Archive for January, 2012
January 30th, 2012 | 
Author: Voting has begun amid tight security in key state elections in the Indian states of Punjab and Uttarakhand.
Over 20 million voters are eligible to vote for more than 1,800 candidates vying for 187 assembly seats.
Five states are holding local elections over the next month – a test for India's governing Congress party.
The first round of the polls in Manipur over the weekend was marked by violence when suspected rebels attacked a polling station and killed four people.
Some of the dead in the north-eastern state were polling officials, reports say.
As well as elections in Manipur, Punjab and Uttarakhand, voters in Uttar Pradesh and Goa will also vote in the next few weeks, with results due on 6 March.
Monday's polls in the politically crucial northern state of Punjab are expected to see a keen contest between the ruling coalition – led by the regional Shiromani Akali Dal party – and the main opposition Congress party. There are 117 seats in the state assembly.
Hundreds of policemen and paramilitary soldiers have been deployed in Punjab to ensure peaceful polling.
In mountainous Uttarakhand, the ruling Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is fighting to gain a second term in power in face of opposition from the Congress party. The state has 70 assembly seats.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his government have been on the defensive in recent months, as Congress struggles to get its anti-corruption bill through parliament.
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Story By: by Dan Charles
The new version of the map includes 13 zones, with the addition for the first time of zones 12 (50-60 degrees F) and 13 (60-70 degrees F).
The last iteration of the Plant Hardiness Zone Map, from 1990. In the 2012 map, many zone boundaries have shifted significantly.
Some of the shifting zone boundaries, they said, were the result of more sophisticated mapping. For the first time, the new map takes into account the effects of elevation, large lakes, and whether a place is located in a valley or on top of a ridge. They admitted, however, that most of the changes were due to using temperature data from recent years, which have been relatively toasty.
Unlike previous hardiness maps, the USDA won’t sell poster-sized versions of this one. But there’s an interactive version, available on the web, where you can explore the map in exquisite detail.
CNN congressional correspondent Kate Bolduan contributed to this report.
By GREGORY ZUCKERMAN
Q: What are trust preferred securities? Can they be useful in an IRA? Where can information be found?
Harry Newby
A: Trust preferred securities—or Trups—aren’t quite shares, yet they’re not exactly debt. They are created when an issuer—usually a bank or large company—creates a trust to hold a single asset, usually a long-term bond issued by that bank or company. Trups usually come in $25 denominations, and often trade on exchanges. Purchasers receive a claim on the trust and its income.
“The bank makes its bond interest payments to the trust, and the trust in turn makes payments to investors,” explains Mitchel Schlesinger, chief investment officer of FBB Capital Partners, based in Bethesda, Md.
Trust preferreds pay quarterly distributions that are treated as ordinary income for tax purposes, notes Mr. Schlesinger, so holding them in a tax-advantaged account like an IRA makes sense for most.
They can yield more than corporate bonds or preferred shares, making them attractive for some investors. Their maturities are longer, too, giving an investor the possibility of considerable long-term yields. Trups can be purchased through any broker.
Generally, they are subordinate to standard debt in the event of a bankruptcy, which explains why they tend to have sizable yields, says Scott Colyer, chief executive and CIO of Advisors Asset Management, a Monument, Colo.-based advisory firm.
But the risks are imposing. For one, issuers are allowed to miss some payments. Trups are subordinated to an issuer’s other debt, though they are senior to traditional preferred and common equity. They are callable, meaning the issuer can buy them back, though that wouldn’t necessarily lead to losses. This risk has increased recently, says Mr. Schlesinger, because the Dodd-Frank financial-reform legislation changed the way most larger banks can treat this debt; it no longer will count toward a bank’s regulatory capital requirements. As such, more banks likely will move to call these securities, analysts say, making it more dangerous to buy those trading at a premium to the issue price.
Mr. Schlesinger also notes that it may be hard for an investor needing to sell a trust preferred security to find an active market, reducing any price that might be obtained.
Adds Robert Benson, CIO at Laird Norton Tyee, a Seattle wealth-management firm: “Investors rarely hear about trust preferred securities because both supply and demand have waned significantly in recent years.”
Banks, which won approval to issue Trups in 1996, once saw them as a way to quickly raise cash while using the proceeds to bolster their regulatory capital requirements. But unlike dividend payments or preferred stock, interest they paid on Trups was tax-deductible, like other debt, making them a win-win for banks. But interest has dropped after the 2008 credit crisis felled a number of big banks, making investors wary.
For those with faith in the banks and other issuers of Trups, QuantumOnline.com is an information source that Mr. Schlesinger recommends. The site is operated by Quantum Investment Service, Kalispell, Mont.
Q: What is your opinion of closed-end bond and stock funds?
Saul A. Marsh
A: Closed-end funds buy a diversified basket of investments, such as stocks and bonds, like any other mutual funds. But these funds issue a set number of shares and trade in the secondary market, like stocks. So the price of a closed-end fund can rise above, or fall below, the value of the fund’s holdings.
They typically trade at a discount to their net asset value, notes Patrick Galley, CIO of RiverNorth Capital Management, Chicago. That’s partly because some invest with borrowed money, making them riskier. Others buy interests in private equity, making it hard to determine their accurate value.
“If purchased at a discount and the discount narrows, this is an additional return above and beyond how the net asset value performed,” Mr. Galley says. “Closed-end funds are one of the only securities [that] you know what it’s truly worth on a daily basis but still have the opportunity to purchase it at a discount.”
Maury Fertig, CIO at Relative Value Partners, Northbrook, Ill., says closed-end funds often have higher yields than ETFs and mutual funds, in part because they can invest using borrowed money, and because they can trade at a discount to NAV.
Mr. Fertig says the discounts are biggest in late November and early December, especially during volatile years, as investors sell for tax-loss purposes. About 20% of these funds currently trade at a discount greater than 10%, he says. Recent volatility has some trading at a larger discount than usual or a larger discount than is warranted, says J. Scott Miller Jr., a managing partner and CIO at Blue Bell Private Wealth Management LLC in Blue Bell, Pa.
Mr. Galley is a fan of equity-focused closed-end funds, which are trading at historically wide discounts. But it’s hard to generalize about the attractiveness of closed-end funds since they include so many varieties of investments. And beware of paying a premium, since most of the funds eventually trade at a discount to their NAV.
PIMCO High Income Fund, for instance, recently traded at a premium 66% above its NAV, likely because of its 12% distribution yield. But such a yield may be unsustainable, Mr. Miller says.
Mr. Zuckerman is a special writer for The Wall Street Journal in New York. He can be reached at gregory.zuckerman@wsj.com. Send questions about alternative investing to reports@wsj.com.
Mitt Romney released some information about his income and his income taxes last week. It does not speak well for his acumen that he resisted so long. He should have known that the modern popularity of such concepts as “transparency,” “full disclosure” and “the appearance of conflict of interest” would force him to publish or perish.
As a practical matter, he should have released his financial information last summer, when fewer people cared. It would be old news now, like the story of the family dog he transported to Canada on the roof of his station wagon. Instead, he calls …
Vietnam, a one-party Communist state, has one of south-east Asia's fastest-growing economies and has set its sights on becoming a developed nation by 2020.
A visit to Vietnam by US President Bill Clinton in November 2000 was presented as the culmination of American efforts to normalise relations with the former enemy.
Vietnam struggled to find its feet after unification and tried at first to organise the agricultural economy along strict collectivist lines.
But elements of market forces and private enterprise were introduced from the late 1980s and a stock exchange opened in 2000.
Foreign investment has grown and the US is Vietnam's main trading partner. In the cities, the consumer market is fuelled by the appetite of a young, middle class for electronic and luxury goods. After 12 years of negotiations the country joined the World Trade Organization in January 2007.
But the disparity in wealth between urban and rural Vietnam is wide and some Communist Party leaders worry that too much economic liberalisation will weaken their power base.
Vietnam has also struggled to restrain its trade and budget deficits. Its inflation rate reached double digits at the start of 2010 and approached 20 per cent by the end of 2011, as food prices doubled.
Despite pursuing economic reform, the ruling Communist Party shows little willingness to give up its monopoly on political power.
Vietnam stands accused of suppressing political dissent and religious freedom. Rights groups have singled out Hanoi's treatment of ethnic minority hill tribe people, collectively known as Montagnards.
The human rights advocacy group Amnesty International says in a 2011 report that ''more than a dozen activists were convicted in faulty trials simply because they had peacefully voiced criticism of government policies''.
Release Date: 01/05/2012Contact Information: John Martin (212) 637- 3662 martin.johnj@epa.gov
(New York, N.Y.) The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency today issued its 25th annual report on the amount of toxic chemicals released in 2010 to the land, air and water by industrial facilities in Puerto Rico. The Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) report covers 115 Puerto Rico facilities that are required to report their releases to the EPA. Total releases of chemicals in Puerto Rico were 15% lower in 2010 than in 2009. Schering Plough in Las Piedras, which recently merged with Merck, reported a decrease in air emissions. In addition, Caribbean Petroleum Refining is no longer reporting to the TRI program due to the closure of this facility.
“Transparency is a powerful tool,” said EPA Regional Administrator Judith A. Enck. “The Toxics Release Inventory allows the public and policymakers to better understand the pollutants released to our air, water and land each year and gives them the information they need to take action in their communities. The data that was released is a reminder of how important TRI has been in helping us create a healthier environment, and the work still needed to be done to reduce industrial pollution.”
Last year marked the 25th Anniversary of the Toxic Release Inventory. In 1986, New Jersey Senator Frank R. Lautenberg authored the legislation that established TRI, which was signed into law as part of the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act. Since that time, TRI data has been provided to the public annually to inform the public about the chemicals present in their local environment and gauge environmental trends over time. The inventory contains the most comprehensive information about chemicals released into the environment reported annually by certain industries and federal facilities. Many of these facilities are required to install and maintain pollution controls to meet the limits on pollution set forth in their permit.
Facilities must report their toxic chemical releases by July 1 of each year. EPA made a preliminary set of data for 2010 available in July 2011, the month the reported data was collected. Nationally, over 20,000 facilities reported on approximately 650 chemicals for calendar year 2010.
EPA has improved this year’s TRI national analysis report by adding new information on risks, facility efforts to reduce pollution and details about how possible economic impacts could affect TRI data. With this report and EPA’s Web-based TRI tools, the public can access information about the disposals and releases of toxic chemicals into the air, water, and land that occur in their communities. Finally, EPA’s first mobile Web application for accessing TRI data, myRTK, is now available in English and Spanish, as are expanded Spanish translations of national analysis documents and Web pages.
To view an area fact sheet, visit: http://www.epa.gov/triexplorer/statefactsheet.htm
For program overview, visit: http://www.epa.gov/tri/
For myRTK, visit: http://www.epa.gov/tri/myrtk/
Follow EPA Region 2 on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/eparegion2 and visit our Facebook page, http://www.facebook.com/eparegion2
12-005
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MARSEILLE, France (Reuters) – Jean-Claude Mas, the Frenchman who sparked a global health scare by selling substandard breast implants, was released from police custody on Friday and faces a charge of causing bodily harm, his lawyer said.
Mas will not be investigated for the graver charge of manslaughter, as was expected, but does now face criminal charges which carry longer sentences than those he faces in a fraud case expected to go to trial around October.
He was released on bail of 100,000 euros ($131,600), banned from leaving the country and from meeting former executives of his now defunct company Poly Implant Prothese (PIP).
“We are satisfied that Mr Mas could explain himself to a judge,” his lawyer Yves Haddad said on iTele television. “This is a relief for him.”
“On the charge of involuntary homicide, the judge decided that for now there is no link,” Haddad said.
In the first arrests since the two-year-old scandal made headlines worldwide in December, Mas and a second PIP executive were seized at their homes in southern France just after dawn.
Women who have been campaigning against PIP since French authorities banned its products nearly two years ago welcomed the move as giving them a sense that the law was now in action:
“It’s been too long,” said Murielle Ajellio, who heads an association for women with implants. Up to now, she said: “You feel like you’re fighting against the wind.”
French authorities have been criticized for being slow to react to a case that has sown fear among tens of thousands of women who carry PIP implants. French inspectors ordered them off the market in March 2010, due to concerns over their quality.
But only last month did officials in Paris recommend their surgical removal, drawing attention to the problem for patients worldwide who had been fitted with products from the company, which was at one time the third biggest global supplier.
Lawyers for women in France who have filed complaints over PIP implants welcomed the arrests and said there must be no escaping justice for the 72-year-old Mas, who has been quoted as deriding those suing him as being motivated only by money.
“This is a comfort for the victims,” said Laurent Gaudon, whose clients are pursuing PIP and surgeons who used its implants for fraud. “It’s the feeling that justice is advancing and they have not been forgotten. It’s the assurance that the guilty are at last going to be held accountable.”
Philippe Courtois, who represents 1,300 people with PIP implants, said Mas should not be freed pending any trial.
Mas and PIP’s former chief executive Claude Couty were questioned at home, as police conducted searches. They were then moved to police custody in the Mediterranean port city of Marseille, under the orders of prosecutor Jacques Dallest.
SUBSTANDARD SILICONE
PIP enjoyed years of success with international sales, but behind the scenes employees, and Mas himself, have admitted to hiding from certification agencies the fact they were using cheap, industrial silicone, not approved for medical use.
Health authorities in France and elsewhere have stressed that PIP’s products carry no proven link to cancer, but surgeons report that they have abnormally high rupture rates. Responses to the problem have varied among different foreign authorities.
Thursday’s arrests follow an investigation opened in Marseille, close to PIP’s former premises, on December 8 after the death from cancer in 2010 of a woman with PIP implants.
Mas and Couty can be held for up to 48 hours while a judge decides whether to open a formal probe and, if so, what bail conditions, if any, to set.
A trial date could be years away, given the extent of inquiry required, but the bodily harm case could make it harder for Mas to avoid appearing in court later this year on other charges of fraud and deception.
That latter case targets half a dozen former PIP executives and could also carry prison terms for them of several years. It has dragged on as investigators have had to quiz up to 2,700 women who have filed complaints over PIP implants.
Mas, who sold some 300,000 implants around the world, has acknowledged that he used unapproved silicone but dismissed fears that it constituted a health risk.
Earlier in January, leaks from a police document showed Mas admitting to lying about the quality of PIP’s implants and describing the women filing complaints against him as just seeking money. The comments sparked public anger against him.
PIP closed down in March 2010 after regulators discovered it was using a non-approved, industrial silicone gel, and pulled its implants off the market.
Last month, the French government advised women with PIP implants to have them removed, and said it would pay for the operations in France, sparking alarm around the world.
Officials in several other countries, including Britain and Brazil, have asked women to visit their doctors for checks.
France has called for tighter European Union regulations on medical devices in wake of the PIP affair, saying suppliers of prosthetics should require the same sort of authorization as manufacturers of prescription medicines.
(Writing by Catherine Bremer and Nicholas Vinocur; Editing by Alastair Macdonald and Louise Ireland)
Dubai: The Dubai Marathon is no longer a contest for only those who have a passion for long-distance running — it has also become an event which attracts top sportsmen from other fields too.
Today will see former England and Manchester City football star Trevor Sinclair taking part in the Standard Chartered Dubai Marathon.
Sinclair, who now lives in Dubai and is a television presenter for the English Premier League as well as a coach at the Carlton Palmer Football Academy, will participate in this morning’s marathon to prove a point.
"I want to inspire my kids to a healthier lifestyle and be a good role model to them. Going running doesn’t cost a lot of money — just a pair of trainers and enthusiasm. It’s a wonderful thing to do," said Sinclair, who played in the 2002 World Cup but retired from football in 2008.
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Release Date: 11/18/2011Contact Information: John Martin (212) 637- 3662 martin.johnj@epa.gov; or Michael Basile (716) 551-4410 basile.michael@epa.gov
(Lackawanna, New York) The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory are evaluating the feasibility of developing wind or solar power production on three previously contaminated sites in New York State. EPA Regional Administrator Judith A. Enck today visited the community near the former Bethlehem Steel plant in Lackawanna, one of two Buffalo area sites that will be evaluated, to announce the New York sites chosen for assessments. The assessments are part of the RE-Powering America’s Land Initiative through which EPA will help revitalize abandoned sites, clean up the environment and lay the groundwork for renewable energy and job creation. The Lackawanna site will be evaluated for either solar or wind power. The EPA and DOE will evaluate sites in 20 states including Lackawanna, South Buffalo and Ulster, New York.
“America faces serious environmental and economic challenges caused by our over reliance on fossil fuels,” said Judith A. Enck, EPA Regional Administrator. “Part of the solution is to use previously contaminated land to generate clean energy. This strategy will revitalize communities, cut air pollution and create new jobs.”
EPA and DOE selected 26 sites across the country where wind, solar, biomass, or geothermal energy production may be possible. The EPA and DOE will determine the potential energy generating capacity of the sites, the optimal location for placement of the renewable energy technology on the sites, the return on the investment, and the economic feasibility of the renewable energy projects.
The New York sites to be assessed are:
The ArcelorMittal Tecumseh Redevelopment, Inc. property, Lackawanna, New York
The ArcelorMittal Tecumseh property consists of 1,100 acres located on the shores of Lake Erie in Lackawanna, New York. The site once housed the Bethlehem steel plant. The site is located next door to the nationally known 2.5 mega-watt Steel Winds wind turbine project. EPA and DOE will assess the potential for either wind or solar power production on the site. New energy production could build on the success of the Steel Winds facility and aid the community in addressing the impacts of massive job losses from the de-industrialization of the Great Lakes region.
South Buffalo/Buffalo River industrial area, Buffalo, New York
This 3,500-acre area is within two state-designated brownfield areas, known as South Buffalo and Buffalo River. Historic uses of these sites include steel operations, iron production, grain production, and production of dye and organic chemicals. EPA and DOE will assess the area for wind or solar power production potential. The large areas of vacant land present an opportunity for the construction of numerous renewable energy facilities in the project area. There has already been significant public and private investment and stakeholder interest in renewable energy production in this part of the city.
TechCity, Ulster County, New York
The 256-acre TechCity site is the largest industrial site in the town of Ulster, New York. The site is already being redeveloped, with millions already invested. The EPA and DOE will examine the potential for solar power production on this site. The existing redevelopment plan already leaves 50 acres open for ground-mount solar and calls for rooftop photovoltaic cells on large buildings. Renewable energy manufacturing businesses are currently manufacturing materials for solar power, LED lighting and energy efficient roofing materials at the site. Bringing solar energy production to the site could further bolster the efforts of these green businesses.
For more information about these projects of about the RE-Powering America’s Land initiative, visit:
http://www.epa.gov/renewableenergyland/.
Follow EPA Region 2 on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/eparegion2 and visit our Facebook page, www.facebook.com/eparegion2/.
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