Scope

• Benchmarks company against leading oil and gas companies on four key pillars: performance, scale, growth and exposure.
• Provides financial and operational comparison with the peer group companies.
• Compares and assesses Company’s performance and business prospects among its peer group companies.
• The company’s five years operational and financial data has been taken from its annual reports and regulatory filing

Reasons to buy

• Rank your performance against competitors using our benchmarking tools and metrics
• Improve decision making on the basis of peer comparison.
• Provides up-to-date information and in-depth analysis on financial and operational parameters of a company.
• Assesses major competitors by comparing and analyzing their financial and operational parameters

For more information, kindly visit :
http://www.bharatbook.com/detail.asp?id=74976
_______________________________________________________________

Scope

• Benchmarks company against leading oil and gas companies on four key pillars: performance, scale, growth and exposure.
• Provides financial and operational comparison with the peer group companies.
• Compares and assesses Company’s performance and business prospects among its peer group companies.
• The company’s five years operational and financial data has been taken from its annual reports and regulatory filing

Reasons to buy

• Rank your performance against competitors using our benchmarking tools and metrics
• Improve decision making on the basis of peer comparison.
• Provides up-to-date information and in-depth analysis on financial and operational parameters of a company.
• Assesses major competitors by comparing and analyzing their financial and operational parameters

For more information, kindly visit :
http://www.bharatbook.com/detail.asp?id=74977
_______________________________________________________________

some rabbid links:
- the UK review at IGN is pretty accurate
- great walkthrough at gamefaqs
- summary of unlockables at gamefaqs

Bentley brand tags

Brand Tags is a great site that crowdsources opinion on various brands. They're mostly very predictable, well-known companies but it's interesteing to see what some people think of when a brand is presented to them.

For example, and I was 'guilty' of this. The most popular 'tag' for the Virgin brand is the name of the founder, either 'branson' or 'richard branson'. This is similarly the case for Microsoft. However, Steve Jobs languishes down the list of Apple tags.

If I was the Pizza Hut marketing chief at the moment, I'd be panicking.

Although hardly scientific, I like the principle of this. Throw a lot of people at it and more interesting insight would come out of this than 100 online brand satisfaction surveys.

With fresh water an increasingly scarce commodity in southeastern Alberta, the "unexploited resource" of municipal wastewater could be used for petroleum industry activity in the area, lessening the draw of potable water taken by oil and gas companies, a conference heard last week.

Clyde Fulton, senior innovation engineer with Newalta Corporation, told the Petroleum Technology Alliance of Canada's annual spring water forum that technological advancements have improved effluent treatment options and costs, making the concept an intriguing possibility in the industry's quest to adopt more sustainable and less intrusive water use practices.

"I think water scarcity has the potential to limit oil and gas development in southeastern Alberta. Recycled municipal wastewater is a viable alternative supply to fresh water for drilling, completions and enhanced recovery," Fulton said.

"The developments of membrane technologies have made recycled wastewater useful, practical and competitive with securing the rights for use of fresh water."

That's especially true in southeastern Alberta and the Medicine Hat region, Fulton noted, as recent government initiatives have impacted the way industry addresses its water needs in the "water-short" region.

For example, he said the province's Water for Life strategy announced in 2003 calls for water-using sectors throughout the province to achieve a 30% improvement in their water use efficiency between 2005 and 2015.

As well, the province's policies and objectives for oilfield injection, adopted in January of 2006, encourages oil and gas producers to lessen their reliance on fresh water supplies and seek alternative water sources, including saline groundwater, non-water fluids and methods, industrial wastewater and municipal wastewater.

"The ultimate goal of the policy is to reduce or eliminate allocation of non-saline water for oilfield injection," Fulton explained.

"New projects within water-short (an Alberta Environment designation) areas that propose to use non-saline water must demonstrate that every feasible option has been evaluated."

Lastly, Fulton pointed to the province's South Saskatchewan River Basin Water Management plan introduced in August of 2006, whereby Alberta Environment stated it will no longer accept applications for new water allocations.

"It basically closed the basin to any new withdrawals. It doesn't matter if you are an existing water user looking for more water or you are a new enterprise looking for water ... it's simply not available," he explained, adding the same holds true for the Bow River and Oldman River sub-basins.

The management plan does allow existing licence holders - like municipalities, for example - to transfer portions of their allotted water volume to other entities for a fee, but that option isn't likely to aid the petroleum industry to any degree.

As a result the implications to oil and gas producers are obvious, and that's why Fulton believes it's time for industry to begin looking at municipal effluent "as a resource rather than a wastewater."

"Municipalities are increasingly reluctant to supply (water to) users outside their immediate service area because they are concerned about meeting their community's needs," he said.

"Municipal wastewater, I believe, is a resource that can be looked at as a replacement for fresh water."

Fulton said that 80% of the wastewater treatment facilities in the Prairie provinces are lagoon-based systems found in rural communities, with many of those being in close proximity to oil and gas operations.

Lagoon systems use a series of treatment cells to treat wastewater, and once that process is complete the water is stored for up to 12 months before being released in the spring or fall, meaning industry would have an available resource as it required.

Thanks to the development of membrane filtration technology, Fulton said the treated wastewater has the potential to meet the needs of industry.

"We now have a whole range of membrane technologies that produce water to the quality you need ... the membrane technology that can polish the wastewater now exists and is readily available," he said, adding the market adoption of the technology has also driven down the cost.

Newalta is currently in discussions with the Town of Brooks concerning a pilot project that the company hopes will demonstrate the viability of reusing that municipality's wastewater for petroleum sector use in the area. The company proposes to build a treatment facility south of the town's sewage lagoons, which are located southeast of Brooks.

"What we proposed to them is a joint industry-community cooperative project where we would take some of the bulk water users, those trucking water out for fracturing and drilling, off the potable water system and supply them with recycled, useful effluent," Fulton explained.

"Lagoon effluent can be treated and recycled to supply this demand, freeing up fresh water for community growth."

This would be a boon to the town, which is licenced to take just under five million cubic metres a year from nearby Lake Newel, an amount that allows for increasingly little wiggle room given the community's recent and projected growth numbers.

"They are currently using about 3.7 million cubic metres, or 75% of that total, but they have grown their population by 33% in the last decade," Fulton said.

"At that same rate of growth they would be out of water in less than 10 years and they have no opportunity to gain additional water volume (because of the aforementioned government restrictions) of the ... system."

Currently, Brooks' bulk water sales for oilfield use is roughly 90,000 cubic metres per year, not a large amount but one which, if conserved, would make a difference.

"It's not a significant number ... but it represents about another 300 people of potential community growth," Fulton said, adding the company is hopeful the pilot project will become reality by 2009.

If you thought Myspace, Ning and Facebook made a killing, Please welcome the new Kid on the Block - Google Friend Connect. Do check the introduction video for more elaborate answers.

I see a lot of traffic to be increased to the personal or corporate websites too. All you need to do is sign up then embed few piece of code in to your website and let your friends and customers do the talking (bring the traffic back to you)

How does the traffic happen?
When ever a visitor visits a site and interact, their interactions are being reflected as updates in to the social networking sites which they belong. The updates are not mandatory, if wished, the interactions are reflected.

Corporate sites could integrate friend connect to have more authentic users

Personal websites could bring all friends buzzing among themselves and create new friends too

Bravo Google
An approach to fight spam is unleashed.

Technorati Tags: google, freind connect, friends, social networking, social, networking, traffic, facebook, myspace, ning

I'm sad to say, since my infamous letter to the Samsung phone company I haven't received a reply or compensation for all the electricity used up by its energy-wasting low-battery warning 'feature'. A shame, but I've come to realise that the world is full of oxymorons, and a company that aids much of the world to communicate with each other is bound to find doing the exact same a slight difficulty. Obviously.

So! It was with pleasure I came across another problem a few weeks ago that really needed addressing, and so I have jetted off another helpful 'suggestion' to rice cake company, Snack a Jacks.

---

Dear Snak A Jacks,

Yours sincerely,
T Platner

---

So far I have received computer confirmation that it has gone through, so I wait with baited breath to see what the response is. As usual, I shall keep you all posted!

Once again cries are arising from the information technology industry that it is facing a huge and desperate shortage of qualified programmers and software engineers. To remain competitive - and to maintain America's lead in IT - industry leaders insist they must bring in hundreds of thousands of guest workers from abroad. That's the hype.

The reality is as it has always been: There are plenty of Americans willing and able to fill virtually every open IT position. It's just that American employers don't want to hire them.

Employers don't seek to hire H-1B workers because they are desperate for programming talent they can't find here.

What they really want, to quote Professor Norman Matloff of the University of California, Davis, is "cheap, compliant labor."

The H-1B visa is a non-immigrant work visa and is, in fact, a form of indentured servitude. The H-1B worker is bound to his sponsoring employer much as an indentured servant in colonial times was bound to his master.

An H-1B worker who is fired must find another sponsoring employer or leave the country within 10 days.

Most H-1B workers also hope to qualify for a green card - a process that can take up to six years. But this too requires employer sponsorship, and if an H-1B worker changes employers, he or she must begin the entire process anew.

Needless to say, an H-1B worker has essentially zero bargaining power with a sponsoring employer. (He certainly doesn't want to make his boss angry by telling him to go shove it when the boss insists he work 14 hours a day for eight hours' pay, now, does he?)

And if the H-1B worker has no bargaining power, neither does anyone competing with that worker for the same job.

http://www.baltimoresun.com/
(The writer is an independent software developer)

I think MS is just playing this very smart.  These little measures are designed to get the current Yahoo board to rethink their folly.   I think only Jerry was dead set against the merger and the rest of the board would have settled for 35 or even 34 per share.   Why wouldn't they?   Yahoo has been languishing for years, and the chance of getting back to 34 *without Microsoft* is fairly slim in the coming lean advertising years, not to mention the fact that low morale, challenges at the company, and the declining prospects with Microsoft may take the stock even lower.

Yahoo should have sold at 33 and I think they will almost certainly sell at 35 due to pressure from Shareholders and (more importantly) heavily vested board members who are "losing", collectively, several billion dollars by sticking to their guns in this.

I was introduced to Steve through a mutual friend, Dale Fuller, former CEO of Borland, McAfee, WhoWhere, among other things.  I know how hard Steve has worked for this, and I'm very excited that he has found a home for his baby at SupportSoft.  Funny story about that... I met SupportSoft's founder, Mark Pincus back in 1999 when my brother's wife used to work for him there.  Mark and I now keep in touch via facebook from time to time, but I'm pretty sure neither of us had anything to do with the acquisition.  :-)

Great job Steve, and thanks for proving once again that BC is growing hotbed of tech startups.

I would like to introduce a brand new SEO (search engine optimization) company located in Little Rock, Arkansas. Maybe, you have never heard the term SEO before and possible don't even have a clue what it means.So, I will do my best to explain it...Being Seen on the WORLD WIDE WEB!

Basically, lets say you have built a website and you're trying to sell products or services. Months go by and you are not receiving the expected customers you anticipated on having purchase products or services from your website. I am sure you have asked the question, or maybe you have given up on the idea that the internet is a good marketing tool for your business.

I will say this, the internet is a great way to market an online business, products or services to sell. But, if you don't have the knowledge to postion your website in front of customers on the internet.That is not a great idea at all.

This where my company can help you get your company noticed. It is called internet marketing.

The term Internet marketing, also referred to as online marketing, Internet advertising, eMarketing (or e-Marketing), is the marketing of products or services over the Internet. When it applies to the subset of website based ad placements it is commonly referred to as Web advertising (Webvertising), and/or Web Marketing. (Wikipedia)

If your ready to make a difference in your online advertising efforts visit our website for more information and contact us for a quote for your website. if you don't currently have a website, Our company can create one for your business..

Arkansas Online Advertising - Arkansas Marketing - Arkansas Online Services - SEO Arkansas - Search Engine Optimization Company Arkansas

Visit Arkansas Internet Marketing

Once again I am appealing to the gods out there in web world to send me a RV for the summer.    Recreational Vehicle companies, we are a family of 4 and we want to work for you.  All you have to do is let us test drive your latest and plushest RV for the summer and I will write a honest review of your product.  I will gladly pass out t-shirts and brochures to any person who admires our RV as we travel across the USA.   I live in Katy, Texas.  I am a PTA member and Homeroom Class Coordinator. 

Please contact me here at Mompaca.

Why?

Last time we traveled, I vowed to the heavens to never again stay in the germ-filled lair they call a hotel room.  All I can hear at night are all of the germs of strangers crawling around the room.  20/20 did a story on the amount of blood, feces and human body fluids on hotel surfaces.  You do not want to know what else they found.

 When we rent a hotel room for the night, the first thing I do is throw that yucky cover to the floor.  My kids do not get it.  They want to put their faces and hands all over those comforters.  I feel that I should invent hazmat vacation suits for my family and me when we go on vacation.

Please help us.  Operators are standing by (at least I am anyway)

There has been a dramatic increase in the number of employers being prosecuted for hiring illegal immigrants, the BBC has learned. In the two months since the end of February, when there was a change in the law, 137 businesses were caught employing illegal immigrants.

This is 10 times the number caught in 2007, and more than double the number prosecuted in the previous decade. Employers face fines of up to £10,000 for each illegal immigrant they employ. In the last two months fines of about £500,000 have been handed out. Persistent offenders also face a jail sentence.
"There are dodgy employers out there who are trying to undercut their competitors and drive down British wages by employing people illegally, so we've come up with this new way of taking much faster on-the-spot action," Immigration Minister Liam Byrne told the BBC.

It's quite clear that this new regime, which is part of a big shake-up of Britain's border security, is already beginning to work

To see the policy in action the BBC was invited out on an enforcement operation with officers from the UK Border Agency.

About 60 officers, backed up by the police, walked into a chicken processing factory in Derbyshire. Police intelligence had suggested that illegal immigrants were working there.

In a large processing room 56 workers, all of them from overseas, were preparing chicken pieces for the retail trade.

Uk BA officers burst into the room, shouting loudly and telling the workers to put their knives down.

The shocked workers were lined up against a wall and told they would be questioned to see if they were in the country legally. After several hours of questioning it was determined that 22 of the workers were illegal immigrants. Fingerprints were taken and paperwork examined.

The illegal immigrants, from a variety of countries including Afghanistan, Pakistan and India, were led out of the building in handcuffs and taken to police stations.

The rest of the workers were sent home. Investigations into the owners of the company are ongoing and so far no fines have been levied. Employers are given an opportunity to respond or explain why illegal immigrants were working for them. If no satisfactory excuse is forthcoming sizeable fines can follow.

It is not always easy for employers to tell whether someone is in the country legally. The BBC spoke to one man, a restaurant owner in the home counties, who was recently fined £6,000 after four illegal immigrants were found working in his kitchen during a raid.

Faisal Ahmed told us that two of the men had only started working the day before and had provided P45 payment documents from their previous employer and had National Insurance numbers. He said he assumed they were here legally.

Forgeries
The UK BA now provides a phone number which employers can use to check the status of potential employees. "If anyone comes here with a British passport how do I know if this is a fake passport?" he asked. "I haven't got any kind of machine to check it. Now the court has given me some documents showing me how to check if I think there's anything dodgy."

Since February there has been a 40% increase in the numbers of UK BA enforcement operations.
Indian restaurant owners have started complaining that they are being targeted in the crackdown.
Raids often take place in the evening when restaurants are busy with customers. They have to be closed down while the operations are under way and diners are sent home.

Restaurant owners say it is giving them a bad reputation at a time when they are finding it hard to recruit chefs from overseas because of much tighter immigration restrictions. The government is facing a major problem in dealing with the illegal immigrants rounded up in enforcement operations.

Only two of the 22 arrested on the raid on the chicken processing plant were deported immediately.

Deportation costs
It can take months to locate the necessary paperwork for deportations and some cannot be deported at all if they come from countries where it is unsafe to return them. According to the National Audit Office, it costs £11,000 per person to deport them. With an estimated total of more than 500,000 illegal immigrants in Britain, the government is facing a bill of more than £5bn to deport them all - if they can catch them. Last year 63,140 people were removed from the country.
The Conservatives said the government was "painfully slow" in dealing with the issue. Shadow immigration minister Damian Green said: "Ten times a minuscule number is still a small number."

The Liberal Democrats welcomed the government's new crackdown on employers, but said it was long overdue. "If we are going to be effective in reducing the pull factor of employers employing illegal immigrants then it's not good enough just to have a little blitz with a few prosecutions in one year," said Chris Huhne, the party's home affairs spokesman.

"We've got to sustain this over time and employers have got to realise that this is not a short cut to cutting costs." (Story from BBC NEWS)

Clinton also presented the loss of Magnaquench jobs in Valparaiso as a prime reason she has proposed a plan to make it tougher to move sensitive defense industry jobs out of the United States.

Joined onstage by former Magnaquench employees Teri Luna and Stanley Trout, Clinton said the loss of 225 jobs was only part of the travesty of Magnaquench.

The company made magnets used in "smart bomb" technology, but the plant was moved to China in 2004 after a Chinese consortium purchased it.

This is one of those Clinton mis-speaks, they are becoming famous for their verbal gymnastic, where the whole truth is not really given to the public.  Yes the company was moved to China in 2004, but it was actually bought under the rule of King Bill in 1995.  The high tech stuff that left this country for foreign soil, was not quite accurate--the technology was readily available on the open market from numerous sources.

One more thing, her best support in Indiana is Evan Bayh, he was on my short list as possible VP candidates for her if she gets the nomination, he is a co-conspirator with her from the DLC.  But beyond that, this is what ABC News uncovered:

What Clinton doesn't tell voters is that Magnequench was originally sold to Chinese interests during her husband's administration, which okayed the move despite concerns about national security and eventual job loss. Experts say the Chinese acquired the "technical sophistication" that created the magnets long before George W. Bush took office.

Sen. Evan Bayh, D-Ind,, Clinton's top surrogate in the state, often joins her on the stump in bashing the president for allowing Magnequench to move abroad. What Bayh doesn't tell voters these days is that he has blamed the company's moving on a 1995 decision made by Clinton's husband's administration. ...

A memo prepared for Bayh by the non-partisan Congressional Research Service earlier this year stated that the Clinton administration could have objected to the sale under CFIUS, but it did not, and that the consortium promised to keep those Anderson, Ind., jobs in the U.S. only until 2005.

An Oct. 6, 2005, press release from Bayh noted that he asked for the Government Accountability Office to study "concerns over foreign takeovers of American companies with national security implications … after an Indiana company called Magnequench closed thanks to a 1995 decision by CFIUS to approve a Chinese consortium's takeover. At the time, Magnequench made 85 percent of the magnets used to guide U.S. smart bombs."

As for the jobs issue, Shingleton says she's "befuddled" because of the support for free trade and globalization seen in Bill Clinton's administration, which resulted in much larger job losses in the region.

So Bayh is just as much a hypocrite as any politician, he will say what is most advantageous.

First the sniper thing, then the Ohio hospital thing and now this, someone on the Obama campaign please use this to their advantage.  If they truly want the White House, it is time to play the game.

With respect to site: here

For completing the above-mentioned, please find below some excerpts from Legal 500 presenting the assessment that the said directory made in relation to our firm and its lawyers for each of the above-mentioned practice areas:
"The Legal 500 recommends Bulboacă & Asociaţii for:
Ranked 2 - Banking, finance and capital markets
On 1 January 2007, Bulboaca & Asociatii SCA was established by Adrian-Catalin Bulboaca – who had headed the banking and finance practice at Linklaters Miculiti, Mihai & Asociatii since 2001 – and Bogdan Bibicu, previously an associate in Bulboaca’s team at the same firm. They were joined by former Nestor Nestor Diculescu Kingston Petersen partner Corina Ionescu and associate Razvan Stoicescu and they have swiftly built up a reputable and competent independent practice, drawing on their combined wealth of experience at two of the most important firms in the market. The firm began acting for Deutsche Bank, London advising in connection with the proposed financing of various defence-sector acquisitions by the Romanian government and also acting in connection with an amendment facility to an existing loan extended to 59 local governments for the construction of a regional pipeline. The firm also advised Goldman Sachs on pre-structuring issues for a credit facility to a large pharmaceutical company trading in Romania. Other clients include RZB Austria, Raiffeissen Romania and Alpha Bank Romania. In time and with the necessary resources and client list, Bulboaca & Asociatii SCA is expected to develop into a very significant practice in this field, as one client notes ‘Adrian-Catalin Bulboaca has long been one of the most important and most trusted lawyers in this area in Romania’.
Ranked 3 - Corporate and M&A
Bulboaca & Asociatii SCA was formed in January 2007 by Adrian-Catalin Bulboaca, formerly head of banking and finance at Linklaters Miculiti, Mihai & Asociatii, and former Nestor Nestor Diculescu Kingston Petersen partner Corina Ionescu, described by clients as ‘prompt, professional and straight to the point’. In 2007, the firm acted for Raiffeisen in the sale of one of the largest GSM mobile distributors in Romania. The firm also advised the Martifer Group on a series of JVs for the purpose of acquiring agricultural companies and the subsequent development of wind farms in Romania in transactions with a total value of €50m. Other significant clients include British American Tobacco and Kraft International.
Ranked 3 - Dispute resolution
When Adrian-Catalin Bulboaca left Linklaters Miculiti, Mihai & Asociatii to establish Bulboaca & Asociatii SCA in January 2007, he brought with him associate Valentin Berea who now leads on dispute resolution at the new firm as a senior associate. In 2007, the firm successfully represented Discovery Communications Europe Ltd in a dispute with a leading Romanian cable operator, and advised SCA Hygiene Products and Martifer in separate disputes with Romanian TV stations. In addition, the firm provided IP advice to Alpha Bank Romania, ItalKol and Gianni Lazzaro. Clients believe the firm’s service represents ‘value for money’ and is ‘one of the best small teams in Romania’.
Ranked 2 - Project finance
Bulboaca & Asociatii SCA was established in January 2007 by Adrian-Catalin Bulboaca, formerly head of banking and finance at Linklaters Miculiti, Mihai & Asociatii. Bulboaca was joined by Nestor Nestor Diculescu Kingston Petersen partner Corina Ionescu and together the two partners have a wealth of experience in Romanian finance law. In terms of project finance, the firm specialises in arranging loan facilities for real estate developments, advising on both the borrower and lender sides. In its first year of operation, the firm advised Bank Austria Creditanstalt on a €21m loan agreement to Austrian real estate player M Logisitic Distribution for the financing of an office development and logistics park in Chitila. The firm advised Projectontwikkeling Tholem, the SPV US real estate developer, on a €21m fixed-term secured loan from EFG Private Bank. Clients are unambiguous in their praise of Adrian-Catalin Bulboaca, observing that ‘few people know as much about Romanian finance’.
Ranked 3 - Real estate and construction
Bulboaca & Asociatii SCA’s core strength is in banking and finance but it has developed a vibrant practice in real estate, arranging loan facilities for developers. In 2007, the firm acted for Raiffeissen Romania and Alpha Bank Romania on a credit facility to develop a complex of 12 multi-unit residential buildings in Bucharest. The firm assisted a leading Austrian bank in arranging a secured term facility agreement for €18m to finance the acquisition of an SPV owning a shopping mall centre. Additionally, the firm has acted for Portuguese Martifer Group in the acquisition of in excess of 500,000 sq m of land in Romania. Clients laud the firm’s ‘finance acumen, which really is first rate’."

For more information, please contact:
Cristina Cazan - Marketing Assistant, Bulboacă & Asociaţii SCA
Tel: (40-21) 408 8900; Fax: (40-21) 408 8911; Email: cristina.cazan@bulboaca.com;
Website: www.bulboaca.com

Millennium Business Center, 2nd floor, 2-4 Armand Calinescu Street, District 2, Bucharest, 021012, Romania

The increase in Salans Bucharest office revenues outpaced the firm’s global results with a stunning 50% increase over 2006. The practice areas that generated most of the 2007 revenue increase were real estate financing, M&A, energy and competition. As a result, the firm expanded its staff and hired more attorneys in addition to promoting existing staff. ”We are glad that our office in Bucharest contributed significantly to the firm’s outstanding performance in the region. The region has provided a strong support last year and is expected to continue to perform well despite the international downturn,” said Christopher D. Berlew, Salans Bucharest managing partner.

Key markets of London, Paris and Berlin showed impressive growth, as clients continued to seek out the firm's expertise in domestic matters alongside its cross-border expertise. Indeed, 84% of the firm's top 250 client revenue is generated from work spread across more than one office, highlighting the firm's truly international offering.

The firm has grown across all its practice areas, with its Corporate/M&A, Banking and Real Estate groups showing the strongest gains. Profit per partner grew by over 30% in 2007. Salans has over 750 lawyers globally, of whom 176 are partners, operating from 18 offices across 17 jurisdictions. In Bucharest the firm has three partners and 35 lawyers.

Top clients in Bucharest include The Rompetrol Group, Renault, Delphi, Electrabel, Heitman, A&D Pharma, AIG/Lincoln, Bank Austria Creditanstalt, General Electric Real Estate, Flamingo International, AVIVA, Anchor Grup, and Bouygues.

For further details please contact:
Claudia Covaci
Marketing Manager
ccovaci@salans.com
www.salans.com
Tel. +4021-3124950
Fax: +4021-3124951

Salans named 2007 “Central and Eastern European Real Estate Legal & Consulting Firm of the Year”

With its strong real estate team and extensive client roster, Salans Bucharest contributed significantly to the firm’s outstanding performance in the region, which led to Salans being named 2007 “Central and Eastern European Real Estate Legal & Consulting Firm of the Year” at the 5th Annual CEE Quality Awards ceremony in Warsaw. Stiff competition was provided by Clifford Chance, CMS Cameron McKenna and Linklaters.

The nominations were made by industry experts throughout the region and were judged by a panel of respected senior professionals from leading companies active in the Central and Eastern European real estate sector, including developers, agents, consultants and financiers.

The Award underlines Salans’ achievements in the real estate sector across Central and Eastern Europe in countries such as the Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary, Romania, Ukraine, Slovakia, Slovenia and the Baltic States, and demonstrates Salans’ continued recognition as having the premier real estate practice in the region.

During 2007, Salans advised on a number of important Romanian real estate projects notable either for their size or their complexity. A number of projects we advised on were the first that our clients undertook in Romania.

Salans’ 2007 projects included advising GE Real Estate in their first project in Romania, a EUR 175 million joint venture with Helios-Phoenix for construction of warehouses in seven Romanian cities, advising Capital Partners in acquiring a development site for a project valued at over EUR 300 million, advising Heitman International in connection with a joint venture for development of a EUR 80 million residential project in North Bucharest, and advising Lehman Brothers Real Estate Partners in acquiring a minority stake in Romania’s largest real estate developer SC Impact Construction & Development SA.

“This award, following on the tremendous growth of our real estate team in 2007, highlights the success of our core global real estate strategy, which is to focus on top institutional clients that require sophisticated cross-border M&A, private equity and finance advice combined with local “bricks and mortar” real estate experience,” said Christopher Berlew, co-managing partner of Salans Bucharest and a member of Salans’ Global Real Estate Group.

The CEE Quality Award follows on the heels of Salans’ real estate practice winning Euromoney’s “2007 Best Legal Services Provider Award in Emerging Europe” in September 2007.

On Thursday, President Bush froze the assets of state-owned companies in Myanmar. These companies all allegedly were aiding the nation's military junta, which has been condemned by the international community for suppressing pro-democracy activists and their cause.

"These companies, in industries such as gems and timber, exploit the labor of the downtrodden Burmese people, but enrich only the generals," Bush said of Myanmar, also known as Burma.

The new order allows the Bush administration to go after state-owned enterprises, something it didn't have the authority to do. The U.S. government has the power to go after individuals and companies.

At the White House, during remarks Bush made marking the beginning of Asian Pacific American Heritage Month, Bush said the military regime in Myanmar continues to reject the will of its people to live under leaders of their own choosing.

Seems to have come in time when our government needs more money. Good going, Bush!?!

http://www.inplacenews.com

Two summers ago, I made a step toward the dark side by trading in my bicycle for a shiny new SUV. I couldn't have timed the switch more poorly. This was the first summer of record setting gas prices, when the pump price first climbed over $3.00 a gallon. Fair weather activists went to work that summer, sending out chain letters over email and myspace demanding a boycott of gasoline. Let's boycott all gas stations for a day! Or better yet, let's just boycott Exxon! That'll show 'em!

After reading these, I (and anyone who had taken Econ 101) immediately were hit with terrible headaches. Why? These consumer gas schemes pandered more toward emotions than to any rational economics theory.

Now two years later, a similar situation is occurring. However, this headache isn't being spread by zealous internet users. This fire is being fanned by two of our own presidential candidates. Their idea is not a boycott, but rather a "gas holiday" where the federal gas tax is erased for the summer driving months.

But wouldn't lowering the gas price increase demand? And when demand increases, won't the prices go back up? The short answer is Yes. Peter Schwartz of Global Business Network describes this as the true American energy policy: “Maximize demand, minimize supply and buy the rest from the people who hate us the most.”

Under such a scheme, consumers would see little change in gas prices this summer. Without taxes of course, our own Federal government's revenue would shrink. And the real winners in the game would be....you guessed it....the big oil companies.

According to this article by Thomas Friedman of the NYT, "This is not an energy policy. This is money laundering: we borrow money from China and ship it to Saudi Arabia and take a little cut for ourselves as it goes through our gas tanks. What a way to build our country."

Paul Krugman, another NYT columnist points out in a post that any attempt to quell gas prices for the summer driving season is too little, too late. The petro we'll use this summer has already been extracted and refined. No matter what politicians will promise for the summer, there's simply not much to be done.

My car gets 14 mpg on a good day and public transit isn't an option for my commute. I'm sitting front and center in the cross hairs of high gas prices, and I would be ecstatic if there were a plan that could help me out. Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be much of a rationale consensus from our leaders. Of the three candidates, only Obama has voiced his disapproval of a gas holiday. Both McCain and Clinton have publicly favored this gas-tax holiday.

It's time for our politicians to take a proactive and logical approach to our energy policy. All the research, rationale, and logic point to the same conclusion. It's been close to 30 years since President Jimmy Carter proclaimed we would stop being dependent on foreign oil and that we would develop oil alternatives. Perhaps its time we began working toward this long-time goal.