| South Africa: Commodities Fail to Halt Slide in All Share
THE JSE all share index continued to slide yesterday, having wiped out more than 8% of its value in the past two weeks to close at 26904 points. "I'm not foreseeing disaster," said Craig Pheiffer, GM of investments at Absa Asset Management Private Clients. "It's unnerving but the local growth story is still intact and the global growth story is still intact. The local earnings story is still intact." .
India at 60: Galloping and On the Go
Palagummi Sainath, author of the award-winning book Everybody Loves a Good Drought has an interesting story to relate. He says that during the one-week period of the fashion parade, while the entire nation was enthralled watching models walking down the ramp at a fashion show, over 400 farmers had committed suicide in Vidharbha.
While over 500 reporters covered the fashion event with television and print media vying for coverage, the farmers' deaths went totally unreported, according to Sainath, one of the recipients of this year's Ramon Magsaysay Award, the Asian version of the Nobel Prize, in the category of journalism, literature and creative communication.
Nearly 6,000 farmers have committed suicide in Karnataka since 2001.
With 3.3% of the total households in the country earning rupees one million and above per year, Bangalore ranks No.
Student Loan Network Announces New Monthly Scholarship Opportunities
ScholarshipPoints.com, a free service from the Student Loan Network, announces changes to the Scholarship program. ScholarshipPoints.com will continue to award a $1,000 scholarship every quarter -- but has replaced quarterly second and third place scholarships with a new monthly drawing for a $250 scholarship. Students who sign up at ScholarshipPoints.com can start earning points toward the scholarship drawings. "Each month we offer opportunities to keep earning points -- through refer-a-friend programs, surveys and other promotions," said Joe Cronin, president of the Student Loan Network. "And, we've gotten such positive feedback from students and financial aid offices alike. It made sense to start doing monthly drawings in addition to a quarterly drawing." .
ING Canada Reports Second Quarter Results
ING Canada Inc. (TSX: IIC - News) reported net income of $194.3 million for the quarter ended June 30, 2007, compared to $206.0 million in the same quarter last year. On a per share basis, net income increased to $1.56 from $1.54 as a result of a share buyback completed earlier this year. The growth in direct premiums written remained strong during the quarter despite overall rate reductions, and amounted to $1,205.1 million, a 3.7% increase excluding industry pools. .
Profits: WAN, AUN, CXP, PBL Split Late
Perth-based newspaper monopoly, West Australian Newspapers Holdings, yesterday reported a near 20% rise in 'normalised net profit' (before noteworthy items) to $128.4 million for the 2007 financial year, ending June 30.This result includes 53 trading weeks for all business units other than Hoyts Cinemas and Community Newspapers, so the additional trading week accounted for 1.9% of the increase, making the underlying increase 17.6%. Directors also said that the outlook for the current year was "favourable". "The strong advertising market in 2007 has continued into the first quarter of 2007/08. "Combined with a relaunch of Saturday's The West Australian in August and the benefits to flow from the Herdsman upgrade, the outlook remains favourable."(That's the continuing upgrade of the company's new printing plant at Herdsman in Perth.)Net earnings (not normalised) as reported (after noteworthy items) fell 22.1% to $54.0 million as a result of accelerated depreciation on Herdsman printing equipment, employee redundancies and a write-down of the Hoyts carrying value to $145 million.Directors said that while the pre-tax contribution from Hoyts "rose 17.4% to $16.2 million, this included a non-recurring item of $2.4 million relating to a gain on surrender of a lease.
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