Thursday, October 11, 2007

Wednesday morning, the Frankfurt Book Fair opened its gates to the first of an estimated 280,000 visitors this year in Frankfurt am Main, Germany.

The Frankfurt Book Fair is the biggest book fair in the world. It also organises the participation of German publishers at more than 25 international book fairs and is the co-founder of the Cape Town Book Fair in South Africa. It maintains the most visited website worldwide for the publishing industry.

The German Publishers & Booksellers Association, which runs the Frankfurt Book Fair, says that the book market is thriving. It declared on Tuesday that the high number of exhibitors and the record numbers of 7,448 exhibitors from over 100 countries, showing 391,652 books, including 121,267 new books of this year, proves that the book market is thriving.

Publishing houses have long since expanded into non-traditional markets. TV and merchandising rights have long played a role, but have become more and more important for larger projects. Two other media forms have also become more standard elements of the value chain. E-books and audiobooks are both big topics of this year’s Book Fair.

The various awards handed out during and around the fair show the variety and scope of media and interests represented at the Frankfurt Book Fair:

• On Sunday, October 7, Australian writer Michelle de Kretser, born in Colombo. Sri Lanka, was awarded the LiBeratur-award for the German edition of her book ‘The Hamilton Case’, previously published in English with Little, Brown and Company, New York. The LiBeratur-award for an outstanding publication of a woman from Africa, Asia and Latin America in German language in the previous year, was awarded for the 20th time.

• On Tuesday, October 9, German author Julia Franck was honoured with the German Book Prize for her novel ‘Die Mittagsfrau’. Against the background of two world wars, Julia Franck tells the disturbing story of a woman who leaves her son, without fnding herself.
• On Wednesday, October 10, the software award GIGA-Maus for family friendly and educational entertainment was awarded to Wii Sports (Nintendo) for best software of the year. The award of the children judges went to Buzz! Junior: Robo Jam(Sony, PS2).
• On Sunday, October 14, the Peace Prize of the German Booksellers will be awarded to Saul Friedländer, for his retelling of the Shoah as one of the most important historiographers of the time.

Prizes still open include the German Young Literature Award on Friday and the Fantasy Final of the first German Cosplay Masters at the comic-centre of the book fair.

Monday, February 14, 2005

Electronics retailer Best Buy said today that it signed leases for 28 new stores. This is part of the company’s plan to build 60 new stores this year. Best Buy, the largest consumer electronics retailer in the United States, declined to discuss the terms of the leases but did say that the new stores will result in the addition of 3,500 more jobs to the corporate payroll.

Thursday, October 3, 2013

A review this week by Wikinews of US Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) complaints about mortgages in the United States shows Bank of America leads all lending institutions in complaints.

Since mortgages complaints were recorded in December 2011, 77,622 total have been added to CFPB’s database. 29.2% of these complaints involved Bank of America, with the second most received by Wells Fargo, accounting for 15.5% of all complaints. JPMorgan Chase ranked third by volume of complaints with 9.8%. Ocwen was fourth with 8.7% and Citibank was fifth with 4.8%. Nationstar Mortgage; Green Tree Servicing, LLC; HSBC; PNC Bank; U.S. Bancorp; OneWest Bank; SunTrust Bank; Flagstar Bank; and Select Portfolio Servicing, Inc. each had between 1.0 and 3.8% of total complaints. The remaining 14.4% of all complaints about consumer mortgages were divided between about 530 other lending institutions.

The Motley Fool reported last month that for the past fiscal quarter, the biggest US based mortgage lenders were from first to fifth Wells Fargo, JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Quicken Loans and U.S. Bancorp.

According to the US Federal Reserve, debt for family residences stands at US$10.706 trillion for the second quarter of 2013. As of the end of June of this year, Bank of America is the United States’s second largest commercial bank with US$1.343 trillion in domestic assets. Wells Fargo is the fourth largest commercial bank with US$1.251 trillion in domestic assets. JPMorgan Chase is the largest US commercial bank with US$1.329 trillion in domestic assets and US$1.947 trillion in total assets.

The mortgage complaints in the CFPB report include several subproducts. Conventional fixed mortgages account for 27.1% of all complaints. Conventional adjustable mortgages account for 10.0%. FHA mortgages account for 7.7% of all complaints. Home equity loans or lines of credit account for 3.8% of all complaints. VA mortgages are 1.4% of all complaints. Second mortgages and reverse mortgages each account for 0.6% of complaints. The remaining 48.7% of complaints are about other mortgages or other mortgage issues. A few years ago, FHA loans accounted for about 10% of all US mortgages while VA loans accounted for about 3%. Prime loans accounted for over 75% of the market and the rest were subprime mortgages.

California leads all states by volume of complaints with 14768. It is followed by Florida, New York, Georgia and Texas. When complaints are divided by a state’s total population, New Hampshire leads. The state is followed by Washington D.C., Maryland, Georgia and Florida. Complaints do not correlate with national rankings for August’s foreclosure rate by state where Nevada topped the list, followed by Florida, Ohio, Maryland and Delaware.

Two zip codes account for over 1,000 total complaints between them. 565 complaints originated in the 48382 zip code, which is in Commerce Township, Michigan, located in suburban Detroit. 553 complaints originated in the 33071 zip code, in Coral Springs, Florida. According to real estate website Zillow, there are currently 1,033 properties in foreclosure in Coral Springs while Commerce Township only has 131 properties currently in foreclosure. Four other zip codes have 100 plus complaints originating from them. 91730, in Rancho Cucamonga, California, had 158 complaints. 33409, in West Palm Beach, Florida, had 132. 92626, in Costa Mesa, California, had 125 complaints. 92660, in Newport Beach, California, had 122 complaints. Respectively, the towns had 534, 1,068, 153, and 134 properties currently in foreclosure. These numbers are higher than for the cities of a few sampled zip codes where there was only one complaint, such as Gold Hill, Oregon which has 4 properties in foreclosure, and Decatur, Illinois which has 6 properties in foreclosure.

The CFPB categorizes complaints into six categories: “Loan modification, collection,foreclosure” or problems when a person is unable to pay; “Loan servicing, payments, escrow account” or problems with making a payment; “Application, originator, mortgage broker”; “Credit decision / Underwriting”; “Settlement process and costs”, and “Other”. The CFPB says the complaint types indicate consumers “appear to be driven by a desire to seek agreement with their companies on foreclosure alternatives. The complaints indicate that consumer confusion persists around the process and requirements for obtaining loan modifications and refinancing, especially regarding document submission timeframes, payment trial periods, allocation of payments, treatment of income in eligibility calculations, and credit bureau reporting during the evaluation period.” Currently, 59.6% of all complaints against lenders deal with being unable to pay. 25.1% deal with problems in making a payment. 7.0% have to do with the application process.

Of the complaint-heavy zip codes, for 48382 in Commerce Township, Michigan, 98.9% of all complaints have to deal with being unable to pay. Accounting for 23.4% of all mortgage complaints in Commerce Township, 132 of the complaints for being unable to pay were made regarding Bank of America, accounting for 97.8% or all but 3 complaints against them from the zip. 121 of the Bank of America responses in Commerce Township were closed with explanation and 12 were closed with non-monetary relief. 33071 in Coral Springs is different, with 537 of the 553 complaints being categorized under other. Only 11 complaints relate to foreclosure and issues with being able to pay. 92626 in Costa Mesa, where 32% of the mortgage complaints were about Bank of America and 26.4% were about Wells Fargo, had 93.6% of its complaints dealing with being unable to pay. 5 total complaints dealt with payment issues and 3 dealt with applications.

Beyond regional variance in complaint types lodged, the top five mortgage lenders by volume of complaints all had being unable to pay as their top complaint category, ranging between 55.8% for Citibank and 69.4% for Bank of America. Problems with payment accounted for the second largest area of complaints, with Ocwen having the largest percentage of complaints at 31.9% and Bank of America having the smallest at 18.8%. Foreclosure was the top area of complaints for a number of other lending institutions including 1st Alliance Lending, OneWest Bank, Ally Bank, Banco Popular de Puerto Rico, Bank of the West, BMO Harris, BOK Financial Corp, Caliber Home Loans, Inc, Capital One, Deutsche Bank and EverBank.

Nationally, complaints reached a high of 5,840 for January 2013, 1,107 more than the next highest month of April 2013. The total emerging for September is the second lowest since records were first kept in December 2011. On a state by state level, this pattern largely repeats with a major exception for Florida which saw a peak of 849 complaints in June 2012. Then, as now, Florida was one of the top five states in the nation in its foreclosure rate. The national January spike came as the Qualified Mortgage standard required by the The Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010 came into play. It required mortgage lenders to take steps to insure borrowers could repay their mortgages.

Bank of America’s complaint volume follows the national trend, with a spike in January 2013 with 1,925 total complaints. Unlike nationally, the next month by volume of complaints was February of this year with 1,598 complaints. Prior to that, the highest month was May 2012 with 1,418 complaints. The lowest volume of complaints is September this year with 334.

Wells Fargo matched national trends for volume of complaints by month, with the exception of the current month being the lowest on record for number of complaints with 197 compared to the next lowest month, December 2011, when they had 221. JPMorgan’s complaint volume by month spiked in January and March of this year with 504 complaints. April of this year was the next highest month with 493 complaints, edging out May of last year with 488 complaints. September this year is on track to be the lowest month by complaint volume.

The federal government shutdown is unlikely to impact the current mortgage situation in the United States directly for most consumers, though mortgage processing by the Federal Housing Administration could be slower, resulting in fewer mortgages processed.

Friday, March 16, 2007

Edinburgh Building Services (EBS) has won a national excellence award at a gala ceremony held in St Andrews last week (8 March 2007). Promises Into Action, an EBS project, won the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities (COSLA) award for “Securing a Workforce for the Future”.

This award follows an innovative cultural change programme led jointly by Pinnacle and the City of Edinburgh Council, which focussed on improving communications and team-work and on recognising good performance and customer care.

Councillor Sheila Gilmore, Executive Member for Community Safety and Housing, said, “It is encouraging to see the hard work that has been done and the changes that have been made as a result of this project is being recognised on a national level. I would like to congratulate the team and thank COSLA for recognising these achievements.”

Pinnacle’s Director, Steve White, and his team accepted the award at the prize ceremony. He said: “When we first begun working with EBS, we would never have believed that within just three years, we would be winning national awards for excellence. Through Pinnacle’s partnership with City of Edinburgh Council, we focused on changing cultures, nurturing talent and delivering outcomes and as a result, EBS has been transformed into a high achieving organisation with a culture that is inclusive, open and trusting.

“The EBS team should feel justifiably proud of such an outstanding achievement.”

John Swinney, Chief Executive of Pinnacle, said: “EBS continues to go from strength to strength – this is the second national award for excellence that it has achieved in just six months. It highlights, yet again, the real benefits of public/private sector partnerships working together to achieve sustainable improvements for communities and customers. Congratulations again to the EBS team.”

EBS provides a range of building maintenance services for Services for Communities and other departments of the City of Edinburgh Council. Pinnacle began work with Edinburgh Building Services in 2003.

Saturday, October 23, 2021

China property giant Evergrande Group wired USD83.5 million in interest owed in an offshore bond from September 23 on Thursday, temporarily averting default, according to a Reuters source and Chinese newspaper Securities Times.

The wire to a Citibank fiduciary account following a 30-day grace period came after assurances by various members of the Chinese government, Reuters reported. At a Beijing forum Wednesday, Chinese Vice Premier Liu He described the risks as controllable, and chairman of the China Securities Regulatory Commission Yi Huiman said that while authorities needed to curb excessive debt more broadly by “improv[ing] the effectiveness of the constraint mechanism on debt financing”, the matter would be dealt with properly.

Once China’s top real estate developer, Evergrande had accumulated approximately USD305 billion in liabilities, two per cent of the Chinese gross national product, after “dwindling resources” cut its value by 80%, according to Reuters. September data revealed Chinese home sales by value fell by nearly 17% year-on-year, according to The Guardian, and fears over its default led to a slowdown in China’s third quarter GDP growth to a year low of 4.9%. Two sale negotiations with rival developers Hopson Development and Yuexiu, valued at USD2.6 billion and USD1.7 billion, respectively, were suspended, reportedly due to a lack of consent by the government of Guangdong province currently overseeing Evergrande’s restructuring.

News of Evergrande’s remittance caused its shares to rise by as much as 7.8% this morning after a two-week pause in trading for the anticipated sale of 50.1% in Evergrande Property Services Group, and offering some reprieve for bondholders, according to Reuters. Portfolio manager at GaoTeng Global Asset Management James Wong, interviewed by The Guardian, called the news “a positive surprise”, adding “[i]f Evergrande pays this time, I don’t see why it won’t pay the next time.” Jun Rong Yeap for IG Asia pte., interviewed by Bloomberg, said the report “overturned” the narrative “that Evergrande will face difficulty in securing cash ahead”.

Further missed payments are due October 29 and November 11 after similar 30-day grace periods; including yesterday’s USD83.5 million, nearly USD280 million is owed to bondholders.

Stocks have been down for many major Chinese developers: Reuters Wednesday reported year-to-date stock prices fell 87.8% for Sinic Holdings, currently in Fitch Ratings’ ‘restricted default’ after failing to make an October 18 bond payment valued, according to The Guardian, at USD246 million; 80.2% for Evergrande itself; 78.3% for E-House, 58.5% for Fantasia Holdings and 54.6% for Kaisa Group, which defaulted in 2015 and had bonds reach record lows.

Estimates of the Chinese real estate market’s size range from 16 to 25% of the Chinese gross domestic product, according to The Guardian. Chinese President Xi Jinping’s aim to transform the country’s economy from one of debt-fuelled “inflated” growth to one of improved “quality and returns” included imposing regulations on developers that limited their capacity to borrow. A Guardian comment piece from economist George Magnus published on October 15 made reference to China’s “ghost cities” and “rampant credit creation” that has given rise to high vacancy rates and the “financialisaton of housing”.

Sunday, July 25, 2021

After a seven-day lockdown began in three rural councils in New South Wales, Australia, Wikinews reached out to Reg Kidd, the mayor of the City of Orange. Orange is one of the three areas that is now currently under lockdown after a case of COVID-19 was recorded at the Nestlé Purina PetCare food factory in Blayney.

Since then, Orange City Council, along with the other two council areas now in lockdown, has been declared a COVID-19 hotspot, which unlocks support from the Australian Government such as access to the COVID-19 disaster payment, assistance with contact tracing, and provision of protective personal equipment from the National Medical Stockpile.

Kidd has been an Orange City Councillor for 28 years, and became Orange’s first popularly-elected mayor in 2017, where he ran as an independent candidate. He has hosted talkback radio with ABC Radio since 1989. Wikinews reached out to Kidd via email about the COVID-19 lockdown in Orange, as well as the upcoming local government elections in New South Wales and his motivations for entering local government.

Monday, February 17, 2014

On Friday afternoon, amateur shooters were briefed about a three-year-long trial of hunting in national parks of New South Wales, Australia. The meeting was held in Griffith near Cocopara Nature Reserve, where the first shooting operation of the trial was to occur on Saturday, targeting the feral goats.

The National Parks Wildlife Service (NPWS) has used aerial culls and baiting to reduce Cocoparra’s goat population, but there are said to be thousands of goats at the reserve. The feral animals to be hunted in other reserves may include cats, deer, dogs, and pigs, beside goats — depending on the reserve.

Shooters in the supplementary pest control trial were to be closely supervised by rangers, as the trial was monitored and its effectiveness evaluated. In a partnership of NPWS and the Sporting Shooters Association of Australia (NSW) Inc, qualified volunteers were recruited, under the Sporting Shooters Association’s hunting program. According to Mick O’Flynn, the Acting Director Park Conservation and Heritage with the NPWS, the four shooters selected for the first shooting operation received comprehensive safety and training instruction.

Following announcement of the close partnership of shooters with NWPS staff, the Greens cancelled planned picketing of the first shooting operation. However, State Greens MP (Member of Parliament) David Shoebridge warned, “This needs to be a government-run program, not run by the biggest gun lobby group in Australia”. He called limiting the meeting to members of the Sporting Shooters Association “outrageous”. Another concern raised by the Greens was the danger of armed people, not only to animals, but also to people visiting the national parks, should the shooters be unsupervised after the trial.

The trial was announced in the second half of 2013, though the plan has been significantly modified over time and has come to be regulated under the National Parks and Wildlife Act, in contrast with the original proposal of recreational hunting in national parks, as it was announced in May 2012 by New South Wales Premier Barry O’Farrell. This amendment of the Game and Feral Animal Control Act was part of a deal with the Shooters and Fishers Party. The government needed at least one vote from a Shooters and Fishers Party MP to pass electricity privatisation legislation, as both Labor and Greens opposed it. O’Farrell’s plans to allow pest control by licensed individuals called for licencing by the Game Council of New South Wales.

Following a report sharply criticizing the Game Council, the government dissolved it in mid-2013, suspended hunting on public lands, and reconsidered the plan to allow amateur hunters into national parks — thus breaking the earlier promise to the Shooters and Fishers Party.