Protests against the proposed closure of a Burberry factory in Wales are going global.
Campaigners are handing out cards to customers bearing the message “Stop Burberry Breaking Our Hearts” to coincide with St Valentine’s Day.
The GMB union has organised the action as part of attempts to save the designer clothes plant in Treorchy, South Wales, which is due to shut at the end of March with the loss of 300 jobs.
The demonstrations will be held in London, Paris, Strasbourg, New York, Chicago and Las Vegas.
Mervyn Burnett, of the GMB, said the campaign was taking on a global dimension because of Burberry’s plans to transfer work from South Wales to China.
“GMB members and supporters will explain direct to shoppers outside the Burberry stores in these cities our demand that the company reverse the closure of the South Wales factory,” he said.
The union said Burberry had refused to reveal how much workers in China will be paid for the work being transferred there from the UK.
Burberry said it was “wholly committed” to Britain, with almost half its global workforce of 4,650 staff based in the UK.
A company spokesman said: “These international protests have become unrelated to the closure of a polo shirt factory in Wales.
“Our focus continues to be on re-skilling the workforce and finding alternative employment close to the site in Treorchy, in the Rhondda area of South Wales, for staff still looking for work.”
HONG KONG (XFN-ASIA) - Retail sales in January fell 1.3 pct year-on-year to 20.9 bln hkd, and were down 4.8 pct by volume, the government said.
The January figures also mark a slowdown from December, which saw retail sales of 21.5 bln hkd, up 11.6 pct from a year earlier. Volume sales in December were up 8.2 pct year-on-year.
A government spokesman said the year-on-year decline in January retail sales may be attributed to the timing of the Chinese New Year which fell in February this year against January in 2006.
“The decline in the volume of total retail sales in January 2007 over a year earlier was mainly due to the distortion introduced by the difference in the timing of the Lunar New Year,” the spokesman said.
(1 usd = 7.8 hkd)
leonora.walet@xfn.com
lw/rc
For more information and to contact AFX: www.afxnews.com and www.afxpress.com
FRANKFURT (Thomson Financial) - The euro zone current account slipped into deficit in February after six consecutive months of surpluses.
The current account was 5.3 bln eur in deficit in February in seasonally adjusted terms, after a surplus of 3.5 bln in January, the European Central Bank said.
The January surplus was revised from a provisional estimate of 2.7 bln eur.
Over the 12 months to February, the current account was in deficit by a total of 3.3 bln eur, equivalent to around 0.1 pct of GDP, the ECB said.
In February, deficits of 6.6 bln eur in current transfers and 5.1 bln in the income account outweighed surpluses of 3.8 bln eur in services and 2.6 bln in goods trade, the ECB said.
The income account covers investment income flows and wages paid to workers by employers based in a different economy. Current transfers cover transfers between governments and workers’ remittances.
In unadjusted terms the current account was 7.2 bln eur in deficit in February, after a deficit of 4.5 bln eur in January.
steve.whitehouse@thomson.com
sw/hjp
COPYRIGHT
Copyright AFX News Limited 2007. All rights reserved.
The copying, republication or redistribution of AFX News Content, including by framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of AFX News.
To see the full “Mad Money” Recap, please click here.
Here’s what Jim Cramer had to say about some of the stocks that callers offered up during the “Mad Money Lightning Round” Wednesday evening:
Northgate (NXG) : “I once slammed this company, and then we had the CEO on. … This is a good company.” But Cramer has been recommending Yamana (AUY) and Lundin (LMC) .
Intel (INTC) : “I’m not gonna be a bear on Intel down here, but it’s simply Don’tBuy … it’s not expensive, it has a lot of cash. But there’s nothing happening there that would make me recommend the stock.”
Genco Shipping (GNK) : “You’ve got a good one, I salute you, and keep the pressure on. Keep buying these stocks with good dividends.”
Northern Orion (NTO) : “Reminds me of Northgate Minerals … but none of these is as good as Lundin or Yamana Gold. So let’s just stick with the winners.”
MetLife (MET) , Prudential (PRU) and Manulife (MFC) are three. That’s the troika I like.”
eBay (EBAY) : “I’m not ready yet to take the victory lap … I didn’t get back on the eBay horse until 28. I like this stock here. I don’t want to sell it … I feel strongly that we’re in the first quarter of a major turn for eBay. … Cramer saluted CEO Meg Whitman. “The stock goes higher.”
Toyota Motor ™ : “I think the stock’s gonna be up pretty big now. … the Japanese love a trend reversal … that stock sees 125 by Friday. Cramer owns it for his Action Alert PLUS charitable trust.
Washington Mutual (WM) : “The shorts right now are in a House of Pain … WaMu’s doing better than we thought … not as bad as what the shorts thought.”
Ameren (AEE) : “Why is Ameren still independent? … It should have been taken over by now. … I want you to stick with it.”
Brocade (BRCD) : “I think the stock works its way over time to 12. … watch EMC (EMC) ; EMC went from 10 to 15. I think Brocade only will do the same.”
Uranerz Energy (URZ) : “I think you should ring the register.” Cramer said he’s been recommending Energy Metals (EMU) at 12 and also likes Mosaic (MOS) at 30.
*For all you home-gamers, a ‘mon-back opportunity means Cramer would back up the figurative truck and load up on a stock.
Want more Cramer? Check out Jim’s rules and commandments for investing from his latest book by http://www.thestreet.com/tsc/cramerbook.
FOUR decades of studying black holes and the outer reaches of the cosmos from the confines of his wheelchair gave astrophysicist Stephen Hawking a burning desire to one day fly into space.
And, after taking a zero-gravity flight in a specially adapted plane from Florida’s Kennedy Space Centre - becoming the first disabled person to experience weightlessness in the process - the respected Cambridge University mathematics professor has taken one giant leap towards his lifetime’s ambition.
“Space, here I come,” the 65-year-old said through his famous computerised voice synthesiser after a two-hour adventure over the Atlantic in a converted airliner operated by a Las Vegas company. “This flight is my first step.”
Sir Richard Branson has offered Professor Hawking, who is almost completely paralysed by motor neurone disease, a free seat aboard a Virgin Galactic vessel when the space tourism firm begins offering sub-orbital flights, which is expected to happen by the end of the decade.
The broad grin on the scientist’s face after his first weightless experience spoke volumes for a man who has experienced nothing but the shackles of his wheelchair since his early 20s.
“It was amazing, I could have gone on and on” said Prof Hawking, whose best-selling book, A Brief History of Time, popularised the theory of quantum gravity and enlightened the masses about some of the mysteries of the universe.
Unable to talk or move his hands and legs, Prof Hawking can only make tiny facial expressions using the muscles around his eyes, eyebrows, cheek and mouth.
He uses a computer attached to his wheelchair to talk for him in a synthesised voice by choosing words on a computer screen through an infrared sensor on a headpiece that detects movements in his cheek.
Speaking before his flight, Prof Hawking said: “I want to demonstrate to the public that anybody can participate in this type of weightless experience.”
He left his wheelchair on the ground and took to the skies accompanied by four doctors and two nurses, who attached an oxygen sensor to his earlobe, fixed monitors on his arm and chest to check his blood pressure and heart rate during the ascent and cushioned his head.
He began to float freely in the plane’s padded, hollow interior as the Boeing 727, christened G-Force One, climbed steeply to 932,000 feet in the first of eight rollercoaster-style parabolas that each produced about 25 seconds of zero gravity.
Dr Peter Diamandis, chairman and founder of Zero-G, the company that hosted the flight, said: “He was doing gold medal gymnastics, it was fantastic.”
And unlike several of the firm’s previous 2,500 commercial passengers, who each paid 1,875 for tickets on the so-called “vomit comet” since 2004, Prof Hawking did not need a sick bag.
Dr Diamandis added: “The doctors felt he was in tremendous condition. He didn’t want to come back.
“Prof Hawking reached for the sky and touched the heavens today.
“We had a wonderful time, it was incredible - far beyond our expectations.”
Dr Edwin Chilvers, the scientist’s personal physician who went on the flight, said: “I think my physiological parameters were in worse shape than Stephen’s.”
The exertions of the flight left the scientist tired after his landing on the space shuttle runway, but he was smiling as he was lifted from the aircraft and wheeled away under a guard of honour formed by his fellow flyers.
The mission was much more than just a thrilling ride for the professor, who was honoured last summer when the British astronaut Piers Sellers, a former student at Edinburgh University, flew with his photograph and science’s prestigious Copley Award medal into space aboard the shuttle Discovery.
Prof Hawking said that showing what people with disabilities could achieve was a “small part” of the flight.
He added: “My main reason is that I want to encourage public interest in space flight and I hope many people will follow in my path.
“Life on Earth is at ever- increasing risk of being wiped out by a disaster, such as sudden global warming, nuclear war, a genetically-engineered virus or other dangers.
“I think the human race has no future unless it goes into space.”
Will Whitehorn, the president of Virgin Galactic, said Sir Richard was now looking forward to welcoming Prof Hawking aboard one of the company’s first space launches.
He added: “We are delighted that Stephen had a successful flight.
“It does considerably raise the chance that Prof Hawking will be medically able to fly on the spaceship which we are currently constructing to begin test flying next year, so the earliest he would fly would be the end of 2009 or the beginning of 2010.
“It may be the case that his zero-gravity flight will have been tougher than ours will be.”
SPACE tourism is becoming a more and more realistic proposition.
Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic firm is just one of a number of companies developing vehicles capable of making sub-orbital flights.
Virgin Galactic would fly commercial passenger flights from RAF Lossiemouth, with price of trying weightlessness set at about 120,000. And in addition to flights, space hotels are also being planned.
Sir Richard hopes to build one within his lifetime, while Hilton International has come up with a project called ‘Space Islands’, connecting used fuel tanks from the Space Shuttle. Bigelow Aerospace has designed inflatable space ‘habitats’ and hope to launch the first commercial space station by 2010.
Futurologists predict all this is just the start of a major surge in space tourism. By 2040, a fortnight on the Moon may be as simple as holidaying on the Costa del Sol, according to one expert, Ian Yeoman. He believes a space port at Lossiemouth could put Scotland on the map.
Related topic
- http://news.scotsman.com/topics.cfm?tid=6
http://news.scotsman.com/topics.cfm?tid=6
