Dubai World rejected sale of top assets months before appealing for debt deferment

Dubai World rejected sale of top assets months before appealing for debt deferment

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) -- Dubai World "totally rejected" the possibility of selling off some of its top performing assets in the months before the heavily indebted conglomerate turned to creditors with a plea to defer payments on some of the $60 billion it owes, a newspaper reported Sunday.

The company, whose holdings range from ports to real estate, shocked world markets on Wednesday with an announcement that it would seek, until at least May, a deferment on its debts and those of its real estate arm, Nakheel PJSC. That subsidiary has a $3.5 billion bond coming due next month.

The announcement was the clearest indication yet that the conglomerate, which has been a primary engine behind Dubai's meteoric growth over the past decade, was in way over its head in terms of debts. The company's obligations alone account for the overwhelming majority of the at least $80 billion Dubai owes to creditors.
Dubai World "totally rejected the idea of selling some of its good investment and real estate assets at low prices," a company official was quoted as saying by Al-Itihad newspaper on Sunday.

The official said that any asset sale needed to be in a "commercially fair manner in order to achieve (Dubai World's) long-term strategic objectives, away from ... economic pressures."

The statement in the newspaper adds little in the way of explanation as to how company officials, and indeed Dubai's ruling family, planned to tackle a debt crisis that could destroy the reputation of Dubai Inc., as the city-state's government-affiliated businesses are known.

Dubai officials have headed down to neighboring Abu Dhabi, ostensibly to discuss the debt issues, and expectations are that the United Arab Emirates' central bank will issue some sort of statement on Monday.

The company had said last week that it was seeking the delay as it continued its restructuring -- a plan under which it has already laid off 15 percent of its work force in a bid to streamline costs.

The opaque wording of the company's announcement for a payment extension was amplified by its timing -- coming on the eve of a three-day Islamic holiday in which markets in the region would be closed and officials largely unavailable.
The news was a blow to the reputation of Dubai, once seen as the Gulf Arab region's answer to Las Vegas, Wall Street and Los Angeles rolled in one.

With little oil, the emirate -- one of seven semiautonomous city-states making up the UAE -- focused its growth efforts on finance, tourism and real estate. It bankrolled that dream, which included indoor ski-slopes, man-made islands and the world's tallest tower, on cheap credit and borrowed time.

A sale of the company's assets is one possibility being floated by analysts to cover the debts. But the more likely scenario being discussed is that Abu Dhabi will engineer another bailout -- even partial -- in a bid to minimize damage to the country's bank and the economy.

Several UAE banks are on review by international credit agencies for their exposure to Dubai World's debts.

The announcement came in tandem with another from Dubai's government that two banks majority owned by neighboring Abu Dhabi -- the oil-rich home to the United Arab Emirates' federal government -- had fully subscribed a $5 billion bond issuance.

That issuance was part of a broader $20 billion bond program launched earlier this year to help Dubai meet its mounting debts. The UAE's central bank had already bought $10 billion in bonds, but officials were quick to say that the latest issuance was not linked to Dubai World's problems.

Japan Rice Fields

How amazing are these?

Stunning crop art has sprung up across rice fields in Japan .

But this is no alien creation - the designs have been cleverly planted.

Farmers creating the huge displays use no ink or dye. Instead,

different colours of rice plants have been precisely and strategically arranged and grown in the paddy fields.

As summer progresses and the plants shoot up, the detailed artwork begins to emerge.



A Sengoku warrior on horseback has been created from hundreds of thousands of rice plants,

the colours created by using different varieties, in Inakadate in Japan

The largest and finest work is grown in the Aomori village of Inakadate , 600 miles north of Toyko,

where the tradition began in 1993.

The village has now earned a reputation for its agricultural artistry and this year

the enormous pictures of Napoleon and a Sengoku-period warrior,

both on horseback, are visible in a pair of fields adjacent to the town hall.

More than 150,000 vistors come to Inakadate,

where just 8,700 people live, every summer to see the extraordinary murals.

Each year hundreds of volunteers and villagers

plant four different varieties of rice in late May across huge swathes of paddy fields.



Napolean on horseback can be seen from the skies,

created by precision planting and months of planning between villagers and farmers in Inkadate.



Fictional warrior Naoe Kanetsugu and his wife Osen appear in fields in the town of Yonezawa , Japan

And over the past few years, other villages have joined in with the plant designs.

Another famous rice paddy art venue is in the town of Yonezawa in the Yamagata prefecture.

This year's design shows the fictional 16th-century samurai warrior Naoe Kanetsugu and his wife,

Osen, whose lives feature in television series Tenchijin.

Various artwork has popped up in other rice-farming areas of Japan this year,

including designs of deer dancers.



Smaller works of crop art can be seen in other rice-farming areas of Japan such as this image of Doraemon and deer dancers

The farmers create the murals by planting little purple and yellow-leafed kodaimai rice

along with their local green-leafed tsugaru roman variety to create the coloured patterns between planting and harvesting in September.

The murals in Inakadate cover 15,000 square metres of paddy fields.

From ground level, the designs are invisible, and viewers have to climb the mock castle tower of the village office to get a glimpse of the work.

Rice-paddy art was started there in 1993 as a local revitalization project, an idea that grew out of meetings of the village committee.




Closer to the image, the careful placement of thousands of rice plants in the paddy fields can be seen.

The different varieties of rice plant grow alongside each other to create the masterpieces

In the first nine years, the village office workers and local farmers grew a simple design of Mount Iwaki every year.

But their ideas grew more complicated and attracted more attention.

In 2005 agreements between landowners allowed the creation of enormous rice paddy art.

A year later, organisers used computers to precisely plot planting of the four differently colored rice varieties that bring the images to life.

World hunger increases despite growth in food production

World hunger increases despite growth in food production

DUSHANBE, 12 November 2009 (IRIN) - Even as world food production grows, hunger is on the rise in many poor countries, according to the Global Crop Prospects and Food Situation report for November, published by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) on 12 November.

The report highlights a contradiction: world cereal production is at its second-highest level ever, yet food prices remain very high. It identifies 77 countries that are both low-income and food deficit.

In East Africa, cereal prices range from 68 percent to 177 percent over the 2007 numbers. In southern Africa, prices are 58-200 percent higher than in 2007, and in most of Asia prices are up 40-70 percent. Since most low-income food deficit countries are food importers, they lose far more from high prices than they gain from steady crop production.

Hunger, in most cases, is caused by lack of money rather than a shortage of food production, according to the World Food Programme (WFP). In 2008 the number of undernourished people in the world increased by 40 million, despite record harvests.

The new FAO report suggests that 2009 is likely to see a similar increase in hunger.

ash/at/cb

Angkor Car Made In Cambodia By Mr Nhien

Angkor Car Made In Cambodia By Mr Nhien
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XvR1j2JzmfU&feature=related

Homeless Men Kill Their Friend, Eat Him and Sell the Rest to Kebab House

17.11.2009
Homeless Men Kill Their Friend, Eat Him and Sell the Rest to Kebab House
Source: Pravda.Ru


The police of Russia’s Perm region solved the brutal murder of a homeless man, slaughtered by three of his own friends. The criminals ate a part of the corpse and sold the rest to a kebab kiosk.

Forensic experts have taken samples of the suspicious meat to find out if the kiosk was selling kebabs made of human meat.

The homeless men were living in dug-outs in the woods near the city of Perm. Three men attacked and brutally beat their 25-year-old friend, hit him with a hammer several times and stabbed him. The man died of injuries on the spot, the Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper wrote.

The murderers dismembered the body and then buried the upper part of the corpse near their dugouts. They saved the lower part of the corpse and made a dinner from it for the whole “family.” When the cannibals were stuffed, they sold the rest of the meat to the nearest kebab kiosk.

The detained men said that they had killed the man out of jealousy. One of the detainees said that the victim was trying to steal his girlfriend from him.

Mini-skirt ban

Source : http://en.rian.ru/russia/20090710/155491570.html

10/07/2009
KEMEROVO, July 10 (RIA Novosti) - Local prosecutors have called a mini-skirt ban, introduced at a teacher's college in the southwestern Siberian city of Kemerovo, a violation of students' constitutional rights.

The college had issued internal instructions banning students from wearing mini skirts, jeans and any clothing that exposed the back or belly area. Bright makeup and piercings were also banned.

"Prosecutors qualified the ban as an infringement of equality and human rights...guaranteed by the Russian constitution," the prosecutor's office said in a statement posted on its website.

The college administration admitted the violation and has since lifted the restrictions.

Test Drive BMW Hydrogen Car

Test Drive BMW Hydrogen Car
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N675mHss_uQ&feature=player_embedded