The first asylum-seekers to be sent to Papua New Guinea under Australia’s hardline new boatpeople policy arrived Thursday, with the government declaring people-smugglers no longer have a product to sell. …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Fox World News
Australian Immigration Minister Tony Burke Wednesday described as “horrific” explosive claims that asylum-seekers at one of its processing camps in Papua New Guinea are being raped and tortured. …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Fox World News
Australia’s new policy of resettling refugees in Papua New Guinea was already having a deterrent effect on boatpeople, Immigration Minister Tony Burke said Monday as angry protesters condemned the plan. …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Fox World News
Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd says all refugees who arrive in Australia by boat will be resettled on the South Pacific island nation of Papua New Guinea.
Rudd and Papua New Guinea Prime Minister Peter O’Neill signed an agreement in the Australian east coast city of Brisbane on Friday that will enable Australia to deport refugees to its developing neighbor.
The move aims to deter an escalating number of asylum seekers who travel to Australia in rickety fishing boats from poor, war-torn homelands through countries including Indonesia and Malaysia.
The growing influx poses a major political problem for Rudd’s Labor Party which is the clear underdog in elections expected within months.
Immigration Minister Tony Burke says the rule will apply to refugees who arrive from Friday.
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Fox World News
Australia plans to resettle asylum-seekers in developing countries as part of a radical overhaul of its border protection policy to help stem the flood of boatpeople arriving on its shores, reports said Friday.
Papua New Guinea is at the heart of the revamp, News Limited newspapers and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation said, with the Pacific nation’s Prime Minister Peter O’Neill expected to jet into Australia on Friday for an announcement.
Under a deal Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd is said to have thrashed out, asylum-seekers would not only be processed in other countries, such as poverty-stricken Papua New Guinea, but also permanently resettled there.
The aim is to pose a strong disincentive for people considering the dangerous boat journey from Indonesia, particularly so-called economic migrants who make the trip not to flee persecution but for a better life in Australia.
Australia has struggled to stem an influx of asylum-seekers arriving by boat, with record numbers turning up in 2012 and more than 13,000 so far in 2013.
Hundreds have drowned making the journey and Canberra’s plans to send them to remote Pacific islands for processing has so far failed to stop the flood.
Foreign Minister Bob Carr has said asylum-seekers are increasingly “economic migrants”, many from Iran and Sri Lanka.
The ABC reported Friday that Indonesia had agreed to a request by Prime Minister Rudd to tighten visa restrictions for visitors from Iran, who currently enjoy visa-free entry to the sprawling Southeast Asian nation with many then taking a boat illegally to Australia.
It follows Rudd’s recent meeting with Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono in Jakarta, where they announced an agreement to promote greater regional co-operation on cross-border immigration.
Australia’s Deputy Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said further details would be forthcoming.
“We’re in discussions, announcements will be made when they’re made. I’m not in a position to make further detail here,” he said, but welcomed the Indonesian move on Iranians.
“What it will do is stop the transit traffic to go from Iran, Middle East, Indonesia, get your visa on arrival and then have already pre-organised a people smuggler to put you on the boat,” he said.
“That will be far more difficult if there’s not an automatic transit through Indonesia. It’s an example of good co-operation and I congratulate and thank the Indonesian government for doing what they’ve done.”
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Fox World News
A group of armed soldiers broke down the gates to a hospital in the Papua New Guinea capital Port Moresby and began indiscriminately attacking people, leaving a medical student seriously injured, according to police.
The incident at the Port Moresby General Hospital on Sunday was condemned by police Commissioner Simon Kauba who blasted the soldiers for attacking “the very people they have sworn to protect and defend”.
“This is totally uncalled for and unacceptable behaviour by members of a disciplined organisation,” he said in a statement.
“I condemn this action in the strongest possible terms and will ensure that it is thoroughly investigated and those responsible will face the full force of the law.”
The assault occurred just hours before Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd arrived in Port Moresby for talks with his counterpart Peter O’Neil, which are expected to focus on the Pacific nation’s chronic law and order problems, among other issues.
Kauba said the soldiers arrived at the hospital in a truck armed with guns, machetes and iron bars and smashed down the gates before beginning their attack. At least six shots were fired.
Reports said it was payback for an alleged assault by medical students on two soldiers during a dispute over the use of an ATM at the hospital on Friday night.
Police brought the matter under control, Kauba said, but the attack left a dental student seriously injured and considerable damage to hospital property.
Crime and lawlessness in poverty-stricken Papua New Guinea is a serious concern throughout the country, including the capital where last month four Chinese nationals were hacked to death, with one reportedly beheaded and the others dismembered.
Papua New Guinea recently passed harsh new laws reviving the death penalty as it grapples with a wave of violent crime, particularly against women, which has drawn international condemnation.
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Fox World News
The UN refugee agency on Friday criticised conditions at a detention centre in Papua New Guinea where Australia sends asylum-seekers, wading into an issue looming large in Australia’s forthcoming election.
A recent UNHCR visit underlined major concerns over the Manus Island centre, said spokesman Adrian Edwards.
“Our inspection revealed continued and worrying shortcomings. Freedom of movement is still extremely limited in what continues to amount to an environment of open-ended, mandatory and, in UNHCR’s view, arbitrary detention,” he told reporters.
“The combination of a tough physical environment, restricted legal regime, and slow processing mean that existing arrangements still do not meet the required international protection standards,” he added.
Edwards said there had been improvements since a January visit, including the transfer of detained women and children to Australia, and that staff were working hard in “very challenging circumstances” to help detainees.
“But current arrangements still do not meet international protection standards for the reception and treatment of asylum-seekers,” he said.
Most of the asylum-seekers are from Vietnam, Pakistan and Iran, he noted.
Canberra has attempted to beat people-smuggling by sending those arriving by boat on its remote offshore territories to processing stations in Papua New Guinea and the tiny Pacific nation of Nauru.
The UNHCR has repeatedly slammed the policy, saying that while Australia has a generous official refugee programme, there has been a widening range of deterrent measures proposed or in place to try to stop boat-people.
Newly reinstated Prime Minister Kevin Rudd last week backed talks with countries of origin to try to stop boats making the perilous journey to Australia, during which many die, after paying huge fees to smugglers.
Rudd has poured scorn on conservative opposition leader Tony Abbott’s plan to “turn back” the boats, saying this risks a diplomatic flare-up with Indonesia, a major transit point.
In his previous stint as premier up to 2010, Rudd relaxed tough refugee controls. But he is now under pressure to take a hard line.
His predecessor Julia Gillard, tipped to suffer a crushing defeat at Abbot’s hands in September polls, was ousted last month in a Labor party coup.
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Fox World News
Filed under: Investing
Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN), often seen as the most progressive tech company in America, will expand its Appstore so “that developers can now submit their apps for distribution in nearly 200 countries.” Amazon may not have a ready customer base in most of those countries, but the announcement makes its reach seem impressive, even if it is ineffective.
In Amazon’s race to dominate, or at least have a prime position, in the mobile app development business, it finds itself behind Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) and Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG). Apple’s massive distribution channel through its iPad and iPhone products, and the many years it has had its own store, give it a built-in advantage. Google has leverage of its own because of the nearly universal adoption of it Android mobile operating system. Its large share of the mobile OS industry cannot be underestimated as an app distribution network, via Google’s own store. Developers with direct relationship with Google can create products for both Amazon’s Kindle and all other Android products
Amazon Appstore for Android was created to help Amazon steal some of Google’s native app developer network. Why developers would not favor Google’s own developer system and store is a mystery. That means most of Amazon’s success with app distribution will be based on its own Kindle Fire tablet, to a substantial extent:
Developers throughout the world are experiencing strong monetization and user engagement through Kindle Fire and the Amazon Appstore.
As far as anyone can tell, the Amazon Appstore is the e-commerce company’s attempt to help sales of its Kindle products, and nothing more. The risk in that is that the Kindle may be overwhelmed by all the other Android-based tablets that have flooded the market. But in the hope of bolstering its position, the company said:
Amazon.com, Inc. continued the global expansion of its Appstore today by announcing that developers can now submit their apps for distribution in nearly 200 countries, including Australia, Brazil, Canada, Mexico, India, South Africa, South Korea, and even Papua New Guinea and Vatican City.
Vatican City may not be a big enough market to help Amazon reach its Appstore goals.
Filed under: 24/7 Wall St. Wire, Consumer Electronics, Software Tagged: AAPL, AMZN, featured, GOOG
Read | Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments
From: http://www.dailyfinance.com/2013/04/18/amazon-apps-expand-to-200-countries/
By Business Wirevia The Motley Fool
Filed under: Investing
Amazon Expands Global App Distribution to Nearly 200 Countries – Developers Should Submit Their Apps Soon to Reach Millions More Active Amazon Customers
Developers around the world reporting high monetization rates with Kindle Fire and Amazon Appstore
SEATTLE–(BUSINESS WIRE)– (NAS: AMZN) – Amazon.com, Inc. continued the global expansion of its Appstore today by announcing that developers can now submit their apps for distribution in nearly 200 countries, including Australia, Brazil, Canada, Mexico, India, South Africa, South Korea, and even Papua New Guinea and Vatican City. These apps will be made available in the coming months when the Amazon Appstore for Android launches internationally for consumers. Registered developers who want international distribution will have their apps automatically made available for download, unless they designate otherwise. This international expansion is the latest in a series of Amazon Appstore for Android launches, which have included the UK, Germany, France, Italy, Spain and Japan. Signing up is easy and developers can get started today by visiting the Amazon Mobile App Distribution Portal.
Developers throughout the world are experiencing strong monetization and user engagement through Kindle Fire and the Amazon Appstore. The success is being driven by Amazon’s large customer base and industry-leading e-commerce features like 1-Click purchasing, Amazon’s APIs for In-App Purchasing (IAP) and A/B Testing, and GameCircle, Amazon’s gaming experience for Kindle Fire. A recent study of more than 500 games that utilize in-app purchasing on Amazon found that GameCircle-enabled mobile games earned 83 percent more average revenue per user (ARPU) than non-GameCircle games.
“Amazon’s platform is a complete end-to-end solution for developers wanting to build, market and monetize their apps and games on Kindle Fire and Android devices,” said Mike George, Vice President of Apps and Games at Amazon. “Allowing developers to target distribution of their apps and games in even more international countries is yet another important milestone as we strive to serve consumers and developers globally. Many of our existing developers have localized their apps and games for international consumers, and we look forward to working with new developers that have been waiting to bring their apps to more Amazon customers across the globe.”
Monetization Success
P2 Games is a UK based publisher of interactive games. “We launched our Kindle
From: http://www.dailyfinance.com/2013/04/17/amazon-expands-global-app-distribution-to-nearly-2/
A powerful earthquake has struck near Papua New Guinea.
The United States Geological Survey said the shallow magnitude-6.8 earthquake struck Wednesday morning about 19 kilometers (11 miles) from the small northern town of Aitape.
The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center did not immediately issue any alerts.
Papua New Guinea is prone to seismic upheaval due to its location on the Pacific “Ring of Fire,” an arc of volcanoes and fault lines encircling the Pacific Basin.
From: http://feeds.foxnews.com/~r/foxnews/national/~3/ioB6PKYzsVQ/
By Rich Duprey, The Motley Fool
Filed under: Investing
Flying in the face of lower March retail sales and plunging consumer confidence, Home Depot‘s stock advanced 2.5% yesterday and singlehandedly kept the Dow Jones Industrial Average from falling. In the end, the index closed the day at 14,865, virtually unchanged from the day before.
Yet it wasn’t anything the big box, do-it-yourself shop did on its own that really sparked the rally. Instead it was an analyst upgrade from Jeffries along with an IPO filing by its former wholesale supply business, HD Supply. The latter is probably the larger reason behind the jump in stock, as the proposed $1 billion IPO would place a few coins in Home Depot‘s pocket, since it retained a 12% ownership stake in the business after private equity bought it for $8.5 billion in 2007.
The supply business is a vestige of the horrendous period of empire-building engendered by former CEO Bob Nardelli, a ruinous time where the board of directors, stuffed with his cronies from General Electric, stood by and watched him crush shareholder value. There’s since been a welcome change in leadership, and Home Depot has gone on to become a responsible corporate citizen once more, with shares up 20% in 2013 alone and more than 50% higher than where they stood a year ago.
The HD Supply offering could put even more money in Home Depot‘s bank account since the supply house hasn’t determined the number of shares it will actually offer, meaning the IPO could ultimately be much larger than $1 billion, increasing its value to the Big Orange Box.
Lethargic networks
As Home Depot rose in value over the past year, Active Network , an online event-management service, has been going in the opposite direction, suffering a yearlong decline that’s resulted in the loss of 70% of the company’s value. Yesterday, though, it went in the other direction, jumping more than 10% after announcing that it will soon be reporting its earnings.
Hardly seems a reason for such a response, considering expectations are that growth will slow this year even if losses will narrow. Yet it also announced an expansion of its partnership with Ironman, an international participation-sports challenge organization that grew from a single race to some 190 events. Active will provide Ironman with a seamless global platform for activity participation and registration.
Perhaps the combination of the two announcements gives investors hope that it will finally be able to reverse its yearlong slide.
Dance card filling up
Can a deal finally be at hand that allows InterOil to deliver on the expectations it’s promised investors for so long? We’ve been waiting more than a month for the Papua New Guinea oil-exploration specialist to decide whom it will partner with. The government of the tiny oil outpost demanded that it be a “supermajor” oil company (at the same time it was extracting better terms for itself) as a way of guaranteeing that the oil will
From: http://www.dailyfinance.com/2013/04/13/hopes-high-with-home-depot-stock-these-2-other-com/
By Tyler Crowe and Aimee Duffy, The Motley Fool
Filed under: Investing
U.S. policymakers have dragged their feet on a definitive answer for liquefied natural gas, or LNG, exports for quite a while, and several countries are taking advantage of the delay. With over $150 billion at stake, companies in Australia, Canada, and Papua New Guinea have made a strong push to build out LNG export terminals to capture the lucrative Asia-Pacific market.
In this video, Fool.com contributor Tyler Crowe explains how the concentration of possible LNG export facilities along the U.S. Gulf Coast will not help the country capture this market, and how there are several companies that are betting on better success on other shores. Investors shouldn’t completely fret, though, because many American companies are the ones setting up shop overseas.
The growing production of natural gas from hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling is flooding the North American market and resulting in record-low prices for natural gas. Enterprise Products Partners, with its superior integrated asset base, can profit from the massive bottlenecks in takeaway capacity by taking on large-scale projects. To help investors decide whether Enterprise Products Partners is a buy or a sell today, click here now to check out The Motley Fool’s brand new premium research report on the company.
var FoolAnalyticsData = FoolAnalyticsData || []; FoolAnalyticsData.push({ eventType: “TickerReportPitch”, contentByline: “Tyler Crowe and Aimee Duffy“, contentId: “cms.29653”, contentTickers: “NYSE:APA, NYSE:XOM, NYSE:CVX, NYSE:COP, NYSEMKT:LNG, NYSE:IOC”, contentTitle: “Is America Losing the Natural Gas Export Game?”, hasVideo: “True”, …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance
Indonesian authorities have confiscated hundreds of endangered pig-nose turtles at an airport in the capital.
The head of Jakarta’s conservation agency Awen Supranata said Monday that the 687 turtles had been held at Jakarta’s Soekarno-Hatta airport since their arrival on March 15 from the easternmost province of Papua.
Supranata said the person who sent the turtles was not known, but he believed the turtles were destined for Europe or some Asian countries.
The turtle, scientifically known as Carettochelys insculpta, can be found in the freshwater streams, lagoons and rivers of australia and Papua New Guinea. Their nickname comes from the large nostrils at the tip of their long, fleshy snouts.
Their biggest threats are the illegal animal trade, commercial fishing and egg and meat hunters.
Communities that act locally to limit their fish catches will reap the rewards of their action, as will their neighbors. That’s the conclusion of a study reported on March 28 in the Cell Press journal Current Biology of the highly sought-after fish known as squaretail coral grouper living in five community-owned reef systems in Papua New Guinea. …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Phys.org
By Tyler Crowe, The Motley Fool
Filed under: Investing
Investors who are willing to put their money behind a young company are putting a lot of trust in the company’s management. That bond of trust can be shaky, because the slightest move that might bring things into question could send investors for the exits, and fast. Along those lines, there may be a storm brewing at InterOil regarding its LNG export facility, and it could cause investors’ confidence to waver. Let’s see what’s going on and whether InterOil can wiggle its way out of it.
Stuck in the middle with you
On InterOil’s most recent conference call, its CEO declared that the company had been granted approval for its 3.8 million-ton-per-year LNG export facility in Papua New Guinea, and that the company was in the process of selecting a partner for the facility. Well, apparently this is news to the country’s petroleum and energy minister, William Duma. Making like a town crier, Duma took out full-page ads in the local papers in protest of this statement.
He wanted to make it clear that the ministry was still holding firm in its position that both the exploration and production and midstream assets needed to be operated by an internationally organized operator with an LNG export history before the government would give its stamp of approval, per the original agreement that was fleshed out in 2009.
This isn’t the first time the two have had a little dust-up. As recently as last May, the government was threatening to terminate its agreement with the company to build the facility because InterOil wasn’t following the original plan of bringing on an internationally recognized operator.
Someone isn’t being completely honest here, but its hard to determine who. From an investor’s standpoint, though, it doesn’t really matter, because the end result is bad news either way. If it’s the company, then it shows that InterOil wasn’t completely honest, which is something no investor wants to hear. If it’s the PNG government, then it’s being obstructive and will slow progress, especially considering the government took a minority interest in its Elk and Antelope fields.
(Pacific) Ring of Fire
The LNG export business in the Pacific region has had its fair share of troubles as of late. Setbacks and delays seem to be happening more often than not. ExxonMobil has experienced multiple delays and budget overruns on its LNG facility in Papua New Guinea, bringing the final tally up about 20% to $19 billion. Similar budgetary overruns at ConocoPhillips‘ Australia Pacific LNG facility in Australia has led the company to sell of some its interest in the project. Despite the interest from other majors to build out natural gas exporting facilities in the region, the headaches these companies have experienced will certainly make others think twice.
If there’s anyone who should be happy about this news, it’s Apache and Chevron . Both of these companies are the joint owners of the Kitimat LNG export facility in British …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance
By Rich Smith, The Motley Fool
Filed under: Investing
When stocks fall fast and far, they sometimes set themselves up for remarkable rebounds. The following equities suffered dramatic drops over the past week. With help from the 180,000 members of Motley Fool CAPS, we’ll see whether any of them have the potential to bounce back.
It’s been a while, but thanks to last week’s sell-off, we once again have a chance to stand beneath Mr. Market’s silverware drawer in hopes of snagging a bargain. Let’s meet today’s contenders.
|
Company |
How Far From 52-Week High? |
Recent Price |
CAPS Rating (out of 5) |
|---|---|---|---|
|
CVR Partners |
18% |
$24.46 |
***** |
|
Rentech Nitrogen |
21% |
$38.37 |
** |
|
Dendreon |
56% |
$5.41 |
** |
|
InterOil |
27% |
$72.21 |
* |
Companies are selected by screening on finviz.com for abrupt 5% or greater price drops last week. Recent price and 52-week-high data provided by finviz.com. CAPS ratings from Motley Fool CAPS.
Five super falls — one superball
After 10 straight days of hitting record highs, the Dow Jones Industrial Average finally took a breather on Friday, falling 25 points — but still ending up 0.8% for the week. After a run like this one, you’d think most investors would be sitting pretty right now and counting the money from two straight weeks of capital gains.
You might even be right about that — yet “most investors” isn’t the same thing as “all investors.” Fact is, the owners of more than 2,700 separate stocks actually exited last week poorer than they went into it, as their stocks declined in value. But why?
The answers aren’t always clear. For example, InterOil recently got a vote of confidence in its Elk and Antelope natural gas fields, when the host government of Papua New Guinea confirmed that it was taking a big stake in the projects. The stock received an upgrade from TheStreet.com last week as well, and a positive mention from Westlake Securities on Wednesday, yet the shares shed 7% of their value last week regardless. Similarly, shares of cancer-vaccine maker Dendreon are down $0.50 — 8.5% — despite reporting no bad news whatsoever last week.
In contrast, while bad news was similarly absent at Rentech Nitrogen last week, there’s at least some basis for the selling we saw there. The fertilizer producer is due to report earnings on Tuesday, and while analysts forecast earnings growth over last year, investors may be worried Rentech will fail to grow as much as the Street forecasts. Of course, that doesn’t explain the similar sell-off at fellow nitrogen specialist CVR Partners. That won reported earnings last month, beat estimates then, and isn’t due for another earnings report until late April. Is that fair?
The bull case for CVR Partners
Perhaps not — at least not in the estimation of CAPS investors, who give CVR Partners a Fool complement …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance
A strong magnitude-6.7 earthquake has struck Papua New Guinea but there are no immediate reports of damage and no regional tsunami alert.
Chris McKee, the assistant director of the Geophysical Observatory in Port Moresby, said the earthquake’s epicenter was relatively deep and some way offshore so it was unlikely to have caused major problems.
According to the U.S. Geological Survey, the quake struck Monday morning about 320 kilometers (198 miles) north of the capital Port Moresby and was centered about 84 kilometers (52 miles) below sea level.
Papua New Guinea is on the “Ring of Fire” — an arc of earthquake and volcanic zones that stretches around the Pacific Rim. It’s where most of the world’s seismic activity occurs.
By Dan Dzombak, The Motley Fool
Filed under: Investing
Oil prices were on the move this week after a pipeline shutdown in the North Sea. At the oil market‘s close on Tuesday, Brent crude was up 1.1% to $111.61 and WTI crude was up 0.3% to $90.86. Later in the evening, it was announced that Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez had died. Venezuela is OPEC‘s fourth largest member in terms of production, but it’s unclear how Chavez’s death will affect the oil market. U.S. natural gas, meanwhile, remains stuck in the doldrums, down 0.3% this week to $3.53.
The top oil and gas stocks this week
1. This week’s leader is Endeavour International , up 58% this week to $3.97. Endeavour has had a self-inflicted rough year and an even rougher month. Last summer, with the stock around $12, Endeavour announced a dilutive share offering and took on additional debt to purchase oilfield assets from ConocoPhillips in the North Sea. The stock dropped from a high of $12.82 to the share offering price of $7.50 and slowly continued falling.
On Feb. 14 at a price of $5, the company announced that a storm the previous week had damaged its well at East Rochelle and that it was halting operations there. At the same time, the company announced that it was hiring investment bank Tudor, Pickering, & Holt to pursue strategic alternatives. The stock immediately plummeted. You know it’s bad when the brokerage that did the most recent stock offering downgrades the stock from “buy” to “neutral,” which Global Hunter Securities did on Feb. 20.
Endeavour hit a low of $2.36 last week. The stock has since come back a bit, but with a large debt load, a $115 million credit facility due in October, and a damaged well, things don’t look good for Endeavour. I’d pass on this one.
2. Second this week is InterOil , up 14% to $77.68. Interoil is the developer of the massive Elk and Antelope natural gas fields in Papua New Guinea and has an LNG export facility to go along with it. In November, the government of Papua New Guinea announced that it would take a 50% stake in each of the oil fields, which should derisk the project somewhat. The company has been searching for partners to build its facilities and set a firm deadline of Feb. 28 for proposals. If the company can find a partner, and if the company can get its facilities built, there are huge opportunities to export natural gas to Asia. That’s a lot of “ifs” for everything to work out, and short sellers have taken notice, with 12 million shares are currently sold short, or roughly 25% of the float. Investors should be careful.
3. And in third place this week is RigNet , up 10% to $21.55. If you’ve never heard of RigNet, you aren’t alone. The company had its IPO in 2010 and is a provider of remote communications services to the oil rig …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance
By Bruce Watson
Filed under: Family Money, Personal Finance, Economic Indicators, Global Economy, Job Market, Saving
When it comes to best places in the world to be a woman, it’s not surprising that the U.S. falls behind nations like Norway, Sweden, Finland and Denmark. Scandinavian countries, after all, are famed for their impressive social contracts, with the amazing health care and child care benefits that they provide. But you might be shocked to learn that in at least one key metric, American women are being surpassed by those in Mozambique, Mali, Senegal, Tanzania, and 13 other developing nations.
The World Economic Forum’s 2012 report on the global gender gap ranked the U.S. as the 22nd best country in the world. But when it comes to wage equality, the land of the free and the home of the brave drops to 61st, behind Madagascar, Cambodia and Guyana. Women in America earned 67 percent of what men earned. By comparison, women in Sweden earned 69 percent, women in Canada earned 73 percent, and women in Ireland earned 77 percent.
Dig a little deeper into the numbers and it becomes clear what least part of the problem is. In many countries, unmarried women earn more than unmarried men. In Ireland, for example, the average woman without a child earns 17 percent more than the average man. After having children, however, Irish women make more than 10 percent less, on average, than men. In America, the female-to-male pay gap jumps by almost 15 percentage points after children enter the picture.
The reasons for this decline in wages aren’t hard to figure out. Women with children are more likely to leave the workforce, work part time, or otherwise adjust their schedules to deal with child care. Added to this, the high cost of raising a child — a cost that inordinately falls on women — further cuts into household budgets.
In some countries, there are programs to mitigate these factors. Ireland, for example, has government-mandated paid maternity leave. Then again, so does every other country in the world, except for Papua New Guinea, Swaziland … and the U.S.
And these aren’t the only areas in which the U.S. falls well behind the pack. In terms of labor force participation based on gender, the U.S. is 43rd in the world, behind Uganda, Mongolia and Benin. Put another way, 68 percent of able-bodied, adult American women are at work, while 80 percent of able-bodied, adult American men are at work.
Part of this, again, is due to child-rearing, as America’s lack of publicly-funded child care makes it harder for women in this country to juggle family and work. And the situation looks like it’s going to get worse before it gets better. As The International Business Times reported earlier this week, the sequester budget cuts will further erode women’s health care programs, Head …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance
By Selena Maranjian, The Motley Fool
Filed under: Investing
Every quarter, many money managers have to disclose what they’ve bought and sold, via “13F” filings. Their latest moves can shine a bright light on smart stock picks.
Today, let’s look at the Renaissance Technologies hedge fund company, founded by James Simons, and known for its quantitative approach to investing. Simons explained in 2007 that, “We hire physicists, mathematicians, astronomers and computer scientists and they typically know nothing about finance… We haven’t hired out of Wall Street at all.” The company’s most well-known fund is the Medallion Fund. Interestingly, most of the company’s assets belong to employees of the firm, and outside investors are generally turned away.
Why should you look at Renaissance Technologies’ moves? Well, it’s hard to find performance data for it, but in his 2009 book “Blunder: Why Smart People Make Bad Decisions,” Zachary Shore noted that Renaissance’s flagship Medallion fund “has yielded an average 38% annual return since its inception in 1988. The fund has lost money only in a single year, 1989, when it dropped 4.1%.” That’s so remarkable that some have mused that it’s either a Madoff-like Ponzi scheme or a simply amazing hedge fund.
The company’s reportable stock portfolio totaled a whopping $34.3 billion in value as of Dec. 31, 2012, with several thousand holdings. (Concentration, thy name is not Renaissance Technologies!)
Interesting developments
So what does Renaissance’s latest quarterly 13F filing tell us? Here are a few interesting details:
The biggest new holdings are General Electric and PepsiCo. Other new holdings of interest include InterOil . InterOil is an interesting beast — it drills for natural gas in Papua New Guinea. It has major expansion plans, though, including building an export facility, and it’s looking for partners to help finance its growth. Its reserves have a lot of potential, but they’re not all proven. There’s risk in this company, but Renaissance seems to think the possible rewards outweigh that.
Among holdings in which Renaissance Technologies increased its stake was Micron Technology . Micron is hoping that growth in tablets and smartphones, not to mention laptop sales, will drive demand for memory chips. Some expect the company to post strong results soon due to surging DRAM prices. But analysts at Lazard recently downgraded Micron, expecting DRAM prices to level off.
Renaissance Technologies reduced its stake in lots of companies, including Altria . The domestic tobacco giant’s future doesn’t look as rosy as its past, due to a shrinking smoker base in the U.S., more folks moving to discount cigarettes , and rising taxes and regulations. Respected analysts at Steifel Nicolaus recently rated the stock a buy, but my colleague Rich Smith thinks they’re wrong. Altria sports a dividend yield of 5.2%, and its recent results have been strong, with solid management projections.
Finally, Renaissance’s biggest closed positions included Boeing and Wells Fargo. Other closed positions of interest include Halcon Resources and Sandridge Energy . Oil and gas company Halcon has been growing …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance
