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Sharapova Beats Ivanovic to Win First Australian Open

2008-01-26T02:34:00.000-08:00

Sharapova Beats Ivanovic to Win First Australian Open.....

Jan. 26 (Bloomberg) -- Fifth-seeded Maria Sharapova beat No. 4 Ana Ivanovic in straight sets to clinch her first Australian Open title and third Grand Slam championship today.

Sharapova, 20, won 7-5, 6-3 to secure the year's first tennis major 12 months after losing to Serena Williams in the final at Melbourne Park. She beat former winners Lindsay Davenport and Justine Henin at this year's tournament.

Russia's Sharapova, who didn't drop a set this year, added to her 2004 Wimbledon and 2006 U.S. Open crowns after recovering from a shoulder problem that troubled her in 2007.

``Last year was a pretty difficult year,'' Sharapova said at the presentation ceremony. ``This is just incredible.''

The 20-year-old Ivanovic, who also lost last year's French Open final, was bidding to become the first Grand Slam champion from Serbia. Novak Djokovic will try for that feat in tomorrow's men's final against France's Jo-Wilfried Tsonga.

With both players seeking shade between points as temperatures reached 34 degrees Celsius (93 degrees Fahrenheit), Sharapova took control by winning nine of every 10 points when her first service was in. She lost just two points on her serve in the second set.

``She was serving so well, it was hard for me to control the returns,'' Ivanovic said. ``I didn't get many chances on her serve, so it was a little disappointing for me.''

Top Earner

Sharapova, who burst on the tennis scene by winning Wimbledon as a 17-year-old, didn't face a break point in the second set. The 6-foot-2 Russian closed out the victory with a second straight break of service after 91 minutes to collect the trophy and a check for A$1.37 million ($1.2 million).

According to Forbes, her endorsements with companies including Nike Inc. and Canon Inc. made her the top-earning women's athlete last year with $23 million even after her prize money fell by $2.1 million.

Ivanovic's first double fault left her 15-40 down in the fifth game and Sharapova pounded ground strokes from the baseline to force the break and lead 3-2.

Sharapova held serve without losing a point for the third straight game and then took Ivanovic to 30-30 after correctly challenging an overrule by the chair umpire. The Serb recovered to hold for 4-3.

Ivanovic took until the eighth game to score a point off Sharapova's serve and got a first chance to break when the Russian double-faulted. After saving that point, Sharapova served two more double-faults to lose the game and make it 4-4.

Unforced Errors

Sharapova broke for a 6-5 lead when Ivanovic slammed a forehand long, her 19th of 33 unforced errors today, and rediscovered her serving rhythm by winning four straight points to take the first set in 49 minutes.

The opening game of the second set lasted nine minutes as Ivanovic staved off two break points. Both players held serve comfortably until the seventh game, when Ivanovic double-faulted and then slapped a forehand into the net to trail 4-3.

Two more errors from Ivanovic in her next service game gave Sharapova three championship points. She won at the third attempt and collapsed to her knees before burying her face in her hands at Rod Laver Arena.

``If you had told me in the middle of last year that I would be standing here on this stage with the big one I would say, 'forget it,''' Sharapova said.

source : www.bloomberg.com

Trader Turns Societe Generale Report Into a Nightmare (Update1)

2008-01-26T02:19:00.000-08:00

Trader Turns Societe Generale Report Into a Nightmare (Update1)

Jan. 25 (Bloomberg) -- Societe Generale SA Chairman Daniel Bouton was preparing for a Jan. 21 press conference to announce writedowns that were less than many analysts expected, leaving the bank with pretax profit of 5.5 billion euros ($8.1 billion).

Over the weekend, he learned the U.S. subprime market was the least of his problems. A rogue trader, who'd worked his way from the back office to the trading floor, had made unauthorized bets on stock index futures that would wipe out much of those profits.

The news conference was postponed by three days while the bank sold the contracts as markets plunged worldwide, racking up an unprecedented 4.9 billion-euro trading loss. Speculation about losses related to the global credit crunch drove the shares down 7.3 percent during that time.

``We were hoping to greet you Monday with news of near record profits for 2007,'' Bouton said yesterday at the company's headquarters in Paris. ``Instead, we are here to tell you of this incredible loss. It's been some of the most difficult days for many of us.''

Investors were just as shocked to learn the news was far worse than they expected. The combination of the losses and writedowns depleted Societe Generale's capital, forcing it to announce plans to raise money from shareholders.

``It's unbelievable,'' said Patrizio Pazzaglia, a money manager at Bank Insinger de Beaufort NV in Rome.

Virtual Trades

Societe Generale was little changed at 10:58 a.m. in Paris, after falling 4.1 percent yesterday. The stock has dropped 23 percent this year, valuing the bank at 35.3 billion euros.

The trader, Jerome Kerviel, 31, built a virtual company within Societe Generale, bank officials said. He balanced each bet with a fictitious one for almost a year. On Friday, a routine check found a trade that exceeded the bank's limits. A call to the other party in the trade found the transaction didn't exist.

``He was running two books simultaneously, one real and one false,'' Bouton said at a press conference yesterday in Paris.

Societe Generale yesterday filed a lawsuit against ``a 31- year-old person'' for creating fraudulent documents, using forged documents and making attacks on an automated system, said Clarisse Grillon, a spokeswoman for the Nanterre prosecutor.

Intimate Knowledge

Kerviel drew on knowledge he acquired during six years in Societe Generale's back office, where he went to work in 2000 after completing a degree in market operations at the University of Lyon II, according to an alumni Web page. He had to breach five levels of controls to get away with his trades, Bank of France Governor Christian Noyer said at a press conference yesterday.

His ``intimate and perverse'' knowledge of the bank's controls let him avoid detection, co-Chief Executive Officer Philippe Citerne told reporters.

An e-mail to an address on a Facebook page listing Kerviel's name went unanswered.

Kerviel moved to the bank's trading floor in 2006. The trader, who had an annual salary and bonus of less than 100,000 euros, didn't enrich himself and his motivations were unclear, Bouton said. He got tripped up when the bank boosted its controls, partly by increasing its back-office staff by 50 percent to 2,000 people in the past year.

More Than Leeson

``That's when he made his first mistake,'' said Jean-Pierre Mustier, head of investment banking at Societe Generale. ``He no longer knew the type and calendar of the controls.''

The trading loss raises questions about the bank's risk management procedures.

``I find it really improbable that this trader was not abetted by at the very least incompetence, if not assistance from others,'' said Joseph Mason, a risk-management researcher and professor of finance at Drexel University in Philadelphia. ``Ultimately, we're talking about a breakdown of fundamental operational controls.''

The losses triggered by Kerviel exceed the $6.6 billion that Amaranth Advisors LLC posted in 2006 and are more than four times the $1.4 billion of losses by Nick Leeson that brought down Barings Plc in 1995.

Societe Generale's Mustier first got wind of the record trading fraud on the evening of Friday, Jan. 18.

`Bad Luck'

A compliance officer called to tell him that a supposed counterparty to a futures trade knew nothing of the transaction. It wasn't until late Sunday that bank officials pieced together the full extent of the fraud.

Kerviel helped with the investigations throughout the weekend, Mustier said.

On Sunday afternoon, Bouton called Noyer and stock market regulators to tell them the scope of what they were uncovering. The regulators agreed Societe Generale should liquidate the positions as quickly as possible and then inform the market, Bouton said.

By the time European markets opened Monday morning, Asian stock indexes were down several percentage points.

``We had the bad luck that markets fell in Asia, but we had the good luck that volumes were so high so that we were able to make the trades without alerting the market,'' Bouton said.

``There was never any question of holding onto the positions hoping markets would go our way,'' he said. ``And if we'd told the world about our positions, we'd have had the whole market against us and we'd have had losses 10 times as large.''

for more info : SOURCE : www.bloomberg.com

Monte Carlo Fire in Las Vegas Forces Guests to Flee

2008-01-26T02:05:00.000-08:00

Monte Carlo Fire in Las Vegas Forces Guests to Flee (Update5)

Jan. 25 (Bloomberg) -- A three-alarm fire billowing black smoke charred the top of MGM Mirage's 32-story Monte Carlo Resort & Casino on the Las Vegas Strip earlier today, forcing the evacuation of its 3,002 rooms and gaming hall. More than a dozen people suffered minor injuries.

``Our firefighters had to hang out of the windows'' to put out the blaze, Steven Smith, Clark County fire chief, said in a televised interview. The cause of the fire, which was mostly confined to the exterior of the building, is under investigation. There was no immediate indication of arson, he said.

Five guests and eight engineers suffered from minor smoke inhalation, said Gordon Absher, a spokesman for MGM, in an interview. The blaze started around 11 a.m. local time, drew 120 firefighters, and was contained by 12:15 p.m., he said.

``The fire was restricted to the exterior of the building,'' Absher said, relaying information from the fire department. ``The sprinklers didn't even go off in some of those (top floor) rooms, because there was no smoke.''

The fire raised memories of the 1980 blaze at the MGM Grand Hotel, which killed 87 people and led to new safety measures for hotels in the U.S.

Today's fire affected the roof of the Monte Carlo and at least two floors below, Absher said. The Monte Carlo has 3,015 employees, and the casino has more than 102,100 square feet of gaming space, according to its Web site.

Built by Mandalay

MGM, the world's second-largest casino company, fell $2.25, or 3.1 percent, to $70.80 in New York Stock Exchange composite trading today. The shares were down prior to the first reports of the fire. The company's shares climbed 47 percent last year.

The Monte Carlo, which sits on the Las Vegas Strip adjacent to MGM's $7.8 billion CityCenter project, opened in 1996 and was renovated in 2004. It was built by Mandalay Resort Group, which MGM bought in 2005.

It's one of more than two dozen casinos on the strip, and is the 13th largest by casino floor space and 11th by rooms. The casino won $160 million from gamblers in 2006, according to Jefferies & Co. estimates, the seventh-highest amount among Las Vegas Strip casinos.

The top floor features personalized concierge service for guests who stay in one of 45 deluxe rooms, seven suites or eight one- or two-bedroom penthouses, according to the hotel's Web site.

Backed-Up Traffic

The Nevada Public Safety Department shut down some exit ramps from Interstate 15 in Las Vegas and some nearby roads as traffic began to back up while motorists slowed to look at the fire, department spokesman Kevin Honea said in a telephone interview.

``I can't tell you exactly how far it's backed up,'' Honea said. ``I-15 traffic is still flowing. It looks like it normally does at 4 p.m., and it's noon.''

The MGM Grand blaze on Nov. 21, 1980, flashed through the casino at a rate of 19 feet per second, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal. An investigation determined that a sprinkler system could have averted the disaster; legal settlements totaled more than $223 million, the newspaper said. The hotel is now Bally's.

for more info SOURCE : http://www.bloomberg.com/

center for public integrity

2008-01-23T08:48:00.000-08:00

Center Unveils Windfalls of War II Investigation

President George W. Bush and seven of his administration’s top officials, including Vice President Dick Cheney, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, made at least 935 false statements in the two years following September 11, 2001, about the national security threat posed by Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. Nearly five years after the U.S. invasion of Iraq, an exhaustive examination of the record shows that the statements were part of an orchestrated campaign that effectively galvanized public opinion and, in the process, led the nation to war under decidedly false pretenses.

On at least 532 separate occasions (in speeches, briefings, interviews, testimony, and the like), Bush and these three key officials, along with Secretary of State Colin Powell, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, and White House press secretaries Ari Fleischer and Scott McClellan, stated unequivocally that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction (or was trying to produce or obtain them), links to Al Qaeda, or both. This concerted effort was the underpinning of the Bush administration’s case for war.

Located in Washington, DC, USA, the Center for Public Integrity produces reports aimed to provide transparent and insightful reporting. Topics include the financing of political campaigns, the stewardship of public institutions by governing officials, the influence private interests wield in federal and state government, and the ultimate results of public policy.

The Center releases its reports via its web site, press releases and traditional book publishing. The information it collects and analyzes often reaches the public secondhand through coverage in conventional news mediums like television and newsprint. The Center's highest-profile release, "The Buying of the President", appeared on The New York Times bestseller list for three months after its January 2004 publication. The Center also collects and organizes the public records it gathers into online databases so that other reporters and the public have access to the information. In 2006, Slate media critic Jack Shafer described the Center as having "broken as many stories as almost any big-city daily in the last couple of decades".

Because it is funded by a network of private donors and philanthropic organizations rather than advertisers, the Center operates on a business model different from most traditional news organizations.

source : lonestartimes.com,wikipedia,mahalo.com