Netflix has been expanding aggressively in international markets for the past two years. Following its launch in Canada towards the end of 2010, the company expanded to Latin America, the U.K., Ireland and Nordic countries of Denmark, Sweden, Finland and Norway. We currently estimate that international streaming accounts for just 15% of Netflix’s value. …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Forbes Latest
COPENHAGEN, Denmark, March 5 (UPI) — A Danish group called Dissatisfied Unemployed has taken responsibility for dumping more than 220 pounds of manure on the front steps of the Employment Ministry.
By Amanda Alix, The Motley Fool
Filed under: Investing
This time of year is oodles of fun for investors, when companies’ annual reports and letters to shareholders shed a bit more light on the inner workings of investment favorites.
The “Risk Factors” section is an especially good read and, while often filled with generalized statements about the economy, future legislation, and such, can sometimes give a real clue as to what these companies themselves consider a threat to their bottom lines.
Such is the case with Annaly Capital Management , whose latest 10-K filing I recently perused. One particular risk the company identified caught my eye, as I had been thinking about this issue myself — and it’s a doozy: the winding down of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
Fannie, Freddie wind-down will cause upheaval
As Annaly management notes in its 10-K, the idea to unwind Fannie and Freddie was first floated by the Treasury Department in early 2011, in a white paper regarding housing finance reform. As an entity that invests primarily in mortgage-backed securities backed by these government-sponsored entities, any change in the status of these behemoths would have an impact on Annaly and other pure-agency mREITs, such as American Capital Agency and Armour Residential .
Lately, the changes to those GSEs have been accelerated. Just this week, Edward DeMarco, the acting director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency decreed that the two must work together to create a new, joint company that will securitize home loans for a fee. This new entity could end up being either public or private, depending upon which way the political winds blow.
Since the two GSEs currently insure about 90% of all home loans being written, shutting them down, no matter how slowly, will cause issues for mREITs. As Annaly points out, market uncertainty pursuant to this process can easily cause market jitters that could decrease the value of the company’s holdings. Not a good thing, of course, since it is these very securities that Annaly, American Capital Agency, and Armour use to secure financing with which to invest further.
And that’s not the worst of it. Management notes that elimination of Fannie and Freddie — or even substantial changes to those enterprises — just might also eliminate the government guarantee for those coveted agency MBSes, effectively putting the pure-agency players out of business.
A real and abiding concern
While these assessments of risk may sound dire, they are well within the realm of possibility. This seems to be the year of change at the GSEs, and a group of legislators have recently sought to bump the issue of GSE reform into the spotlight. The Wall Street Journal notes that much of the debate concerns the continued availability of 30-year, fixed rate mortgages — the bread and butter of mREITs — which are common products in the U.S. and Denmark, but not in other parts of the world.
Once again, Annaly management is showing forethought in keeping a close eye on these developments. Mortgage …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance
By Dan Radovsky, The Motley Fool
Filed under: Investing
The Danish government says Microsoft owes it $1 billion in back taxes and interest, the largest such penalty in Denmark‘s history, according to Danish news source DR2 (translation here).
The Skatteministeriet, Denmark‘s Ministry of Taxation, is currently negotiating with Microsoft and the U.S. government to have that money returned to Denmark, says DR2.
Microsoft’s alleged underpayment stems from its purchase of Danish financial software company Navision in 2002 for $1.9 billion. After renaming it “Microsoft Business Solutions,” Microsoft then sold the rights to the Navision software to its Irish subsidiary.
That sale, Denmark says, was made so Microsoft could reap the benefits of Ireland‘s lower tax rates from sales of what the Danes contend is a Danish product. Navision continues to be developed in Denmark within Microsoft’s Danish division, an entity with 600 employees.
Even though the Navision software, now called Dynamics NAV, has sales of around $2 billion a year, any earnings go to Microsoft’s Irish company, not to its Danish division. Hence, Denmark sees no tax revenue from it.
And Microsoft will have to face more financial penalties, according Reuters, which last week reported European Commission plans to fine the company before the end of March.
Reuters spoke to three people close to the matter who said the penalty would be tied to a Microsoft antitrust case more than 10 years old. That case was supposed to have been settled in 2009 after Microsoft promised to give European buyers of its Windows operating system a choice of browsers that rival its Internet Explorer.
Microsoft made that pledge to avoid a EU penalty that could have gone as high as 10% of its worldwide sales.
We’re No. 3
Since 2008, Internet Explorer has fallen from a 48% share of the European browser market to 24%. Google‘s Chrome has 35%,Firefox has 29%, Apple‘s Safari has 9%, and Opera has 2%, according to StatCounter, an Internet traffic analysis company.
Microsoft has already been fined $2.1 billion by the European Commission for other offenses, including designing its media player to only work on Windows. The browser offense occurred between February 2011 and July 2012, according to Reuters. Microsoft blamed it on a technical error.
If Denmark prevails in its tax case, according to DR2, it would use the windfall tax revenue to either build a new hospital, a new highway, or hire 15,000 more primary school teachers.
It’s been a frustrating path for Microsoft investors, who’ve watched the company fail to capitalize on the incredible growth in mobile over the past decade. However, with the release of its own tablet, along with the widely anticipated Windows 8 operating system, the company is looking to make a splash in this booming market. In this brand-new premium report on Microsoft, our analyst explains that while the opportunity is huge, the challenges are many. He’s also providing regular updates as key events occur, so make sure to claim a copy of this report now by clicking here.
A large study on the pregnancy nausea drug, Ondansetron, found that its use does not harm the developing embryo or fetus, researchers from the State Serum Institute in Copenhagen, Denmark reported in NEJM (New England Journal of Medicine). The authors explained that Ondansetron, a drug used for vomiting and nausea, has been used increasingly in pregnancy over the last few years… …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Medical News Today
In the age of instant information, globe-spanning viral videos and the World Wide Web, can a thoroughly wired country become a porn-free zone? Authorities in Iceland want to find out.
The government of the tiny North Atlantic nation is drafting plans to ban pornography, in print and online, in an attempt to protect children from a tide of violent sexual imagery.
The proposal by Interior Minister Ogmundur Jonasson has caused an uproar. Opponents say the move will censor the Web, encourage authoritarian regimes and undermine Iceland‘s reputation as a Scandinavian bastion of free speech.
Advocates say it is a sensible measure that will shelter children from serious harm.
“When a 12 year old types `porn’ into Google, he or she is not going to find photos of naked women out on a country field, but very hardcore and brutal violence,” said Halla Gunnarsdottir, political adviser to the interior minister.
“There are laws in our society. Why should they not apply to the Internet?”
Gunnarsdottir says the proposals currently being drawn up by a committee of experts will not introduce new restrictions, but simply uphold an existing if vaguely worded law.
Pornography is already banned in Iceland, and has been for decades — but the term is not defined, so the law is not enforced. Magazines such as Playboy and Penthouse are on sale in book stores, and more hard-core material can be bought from a handful of sex shops. “Adult” channels form part of digital TV packages.
Iceland‘s left-of-center government insists it is not setting out to sweep away racy magazines or censor sex. The ban would define pornography as material with violent or degrading content.
Gunnarsdottir said the committee is still exploring the details of how a porn ban could be enforced. One possibility would be to make it illegal to pay for porn with Icelandic credit cards. Another, more controversial, route would be a national Internet filter or a list of website addresses to be blocked.
That idea has Internet-freedom advocates alarmed.
“This kind of thing does not work. It is technically impossible to do in a way that has the intended effect,” said Smari McCarthy of free-speech group the International Modern Media Institute. “And it has negative side effects — everything from slowing down the Internet to blocking content that is not meant to be blocked to just generally opening up a whole can of worms regarding human rights issues, access to information and freedom of expression.”
Despite its often chaotic appearance, the Internet is not a wholly lawless place. It is regulated, to varying degrees, around the world. Police monitor the net for child pornography and other illegal material, and service providers in many countries block offending sites.
Some governments also censor the Internet at a national level — though the likes of authoritarian Iran, North Korea and China are not countries liberal Iceland wants to emulate.
European countries including Britain, Sweden and Denmark ask Internet service providers to block child pornography websites, measures that have met with only limited opposition.
But broader filtering has mostly been resisted. A few years …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Fox World News
Danish authorities say they will report a butcher in central Denmark to police for selling horse meat labeled as beef to local pizzerias.
The Danish Veterinary and Food Administration’s chief investigator, Michael Rosenmark, says samples taken from packages of “pizza meat” produced by Harby Slagterhus showed they contained a mix of horse meat, pork and beef.
The butcher, in a village near Denmark‘s second-largest city Arhus, markets itself as a local, high-quality alternative to large consortiums and claims the restaurants knew their product contained horse meat. But Rosenmark says a former employee at the butcher’s supports the claim it has been misleading customers.
Authorities across Europe started doing random DNA checks on meat products after traces of horse meat turned up in frozen supermarket meals such as burgers and lasagna.
More top universities outside the United States are joining the rush to offer “massive open online courses” that are broadening access to higher education.
Coursera and edX, two leading providers of so-called MOOCs, on Thursday announced major expansions that will roughly double the number of university partners offering free online classes through their websites.
Mountain View, Calif.-based Coursera said it will add 29 institutions, including 16 outside the U.S. Over the next several months, they will offer about 90 new courses, including some taught in French, Spanish, Italian and Chinese.
“Having courses taught in other languages will enable more students to take our classes,” said Andrew Ng, a Stanford University professor who co-founded Coursera.
Coursera currently offers 220 courses from 33 institutions and has nearly 2.8 million registered users who have signed up for nearly 10 million courses, Ng said.
The new partners include Chinese University of Hong Kong, Technical University of Denmark, Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico as well as the universities of Copenhagen, Geneva and Toyko.
Cambridge, Mass.-based edX said it’s adding six new institutions, including five outside the U.S., which will provide at least 25 courses.
EdX, which was launched in May by Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, currently offers 25 courses from six universities and has 700,000 registered students.
The new partners are Australian National University, Delft University of Technology, Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne, McGill University, Rice University and the University of Toronto.
Delft University in the Netherlands will be the first edX partner to provide courses as “open content,” which means other universities are free to incorporate the materials into their classes, said edX President Anant Agarwal.
“People can reuse it and remix it,” Agarwal said. “It enables courses to get better and better over time by allowing people to share content.”
The collaborative project PharmaSea will bring European researchers to some of the deepest, coldest and hottest places on the planet. Scientists from the UK, Belgium, Norway, Spain, Ireland, Germany, Italy, Switzerland and Denmark will work together to collect and screen samples of mud and sediment from huge, previously untapped, oceanic trenches. The large-scale, four-year project is backed by more than €9.5 million of EU funding and brings together 24 partners from 14 countries from industry, academia and non-profit organisations. …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Phys.org
Danish police say “a considerable amount” of cocaine has washed ashore along the Scandinavian country’s North Sea coast but they will not release details due to an ongoing European investigation.
Police spokesman Hans Roost says German police have made similar findings, adding the drugs could have been washed ashore by currents from a great distance and likely were not intended for the Danish market.
Roost said Friday the drugs were packed in bags and boxes but would not comment on local media reports that up to 100 kilograms (220 pounds) washed up in Denmark alone.
Roost says the street price for one kilogram (2.2 pounds) of cocaine in southwestern Denmark is up to 400,000 kroner ($72,000), depending on purity.
For the first time in the country’s history, Slovenia will be playing in the Winter Olympics men’s hockey tournament.
The Slovenians clinched an Olympic berth on Friday with a shocking 2-1 win over host country Denmark, giving the Slovenians a… …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at NHL
By Frederick E. Allen, Forbes Staff
Last week Prof. James Vaupel of Denmark opened a new center for research on the “biodemography of aging,” and he did so with a bang, calling for a whole new kind of career plan, where no one works more than 25 hours a week, but everyone works until they’re 80. His reasoning? As the website ScienceNordic put it, “When you’re 20, you would rather spend more time with your friends. When you’re 35, you want time with your kids. But then when you reach 70, you have far too much time on your hands.” …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Forbes Latest
In this image from the Envisat satellite, clouds cover the North Sea and sweep down to the strait between Denmark (lower-right corner) and Norway (upper-centre).
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Space.com
By Jason Evangelho, Contributor If you’re searching for an excellent AirPlay speaker with an attractive design and surprisingly rich sound, there’s a small audio company from Denmark that needs to be on your radar. I’ve spent a week with the Libratone Zipp, and it’s earned a permanent place in my home thanks to its ease of use, simplicity, and room-filling sound.
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Forbes Latest
Climate change is one of the major challenges facing the international community in the coming century. The warmer climate has already had a significant impact on the distribution of the sea ice, and has led to the advancement of spring in the Arctic. There is a close connection between the Arctic climate and our own. The cold we are experiencing in Denmark at present is due to the polar front extending south, for example.
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Phys.org
COPENHAGEN, Denmark, Jan. 31 (UPI) — An Irish woman living in Denmark said the Little Mermaid statue in Copenhagen will be lit up green for St. Patrick’s Day.
Source: FULL ARTICLE at UPI Odd News
A jihadist website posted a new threat by al Qaeda this week that promises to conduct “shocking” attacks on the United States and the West.
The posting appeared on the Ansar al Mujahidin network Sunday and carried the headline, “Map of al Qaeda and its future strikes.”
The message, in Arabic, asks: “Where will the next strike by al Qaeda be?” A translation was obtained by Inside the Ring.
“The answer for it, in short: The coming strikes by al Qaeda, with God’s Might, will be in the heart of the land of nonbelief, America, and in France, Denmark, other countries in Europe, in the countries that helped and are helping France, and in other places that shall be named by al Qaeda at other times,” the threat states.
The attacks will be “strong, serious, alarming, earth-shattering, shocking and terrifying.”
Read More at The Washington Times . By Bill Gertz.
A 15-year-old Icelandic girl has been granted the right to legally use the name given to her by her mother, despite the opposition of authorities.
A court ruled Thursday that the name “Blaer” can be used. It means “gentle breeze.”
The decision overturns an earlier rejection by Icelandic authorities who declared it was not a proper feminine name. Until now, Blaer Bjarkardottir had been identified simply as “Girl” in communications with officials.
Like a handful of other countries, including Germany and Denmark, Iceland has official rules about what a baby can be named. Names are supposed to fit Icelandic grammar and pronunciation rules.
Her mother, Bjork Eidsdottir, had fought for the right for the name to be recognized. Blaer told the court she had no problems with her name.
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Fox World News
Snail mail may be about to get even slower in New Zealand. The country’s postal service is considering cutting delivery from six days a week to three to cut costs as people increasingly turn to the Internet to pay bills and communicate.
The island nation of 4.5 million is among many countries struggling to sustain a viable postal service. Mail volumes in New Zealand dropped by 24 percent over the past 10 years and are forecast to drop by another 25 percent in the next five years.
New Zealand Post, the government-owned agency that delivers the mail, on Tuesday proposed changing its charter to require a minimum three days delivery instead of six. The proposal is now open to public comment and would not likely be implemented before next year.
The scale of the possible cutback has alarmed some consumers and the union that represents postal workers, which says it would cost hundreds of jobs and undermine the integrity of the postal system.
Yet, in perhaps another sign of changing times, many seem ready to accept a reduced service.
In an unscientific poll conducted by The New Zealand Herald newspaper, 50 percent of respondents said they’d be fine with three-day-a-week delivery because they don’t get much mail anyway. Eighteen percent said they’d be upset by the change, while 32 percent said the postal agency should cut only Saturday deliveries.
In an interview with The Associated Press, New Zealand Post Chief Executive Brian Roche said that if his agency did reduce deliveries to three days a week, his instinct would be to implement the cuts in one fell swoop rather than over time in order to create the maximum certainty for customers.
“The single biggest issue is the Internet,” Roche said. “It’s part of everybody’s daily life. People send messages to one another through text, Facebook, email and mobile … strong physical networks are all under challenge from consumer substitution.”
He said the agency, which employs about 7,000 people to sort and deliver mail, would seek to minimize layoffs through attrition and redeployment, although he acknowledged hundreds could lose their jobs.
He said many other countries would be looking to New Zealand‘s as a test case if it did implement such a cut. He said Denmark in recent years had made a similar cut to deliveries following a campaign to have people switch to digital mail.
The U.S. Postal Service says it has cut the size of its career workforce by 168,000, or 24 percent, since 2006 as mail volumes have declined. But a proposal by the agency to cut its delivery obligation from six days a week to five has proved contentious and has not been passed by Congress.
In New Zealand, Roche said he’s keenly aware of the 170-year heritage of postal deliveries.
“It’s been part of the fabric of society,” he said, “and you tinker with it with respect and at your peril.”
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Fox World News
Filed under: Performance, Etc., Specialty
The 2013 Gumball 3000 rally – this year is the 15th anniversary of the supercar cavalcade – will begin on March 18 in Copenhagen, Denmark. Among the 120 go-faster-mobiles at the starting line will be two rides that just might pierce the ennui of the loaded leisure class: a replica of Batman’s Tumbler and a one-off supercar.
The two gents of Team Galag, from Saudi Arabia, have put the ideas and money behind it. This will be their third year running the Gumball, and from the humble beginnings of a Porsche 911 Turbo in 2011 they went on to a Lamborghini Aventador and Mercedes SLS AMG Roadster last year. The Tumbler is being built by Parker Brothers Concepts, the company that constructs vehicles for the SyFy Channel’s Dream Machines show.
As for that one-off supercar, it’s called the TG1 for the time being and building it has been “a decision that we have regretted ever since.” Not that there won’t be a TG2, mind you. They’ve promised updates on the build, so we can safely say that it’s not the diamond-trimmed LykanHypersport. Which is a good thing.
If you want to look out for them, the Gumball route runs through Stockholm, Turku (Finland), Helsinki, St. Petersburg, Tallinn, Riga, Warsaw and Vienna on its way to the Monaco Formula One Grand Prix the weekend of May 23.
Gumball 3000 team planning to run Batman Tumbler and bespoke supercar originally appeared on Autoblog on Sat, 26 Jan 2013 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Source: FULL ARTICLE at Autoblog
