about two-thirds of that amount, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. analysts say. Morgan Stanley's Van Steenis estimates banks may reduce assets by as much as 2.5 trillion euros in two years, a process known as deleveraging. The volume of loans to households and companies in the 17- nation euro area shrank in November for the second consecutive month, the ECB said on Dec. 29. Loans were still up 1.7 percent over the year-earlier period, slowing from a 2.7 percent increase in the 12 months through October. Merkel, Sarkozy When granted, loans are getting costlier for borrowers. Since July, interest margins have increased, with investment- grade borrowers in Europe paying an average of 91.6 basis points more than benchmark rates, up from 84.4 basis points during the first half of 2011, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. A basis point is one-hundredth of a percentage point. “We must avoid a credit crunch for our economies,” European Union President Herman Van Rompuy said on Jan. 9. “The recent measures by the European Central Bank on a long-term lending facility for the banks are welcome in this context.” The European Banking Authority, which oversees the region's regulators, asked banks on Dec. 8 to retain earnings, curb bonuses and raise equity to boost core capital before resorting to cuts in lending. The EBA followed both French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel in urging banks to keep lending. Sarkozy said on Oct. 27 that he had asked firms to shift “almost all” of their dividends into strengthening balance sheets and to make bonus practices “normal.” Merkel said on Oct. 9 she was “determined to do whatever necessary to recapitalize the banks to ensure credit to the economy.” ‘No Credit Crunch' Bankers have said they haven't restricted lending and that demand for credit is slowing as growth slows. “All banks I talk to keep lending to small- and medium- size enterprises and households,” Christian Clausen, president of the European Banking Federation, an industry association, said on Dec. 9. “That part of the bank will keep rolling.” There is “no credit crunch,” Frederic Oudea, chief executive officer of Societe Generale SA, France's second- biggest lender, and chairman of the French Banking Federation, said last month. “The reality is that credit is available,” he said in an interview on BFM radio on Dec. 16. Even so, companies across Europe say credit is tightening. ‘Double Punch' In France, where credit to the private sector increased by 3.7 percent in November compared with a year earlier, the majority of the country's company treasurers said they encountered “very strong tensions” in negotiating bank loans, with more than 50 percent of respondents saying the process led to more expensive terms, according to a December survey by the French Association of Corporate Treasurers. The majority of those polled said obtaining bank financing was “as difficult as at the end of 2008,” after Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. collapsed. U.K. banks expect to toughen their criteria on loans to companies and households in the first quarter because of strains in the wholesale funding market, the Bank of England said Jan. 5in its fourth-quarter Credit Conditions Survey. Belgian credit growth slowed to 3.1 percent in the 12 months to the end of October, from 3.6 percent at the end of September, the country's central bank said on Dec. 12. In Italy, some companies with annual sales of 30 million euros to 40 million euros are charged as much as 10 percent interest on loans, Emma Marcegaglia, chief of the country's Confindustria lobby group, said in an interview on Dec. 20. Lending to businesses and consumers grew at the weakest pace in a year, the Bank of Italy said today. Draghi's Priority With the ECB's injection, “deleveraging may happen in a more orderly way, but it doesn't mean it will be painless,” said Alberto Gallo, head of European credit strategy at RBS. Banks are faced with high long-term financing costs, a deteriorating economy and difficulties raising capital, he said. “It's what I call the double punch: A combination of negative growth and banks' deleveraging will affect lending activity.” Even the ECB's Draghi, who has made it one of his priorities is to keep credit flowing into the economy, said the central bank's loan offerings may fail to achieve that goal. “Monetary policy cannot do everything, but we're trying to do our best to avoid a credit crunch that might come from a lack of funding,” Draghi said Dec. 19 at the European Parliament in Brussels. “We have to be extremely careful here, because there may be other reasons that create a credit crunch.” Draghi may be wary of the U.S. experience with multiple rounds of bond purchases. That so-called quantitative easing hasn't stimulated lending, Natixis's Waechter said. ‘Kick the Can' “Lending really picked up when the economy got better,” he said. The ECB cut its forecast for euro-area economic growth in 2012 to 0.3 percent on Dec. 8 from a September prediction of 1.3 percent. The central bank expects the economy to expand 1.3 percent next year. In the U.S., almost all categories of bank lending fell in 2009 and 2010 and didn't start improving until last year, when the Federal Reserve stopped its second wave of quantitative easing, according to data by the U.S. institution. Banks increased their holdings of Treasury and agency securities in 2009 and 2010, showing they were using the Fed's cheap money to own safe government paper. Because quantitative easing tends to improve capital markets first, the healing will be even slower in Europe given its reliance on banks for borrowing, according to Gallo.

Switch to olive oil for better health

 

Indian households should completely switch to olive oil as a cooking medium as its nutritional value is very high, it is rich in monounsaturated 'good' fats and, when used daily, can bring instant and easy wellness to a family's diet, celebrity chef and noted cookery expert Nita Mehta says. "Even though we have such a wide range of olive oils in our market, people don't seem to use them because of their mental block that the flavour of olive oil doesn't gel with Indian flavors," Mehta said at the launch here Satuday her latest book, "Indian Cooking With Olive Oil".