Arctic Junkies June 24, 2012 HUMAN population: 2,600. Polar bear population: 3,500. Welcome to Svalbard, Arctic playground for thrill seekers and adrenaline junkies. As far as seaside tourism towns go, Norway’s Svalbard is pretty much the polar opposite of Bournemouth. Instead of zimmer-frames, find ski poles. In place of dawdling mobility scooters, find snowmobiles capable of flying over the ice [...]
Djokovic ready for Wimbledon road to recovery June 24, 2012 WORLD No1 Novak Djokovic insists he has got over his French Open hangover as he prepares to begin the defence of his Wimbledon title today. The Serb was denied the honour of becoming the first man since 1969 to hold all four grand slam titles at once earlier this month when he lost the final [...]
Daimler in deal with Deripaska to produce more cars in Russia June 21, 2012 DAIMLER has announced a major new deal that will see its vehicles manufactured in Russia for the first time. The contract with the German car firm will see hundreds of vehicles made at the main plant of Russia’s GAZ company. Daimler is to invest more than €100m and Gaz €90m in the project. Start of [...]
WHAT THE OTHER PAPERS SAY THIS MORNING June 20, 2012 FINANCIAL TIMES Banks to get cheap money to lift UK lending The government’s new “funding for lending” programme, designed to boost credit for British business, will cut banks’ costs to as little as 1.2 per cent, according to people briefed on the scheme. The supply of such cheap money to the banks is supposed to [...]
Social network LinkedIn plays down lawsuit brought in the wake of online password leak June 20, 2012 THE SOCIAL networking site LinkedIn has talked down a $5m (£3.18m) lawsuit after Russian hackers leaked members’ passwords. Earlier this month, 6.5m passwords for the website were hacked, and the lawsuit claims LinkedIn cut corners on security measures. The network is the largest professional one of its kind and holds the private information of over [...]
Evraz plans to spend $6bn to meet demand June 19, 2012 RUSSIAN steel and mining group Evraz yesterday set out plans for $6bn (£3.8bn) of capital spending through the next four years as it seeks to meet growing global demand for railways and pipelines, particularly in North America. Evraz, Russia’s largest steel producer and part-owned by billionaire Chelsea FC owner Roman Abramovich, said it plans capital [...]
BEST of the BROKERS June 18, 2012 EDF Exane BNP Paribas has raised its rating on the energy group from “neutral” to “outperform” with a higher target price of €22. The broker thinks that now French elections are over, the new government will be careful not to worsen EDF’s financial position, ensuring a stable dividend and less risk of a sudden regulatory [...]
Eurozone debt dominates agenda at G20 meeting June 18, 2012 WORLD leaders at the G20 summit in Mexico will be breathing a sigh of relief today after the pro-bailout New Democracy party claimed victory in the Greek election. The threat of the vote going to the Syriza party, which opposes austerity measures and could have forced a Greek exit from the euro, has been hanging [...]
The Brics start to look wobbly as emerging market growth slows June 17, 2012 AS INDIA looks set to lose its investment grade rating, are the Bric nations starting to tumble? The last ten years have seen investors flocking to the vaunted opportunities available in the markets of the Bric grouping of Brazil, Russia, India and China. Over that time, Bric indices have almost quadrupled their gains and their [...]
Start your weekend with a bang this Thursday evening at 6pm June 17, 2012 How do you celebrate something as multifaceted as the City of London? It is a place of contradictions: both a glass-fronted metropolis and a cluster of stone relics, stubborn and robust. It throngs with people of all nationalities and hums with activity that is at once local and global. Crammed into a single square mile [...]