WHAT THE OTHER PAPERS SAY THIS MORNING November 27, 2011 FINANCIAL TIMES PLEA TO BRUSSELS OVER AUDIT SHAKE-UP The heads of several midsized audit networks have issued a last-ditch appeal to the European Commssion not to dilute sweeping proposals aimed at reducing the dominance of the four biggest accountants and improving audit quality. In a joint interview with the Financial Times, the chief executives called [...]
History reveals breaking up a currency union isn’t hard to do – but you must be fast December 6, 2011 WHAT happens when a country changes its currency, either by creating a new one to replace the existing one or when it leaves a monetary union? A good starting point is New Zealand’s switch from sterling to the NZ dollar at the end of the 1960s. That was a simple matter of redenomination and printing [...]
Djokovic dominance to continue in Melbourne January 12, 2012 AUSTRALIAN OPEN Does anyone fancy Novak Djokovic to better his incredible 2011 season? The Serbian won three Grand Slams, a record-breaking five Masters 1000 titles and 10 tournaments overall. He earned over $12 million last year alone, the same as fifth-ranked David Ferrer’s career earnings. Djoko’s achievements are no less impressive when you remember that [...]
London 2012 set for tickets scramble September 19, 2011 LONDON 2012 organisers are set to provoke a late scramble for tickets by holding back more than a million extra seats until next year. The first batch of tickets for next summer’s Olympic Games sold out in the summer – with the exception of the football competition. But thousands more spaces are expected to be [...]
Kitty cat wins over awful rom com December 8, 2011 Film PUSS IN BOOTS Cert: U After the grouchy cash monster that was the Shrek series, Dreamworks has quite rightly laid the franchise to rest, instead focusing on the series’ most interesting character: a small cat who looks cute but kicks arse. It may well have been a disaster, but thankfully there are enough gags [...]
Nokia to axe 3,500 jobs as cost cuts bite September 29, 2011 EMBATTLED phonemaker Nokia yesterday announced it will slash 3,500 more jobs, including the closure of a major factory in Romania. The cuts are on top of at least 4,000 job losses announced earlier this year. Chief executive Stephen Elop is desperately trying to spin the wheel of the Titanic in the face of falling profits and [...]
PM hit by row over debts on credit cards October 5, 2011 DAVID CAMERON was forced to hastily redraft parts of his conference speech yesterday, after he was widely criticised for pre-released extracts that called on Britons to repay their credit card debts. “The only way out of this crisis is to deal with your debts. That means households – all of us – paying off the [...]
Know your Fire from your Vox with our guide to the ultimate e-readers November 30, 2011 People said e-books would never catch on. For some reason, this was quite often backed up by the argument that e-readers don’t smell like real books. But – and this is no slight on the aroma of the works of Mark Twain – these people were wrong. Retailers are rubbing their hands at the prospect [...]
Shops braced for rent D-Day September 28, 2011 THE HIGH street is braced for a fresh blow as quarterly rent demands are due today and hard pressed retailers must pay their landlords. Thousands of firms will have to fork out three months’ rent in one go, with many already struggling to make ends meet in the tough consumer climate. The payments total £3.4bn [...]
Pub chief Ian Dyson to exit in high spirits October 20, 2011 IAN DYSON, chief executive of Spirit, the managed pub operator that demerged from Punch Taverns this year, will step down as chief executive on 16 December and hand the reins to his deputy, Mike Tye. The former Marks & Spencer finance chief was parachuted in to run Punch Taverns in September last year and decided [...]