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An independent view of the world seen from Tokelau

The Independent New York Times

Tokelau, Saturday, April 12, 2008 Weekend Edition, editor Sumpinein

Subprime & Contagion
'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.
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   

Death in Kovalam

Microsoft - Yahoo

Is a battle developing for Yahoo as Rupert News Corporation starts talks with Microsoft about joining in its contested bid for Yahoo, according to people involved in the discussions. The combination, which would join Yahoo, Microsoft’s MSN and News Corporation’s MySpace, would create a behemoth that would upend the Internet landscape. It seems that the huge takeovers seen in recent years are not over in spite of many burnt fingers.

James Joyce in Paris
BOOKS
The Legacy of Solomon is the latest novel from John Francis Kinsella. The story commences at Shakespeare and Company in Paris, a second hand book shop once frequented by James Joyce, with a meeting between a novelist and a strange Biblical archaeologist. It develops in Israel where the writer investigates the archaeological story behind the work to discover the site of the Jewish Temple, the biblical legend, against a background of conflicting evidence and the conflict between Israel and Palestine. Visit http://herod.tk

The Legacy of Solomon

 

Olympics Farce

The real question is didn't the Olympic committee know that China behind all the glitter has an old fashioned communist government. Besides that it's a field day for all the high (and low) profile do gooders. Have they forgotten Darfur, Palestine, Chechnya and Haiti? The media sells the public stories, orients them, perhaps not deliberately, but nonetheless efficiently, to the latest headlines.

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.

House Price Crash

So finally it looks like HPC is international with the UK  joining the USA as mortgage companies announce a brutal fall in house prices for the month of March. Once again home owners on both sides of the Atlantic will be faced with negative equity. The Bank of England reduces interest rates and the pound sterling falls to a new low against the euro. The US mortgage crisis has spiralled into "the largest financial shock since the Great Depression" and there is a one-in-four chance that it will cause a full-blown global recession, the International Monetary Fund warned yesterday. As finance ministers and central bankers arrived in Washington to discuss ways of tackling the crisis, the IMF warned, in its twice-yearly World Economic Outlook, that governments might be forced to step in with more public bailouts of troubled banks and cash-strapped homeowners before the crisis was over."The financial market crisis that erupted in August 2007 has developed into the largest financial shock since the Great Depression, inflicting heavy damage on markets and institutions at the core of the financial system," it said.

Commercial property funds have lost an average of around 35pc over the past year

HSBC has introduces mortgage Rate Matcher
Mugabe
In the meantime...
Did anybody rush in to save the people of Zimbabwe after decades of disaster under a cruel and crazy dictator? Of course not, there's no oil stupid!

Oil hits $122 in trading this week

Our only adds are for charitable organizations. So why not donate a dollar or two directly to one of these charities!
Dreamliner

Boeing's new Dreamliner aircraft is causing more headaches, with the US plane-maker announcing a third delay to its launch, pushing the 787 aircraft's first test flight 15 months behind the original date. The twin-engined jet is now expected to take to the air in the fourth quarter this year, three months later than the second revised plan, while customers will have to wait another six months for the start of deliveries. Redesigns on the carbon composite aircraft and the decision to handle more work in Boeing's own plants have contributed to delays. Boeing has ended up suffering the same fate with the Dreamliner as Airbus did with its much delayed A380.

Fuel prices weigh on airlines
Record-high fuel prices and the industry’s fragile finances have led to a new round of bankruptcies among smaller carriers in recent weeks, including ATA Airlines, Skybus and Aloha Airgroup.Bigger airlines are shrinking their fleets to cut fuel costs, even as demand for travel remains strong — meaning flights are growing more crowded and unpleasant.
2008 is the 100th anniversary of the birth of Herbert von Karajan Peace talks make no progress between Israel and the Palestinians.