AP | September 30, 2009, 6:54PM-
Empire State Building lights up to honor 60th anniversary of communist China
Spiegel.de | After a rash of deals, BBVA is now the second-biggest European bank in Asia after HSBC, and it's just getting started.
COMMERCIAL REAL ESTATE BUBBLE YET TO POP
Reuters | Stay away from banks bearing commercial property-Goldman Sachs
NEW YORK, Sept 30 (Reuters) - Goldman Sachs on Tuesday advised investors to shy away from banks and insurance companies that are heavily focused on commercial real estate, saying that the downturn in commercial real estate was more severe than Goldman had expected.
"Prices have yet to stabilize and thus are likely to overshoot our original estimates further," Goldman analysts said in a report.
Appraisal values have fallen 25 percent. Goldman expects a decline from peak levels in 2007 of 40 percent to 42 percent, a much steeper declined than the 28 percent it expected.
Sales prices have plunged 39 percent from their peak prices verses Goldman's prior estimate 24 percent.
At the same time, vacancy rates have risen 35 percent versus the 17 percent Goldman had expected. Rents have fallen by 9 percent, translating into fundamentals that have deteriorated by more than twice the rate Goldman anticipated.
Goldman expects $287 billion of losses on commercial real estate and construction loans.
FULL STORY
NOT A GOOD TIME TO BE TRAVELING TO ASIA
Philippines Mobilizes Armed Forces for Second Storm in a Week Oct. 1 (Bloomberg) -- The Philippines mobilized its armed forces as Supertyphoon Parma headed for the country, threatening more heavy rains a week after Tropical Storm Ketsana devastated parts of Manila in Luzon and left 277 people dead.
A map tracking the path of Typhoon Ketsana. Typhoon Ketsana extended its destructive rampage through Southeast Asia Wednesday, blowing away whole villages in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos as the regional death toll rose to 331. (AFP/Graphic)
A Vietnamese resident tries to get into his flooded house after Typhoon Ketsana swept through Hoi An. Typhoon Ketsana extended its destructive rampage through Southeast Asia Wednesday, blowing away whole villages in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos as the regional death toll rose to 331. (AFP/Hoang Dinh Nam)One of the most destructive storms in years has extended its deadly path across Southeast Asia, crushing homes in Cambodia and Vietnam after submerging much of the Philippine capital Manila.
The death toll climbed to 331 and was still rising on Wednesday.
"We're used to storms that sweep away one or two houses. But I've never seen a storm this strong," said Nam Tum, governor of Cambodia's Kampong Thom province.
The immediate threat eased as Typhoon Ketsana was downgraded to a tropical depression as it crossed into a fourth nation, Laos. But its powerful winds and pummelling rain left a snaking trail of destruction.
Landslides triggered by the storm slammed into houses in central Vietnam on Tuesday, burying people including five members of the same family. The country's toll rose to 74 as officials recovered more bodies from the muck and swollen rivers, with 179 injured and a dozen missing.
The storm destroyed or damaged nearly 180,000 homes, inundated 150,000 more, and flattened crops across central Vietnam. More than 350,000 people were evacuated from the typhoon's path, posing a logistical headache to shelter and feed them.
"The scale of the devastation is stretching all of us," said Minnie Portales, a World Vision aid agency official in the Philippines. The agency said it was struggling to assess the needs of victims in four countries, including the possibility that Laos would have damage.
Parts of two Vietnamese provinces remained cut off by floodwaters and downed trees and power lines on roads.
In neighbouring Cambodia at least 11 people were killed and 29 injured on Tuesday as the storm toppled dozens of rickety houses and swept away residents in the two provinces north of the capital that were hit. About 100 houses were destroyed and 400 others damaged. Five members of the same family died when their house collapsed as they ate dinner.
Authorities were searching for more victims and rushing food, medical supplies and plastic sheeting for temporary tents to storm-hit areas.
HUGE EARTHQUAKES - PACIFIC BASIN
NYTimes | At Least 529 Die as 7.6 magnitude Quake Hits Indonesia Island
Residents walked through an area damaged by the earthquake in Padang, West Sumatra, Indonesia, on Thursday. Dita Alangkara/Associated PressPadang, a port city of 900,000, is on the west-central coast of Sumatra, Indonesia’s largest island. The western coast is stippled with dozens of volcanoes, and Padang also sits alongside the Sunda Trench, part of the notorious Ring of Fire, the volatile network of volcanic arcs and oceanic trenches that partly encircles the Pacific Basin. The ring — and Sumatra in particular — is a zone of frequent earthquakes and volcanic activity.
Elsewhere in the basin, on Tuesday, an underwater earthquake measuring 8.0 created a tsunami that sent massive walls of water crashing into the islands of Samoa, American Samoa and Tonga.
Reports from government officials, the police, aid workers and news agencies showed Thursday that at least 154 people had been killed by the tsunami — 115 on Samoa, 30 on American Samoa and 9 on Tonga. FULL STORY6.8 magnitude quake hits Southern Sumatra Indonesia (7.6 mag 9-29-09)
| | MAG | UTC DATE-TIME y/m/d h:m:s | LAT deg | LON deg | DEPTH km | Region |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| MAP | 6.8 | 2009/10/01 01:52:30 | -2.538 | 101.625 | 24.9 | SOUTHERN SUMATRA, INDONESIA |
Earthquake List for above 10-degree Map Centered at 5°S, 100°E| | MAG | UTC DATE-TIME y/m/d h:m:s | LAT deg | LON deg | DEPTH km | Region |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| MAP | 6.8 | 2009/10/01 01:52:30 | -2.538 | 101.625 | 24.9 | SOUTHERN SUMATRA, INDONESIA |
| MAP | 5.5 | 2009/09/30 10:38:54 | -0.717 | 100.070 | 104.2 | SOUTHERN SUMATRA, INDONESIA |
| MAP | 7.6 | 2009/09/30 10:16:09 | -0.789 | 99.961 | 80.0 | SOUTHERN SUMATRA, INDONESIA |
| MAP | 4.7 | 2009/09/29 02:04:08 | -5.194 | 100.893 | 31.3 | SOUTHWEST OF SUMATRA, INDONESIA |
Deadly South Pacific quakes likely unrelated, Utah seismologists say
| MAP | 8.0 | 2009/09/29 17:48:11 | -15.509 | -172.034 | 18.0 | SAMOA ISLANDS REGION |
TENT CITY NEWS
60 residents of Nickelsville, homeless tent city located on Port of Seattle property has now been forced to move for the 9th time
Homeless advocate and Nickelsville resident Greg Lewis takes a stand and gets arrested by Port of Seattle Police at the Nickelsville homeless encampment at 2 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 30 at Terminal 107, which is owned by the Port. The Port issued the 60 or so residents an ultimatum, to vacate or get arrested for trespassing.September 30, 2009
This was the camp's eighth location since it was first evicted from a South Park vacant city lot Sept. 26 of last year.
At about 1 p.m. Kurt Beckett, communications director Port of Seattle and Port Chief E.C. Wilson approached the camp surrounded by TV cameras, still cameras, tape recorders, and microphones, and of course, homeless residents. They stated peacefully that many talks between Port officials and Nickelsville residents have already taken place, that there was no other Port property available for the residents, and that now was the time for residents to leave.
There was an amicable question-and-answer portion between a few residents and Beckett, but he and Wilson finally said residents must leave or they would be arrested by Port police.
Three official warning announcements were made by an officer on a megaphone from his car, then more than 20 officers quietly entered the camp. Full StoryTHE HAPPY STATE NEBRASKA HITS NATIONAL NEWS
WALMART Supercenter hosts first wedding...
Welcome to Walmart wedding
Published Wednesday September 30, 2009
Katie Burke/World-Herald News Service
YORK, Neb. — The bride wore dark lavender, the groom black jeans.Flowers were everywhere.
The York Walmart Supercenter hosted its first wedding Saturday when Crystal Newsome and Robert “Vick” Vickrey exchanged vows amid hanging baskets and seasonal foliage in the lawn and garden department.
“We had our first kiss at Walmart,” Crystal recalled.
Robert has been with Walmart for 12 years and is the grocery department manager. With five years behind her at the company, Crystal is the deli manager. Friendship blossomed into romance about two years ago.Robert has three grown children and four grandchildren. Crystal has four children. Her oldest son, 6-year-old Keagan, walked her down the “aisle,” a white runner. The entire blended family was part of the wedding while Walmart employees gathered with more friends to hear Crystal and Robert exchange their vows.
“We put an invitation up near the time clock for a while,” Crystal said.
She laughed at her co-workers' reactions: “Are you kidding? Why would you want to be here on your day off?”
“We both work here, we met here, it all started here, why not?” Robert said of his Walmart wedding.
They make no secret about why they wanted to become one.
“He's fun,” Crystal said, a touch of laughter in her voice as she talked about Robert. “His personality is wonderful. He can make me laugh when I'm not in the mood to laugh.”
Robert's voice softens when he talks of Crystal.
“I love everything about her. She is an absolutely wonderful woman. She makes me smile. She's put the joy of life back in me.”
Video *** Slide show
The earth's magnetic field acting squirrelly.... heck we lost our magnetic south pole for awhile there - heck of a wobble of earth on its axis yesterday!
This is a Russian website. I did a screenshot of the graph showing the incoming cosmic rays yesterday - looked like they were peaking out in the morning and deceased as the day went on ... then going up again in evening ...
http://cr0.izmiran.rssi.ru/mosc/main.htm
Galactic cosmic rays hit 50-year high
(AP) – October 1, 2009 - 56 minutes agoDUBAI, United Arab Emirates — The developer building the world's tallest skyscraper in Dubai says cladding work on the shiny silver-colored tower's outside is complete.
Completion of the aluminum and glass facade marks a key milestone for Emaar Properties, which is racing to meet a self-imposed deadline to have the Burj Dubai complete by the end of the year.
By way of comparison, the builder says the amount of aluminum used on the building's face weighs as much as five double-decker Airbus A380 jetliners, while the more than 1 million square feet (103,000 square meters) of glass panels could cover 14 soccer fields.
The Burj Dubai, Arabic for "Dubai Tower," stands more than 2,600 feet (800 meters) tall, though Emaar has yet to confirm is final height.
Happy 1st day of October - Have a very good one!!
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