Clipmarks | France Clips

European Big Four Rule Out Joint Rescue Action

Mon, 06 Oct 2008 12:25:50 GMT

clipped by: merrie
clipper's remarks: The summit called for greater flexibility in accounting rules by the end of October, in line with US practices.

This would be done by giving European banks "the same rules to reclassify financial instruments from the trading book to the banking book, including those already held or issued". This is a reference to a rarely used rule in the US that allows banks to record assets at an amortised cost, rather than at its current market value.

This would be a way of circumventing the existing "mark-to-market" accounting rules, which critics say have contributed to a downward spiral of asset prices

*Allow banks to apply mark-to-market accounting rules for assets more flexibly in line with US practices *European Commission to draw up EU rules aligning bank deposit guarantee schemes *Establish task forces to co-ordinate *Establish task forces to co-ordinate with the US authorities and others during crises *Supervisors to draw up codes of conduct on pay and risk-taking

Clip Source: www.ft.com

The leaders of Europe's four largest economies vowed at the weekend not to let a single bank fail but said they would tackle their own national banking crises rather than pursue an EU-wide rescue.

At a summit in Paris on Saturday evening, President Nicolas Sarkozy and his German, British and Italian counterparts said they would ensure the "soundness and stability" of the financial system "using their own means".

They also called for a partial relaxation of mark-to-market accounting rules for assets, closer supervision of bankers' pay, further co-operation between regulators and fresh EU-wide rules on bank deposit guarantees.

While calling for flexibility in state aid rules, the four leaders also upped the pressure on Ireland, which has angered its partners with a blanket guarantee of bank debts. They said it would have to discuss its scheme with European Commission and the European Central Bank.

Tags: sarkozy, france, germany, uk, italy, eu-wide rules, bank deposit guarantees

Naomi Campbell at the Jean Paul Gaultier for Hermes Spring-Summer 2009 Ready-to-Wear collection show

Mon, 06 Oct 2008 07:45:46 GMT

clipped by: brian44

Clip Source: celebsandhollywood.blogspot.com

Naomi Campbell at the Jean Paul Gaultier for Hermes Spring-Summer 2009 Ready-to-Wear collection show in Paris, France

Naomi Campbell pictures from the Jean Paul Gaultier for Hermes Spring-Summer 2009 Ready-to-Wear collection show in Paris, France.

Naomi Campbell

Naomi Campbell walks down the catwalk at 'Naomi Campbell's Fashion For Relief' show at London Fashion Week, London - 17 HQs

Tags: naomi campbell, pictures, photos, celebrity

My Mandriva test drive

Sun, 05 Oct 2008 17:20:03 GMT

clipped by: jcastellanos713
clipper's remarks: Mandriva, S.A. began as MandrakeSoft in 1998. It currently has about 130 employees (80 of whom are engineers) and has offices in France, the USA, and Brazil. The company sells its products in more than 140 countries and estimates the number of Mandriva Linux users to be in the 6-to-8 million range.

Clip Source: www.jackiesjungle.com

Mandriva 2008 KDE Spring - my test drive

Mandriva, S.A. began as MandrakeSoft in 1998. It currently has about 130 employees (80 of whom are engineers) and has offices in France, the USA, and Brazil. The company sells its products in more than 140 countries and estimates the number of Mandriva Linux users to be in the 6-to-8 million range.

Applications
Being a DVD install there are plenty of softwares available. But majority of the software is of older version. Open Office is 2.2.1 instead of the latest 2.3.0 and Firefox is 2.0.0.6 instead of the latest 2.0.0.7. Additional repositories can be configured to install more software as well. This installation failed for me though.

Tags: linux, mandriva, 2008, kde, spring

Europe Vows To Fight Financial Crisis

Sun, 05 Oct 2008 16:46:25 GMT

clipped by: debbyski

Clip Source: www.nytimes.com

PARIS — After days of squabbling, the leaders of Europe’s largest economies vowed Saturday to work together to stop a growing financial panic, but they failed to offer a systemwide answer to a credit crisis that has forced them to bail out several banks in just the past week.

Though they did not agree on a broad bailout along the lines of the $700 billion package that President Bush signed into law on Friday, the leaders of France, Germany, Britain and Italy pledged to prevent a bankruptcy on this side of the Atlantic like the one that brought down the Lehman Brothers investment bank in New York.

Sharply criticizing what they said were the American roots of what has become a global credit crisis, Europe’s leaders insisted it was time for the European Union to act decisively.

The crisis has become the biggest financial challenge for European policymakers since the introduction of the euro as a Continent-wide currency in 1999.

Dent loup

Sun, 05 Oct 2008 16:41:00 GMT

clipped by: Varka

Clip Source: sioux-venir.oldiblog.com

SIOUX VENIR

135, cours Berriat

38000 GRENOBLE

FRANCE

Tel :04/76/39/78/05

Katy Perry shows great cleavage at Beso restaurant in Hollywood

Sun, 05 Oct 2008 15:13:05 GMT

clipped by: brian44

Clip Source: celebsandhollywood.blogspot.com

Katy Perry shows great cleavage at Beso restaurant in Hollywood

Katy Perry pictures showing great cleavage at Beso restaurant in Hollywood.

Katy Perry

Tags: katy perry, pictures, photos, celebrity

Gurdjieff and friends in France

Sun, 05 Oct 2008 14:34:42 GMT

clipped by: Michael Black
clipper's remarks: This shows G.I. Gurdjieff and a group of close friends on a tour of France in the 1940's. This is rare and precious footage showing some very interesting people.

Clip Source: video.google.com

[Video]

Tags: documentary

tv spain

Sun, 05 Oct 2008 13:27:52 GMT

clipped by: foxy1

Clip Source: www.sky.com

Bliss	Bubble Hits	Chart Show TV	Clubland
Channel U	Fizz	Flaunt	Flava
MusFlash	NME TV	oMusic TV	Kix!
ROCKWORLDTV	Scuzz	The Vault

Al Jazeera Eng	Bloomberg	BBC NEWS	BBC PARL'MNT
CCTV-9	CNN	EuroNews	France 24
Russia Today	S4C2

Best Direct	Best Direct+	Beverly Hills TV	bid TV
CelebrityShop	Create & Craft	Entrepreneur	Gems.tv 1
Gems.tv 2	Gems.tv 3	High Street TV	Ideal World
Ideal World 2	Ideal World 3	Jewellery Ch.	JJB Sports
JML	JML Choice	JML CookShop	JML Direct 1
JML Innovation	Max TV	Pitch TV	Pitch World
price-drop tv	QVC	Rocks & Co.	Shop on TV
Smart Shop TV	speedauctiontv	Stop + Shop	Teletext Hols
Thane Direct	Thomas Cook	Thomson TV	Tron Direct
TV SHOP	TV Warehouse	TVW	Wedding TV
WWS

DAYSTAR	EWTN	Faith	Genesis
GOD Channel	GOD Europe	Gospel Channel	Inspiration
KICC TV	LOVEWORLD TV	revelation	TBN Europe
UCB TV	Wonderful	Word Network

Audi Channel	Business Chnl'l	CommunityChnl	OceanFinance
Open Access	Psychic TV	Teachers TV

CBBC Channel	CBeebies	DAYSTAR	POP
PopGirl	PopGirl+1	Tiny Pop	Tiny Pop +1

WHEN WE WERE BUSY, US-INDIA NUKE DEAL

Sun, 05 Oct 2008 05:54:43 GMT

clipped by: klippety
clipper's remarks: Almost under the radar, the undermining of all international agreements continues. This one could have alarming consequences for all.

Clip Source: www.commondreams.org

Nuclear Arms Race Feared After US-India Deal Passes

"Congress missed an important opportunity to remedy many problems with the agreement and prevent the damage to non-proliferation efforts," said Leonor Tomero of the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, an independent think tank in Washington, DC.

The current deal allows India to expand its nuclear industry without requiring it to sign the NPT. The United States had, until now, avoided any kind of nuclear cooperation with India for more than 30 years.

The nuclear trade pact contains no guarantee that India will sign contracts with U.S.-based companies. This week, the Indian government also signed a nuclear cooperation deal with France and showed interest in buying French fighter aircraft.

David Krieger, president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation and a long-time critic of U.S. nuclear policy, thinks the U.S.-India pact will not only undermine the security of the American people, but the security of people everywhere.

The weirdest country in Europe

Sun, 05 Oct 2008 04:27:10 GMT

clipped by: tommy2balmy
clipper's remarks: Whole thing worth reading from link.

Clip Source: www.nationalpost.com

SARANDE, Albania -Here and there on the Mediterranean waterfront around Sarande, a little town currently publicized with wan hope as "the southern gateway for tourism into Albania," you can spot evocative relics of communist paranoia: the concrete-and-steel bunkers erected under the personal supervision of Enver Hoxha.

He was the Stalinist who ran Albania for four terrifying decades.

Hoxha believed that rows of pillboxes on every stretch of coastline, each of them big enough to hold a soldier and a gun, would fend off foreign invaders -- who, in Hoxha's imagination, were forever plotting against Albania. The idea was mad as well as costly, but no one questioned Hoxha. He built 700,000 bunkers, about one for every four Albanians. This used more than three times as much concrete as the Maginot Line, the enormous installation that failed to protect France against Germany in the Second World War.

Tags: albania, weird

Invisibility cloaks could take sting out of tsunamis

Sat, 04 Oct 2008 22:34:35 GMT

clipped by: Silkweaver
clipper's remarks: "I think that this is a great idea with much potential," says Ulf Leonhardt at the University of St Andrews, UK. "One could really imagine protecting coastlines by arrays of cleverly designed concrete poles."

Such structures act like metamaterials, materials whose properties result from their structure not composition, and can be used to make invisibility cloaks for light, he says.

But Guenneau cautions that large structures like islands and coastlines are unlikely to become invisible anytime soon, because building the many small islands needed to protect one is such a big job.

"It's crazy – maybe only people in Dubai could do this," he adds, referring to the spectacular artificial islands built there.

Smaller structures such as offshore oil platforms would be easier to protect, he says.

Clip Source: technology.newscientist.com

Invisibility cloaks that are able to steer light around two dimensional objects have become reality in the last few years. But the first real-world application of the theories that made them possible could be in hiding vulnerable coastlines and offshore platforms from destructive tsunamis.

The first working invisibility cloak, built in 2006, guided microwaves around a small, flat copper ring as if it wasn't there.

By October 2007, a device repeated the trick for harder-to-handle visible light, and some progress is reported on the yet more complex task of making cloaks to hide 3D objects

Now Stefan Enoch at the Fresnel Institute in Marseille, France, says that established cloaking principles could be applied to ocean waves, which are essentially two-dimensional.

Such techniques could be used to render vulnerable coastlines or offshore platforms invisible to damaging waves, he says.

Tags: tsunami, wave physics, invisibility

Wildlife and Travel Photography

Sat, 04 Oct 2008 20:27:56 GMT

clipped by: JohnWaterman

Clip Source: www.sleepingwolves.com

Cariboureindeer / caribou

Caribou

White tailed deer

Caribou

White tailed deerfawn

Clip Source: www.sleepingwolves.com

Barred Owl

Red tailed hawk

Snowy Owl

Golden Eagle

Red Tailed HawkThis bird died.

Bald Eagle

Red Tailed HawkNew Male at Eco-Museum (April 29th)

Red Tailed Hawk

Golden Eagle

Bald Eagle

Clip Source: www.sleepingwolves.com

Birds

Fish

Flowers

Invertebrates

Mammals

Reptiles & Amphibians

Travel Portfolio

England

France

Greece

Italy

Switzerland

Canada

United States

Bahamas

Cataloguing Biden's Whoppers

Sat, 04 Oct 2008 12:26:27 GMT

clipped by: merrie
clipper's remarks: ..... president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad; he falsely claimed Gov. Sarah Palin supported a windfall profits tax on oil companies; he said he's always been for clean coal in spite of his record of voting against it in the Senate.

Biden said we have to drill for more of our own oil, easily leading viewers to conclude he and Obama are in favor of more domestic drilling, but as the American Thinker blog's Rick Moran noted in a list of "Biden's Big Lies," "Biden has opposed offshore drilling and even compared offshore drilling to 'raping' the Outer Continental Shelf."

Gov. Palin called Biden on his claim that Gen. David McKiernan in Afghanistan said that the surge could not be applied in Afghanistan; in fact, McKiernan has said that some aspects of Gen. David Petraeus' Iraq strategy could be part of our war efforts in Afghanistan.

Clip Source: www.investors.com

Carter nor Bill Clinton, whose twists and turns before a grand jury led to his impeachment, ever stared into the camera and spouted such a string of outright fabrications as if they were gospel truths the way Barack Obama's running mate did last week.

Thankfully, the blogosphere has been having a field day cataloguing Joe's whoppers. First, as InstaPundit's Michael Totten instantly noted after the debate, Biden — the great, seasoned foreign policy expert who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Committee — falsely claimed France and the U.S. "kicked Hezbollah out of Lebanon."

There was also Biden's accusation that John McCain is soft on regulation, when in fact he tried to beef up regulations on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — an explanation for why he got so little campaign money from Fannie and Freddie over the years — under $22,000 — as opposed to the more than $126,000 Obama received in his short time in the Senate.

Sen. Biden falsely claimed that Obama didn't pledge to meet with Iran's

Tags: biden's gaffes, hexbollah/lebanon, mccain on regulation fm/fm, met ahmadinejad, clean coal, domestic drilling, troop funding, mckiernan afghanistan

10 Most Powerful Women in History

Fri, 03 Oct 2008 21:59:08 GMT

clipped by: ramsesemerson
clipper's remarks: I wish I had room to give attention to all of these, but since I don't, I picked Eleanor.

Clip Source: listverse.com

Eleanor of Aquitaine

Eleanor was one of the wealthiest and most powerful women in Europe and the world during the High Middle Ages. Eleanor inherited the Duchy of Aquitaine and Poitiers after her father’s death when she was only 15. As a result, Eleanor became an independent ruler in her own right receiving the titles of Duchess of Aquitaine and Countess of Poitiers. Aquitaine was the largest and wealthiest province of France during the 12th century. Unlike many other monarchs and women of the Middle Ages, Eleanor and her family were very well educated. Eleanor is credited for having transformed Aquitaine into one of the largest intellectual and cultural centers in Medieval Western Europe.

Hatshepsut

Maria Theresa of Austria

Empress Theodora

Empress Wu Zetian

Isabella I of Castile

Elizabeth I of England

Empress Dowager Cixi

Catherine II of Russia

Queen Victoria

Tags: history, women, list, lists, top 10

France says world on ‘edge of the abyss’

Fri, 03 Oct 2008 17:31:07 GMT

clipped by: sunstreak509

Clip Source: www.ft.com

PARIS/LONDON, October 3 - French prime minister Francois Fillon said on Friday the world stood on the ”edge of the abyss”, gripped by a global financial crisis now threatening industry, trade and jobs worldwide.

Fillon’s words echoed a growing sense of alarm sweeping EU capitals ahead of an expected U.S. Congressional vote on Friday on a $700 billion bailout plan for the financial industry. Approval is far from certain.

Tags: economy, finance, markets, money