Not just now. Now! Eskom urges SA to cut power use
Eskom’s chief executive, Brian Dames, has called on South Africans to shave 10% off their electricity usage with the goal of saving 3 000MW, so that the power utility can perform badly needed maintenance on its ageing power stations.
“If we save 10% across all customer bases or 3 000 megawatts (MW) we should be able to have a secure power system in the country,” he said. In comparison, Eskom’s Kendal power station generates 3 600MW of power.
Dames, who was speaking at a quarterly update on the state of the power system at Megawatt Park, the Eskom head office in Johannesburg, called on South African citizens, businesses and municipalities to work together to make sharp cuts to their electricity consumption and to do this “now, immediately”.
Eskom has for a number of years warned that the power system would be under severe pressure for the next five years, and that 2012 would be the peak of the crisis. Un Read all post…
Starbucks to sell beer, wine in some metro Atlanta stores
The company said Monday it plans to begin serving beer and wine at four to six metro Atlanta locations later this year. The specific stores and when the products would be available have not been released.
The broadened menu, which also will include small plate dinners, is the Seattle-based retailer’s response to customers who have said they want the chain to offer more food and beverage choices in the evenings. The selected wines and beers will reflect customer tastes and preferences in each locality and will be refined over time, the company said.
“As our customers transition from work to home, many are looking for a warm and inviting place to unwind and connect with the people they care about,” Clarice Turner, senior vice president of operations in the United States, said in the announcement.
The expanded offerings began in 2010 in Seattle and have grown to five stores in the Washington city and one in Portland. The
Southwest Florida home sales and prices up
Facing multiple bid situations at the low end of the market, buyers are finding their decision times have become compressed.
In Bradenton, investors are no longer trying to low-ball sellers and are offering what they think properties are worth, while in Sarasota, agents are getting tough with their customers.
“I told one client and his wife they needed to make up their minds about a house,” said Ronnie Caron, who runs her own Sarasota agency.
Global regulator proposes standards to allow bank comparisons
Investors and regulators faced a near impossible challenge during the financial crisis trying to compare the health of banks in one country to their counterparts in another – a problem global regulators are now attempting to fix.
The Basel Committee on Banking Supervision, which is responsible for drawing up new rules that will affect the world’s largest financial institutions, is proposing a set of standards that would create a universal method for reporting capital levels at banks around the globe.
When the financial crisis hit in 2007-2008, a multitude of different reporting standards made it hard for the market to judge which banks had adequate capital to backstop their lending and trading operations, the Switzerland-based committee said in documents released Tuesday.
That meant investors and regulars couldn’t easily compare the capital situations of banks in Europe with those in Canada or the United States.
“During the financial crisis, many market participants and supervisors have attempted to undertake detailed assessments of the capital positions of banks and comparisons of their capital positions,” the Basel Committee document says.
“The level of detail of the disclosure and the lack of consistency in the way that [capital] was reported typically made this task difficult and often made it impossible to do with any accuracy. It is often
BofA chairman says he supports CEO “100 percent” (Reuters)
Holliday made the comment at a conference in Abu Dhahi when asked about how much board support Moynihan has after a steep decline in the bank’s stock price. He declined to comment on whether the bank planned to sell more assets.
Asked about the state of the U.S. economy, Holliday said it was hard to judge but that “there have been some encouraging signs in the last few months.”
Moynihan, CEO sine January 2010, is under pressure to build capital to absorb mortgage-related losses and meet new international standards. He has been saddled with losses tied to the 2008 acquisition of Countrywide Financial under his predecessor, Ken Lewis.
Gingrich to Release Tax Return in Days
Newt Gingrich says he is ready to release his income tax return and will do so on Thursday, just two days ahead of the South Carolina primary—and he thinks Mitt Romney would do well to follow his example. “Gov. Romney, if he plans to stay in the race, ought to plan to release his records,” Gingrich said on Meet the Press yesterday. “The country deserves accountability and deserves transparency,” the former speaker added, according to CNN. “These are big issues and not issues you can hide from,” especially if youre going head-to-head against Barack Obama, Gingrich said.
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