| Subprime & Contagion
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'Death in Kovalam' by John Francis Kinsella
The
story is set in an Indian beach resort, popular
amongst British tourists, over the Christmas
vacation period. Tom Barton, a City mortgage broker, arrives
in Kovalam after abandoning his business in
the wake of the subprime crisis. In his luxury hotel he meets Emma, the wife
of Stephen Parkly, the CEO of a London bank,
West Mercian Finance. Stephen Parkly falls gravely ill with a
mysterious infection and is hospitalized in
a local clinic.
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His situation rapidly
declines and he is put into intensive care. At
the very same time his bank is caught in a
Northern Rock style run. Dr. Ryan
Kavanagh, a specialist in internal medicine, on
holiday with his mother and sister Sarah,
discovers an attempted cover-up by the Indian
authorities. The disease is diagnosed as cholera, panic sets
in when tourists start to fall ill with the
deadly infection, just as the tourist season is
getting into full swing. Thousands of British
tourists enjoying the sun on the beaches are
unaware of the pending epidemic. Many of the
same tourists, ignorant of the crisis facing
West Mercian Finance, are about to see their
life savings wiped out in the collapse. For all
details please contact:
sumpinein@gmail.com or check it out on
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| French
Open Gael Monfils |
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A new face in French
tennis makes it hard work for Roger Federer in a
breathtaking semi final match. For the third
consecutive year Federer will meet the Raphael
Nadal in the final of the Paris grand slam. |
| and Ana
Ivanovic |
| will meet the
Russian
Dinara Safina in the women's final |
| Over the coming three
weeks Europe will be football crazy as the
qualifying countries' teams battle it out for
the cup. For the first
time England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland are
absent from the finals of the competition. The
countries that will be watched by hundreds of
millions of fans will be:
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PANIC ON WALL STREET! |
| Oil
reaches $139 - unemployment
jumps - housing news grim - Iran
threatened with war - panic on
Wall Street. Is this the end of
the world? Not yet is no doubt
the answer, but in the meantime
the pressure grows on the
ordinary man as bankers continue
to draw huge bonuses for their
blatant failure. The real bad
news is that this is paid by
you...Yes YOU. Whether you are a
shareholder, a salaried worker,
wage earner, if you have a
mortgage, if you have a consumer
loan, if you have a bank
account, an insurance policy or
a retirement plan, then you are
paying these bonuses.
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The Independent New
York Times will be pleased to receive your
articles and comments. Please contact our
editorial desk at the following address
sumpinein@gmail.com
and we shall endeavour to answer you promptly. |
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The Other China |
| Much has been
said about China in the Olympic year.
After the Olympic flame demonstrations
and the outrage by the country's
Communist government at the right to
free speech - beyond their shores -
world sympathy poured in for the
victims of the terrible earthquake in
Sichuan Province and the millions of
homeless. At the same time behind
the glossy facade and the images of
heroic efforts to help those hit by the
tragedy, countless millions of other
Chinese citizens continue to go about
their daily lives faced with the
problems of pollution, low wages and poor working
conditions. Fifty percent of the
country's
population have no medical cover and
cannot afford the cost of modern
treatment. In China like in the so
called capitalist nations, the rich get
richer and the poor are left behind...as
inflation starts to bite... |
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Chinese
Gas guzzler and why not... |
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US
alternative or wishful thinking... |
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| How the other half
live... |
| In the meantime...at
the UN Food and Agricultural
Conference in Rome...an African
defends his dictatorship... |
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| Of course there is no
oil in Zimbabwe but they do have Mugabe to
defend his corrupt government without the help
of George Bush and his coalition. |
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Barack Obama toughened his
stance on Iran and backed Israel in his first
foreign policy speech since winning the
Democratic nomination for U.S. president. He
vowed to stop Iran from acquiring a nuclear
weapon and insisted Jerusalem should be the
undivided capital of the Jewish state in a
speech to the American Israel Public Affairs
Committee, a pro-Israel lobby group. 'Let me be
clear. Israel's security is sacrosanct. It is
nonnegotiable. The Palestinians need a state
that is contiguous and cohesive, and that allows
them to prosper,' Obama said. |
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Israel's Deputy Prime
Minister warns of attack on Iran risk |
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| Deputy Prime Minister
Shaul Mofaz said sanctions on Iran were
ineffective.' If Iran continues with its
programme for developing nuclear weapons, we
will attack it. The sanctions are ineffective,'
Mr Mofaz said 'Attacking Iran, in order to stop
its nuclear plans, will be unavoidable'.
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