Serbian Finance Minister Diana Dragutinović has asked the EU Delegation in Serbia to come out with an official stance on the amendments to the Excise Tax Law.
She asked whether the amendments to the Excise Tax Law violated the directives of the EU and Serbia’s Stabilization and Association Agreement (SAA).
Serbia’s Justice Minister Snežana Malović said late Friday that she expected Croatia to take a stand on the case of Tihomir Purda.
Purda is, along with two others, suspected of war crimes against Serbs in Borovo Naselje near Vukovar, eastern Croatia.
Actor Johnny Depp has revealed that Disney bosses were initially uncomfortable with his portrayal of Captain Jack Sparrow in ‘Pirates Of The Caribbean’, with one person asking if the character was a gay. “They couldn’t stand him. They just couldn’t stand him. I think it was Michael Eisner, the head of Disney at the time, [...]
The senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders concluded the consultations over the alleged involvement of Karnataka Chief Minister, B. S. Yeddyurappa, in a land scam, on Saturday. Yeddyurappa arrived in the national capital to clarify his stand over his alleged involvement in the scam. The meeting was presided by the party president Nitin Gadkari. “The [...]
Slovak FM Mikulas Dzurinda says that Slovakia is not planning on changing its position on Kosovo but that this is not halting its European perspective.
“The goal is to establish really good relations between Belgrade and Priština. We are in favor of a dialogue and it would be good if it would truly begin,†Dzurinda said.
The Chinese government has not changed its stand regarding Kosovo and continues to respect Serbia’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. This is according to Chinese Ambassador to Belgrade Wei Jinghua has stated.
Singapore central bank will likely stand pat at semiannual monetary policy meet on Oct. 14 as any tightening could hurt export sector, invite speculative inflows, says Dow Jones.
SGD already up around 7.0% vs USD so far this year, making it one of best performers in Asia. In April, MAS raised target band for SGD, targeted a “modest, gradual appreciation” for currency on trade-weighted basis.
20 years after unification eastern Germany still struggles along
IT COST a fortune, created long-standing grievances on both sides and annoyed the British and French. But most Germans wouldn’t have had it any other way. The 20th anniversary of the unification of Germany, on October 3rd, was an opportunity for the country to look at how East and West have fared since. Some inequalities have proved frustratingly persistent: western states remain far wealthier than their eastern counterparts (although they have been helped by the westward migration of cheap Ossi labour), and unemployment in the East is around twice the rate in the West. No eastern state has seen its population grow in the last two decades; hardly any western states have suffered a decline. Yet polls show that most people, on both sides, continue to believe that unification was the right idea.
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Singapore central bank likely to keep current stance of modest, gradual appreciation of SGD NEER band at policy review this month as growth momentum slows in 2H, global economic uncertainty lingers, says RBS.
“By standing pat on policy, the MAS would also be putting a cap on further speculative inflows capitalising on a faster pace of currency appreciation. This is additional liquidity that the banking system could do without for now, with interest rates still very low and property-price cooling measures not yet having made full impact,” RBS says.
Russia is not imposing any tactical solutions on Serbia when it comes to its UNGA Kosovo resolution, says Russian Ambassador Aleksandr Konuzin. In an interview for Belgrade’s Danas newspaper, the diplomat said that his country supported Serbia’s efforts to protect her sovereignty and territorial integrity, “while it was up to Serbs themselves to decide how to proceed”.
Exhibitions indeed make excellent places for face-to-face marketing, which involves a number of benefits. Owing to this, numerous companies take efforts in attending trade shows and exhibitions.
Thomson Medical Centre (5FV.SG) +4.2% at almost three-year high of $0.75 on above-average volume as investors drawn to healthcare group’s steady, defensive earnings profile amid recent broad market volatility, according to Dow Jones.
Wilmar International said the company’s records on value-added tax refund claims in Indonesia “will stand scrutiny”, reinforcing an earlier statement that the company’s local units have complied fully with tax rules.
“Questions of fictitious or false claims made by the group do not arise,” Wilmar said in a statement to the Singapore stock exchange today. “Internal records in respect of the VAT refund claims viz-a-viz export sales will stand scrutiny.”
Wilmar International said the company’s internal records for value-added tax refund claims in Indonesia “will stand scrutiny”, according to a stock exchange statement today. The world’s largest palm oil trader said it was responding to recent media reports on the matter, reiterating and expanding on comments made yesterday. The company’s stock slumped 7% in Singapore today.
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While return to normalcy for airlines may take several weeks or months after recent closure of European airspace, Singapore Airlines (C6L.SG) still stands out as it has pricing power remains strong within Asia, US and premium traffic, where carrier has big exposure, says UOB KayHian analyst K Ajith.
Slovakia will not change its stand on recognition of Kosovo, Slovak Foreign Minister Miroslav LajÄak has told Kosovo Albanian officials. “We will not recognize it (Kosovo) and this remains our stand,” LajÄak said after a meeting with Skender Hyseni, appointed by the government in PriÅ¡tina as its foreign minister, late on Thursday.
Another fossil human, this time from South Africa
THIS year is shaping up to be a good one for human palaeontology. Two weeks ago, on March 24th, what appears to be an entire new species of human was announced on the basis of the DNA preserved in a single finger bone from Siberia. Now, another manlike species has been described using more traditional evidence, from a more traditional source of ancient human remains: Africa.
The new species, dubbed Australopithecus sediba, is reported in Science this week by Lee Berger and his colleagues at the University of the Witwatersrand, in Johannesburg. It is represented by the fragmentary remains of two skeletons found in caves at a site called Malapa, in South Africa. As a member of the genus Australopithecus, sediba is less manlike than the as-yet-unnamed Siberian discovery, which was a member of the genus Homo. Palaeoanthropologists are nevertheless excited because some of its features, particularly the shape of its pelvis (which would have made upright walking more efficient) and the size of its teeth (which were smaller than those of its ancestors), have a lot in common with members of Homo. At a bit less than 2m years of age, the new skeletons seem to be younger than the oldest known representatives of Homo, and therefore cannot be directly ancestral to that genus. Nevertheless, these features suggest to some that an ancestor of A. sediba was also an ancestor of Homo, and thus of modern humanity. …
The uses and abuses of a ten-yearly ritual, as the census is held in America
EVERY ten years, says the constitution, America’s government must count every person living in the United States. For a country of more than 300m, this is an immense logistical feat: the Census Bureau mailed out or hand-delivered about 134m questionnaires for census day on April 1st. The census is also almost always controversial. Little wonder, given the three ways in which the results help to shape the distribution of political and economic power.
As after every census, the population changes tallied will, first, alter the state-by-state apportionment of seats in the House of Representatives and therefore the electoral college, the body that picks the president after elections. According to the non-profit Population Reference Bureau, the southern and western states will do well; Texas is likely to gain three seats, with Arizona, Florida, Georgia and Utah each gaining one. The losers (one seat each) are likely to be Iowa, Louisiana (thanks to Hurricane Katrina), Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, Ohio and Pennsylvania. …
The CTIA Wireless conference in Las Vegas is a chance for wireless companies to show off their latest mobile applications, devices and network plans. While larger companies such as AT T and Verizon will likely dominate headlines with their announcements, a number of smaller IT shops are also debuting the products of tomorrow, including ruggedized smartphones and Bluetooth devices, mobile apps for navigation and driving, and even a wristwatch that doubles as a phone. The following images show just a few of the products on view at the 2010 conference. Many of them reflect larger trends such as 4G connectivity, elaborate designs for smartphone cases and faster devices.
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If you are looking for a cheap and easy way to stand your iPhone up for watching video and for other uses the MoviePeg has surfaced. The device comes in multiple colors and can hold the iPhone in portrait or landscape modes.
The Bing app for the iPhone has received a significant update. The new update [...]
