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Ryerson University plans to make a major announcement Tuesday about its fundraising efforts for the Maple Leaf Gardens, leading to speculation the school may be about to reveal the title sponsor for the venue.
The school, which is a part-owner of the iconic structure, set a goal of raising $60 million to install badly needed student athletic facilities in part of the former hockey arena.
The $60 million is to be raised in equal portions by a federal government infrastructure grant, a special levy on Ryerson students, and corporate donations from such firm as Gardens
Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh was in Saudi Arabia on Wednesday to sign a U.S.-backed power transfer deal mediated by Gulf Arab states to resolve the impoverished country’s crisis, Yemen’s state television reported.
Saleh has repeatedly promised to sign the Gulf-brokered agreement, only to change his mind every time. Under the deal, Saleh would step down and transfer power to the vice president in exchange for immunity from prosecution.
The TV said Saleh arrived in the Saudi capital Riyadh on Wednesday morning but did not say when the deal would be signed. It said that along with Gulf Arab representatives who sponsored the agreement, European and American envoys would also attend the signing.
Saleh has clung to power despite an 8-month-old uprising, mass protests calling for his ouster and a June assassination attempt that left him badly wounded and forced him to travel to Saudi Arabia for more than three months of hospital treatment.
But things appeared to be shifting on Tuesday, when the U.N. secretary-general’s envoy to Yemen, Jamal bin Omar, said all parties had agreed on a plan that would have Saleh step down.
“All parties agreed today on the Gulf initiative and the implementation of its mechanism,” bin Omar said after meetings with Yemen’s vice president, Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, in Sanaa.
Security in Yemen has unraveled amid the uprising against Saleh’s 30-year reign. The situation is particularly bad in the south, where al-Qaida militants _ from what is perhaps the world’s most active branch of the terror network _ have taken control of entire towns, using the turmoil to strengthen their position.
The unarmed protesters have held their ground with remarkable resilience, flocking to the streets of Sanaa and other Yemeni cities and towns to demand reforms from the autocratic government and braving a violent crackdown by government forces that has killed hundreds.
But their uprising, inspired by other Arab revolts in the region that saw longtime rulers of Egypt and Tunisa go, has at times been hijacked by Yemen’s two traditional powers _ the tribes and the military _ further deepening the country’s turmoil.
Breakaway military units and tribal fighters have been battling in Sanaa with troops loyal to Saleh, in fighting that has escalated in recent months.
An impoverished nation of some 25 million people, Yemen is of strategic value to the United States and its Gulf Arab allies, particularly Saudi Arabia. It sits close to the major Gulf oilfields and overlooks key shipping lanes in the Red and Arabian seas.
Throw a dart at a map of Europe now and it takes expert aim to hit a country run by a left-of-center government, especially after Spain’s Socialists were emphatically drubbed out of power over the weekend.
Although the shift to the right began years ago in such heavyweights as France and Germany, it is now all but complete three years into the continent’s grinding debt and economic crisis. Why? When times get tough _ when “the cows get thin” as the Spanish say _ political experts say edgy voters seek comfort with conservatives.
“The center-right is the natural preference in times of crisis,” said Piotr Kaczynski of the Centre for European Policy Studies in Brussels. “If you look at societies and how they make their preferences, they all tend to vote more conservative in times of crisis and more center-left in times of economic progress.”
Granted, on the European Union map there are scattered spots of leftist liberalism. A new Social Democratic government runs Denmark, there is a center left government in Norway and there is a broad Social Democratic-led coalition in Austria. And the Socialists might beat conservative President Nicolas Sarkozy in France’s presidential election next year.
But Kaczynski said there is no doubt the European left faces an uphill battle in re-establishing itself with an appealing message and the means to enact it, despite widespread disillusionment with go-go capitalism as seen in the Occupy Wall Street protests and Europe’s widespread anti-austerity marches.
In Spain, voters enduring a 21.5 jobless rate ejected the Socialists and install the center-right Popular Party by a crushing margin in Sunday’s election.
Voters dumped the Socialists in Portugal earlier this year and the Labour Party in Britain last year, in both cases shifting to conservative parties. A technocrat government has taken over in the last month from Greece’s Socialist prime minister.
Kaczynski said is not an ironclad rule that a government will be dumped from power during an economic crisis. He cited the cases of troubled governments being re-elected in Latvia, Estonia _ a member of the eurozone _ and Poland, and said as long as the public concludes the government is capable and taking the right approach to a financial crisis, it might get a second chance.
That was not the case for Spain’s Socialists, due to the poor record of outgoing Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero in fighting unemployment and in resurrecting an economy that overcome nearly two years of recession in 2010 only to stall again last quarter.
His punishment: the conservative Popular Party won 186 seats in the 350-seat lower chamber of Parliament, up from 154, while the Socialists plummeted from 169 seats to 110, their worst performance ever.
“Clearly, Spain is the biggest loss for the European Socialists. That is absolutely the case,” Kaczynski said.
In his first public comments, Zapatero _ who did not seek a third term _ said Monday that the austerity measures he took _ and which caused supporters to flee in a stampede _ “put the national interests ahead of party interests.”
Spanish stock and bond markets shrugged off the Popular Party win because it was so widely expected and because leader Mariano Rajoy has yet to spell out how he will attack Spain’s unemployment debacle, deficit and growth woes.
However, some experts say Europe is not going right ideologically but rather seeking something _ anything _ new to get out of its quagmire.
“I wouldn’t say Europe is turning to the right. It’s basically the crisis is crushing the incumbents,” said Eurasia Group’s analyst for Europe, Antonio Barroso. “People are disappointed in the bad economic data, high unemployment and basically they are voting for the other alternative.”
He noted that in Italy, conservative premier Silvio Berlusconi was forced to resign this month as the eurozone crisis centered on his debt-laden country _ but that was to a technocratic administration, not to leftist politicians.
Barroso also mentioned the 2012 French presidential race and Sarkozy’s record low approval rating. The feisty French conservative is trailing the Socialist Francois Hollande badly in the polls, although he has recovered a bit in recent weeks.
Socialists are strong in local and regional politics in France: They head 24 of France’s 26 regional governments and run major cities including Paris, Lyon, and Lille. Most recently, in September, the Socialists wrested control of the Senate, Parliament’s upper house, for the first time in more than a half-century _ seen by many as a rebuff to Sarkozy.
In Germany, conservative Angela Merkel beat the center-left’s Gerhard Schroeder in 2005 after he pushed through labor market reforms and welfare state cuts. The moves angered his leftist supporters but they are credited with bolstering Germany’s strength in the current financial crisis.
However, Stephen Lewis of Monument Securities in London agreed it is perhaps natural for people to turn to the right in times of extreme financial hardship. He noted it happened in the 1930s during the Depression.
“It is not surprising that we are seeing all these right-wing governments appear as a result of elections or imposed from Brussels,” Lewis said.
Carol Behr thinks she knows why many students at Southern Illinois University Carbondale are buying their books online, and it’s not just the convenience.
It’s the sales tax savings, says Behr, a vice president of Kennedy Book Store, which owns Southern Illinois Book & Supply in Carbondale. The company also has a store in Lexington, Ky., and of the two, she says the Carbondale store has lost more business to competitors such as Amazon.com.
The difference? Kentucky doesn’t charge sales tax on textbooks, but Illinois does.
To Behr, the slipping Illinois sales figures highlight an unfair competitive situation. “A business is a business,” she says. “Why do I have to charge sales tax and they don’t, if we’re in the same business?”
Ten senators, including Illinois Democrat Richard Durbin and Missouri Republican Roy Blunt, introduced a bill Wednesday that would remove Amazon’s competitive advantage over bookstores such as the one in Carbondale. And, surprisingly, Amazon has endorsed the bill.
The proposed Marketplace Fairness Act would require retailers to collect taxes on remote sales, including those made online or through mail order. It would apply only to businesses with at least $500,000 of remote sales, and only in states that adopt a simplified sales tax structure.
Large sums of money are at stake. William Fox, a professor of economics at the University of Tennessee, estimates that state and local governments lose $11.4 billion a year in revenue from online retail sales, and a total of $23.6 billion from untaxed online, catalog and business-to-business sales.
In the past, Amazon has fought hard to avoid collecting its share of that money. In Illinois, North Carolina and Rhode Island, it canceled relationships with local affiliates to get around so-called “Amazon tax” laws. In Texas, it threatened to close a warehouse rather than pay $269 million in sales taxes.
Now, though, Amazon says it ’strongly supports enactment” of the Marketplace Fairness Act. Not all companies agree: eBay, for example, says the bill “fails to protect small business retailers using the Internet.”
Past congressional efforts to address the sales tax issue
ROME—His legacy tarnished and his hopes of clinging to power dashed, Silvio Berlusconi faces daunting legal and financial challenges once he vacates the premier’s office and faces the prospect of life outside the international spotlight.
He has vowed he won’t run again for office, though few expect he’ll abandon Italian politics for good. Berlusconi himself has already said he might help out a campaign here or there because, well, “they’ve always turned out well for me.”
But with Berlusconi’s resignation as premier Saturday following months of market turmoil, a political era in Italy closes and the 75-year-old Berlusconi is just a billionaire businessman once again.
“What we are viewing now is not the end of a government, but the end of a system, of a political system,” said Massimo Franco, a political analyst for leading daily Corriere Della Sera.
Indeed, Berlusconi dominated Italian politics for the last 17 years, a polarizing figure who served three terms as premier. He held off political opponents and jousted with magistrates pursuing him on corruption and sexual misconduct charges, but was felled by massive international and market pressure.
The media mogul had thrived rubbing shoulders with the powerful, whether vacationing with Russia’s Vladimir Putin or getting a taste of Texas ranch life when hosted by then President George W. Bush in a meeting of Iraq war allies.
But seen as an impediment to economic reform, his exit came quickly as Italy was swept up by Europe’s debt crisis.
Whether he goes back to running his media empire or even returning to the vacant post as president of his beloved AC Milan soccer team, he faces an unpleasant agenda. Judging from how his media voices are reacting, it won’t be a completely quiet exit.
“Stop a Europe of technocrats,” clamoured a headline in the family newspaper Il Giornale of Italy’s presumed new government headed by economist Mario Monti. “This government is a coup.”
Berlusconi’s resignation will mean he can no longer claim official government business as a reason for missing hearings in his three trials, a tactic that has been used to delay proceedings. His attempt at fashioning a law that would have given him immunity was overturned by the constitutional Court.
But charges in two Milan trials related to his business dealings will run out due to the statute of limitations early next year — leaving little peril that the billionaire would face any penalty even if courts can reach a conviction in the first trial. The Italian system allows for two levels of appeal.
Berlusconi is expected to testify before Christmas in his trial on charges of paying British lawyer David Mills to lie for him on the stand in another case. A verdict is expected in late January, but with the statute of limitations set to expire in March, it is impossible that two levels of appeal could be completed to make any verdict final bad credit payday advance.
Berlusconi has denied the charge, and Mills saw his conviction overturned on appeal.
In the other trial concerning his Mediaset media empire, Berlusconi is charged with tax fraud in the purchase of TV rights. Berlusconi denies the charges, which also expire in the spring.
In Berlusconi’s most sensational trial, the 75-year-old is accused of paying for sex with a Moroccan teen — known by her nickname Ruby Rubacuore, “Ruby the Heartstealer” — and using his influence to cover it up. No fewer than 22 court dates have been scheduled through May.
A conviction would mean Berlusconi would be permanently barred from public office — but he has already pledged not to run again and his hopes of one day becoming Italian president were dashed by the sex scandal.
That leaves the billionaire back where he started: running his considerable empire. The economic crisis has made that more challenging.
Shares in Mediaset have lost half of their value since May, as the debt crisis lapped ever more perilously at Italian businesses, and dropped by as much as 10 per cent in trading sessions this week as Berlusconi’s political future was decided by the markets.
Mediaset — which is controlled by the family holding company Fininvest and includes private TV stations as well as newspapers and other publications — dropped from €4.242 a share in May to €2.142 on Friday.
“It could be that Berlusconi is very scared by the financial crisis. If you think that Fininvest is 95 per cent invested in Italy,” said Carlo Guarnieri, a political scientist as the University of Bologna.
Even more dangerous was his loss of a civil suit to rival media group over corruption in the acquisition of the Mondadori publishing empire. A court has ordered him to €560 million ($800 million) for corrupting a judge.
Alarmed by the amount, Berlusconi went as far as quietly introducing a measure into Italy’s austerity budget this summer that would have allowed the company to delay payment until the final appeal, but withdrew it after political opponents raised an outcry.
He can still count on friends in high places to look after his interests: his 41-year-old political heir, Angelo Alfano, now heads his People of Liberties party and he remains its founder.
But Franco, the Corriere della Sera analyst, said Berlusconi’s future in the near-term is probably not on Italy’s centre political stage.
“I think Berlusconi can just survive, maybe with a personal party, but I don’t think he is due to rule and lead Italy in the foreseeable future any more,” he said.
Suzuki Motor Corp. says it has sent Volkswagen AG a notice accusing the German automaker of numerous breaches of their 2009 alliance agreement.
The Japanese car maker is seeking “remedies” from Volkswagen or a return of its shares.
Volkswagen owns 19.9 percent of Suzuki under a partnership inked two years ago that has unraveled in recent months.
Suzuki’s board of directors decided last month to dissolve the alliance payday loans. In response, Volkswagen said it has no plans to sell its stake in Suzuki.
Chief Executive Osamu Suzuki says the deal was intended to give Suzuki access to Volkswagen’s technologies. He says he is “disappointed that we have not received what we were promised.”
Britain’s newspaper auditor said Thursday it might investigate The Wall Street Journal’s European circulation figures after a report in the Guardian accused it of propping up subscription numbers by effectively buying up its own papers.
The Wall Street Journal Europe’s publisher, Andrew Langhoff, has already resigned over the paper’s links to a Dutch consulting firm that the Guardian says was receiving payments and getting favorable press in return for buying up thousands of copies of the Journals’ papers.
Journal publisher Dow Jones said its deal with the Netherlands-based Executive Learning Partnerships (ELP) had been approved by the Audit Bureau of Circulations, but on Thursday the bureau said “there now appears to be additional new information which may give grounds for further investigation.”
The audit bureau is an industry body and does not confirm whether investigations are taking place unless they are completed and result in corrective action. Dow Jones declined to comment on the possibility of a new investigation.
When it announced Langhoff’s departure on Tuesday, Dow Jones said its links to ELP “could give the impression that news coverage can be influenced by commercial relationships” and that Langhoff resigned because of a “perceived breach of editorial integrity” _ not because of alleged inflation of circulation figures.
While The Wall Street Journal Europe apparently did not deceive advertisers about its circulation, those numbers rested on a foundation of cut-rate deals.
According to the Audit Bureau of Circulations, the report for the first half of this year, just under 14 percent of the daily circulation of Wall Street Journal Europe was sold at full price at newsstands or at the basic annual rate. Some 71 percent of the paper’s circulation was sold at 5 percent of the cover price or less, including 26,000 bulk sales mostly to airlines, 13,000 by barter and 7,500 by controlled free circulation.
“Most savvy advertisers would not be deceived” by the newspaper’s circulation figure of 74,800 per day, said Bill Nichols, senior lecturer in marketing and communications at Buckingham New University. “I think anybody on the media buying side would be aware that those figures are inflated.”
The Journal, quoting what it called people familiar with the matter, said ELP paid 1 euro cent (1.3 U.S. cents) each for 12,000 copies of the paper daily. The paper retails for 1.50 pounds ($2.35, euro1.71) in Europe.
The Guardian, a U.K. newspaper that broke the story Wednesday, says in April last year, Dow Jones sweetened its deal with ELP by offering free ads and “a minimum of three special reports.” The Wall Street Journal said stories linked to ELP were published in the European edition on Oct. 14, 2010 and March 14, 2011 as part of the deal.
The Journal confirmed that the promise of editorial content favorable to ELP was made last year when the two companies renegotiated their relationship. The arrangement with ELP, the paper said, was part of a broader program of hosting seminars and other events, and distributing copies of the paper in bulk to universities.
The Journal also said in 2010, Dow Jones arranged a a complex series of deals that channeled “thousands of euros” to ELP through third parties. Dow Jones said it has since ended those arrangements, which it described as legitimate but “admittedly complex.” Those deals also hinted of a concerted effort to inflate circulation figures.
The Journal quoted its sources as saying those deals were arranged by Langhoff and a circulation department employee, Gert Van Mol. The Journal quoted Van Mol, whose job was eliminated earlier this year, as saying that he had prompted an internal whistleblowing investigation by filing a complaint about the ELP arrangement.
Dow Jones said the “whistleblower” had been “first investigated by the company because of concerns around his business dealings.”
ELP is a business consulting agency that “empowers talent to act into the unknown,” according to its website. It also has personnel ties to the paper _ Rien van Lent, an ELP partner, was publisher of The Wall Street Journal Europe from 2001 to 2006.
Japan’s central bank on Friday kept its key interest rate unchanged at nearly zero and extended by six months an emergency loan program for disaster-hit regions.
The Bank of Japan’s nine-member policy board voted unanimously at a two-day meeting to maintain the overnight call rate target at zero to 0.1 percent.
It described the world’s No. 3 economy as “picking up” and predicted an eventual return to a moderate recovery despite concerns about the health of the global economy.
Industrial production figures last week showed that output had nearly recovered to the levels recorded before the March 11 earthquake and tsunami devastated northeastern Japan. Exports in August rose for the first time in six months. Capital investments and private consumption also show some pick up, the central bank said.
A key Bank of Japan report earlier this week offered a cautiously optimistic assessment of corporate Japan, where business confidence is improving as recovery from the March earthquake and tsunami takes hold.
To support reconstruction efforts, the central bank voted to give financial institutions in disaster areas six more months _ until the end of April 2012 _ to apply for loans through a special program.
The central bank said it would vigilantly watch the health of the U.S. economy as well as sovereign debt problems in Europe. It also questioned whether high-growth emerging economies could maintain momentum while controlling inflation.
“It is necessary to continue carefully monitoring how Japan’s economy will be affected by the uncertainty regarding the developments overseas and by the ensuing fluctuations in the foreign exchange and financial markets.”
The central bank promised to keep interest rates at virtually zero until it decides that “price stability is in sight.” Price stability for central banks usually means a stable rate of increase in prices. Japan suffers from prolonged falling prices _ also known as deflation.
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