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Explainer: 6 destinations for book lovers
Some book lovers will go to great distances to follow in a favorite character's footsteps or see first-hand the beautiful scenery splashed across the big screen. Literary tourism, which could include a pilgrimage to a beloved author's birthplace or a visit to a fictional character's haunts, attracts visitors the world over. "It's the idea that you can walk the same streets as a character you love," said Jason Clampet, senior online editor for Frommers.com. Here are just a few trips for book fans:
'Harry Potter' series
"Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1," the second-to-last film adaptation based on the popular children's books by J.K. Rowling, opened Nov. 19 — earning a franchise record of $125.1 million in the U.S. and Canada on opening weekend. The release of the latest movie is sure to draw fans to the already numerous attractions around the world dedicated to the young wizard. "Some of the best sights are in Oxford such as Hogwart's staircase, the Great Hall on which Hogwart's dining room was modeled and Hogwart's infirmary," said Jason Doll-Steinberg, marketing manager for British Tours Ltd, which offers a popular tour for film locations in London, Oxford and Gloucester.
American fans can experience "Pottermania" closer to home at The Wizarding World of Harry Potter, an attraction located inside Universal Orlando's Islands of Adventure theme park, which opened in Orlando, Fla., in June. The park features a replica of the fictitious Hogsmeade village, dining at the Three Broomsticks and rides created hand-in-hand with the filmmakers and approved by Rowling herself. One roller coaster, Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey, topped 1 million riders in about a month — faster than any other of Universal's parks in Orlando, said Universal Orlando Resort spokesman Tom Schroder. The "Harry Potter" series is already one of the most popular books ever, he said, and the movies further bring the fantasy to life. "People get to walk though and experience what they've read about and seen in the movies. That's a very powerful feeling," Schroder said. "To walk through Hogwarts Castle and to experience the things that Harry, Ron and Hermione have seen is a very powerful and compelling moment for our guests."
Elsewhere, Seattle's Pacific Science Center is currently hosting "Harry Potter: The Exhibition," which features props from the movies, through Jan. 30.
Even the gravesite of one Harry Potter, a British solider who died in 1939, is luring book fans to the Israeli town of Ramle. But relax, Potter fans: That was long before author Rowling was even born.
'Lord of the Rings' and 'The Hobbit'
The success of the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy, based on the books by J.R.R. Tolkien and brought to life on the big screen by director Peter Jackson, brought tourists by the thousands to New Zealand to seek out the breathtaking scenery in the movie trilogy about fictional Hobbits on a quest to destroy a ring. Now, Jackson is planning two new movies based on "The Hobbit," due out in 2012 and 2013, which is sure to revive the tourism industry in New Zealand once again. Southern Lakes Sightseeing operates out of Queenstown, New Zealand, and specializes in "Lord of the Rings" location tours. Their flagship tour is the full-day Trails of Middle-earth, featuring multiple locations, sights and scenes from the movies. "In the early days, the visitors were clearly hard-core fans of either the book or the movies and the experiences were almost a pilgrimage," said Melissa Heath, who has operated the tour company since 2001. "Some dressed in LOTR costumes and many bought small character dolls to prop up in locations for their photography. Now the clientele seem to have a good grasp of both the books and the movie, and the overwhelming passion and emotion have been replaced with an interest in the scenery and how the movie was made." On the north island, Hobbit fans can take a two-hour guided tour of the Hobbiton movie set, built on picturesque private farmland just outside Matamata.
'Twilight' series
Ever since Bella fell for Edward — and readers fell for the vampire-themed series by Stephenie Meyer — visitors in the tens of thousands have flocked to Forks, Wash. A good starting point for "Twilight" tourists is the Forks Chamber of Commerce. Visitors can get maps, brochures and other information about "Twilight" destinations, including Forks City Police Department, where Bella's father works; Forks Outfitters, where Bella works; and Forks High School, where Bella first meets Edward. At the chamber, visitors can also have their photo taken with Bella's truck and see a lighted gazebo like the one Bella and Edward danced in at the prom. "We love being the center of the 'Twilight world,' " said the chamber's director, Marcia Bingham. "We have a well-trained staff that speaks fluent 'Twilight.' " Two tourism companies, Dazzled by Twilight and Team Forks, also offer guided tours of Twilight-related sights in the region.
'Eat Pray Love'
It's no surprise that a best-selling memoir about a woman's world travels spurred fans to follow in author Elizabeth Gilbert's footsteps. In her memoir, first published in 2006, Gilbert gets divorced and decides to spend a year traveling through Italy, India and Indonesia. Add Julia Roberts and bring the book to life on the big screen, and the next thing you know, tourists are lapping up gelato at the same shop in Rome visited by Gilbert and Roberts. STA Travel, the official travel partner for the film, offers 21-day journeys to all three countries or shorter, 5- or 8-day sojourns to just one of the countries, said spokesman Patrick Evans. Highlights include eating your way through Rome, visiting spiritual sites in India such as the Taj Mahal and Akshardham Temple, and getting pampered during a spa day in Bali. "That visual of being able to see the places, especially 'Eat Pray Love' in particular, for customers, it's very easy to imagine themselves in those destinations." If you're more interested in your own self-journey rather than a guided tour, Lonely Planet also created a website with accommodation and sightseeing recommendations. "When you can actually see if for yourself, and say, 'Gosh, Bali is really that beautiful,' that makes it much more believable," Evans said. "You can take a picture to show your friends, and it's exactly what they saw in the movie."
'The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo' series
Stieg Larsson's best-selling Millennium trilogy was published in 2005 in Sweden, shortly after the author's death in November 2004. The first book in the series hit the U.S. in 2008 and quickly became a New York Times best-seller. The book and the movies — both the originals filmed in Sweden and the upcoming Hollywood version starring Daniel Craig — have fueled an increase in the number of visitors to Stockholm. The Stockholm City Museum expects to conduct 300 tours this year. "The number of tourists from abroad has increased from 10 percent to 20 to 25 percent," said Sara Claesson, head of communications for the museum. The city-walk tour includes a visit to the building where the fictional Mikael Blomkvist lives, the cafe where Stieg Larsson himself used to be a customer, the Millennium office, the building where Lisbeth Salander buys her luxury apartment, and the beautiful scenery of Stockholm. "As Stieg Larsson never describes Stockholm, the guided tour gives you the opportunity to actually see what it looks like on location," said Claesson. "Most visitors are fascinated about the Lisbeth Salander character." The museum also provides visitors with a map of locations outside the city, such as Sandhamn, where Blomkvist had his summer cabin.
William Shakespeare
To visit or not to visit? With apologizes to William Shakespeare, fans of the English poet and playwright are still drawn to England nearly 400 years after the Bard's death. A good starting point for a literary tour is Shakespeare's birthplace in Stratford-upon-Avon. Visitors can stop by the Shakespeare Centre Library, which holds collections featuring Shakespeare's life, works and times and includes original editions of his plays dating from 1623. Stratford-upon-Avon is also home to the Royal Shakespeare Company. Its redeveloped theaters open Nov. 24, with stagings of Shakespeare's works throughout the winter.
In London, another worthy stop is Shakespeare's Globe Theatre, the reconstruction of the open-air playhouse where the Bard once staged many of his works. The theater season runs from April to October. Book lovers can also download a literary guidebook to London and print maps of walking tours from Get London Reading. "London has made a big effort to create a connection," said Clampet. "London's one of the best. There's so much to offer form Shakespeare to (Zadie Smith's) 'White Teeth.' There's something new every year when it comes to London."
© 2012 msnbc.com Reprints


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These three cards were shared by Peggy H.
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Valentine's coloring art pages on CD-ROM for young and old alike!
We promised we would be back with Valentine's sentiments ... here is a whole collection to download sending all our readers all our best Valentine's wishes! Coloring is a great way for young ones to learn. But some of those line drawings are quite elegant, and can be a rich experience for sparking ideas. These coloring books from Dover provide some excellent resource materials that are low cost, and provide the ready-to-go art for all ages February 6, 2018


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Stingy Bullpen
Credit the bullpen for last night's win that gave the Phillies a 2-2 split in the series with the Reds. Cole gave up three runs in six innings and turned the game over to the pen. Five relievers tossed five hitless, scoreless innings and the Phillies finally won it in the 11th.
After leaving the winning run on third with less than two out in both and ninth and 10th innings, Mayberry came through with a one-out bases-loaded single in the 11th.
The Phillies are 6-9 in extra inning games, winning their last four, all at home.
One of the relievers was Phillippe Aumont who was making his major league debut. The Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame, that has three former Phillies as inductees, Ferguson Jenkins, Pat Gillick and Rheal Cormier, requested an item from Aumont's debut. Frank Coppenbarger, Director of Travel and Equipment, indicated they would donate Aumont's cap. The 23-year-old Aumont was born in Gatineau, Quebec, Canada.
The second-best team in the NL left town to make room for a weekend season against the Nationals, the league's best team. Phillies are 4-5 against Washington, having won three of the last four. The same two teams end the season in DC on Oct. 1-2-3.
Down On The Farm
Lehigh Valley lost, 5-3, at Rochester but stayed ½ game ahead of Pawtucket in the battle for the wildcard berth. No decision for RHS Tyler Cloyd, 7 innings, 3 hits (2 homers), 3 runs, 1 walk, 2 strikeouts. Loser LHR Joe Savery (1-1), 2 unearned runs, 1 inning.
Reading won on a 7th inning grand slam from 1B Darin Ruf, 7-6, over Erie. Phillies are in 2nd, 1 game ahead of New Britain for a postseason berth. Homer was the 33rd for Ruf and 3rd this week. 3B Cody Ashe, 3-3, 3 runs, 15th double, 10th homer, 2 RBI. No decision for RHS Ethan Martin, 4 runs, 7 walks, 5 hits, 4.2 innings. Winner: RH Julio Rodriguez (7-7); 21st save for Justin Friend.
Clearwater blanked Daytona, 3-0, to pull within 1 game of first place in the second half of the season. LHS Jesse Biddle (10-5), fresh from a 7-inning no-hit outing, tossed 7 more scoreless innings, allowing 2 first-inning hits, while striking out 9. 149 strikeouts now lead the FSL.
Lakewood nipped Kannapolis, 8-7. 1B William Carmona, double, 1st homer, 4 RBI. RF Kelly Dugan, 3-4. 3B Maikel Franco, 2 doubles (29).
Williamsport bowed, 5-2, at Jamestown. SS Roman Quinn, 1-4, 7th double, 2 RBI. RHS Kevin Brady (1-3) took the loss, 5 unearned runs, 3.2 innings.
Gulf Coast League Phillies lost twice to the Pirates, 6-0, 4-2. RF Dylan Cozens, 2-4, triple in 1st game; SS Angelo Mora, 3-3, in 2nd game. Season ends on Saturday.
Phillies Alumni
Golf, hunting or fishing. What teammates would you invite? Check out Alumni Views at www.phillies.com/alumni.


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Michael Miller: "I thought that Mr. Rogers was a good program for children, but as for me, I never watched him. It's sad he passed on, but everybody has got to do it sometime."
Tony LaBua: "I think I missed a real opportunity as a kid. Other than just passing by as I flipped the channels, I never watched a full show. After his death, I learned that he was an ordained minister who was preaching the virtues of the Bible. I know now he is in God's hands."
Phoebe Weiskopf: "I always thought he was a little creepy. It's unnatural for a man to have so much interest in children's affairs."


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Walmart employee's honesty reunites ring with owner
DANBURY -- Heather Moran wants everyone to know there are still good, honest people in the world.
People like Britta Wasloff, a retired legal secretary and part-time employee at Walmart, who found and returned the two-carat heirloom engagement ring Moran lost on Oct. 20.
Moran, a 35-year-old mother of three from Bethel, had been running errands all day. She took one of her sons to a doctor`s appointment, shopped for children`s clothes and Halloween supplies, then picked up her 4-year-old daughter at her mother`s house in Ridgefield.
It was then Moran realized the ring her husband, Jon, gave her 11 years ago was no longer on her finger.
"I ransacked my car," she said. "I retraced every step and went to all the stores where I`d been. I left my name and telephone number. Everybody was so nice, but nobody had it."
When she got home, Moran searched the house, repeatedly, but still there was no ring. She left her contact information at the police department, in the event someone found the ring and turned it in.
She called back the stores where she`d been. She placed an advertisement on the Web site Craigslist. And eventually, she began checking pawn shops, in case the finder decided to sell the ring for quick cash.
"It had a lot of sentimental value," Moran said. Her mother gave her the pear-shaped diamond, and when she and her husband were engaged, he had it made into a ring with three smaller stones around it.
Moran said she`d lost weight recently, so the ring didn`t fit as snugly as it once had. "It was insured, but that was for fire and theft, not for losing it."
She was thrilled beyond words this week when security personnel at Walmart on Newtown Road called with the news that an employee had found the ring.
Wasloff, 68, of Danbury, who works part time in the men`s department, spotted it "just lying on the floor" early last week while folding merchandise on a table.
"I asked around, but nobody knew anything. So I took it home, but I knew it had to belong to someone who would miss it," Wasloff said.
On Tuesday, a week to the day after Moran lost the ring, Wasloff was in Walmart and reported the find to a security guard. He immediately called Moran, and she was at the store in minutes. Together they found Wasloff, who was still shopping.
Moran wanted to give Wasloff a reward, but learned it was against company policy.
"They told me to write a letter to the store, and I`ve already done that. But I want to let everybody know what she did," Moran said.
Wasloff said it felt good to be thanked. "She gave me a big hug. I actually had tears in my eyes to see someone so appreciative."


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Bahrain office launch sees BCMS expand its international presence into the Gulf states
Award winning M&A advisor BCMS has enhanced its international reach even further following the opening of a new office in Bahrain this week to serve clients in the Gulf States.
BCMS Gulf's new office is located at the Venture Capital Bank Building, Manama City, Bahrain, and grants the international M&A advisory unfettered access to dealmaking in the region, particularly in the vibrant economies of Saudi Arabia, Oman, UAE, and Kuwait. The launch follows the establishment of BCMS Hong Kong in March, increasing the overall number of the advisory's international offices to 26.
The opening of the new office was celebrated with a launch event held on Tuesday May 26 at the Capital Club in Manama City, which was held under the patronage of Shaikh Hisham bin Abdulrahman Al Khalifa, the Capital Governor of Bahrain. The event featured an informative seminar on BCMS' international M&A activity, which was presented by BCMS' Director of International Development, Mike Sweeting. In attendance were a number of SME business owners, as well as regional business leaders, and a member of the Bahraini Royal Family.
Speaking to a local news agency post-event Dr Mike Sweeting [pictured], comments: "Large companies may have deep pockets, but they are also tough negotiators. Our business model is based on generating multiple offers for our clients in the Gulf, which typically increases the sale value significantly. It has been a success around the world, and I am pleased we are at last able to bring this to Bahrain."
"Around 250 small firms are snapped up every year in Bahrain – of which around 70 per cent are bought by international acquirers. It's clear the international appetite for the Gulf is an ongoing affair. We have a lot of high-growth companies here across diverse sectors, but no long tradition of buying and selling businesses. So we're looking forward to completing our first cross-border transaction," Sweeting added.
The launch event attracted significant press coverage, including articles by the Bahraini business press, leading Gulf newspapers and media outlets. One leading Bahraini publication, Gulf Daily News featured the BCMS Gulf launch on the front cover of its daily business supplement.
Speaking to local news media about the launch of BCMS Gulf, CEO Mohammed Baqer [pictured] comments, "The entry into Bahrain comes in line with our effort to organically expand our presence in the Middle East, which is a key strategic region for BCMS."
The Gulf states, including Bahrain, remain powerhouses of investment activity. The region has seen vibrant cross border M&A activity, as well as IPOs and Private Equity investment valued in billions of US dollars. BCMS is confident about replicating its international success in the region, and plans to add more territories later this year as part of its ongoing international development strategy. The start of Q2 2015 has seen the advisory firm announce deals on three continents, following one of the strongest first quarters of dealmaking.
Note: the qoutes above were sourced from an article published in DT News Bahrain.


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Sunrise Hitek is seeking a reliable, fast worker to perform janitorial duties as well as bindery work. Candidate must be able to keep a fast work pace, work without supervision, and able to perform a variety of physically demanding work. Duties include cleaning around the shop, shipping/receiving, operation of fork-lift, stocking material, operation of cutter, folder, and other binding equipment. Computer skills a plus but can be trained.
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Yesterday's NYT slobjob of professional laxer Paul Rabil argues that he represents "a different way to think about lacrosse players." He's a big shaggy-haired white dude who went to an all-boys Catholic school in Maryland. Wow, what a brogue.
"Can Paul Rabil Make Lacrosse Sexy?" asks the headline of the disturbingly long Thursday Styles ode to Rabil, Major League Lacrosse's reigning MVP. As if that's the sport's problem, first of all, but I digress. The piece features the usual shoehorned-in tangents and odd historical factoids that are practically house style for these sorts of things. But most grating are the lengths writer James Vlahos goes to to distance Rabil from the quirks of the very sport whose profile he is expected to raise.
Thousands of articles have been written about the lacrosse scandals of the last few years, but you only have to skim a handful to learn the stereotypes. Players party too much. They're prone to violence. They're entitled rich kids smashing mailboxes with their lacrosse sticks before blazing off in daddy's Ferrari. A sampling of recent headlines includes "Lacrosse Afflicted by Sense of Entitlement" (The Baltimore Sun) and "Lacrosse Breeds Awful White Kids" (from the sports blog Dueling Couches).
Lest you're wondering whether I'm just jealous that "Are The White Boys Of Lacrosse Predestined To Be Dicks?" didn't make the cut, the answer is obviously yes. But come on: blazing off in daddy's Ferrari? Who created that stereotype, Bret Easton Ellis? Think about it: a Ferrari would only comfortably fit like two dudes and their equipment, no bromo, whereas real lacrosse players prefer to "roll deep" whilst "getting after it." The getaway car would be mom's Navigator.
Except there would be no getaway car, because who smashes mailboxes anymore? Even assuming they do, none of these guys would ever compromise the sticks they spend so much time lovingly tending to, braiding and weaving like so many friendship bracelets, to vandalize mailboxes. They'd just piss in them instead.
"Mr. Rabil, however, doesn't fit the image of the unredeemable preppy," Vlahos continues, substantiating his point thusly:
His teammates are mostly clean-cut J. Crew types; one had shown up to practice on that hot August afternoon complaining about the difficulty he'd had finding a place to dock his boat. Mr. Rabil, with his shaggy, dark hair, cast-iron jaw and brooding eyes, looked more as though he'd rolled up on a skateboard.
"He's got a great swagger about him," said Steve Battista, a marketing executive at Under Armour. "He's done a great job of carving out a different way to think about lacrosse players."
Shaggy hair: A stunning departure from the stereotypical lacrosse player look, to be sure. And swagger: When Vlahos went cherrypicking article titles he must have skimmed over this and this.
What else do we know about this next-level athlete expected to turn the standard lacrosse world on its helmeted head?
He was born in 1985 and grew up in the Maryland suburbs outside of Washington.
LOL. And went to an all-boys Catholic school (motto: Gentlemen and Scholars), natch, before going to Johns Hopkins. He's "laconic," and seems friendly yet dull. He's sponsored by Under Armour and Red Bull. His personal style is described as "the opposite" of a new lacrosse-inspired clothing line by Michael Bastian for Gant featuring "fitted tweeds, striped rugby shirts and rakish scarves for fall scrimmages on the quad," but a photo of Rabil's closet betrays no shortage of stripes.
Vlahos compares him to Tiger Woods and Danica Patrick, but he's not some "fresh face" or societal gamechanger; he's precisely the norm. The more apt comparison Vlahos makes is to LeBron James: the only thing notably different about Rabil from his peers is that he is bigger and better than them, and becoming more famous. Maybe he represents an evolution, but it's certainly no revolution.
I'm splitting shaggy hairs here, I know, but it's lame that they feel the need to frame Rabil as some sort of novel divergence from everything you think you know about the sport of lacrosse, when in fact he is solidly, blandly, unremarkably smack dab in the middle of same. Why can't they just say so?
Can Paul Rabil Make Lacrosse Sexy? [New York Times]


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Best Ethiopian Cuisine In BaltimoreEthiopian food bursts with flavor, showing off the nation's history of being on the Silk Road spice route. Flavors hinting at chilis, cardamom and berbere spice blends are common in traditional dishes, but remain a bit unique to each restaurant. Check out all Ethiopian tastes at these Baltimore restaurants.


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It is raining Jelly Beans! If the Jelly Bean update for the AT&T One XL, the original RAZR MAXX and RAZR MAXX HD was not enough, Sony has started rolling out the update for its mid-range Xperia handset, the Xperia J.
The Xperia J sports a single-core Cortex-A5 processor from Qualcomm, an Adreno 200 GPU and 512MB of RAM. While the specs are nothing to boast about, Sony thinks they are enough to run Jelly Bean in all its Project Butter goodness on the handset. Other Jelly Bean goodness like Google Now, enhanced notification bar and speech-to-text are also present, along with improved stability and performance.
The update is slowly being rolled out by Sony all over the world, so might take some time before it becomes available in your region. You can update the handset either via OTA or by using Sony's PC Companion application on your desktop.
It is quite ironic that Sony is rolling out the Jelly Bean update first for its mid-range to lower-end handsets, and not for its previous year first-half flagship handset, the Xperia S/SL. This update schedule will definitely not go down with current Xperia S owners, and potential Xperia Z buyers.


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Professional services of a technical nature
Total Amount 8M€
MERCADO - Serviço de análise de Projeto de Compartilhamento de Infraestrutura 5M€
Licitação para os serviços de Censo, Fiscalização e Regularização pertencentes a área de Compartilhamento de Infraestruturas pelo prazo de 3 anos 3M€
Total Amount 0M€
Total Amount 0M€
Total Amount 0M€
Please note
At the Global level (Global Perimeter) you can see the sum of the value of the tenders common to several countries.
At the single Country level you can see the sum of the value of the tenders for that Country, net of those already reported at Global level.
The page shows the presumed value (M €) of the total of the main tenders to be launched in the next four Quarters, broken down by Merchandising Group, in a given Country or at a Global level (Global Perimeter).
It should be noted that the data and information provided above are in no way binding on the Enel Group companies and are exclusively for descriptive and informative purposes. In fact, the data and information here published are the result of aggregate estimates of the Group's needs and may be subject to variations.
Therefore Enel does not guarantee their update or integrity and does not assume any responsibility in reference to their publication, use and dissemination by third parties.
The use and dissemination of such data and information by the reader is under their own exclusive responsibility.
It is understood that any tender and award procedure is subject to the terms and conditions provided for by the applicable legislation of the Country of reference.


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Amitabh Singhi is managing director at Surefin Investments, an India-based portfolio management and investment advisory company. Since inception in mid-2001 the fund has returned 27.9% annualized, net of all fees to investors (as of 2011). Mr. Singhi graduated with a B.S. in economics from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, with concentrations in finance and management. Amitabh was one of the speakers at the last Value Investing Congress in New York.
Amitabh was kind enough to meet me for lunch in Manhattan and talk about value investing in India. He was also kind enough to pay the bill! The interview was conducted on March 31, 2011; it is in a very informal and in conversational format. I started recording our conversation somewhere in the middle of our talk.
Pre-Interview Conversation:
My really good friend from college is in Hong Kong. He runs a fund there. So, he invited me and I visited, and these guys (Chinese people) remind me a lot of the Gujaratis. In India we have a state called Gujarat where all the traders are from. They are very no-nonsense and low key. They keep the costs very low and invest in low-risk businesses, and they do very well. At least some of the guys I met in Hong Kong were like that. They want to do business, you know?
(Speaking about Berkshire). I am just a big fan of all that they have created. The company is bigger than any individual, which is what people want to see over time. It's amazing what he has created in there right? Just look at what he has created. He's got the best managers in the world, and each of them is remarkable.
The Indian generation that is 50 years old now is subconsciously scared of them (Chinese). The new generation that is coming in is completely pro-China. It's just amazing, the scale that they have for everything. Indians should do business with them and it will help us a lot. I think that even with the political class, as one generation will retire and another one will come in, they are bound to learn some things from the Chinese. It is a huge sort of synergy to just put plants here (India) and raise a lot of money from China for infrastructure. Then, slowly the trust will grow, and then it's simply good business in that sense. Why not do it?
You had said I think that there were 150,000 dialects?
Language in India changes slightly every 150 miles so there are many different versions.
I never knew that! I thought people spoke some Hindi and the Indian Muslims knew some Arabic.
We speak most languages. We have every religion in the world. And everyone is allowed to practice his or her faith. There are socialists, capitalists, and people in between. There are communists, completely right wing and left wing, we have it all! We don't wage wars or fight, and it's just chugging along. We are pulling people out of poverty that we inherited when we achieved independence. I think when we got independence in 1947 there were 400 million people. Now we have 1.2 billion. And out of the 400 million people, the percentage that were under a dollar a day, even real terms, was much higher than what we have today. Women weren't allowed to work; now they are allowed to work and the overall progress is remarkable.
If you go to the heartlands of India, people are very nice. They will welcome you to their homes and give you tea, and that's not in just certain regions; that's everywhere. The poorer people are in India, the nicer they get. It's weird. They don't have crazy expectations and they aren't frustrated. They eat their produce, they have large families to entertain themselves, and it also takes care of mortality and all of that. It helps them in the farms and it's very agrarian, so that's one thing that's going to change over the next 20 or 30 years. But, it's a great place to be because expectations are so rational that you don't go nuts.
The biggest thing is that the capitalist engine has now started, so you see people pursuing wealth creation. They start redeploying and spending, the next generation will live better than this generation. We had a bit of a lost generation in the 80s, but now the engine has started so it's very exciting. It is all very exciting back home.
Well that's definitely interesting, and I know I wanted to ask you some of the macro questions.
Go ahead! Don't expect great insight on macro but go ahead. (Laughter)
First off, could you just tell your background?
Sure. I was born in Kolkata in 1979 and I lived in Delhi. My family is actually from Calcutta; it's called Kolkata now. It's a big city on the east coast, and it's part of a primarily communist state. We moved to Delhi when I was a year old. I did my schooling in Delhi, and then following that I came to Penn to Wharton. And, there was a dual degree program, which I wanted to do. They had a business and liberal arts program so I got into that, but then I switched out and only did Wharton. And in one summer I worked with Goldman in their sales and trading division in New York. Then I worked with Frank Quattrone's Technology Investment Banking group within CSFB as an analyst when the tech bubble had burst – it was very hard.
I left and went back to India the very day that I got my bonus because India was very cheap, and I wasn't really enjoying the whole banking experience. Actually, in my junior year of college, Mr. Buffett was on our campus. Obviously he was popular and the tickets were all gone; there was no access. So, on the intranet I watched the video of Buffett's visit all night. I also read the "Security Analysis," and I read the Intelligent Investor in college; it sort of made sense. Then throughout my time as an investment banker I managed some money for both friends and family back home. There was loss aversion there because of the tech bubble (their portfolios had all taken a big hit). So, they needed a fresh set of eyes to come and take it over; it was luck in a sense. I didn't know that I wanted to be an investment manager, I didn't know much about investing, but the good thing with Mr. Buffett is that he encourages you. He makes it look very easy. Ironically it is almost a disservice because everyone thinks that they can be an investor when he makes it look so easy.
I realize it now that I have a huge learning curve from now and looking ahead. The easiest money in India was buying net-nets and cigar butts, which anyone can do. That's done. Now you actually have to have the skill to sniff out an opportunity which is that big, and knowing yourself and standing away from the crowd on certain things. I think when you read "Warren Buffett: The Making of an American Capitalist" by Roger Lowenstein, or the "Snowball" to some extent, you get lulled into believing you can do it; which is his greatness. Because, you know, if you read George Soros, you know cannot do what he does. The niceness of Mr. Buffett is that he (or any of the biographers that covered him) will make you believe that you can actually be half as good as him.
So, mainly, that's what attracted me. I got into investing because I wanted to be more with businesses. I loved accounting and I loved numbers. I really enjoyed the lifestyle of being not over the top, but making good friends and learning from them constantly. It was also something that got better with time. If you are an investment banker you can't do it after 40 because you would have to be a nut to do it, especially in a very high-strung environment like Wall Street or something along those lines.
I always joke that one year in investment banking is like two and a half years in a normal job.
Well, two and a half years of a bad normal job, yeah. I couldn't agree with you more. It's crazy! It's also work that doesn't necessarily make you more intelligent. I mean, you learn a lot in investment banking. You learn to work in a team. You learn that you can stretch yourself and by that I mean a lot. You learn that you can work 20 hours a day and not die. You can also learn how to build a services business in scale. Say CSFB — they will have 2,000 bankers in a building who are all rich and all working hard to create that kind of an ecosystem. It is remarkable to create that kind of business. But, I don't want to work in one. I think that in investing you just needed a brain and understand your weaknesses, and then you could put money to work. Something is very attractive about that. Then you have this whole betting mindset, which I enjoy a lot. Sniffing out a lot of opportunities to see what you can find, and you will get a result. You definitely get a result. You will know in a month or two months if it's a special situation investment or two or three years if it's a good investment. And you also know you're wrong; there is no vagueness there.
Now not too sound "American centric," but value investing originated in America with Benjamin Graham and it seems only in the past few years that value investing has become popular worldwide. How did you discover it?
I really discovered it through reading about Warren Buffett initially and then Graham and Dodd — the usual way.
But talking about India, I discovered that now in India we have people who have been … there is a gentleman called Mr. Chandrakant Sampat, and I think he has been investing since the 70s. But, there are other people in Bombay who have been doing it since the 80s. The whole value investing thing, it's actually only about having a businessman's mindset. You hold capital, you give it out when the world really needs it, and you keep a low-key profile so that you don't do stupid things.
There has been a history of good quality capitalism in India. Ultimately value investing is nothing but a glorified term of doing the same thing. Yes you are investing, but nothing stops a value investor from becoming a businessman and owning a company and then taking capital allocation decisions. So, contrary to what people may think about India, there have actually been some very good people there for building businesses and having long runs in business. And with that, they have now become of size. We have had a history of doing business and we have companies that are 150 years old in the country. I mean, if you look at one of the most prominent families in India, they are the Birla family and they have an ethos of business in the family. Most of the Birla generations have a certain code of principles. They always have very good relationships; they are very disciplined with their time, diet and daily routine and all of that as well. They are entrepreneurs, they keep doing business, they keep reinvesting capital, they don't spend much on themselves, and they also have a philanthropic side. I'm talking about 20 or 30 years ago where they built many temples, they built many of the hospitals, and they work in a way that a whole town has come up out of the ground because they have built a university somewhere and the town followed. The Birla family, you know that they will be around 30 years later; at least some tree of the family will. It's because of their own ethos and their culture.
One of the larger builders of businesses over the history of India is the Aditya Birla Group, which is run by Kumar Mangalam Birla. He was 29 when his father passed away, so he took it over. He bought out Novelis a few years ago, which was the leader in some types of aluminum manufacturing in the world. It's probably a $30 billion dollar group now. He's 40 years old and lives very simply from what I hear and I read in the press. Of course there are serious questions about their capital allocation decisions from time to time which I think are very relevant, but I am only using them as an example of empire builders.
There are some remarkable people. One could look at the Ajay Piramal, Anand Mahindra and Gautam Thapar as other examples of people who are not value investors in the strict definition but have made a fortune using the principles of value investing over long periods of time.
I guess you could call them Buffett-esque in that sense. They aren't as smart as Buffett maybe but no one is, I get that. (Laughter).
Which investor most influenced your style of investing?
Well it's very tough to dispute Benjamin Graham and David Dodd being the mind changers. I think if you read the The Intelligent Investor and Security Analysis carefully, just read it once very early in your life, it's a bit like reorienting your brain. It just sort of fixes your brain the right way. You read that book once properly (with footnotes and appendices) and then you are done. I think that's the kind of authority that they have. You can't take that influence away.
I think that Mr. Buffet's influence is that he points you in the right direction. So he says, "Oh you can do it." Which is a fallacy, But he says, "Hey you can do it, why don't you go read about Li Lu or Tom Murphy, or why don't you go read about what my friend Charlie Munger has to say? And then why don't you go read about what so and so did in the 70s or 60s?" And that basically leaves you with more people to read about, and then they give you more people to read about and suddenly you are in this ecosystem of really brilliant people, and then you are reading and learning.
So, it's tough to kind of fix an influence, but Buffett made it more optimistic, and he made it more palatable. Because with Graham it's very tough to give a 19-year-old guy a copy of Grahams' book and then expect him to start investing. Graham in "Security Analysis" stops somewhere unless you read all of his little articles and keep searching. It is very tough to keep investing like him. Seth Klarman does a lot of credit arbitrage, and distress stuff, and fixed income arbitrage, but it would be very tough to do what he does in India just for example. He also doesn't make it sound sexy at all. From what I have watched, it's not for the faint-hearted. But I think what Warren Buffett has done and a few others have done is that at least if your try to be like them, you will end up being a better human being. You may not be the best investor, but you will be a slightly better investor, and you will be a better human being. I think that's a big contribution by them.
You have two funds: Surefin and Amrit. Can you explain the difference?
Surefin is the domestic fund for Indian investors, which has a longer history. It is registered with the Indian regulators as a Portfolio Management Scheme (PMS). It's like a hedge fund, but it's structured as a bunch of separate accounts for each investor as opposed to an LLP. It took me 13 or 14 months to get the PMS license. It was my first brush with Indian bureaucracy and conservatism. They said, "What degree do you have?" and I said, "I have a bachelor's from Wharton with concentrations in finance and management." I thought that ought to floor them. They came back and said, "Well you aren't qualified." And then I said, "No, Wharton is a good school," and they wouldn't believe me! So I sent them a Business Week with college rankings and many months later I got my license.
Amrit Capital is an adviser to an FII (Foreign Institutional Investor) fund called the Amrit Fund Value Fund, based out of Delaware (in the US) and Mauritius. This fund can take capital from anywhere in the world except for domestic Indian money. It can take capital from any non-Indian anywhere and any NRI, as long as the investor is an accredited investor.
So you had 30% returns net of fees since 2001. I do not know how to phrase this, but how the heck did you do that?!
We have done about 27.9% per annum since inception. It's with a small capital, but we've done fairly well.
I think it was like a 64% CAGR for the first four years. And it's been downhill since then. When the market fell in 2009, we actually fell much less than the market. Of course when things fell, a lot of our stuff fell on very low volumes. So we couldn't help it. I mean the bid/ask spread was very high. Some of the illiquid stuff really took a hit. But that was good; we put some money to work that fall. It was good. We wish that more of those came.
When in 2009?
Yes. Oh my god that's all we would need.
How much do you have in your fund if I can ask?
We are at just under $15 million. And we have some more outside our direct management, under advisory agreements, etc.
We have to be choosy about our investors. We don't like to report our holdings unless legally necessary. International individual capital is what I am looking for, but we weren't structured until recently to take it. I want the right kind of investor also, one who is happy at the bottom of 2009. I think it really hinders your ability to do what you want to do. I mean we don't do rocket science, right? We don't do anything great. We read some numbers, we do our research and something goes off in the mind, and then you put in your bid. It's not very complicated. The tough part is really being able to say no and yes at the right time and also having the right ecosystem and infrastructure around you. And I don't want to have a system where we have the wrong guys investing with us. And by the way, the "wrong guys" could be totally ethically and morally sound, but they just don't think about investing the way we do. We currently have a phenomenal set of investors.
Why wouldn't you take from fund of funds?
Just the reporting is a hassle with institutional funds. They want to justify their existence (and rightly so) and they have to put a risk management layer on top of you, and they have to have a call with you. I don't want to spend my life always being on the phone and talking to people all of the time. My performance should speak for itself and any other way I think is a distraction. I think that we will be larger — it just may take longer.
I don't have an IR team; I don't have many people in the office. I just don't enjoy that. I'd rather just invest money and hopefully capital will find me. So I think that now that we're structured appropriately we will get more capital going forward, and if we don't we will be at 15, 20, 25 million and we will just keep compounding that over time.
And this is Amrit, the hedge fund right?
You are concentrated right?
That's actually a great question and it's something that I am working on. I think that there is no fixed answer. Depending on what's available in the overall markets across asset classes and how your cash flow is looking (with regards to investor redemptions or investments). It's an urge that I fight. I think that as you grow older and you talk to more people, somehow you want to get less concentrated. But I think it's better to be more concentrated than less. You want to look at many things but put money only into a few. I think you have to force yourself to be concentrated, however, because it doesn't come naturally. It doesn't come naturally for most people to put 25% of their or their fund's net worth into any one thing.
If you study Charlie Munger's track record or Warren Buffet's track record, you will see that these guys have placed some very courageous bets. They have put a lot of their net worth into one investment. The psychological upside of a large concentrated bet just wasn't high enough for them. Mr. Buffett could have said, "I've done 30% for nine years and I'm rich now, so just forget it. At least I'll stay rich." But it's in his psyche to go and make a bet and to make a big bet when needed. So I think that concentrating your investments makes you work harder; it makes you stay true to yourself in the profession, which you need to be. And you eliminate complete forms of luck, because if you're concentrating, then you can't keep getting lucky. You have to be right about each large investment. But that's something I'm struggling with to be honest. I am not concentrating enough.
I think it just forces your mind to look deeper and then have a higher conviction. And also work harder. Because it's very easy to not work hard in this profession, and get lucky for a few years.
Like me!
No! (Laughter) I mean like me or anyone else. You can be a bum on a street and just get lucky for a year or so. I mean your track record is good because you started in '08. But if you told me you were up whatever percent since '09, in the bottom, I would say, "OK, well whatever." But the fact that you started at the worst moment in '08 says something. Many times being contrarian just doesn't pay off. As Buffett said in India, you shouldn't always be depressed when everyone is excited and you shouldn't always be excited when everyone is depressed. You should be selective about it. And a lot of the people who even made money from 2009, a lot of those guys have said, "Oh, the shit's hit the fan, so I want to go buy." And that is smart. It's smarter than not buying, but that contrarian quality as a standalone, does not work as the chance of being lucky if one bought anything in 2009 is very high and that may give a false sense of achievement.
What is the process at your firm?
Well the first thing that happens is that I start every day with a lot of reading. I read all of the five or six major financial papers in North India. That's a good time for me. I do that first thing in the morning and read, and just glance at everything. There might be an idea in the paper that I might like; there might be something a friend told me which gets reinforced in the newspaper, so I will read that. Then, I will look at some screens with the data there and will check into various kinds of rankings, and then I will just nibble at certain other things. That's how the ideas come. Or, it could also be something that I looked into in the past, but I might just check the price again and check where we are. I just go one by one looking at it.
In two or three hours, if something has caused me to spend that much time on it, then it's something that I am interested in. Then I dig deep and we pull up all the annual reports, look at all the 10, 15 year numbers, get public research to get data. And then, at the end of two or three days we will know whether or not we want to spend more time on this. I think that the key thing we look for is:
1. Can we understand how the business is going to make the cash flows that it is already making? Because the P&L are just numbers on a piece of paper. Can you visualize the thing in your head and say if he sells for this much, this much goes to cost and raw materials, this much goes here, there, etc.? And then you can see after a 10-year average that they have been OK, then you jump into the "what if" questions. What if raw materials double? What if the top two guys leave? What if there is labor unrest? What will competition do, etc.?
You get the idea. You just have to see the actual business in the numbers. That's critical. Like a real estate building — if I wanted to own this restaurant, then I could spend 20 minutes here and count the number of seats. Look at the square feet and figure out how many hours a day we get traffic. Figuring out chef costs and all that, you can visualize that business. But now you suddenly say let us visualize 5,000 of these chains all over the world, and now they become numbers on a piece of paper. It is very difficult to visualize that data. So, we spend a lot of time saying no. We say we can't visualize this. But in certain situations it is fairly simple. Or, it's at least simple to say in a steady state this is what it will look like. And the business has to be easy to sort of visualize and understand.
2. Finding a business that is relatively clean is important. So the business should not be hinged on some sort of special favor to the business, some kind of irregular monopoly (if it's legal it's fine). It has to be something that is sustainable because of the merit of the shop or the people itself. So, in India there is corruption taint in many things. So we start to filter that entirely out.
Then, the last 10-year numbers should be good. It should be a well-run business on the numbers. I think what happens in a bullish phase like now, is that people stop worrying about what the guy is actually doing on the ground, but they start worrying more about how the guy is going to deliver, which is the grand essential point. Forget about what he's going to do, and look what he's done. That you already know. So, we spend a lot of time looking at what he's done and it becomes clear to me. And if the numbers aren't clear, then I'm not interested. The guy can do what he wants. It's somebody else's money to be had, but it's not my money.
So once all of those check out, then we start "Scuttlebutting". So in most situations we will make some calls and really do some spy work (which I love). I have done all sorts of things from interviewing ex-employees to a lot of things. And none of it is to get inside information, because we stay away from inside information, obviously. I am trying to verify a number; I want to know about the competitor; I want to generally know from where does this guy make all of his money? And sometimes you become surprised.
Nowadays it's tough to find a screaming buy. Four years ago or back in 2009 there was stuff that was just screaming. Now it's not screaming. But the evaluation process is pretty simple once we know all of this. We don't have complicated Excel files. It's mostly back-of-the-envelope sort of stuff. We do make some Excel files where there are a lot of subsidiaries or it's a shipping business and there are many moving pieces. It's scribbled in a physical file where I scribble everywhere, and if I can't come to an answer by then, there's no point.
So, once we cross that, if we like something then we go buy it. With respect to what the market is saying and what other people are saying stops mattering and we just put bids in. That's the whole process.
And also it's fairly cumulative. So, the fact that I have got companies in my research database from five years ago really helps me now. So now when some guy calls me from Hong Kong or the United States calls and says, "Have you heard of this company?" or "Have you heard of this guy?" I can just pull up a file and say, "Yeah, this is the history I have, this is what I found out about him then, this is good, and this is not good." So that really helps. But it's a fairly simple process overall.
It seems like you do everything. You definitely do your homework.
Well yeah, that's the fun thing. I like doing homework. I mean we've had screw ups, but I do my homework.
To invest in foreign countries requires a deep understanding of the culture. For example, in Japan companies buy stock in other companies in lieu of cash payments, and liquidation is deemed a failure; what makes the corporate culture unique in India?
It depends on what kind of investing you are doing. If you are buying at the bottom of 2009 or 2003, you could just be a monkey throwing darts. And you will do okay because the tide is behind you, the business is growing, the country is growing, and all that helps. The judiciary is slow, which makes things complicated sometimes. Also many company managements are not shareholder friendly. But overall, it seems to be very similar to how the US was in the 50s and the 60s probably. Everyone in India is very entrepreneurial and most people speak English. They're very enterprising like America. They are pro-business and they want to do business. We also have a good accounting system.
India is switching to IFRS accounting standards tomorrow. What until now were the accounting standards used, and what will happen?
We use Indian GAAP and we have our own accounting standards. Certain industries will change more with IFRS than others. Also, the chartered accountancy community, the guys who make the books, is fairly qualified. There is one institute, the ICAI, which gives you the ability to be a chartered accountant. And those exams are horribly hard. It's not as bad as the IITs but it's up there. In fact the CA exam (the chartered accountant exam), it's called the "come again" exam. People fail multiple times. I mean if today I am interviewing someone who tells me he is a first-shot first-CA, that means he earned his CA exam in the first try. It's a big, big plus. That's how hard the exams are. They are much harder than the CFA.
So that helps. If I want to find out more about a business I will call the CA. Now in the US, the numbers are more real-time, so if there are marked to market losses you have to report that. And if there are marked to market write-downs and debt you have to report it. You report insider things, stock options, pension planning, all of that. All that is still coming in India. Reporting systems and accounting practices are not as mature as they are in the US, but if you want to research a $50 to $100 million company you can spend a day or two researching the numbers, and you will get a decent sense of the business from the accounting. You have to ask more questions though, and you can't just trust the numbers. So in that sense, either you diversify or you cross out.
You say its 2003 or 2009, and you want to buy stocks at three times earnings, like South Korea (or whatever), and all net-nets and you aren't worried about the quality of the numbers, and if you are diversified then you will do well. But if you want to invest now in India, then you have to kick the tires harder. Because the accounting standards there, gets you started, but to finish, you need to sort of get more conviction, so you must do your own homework. But the accounting is still much better than many non-English speaking countries. Language is a big barrier in other places. I mean, try understanding Italian books, you will go crazy. I think EBITDA in Italian is probably a sentence. (Laughter). I mean, all of those countries, Italy, France, Spain, Germany, parts of Mainland China, Russia, are all out. If you don't speak the local language, then you're done. Forget about translating the books and all that. But in India it's all in English. You could pull up an annual report of a $70 million company, and everything is in English. And, they have proper receivables, and accounts payable, and you can see receivables over six months and under six months, and P&L, and it's interesting. So it can be done. But if you want to put a big chunk of your cash in it you need to go down and drill hard and meet the management. This is important especially with a small company.
Is there anyway for small investors to do adequate research of stocks in India?
I think that they could but it would be difficult if they do not have a physical base on the ground. I think that if they do, they ought to diversify properly within the country and make sure that the basket is cheap, just to be safe. Or if they fall in love with something, they can always fly down; spend a week there and then they can get a sense of it. But it's not un-doable.
Do you have any books that you recommend for people who want to invest in India or even understand the culture, economy, etc. that might give them a stepping-stone towards investing?
There are lots of books in India, but I haven't found one that is "just right." It's just not there. Maybe you can come down and write one?
(Laughter) I don't know if I'd be able to do that.
I have not found a great book on Indian value investing yet. If you want to understand how the country developed, there is a book called "India After Gandhi" by Ramachandra Guha. It's a phenomenal summary of the country. This guy has won tons of awards, a New York Times best seller, this and that. So if you really want to learn about a country once and for all, this is the book. It just shows you the complexity of what India is. You will get this a lot; India just has a lot of facets. If you talk to somebody from the south, you will see a different facet, same with the north, east and west. We have regional, political, linguistic, caste-based, economic and ideological divides. I mean it's even more diverse than the US, much more so. So that complexity builds into the businesses. Then there is "In Spite of the Gods," by Edward Luce and also "India Unbound" by Gurucharan Das.
There was a front-page WSJ yesterday about the growing income inequality cap in India and stating the serious problems the country faces. What are your thoughts on the macro picture?
I haven't read the article, yet but I think the ability for someone to make money individually and independently has gone up exponentially in India. If you think of the top 10 richest guys in India, I would think that probably half of them are self-made. Over maybe a 20- or a 30-year career, but they are still self-made. It shows that the dynastic wealth is going down. I think that people are going to get fabulously rich in that country, and we don't even know who they are right now.
Of course, we have serious problems with those who are extremely poor. Indian governments will always want to subsidize, because we have some really poor sections. But agriculture growth and the capitalistic pressures are sort of bringing them out of poverty, and then we have aid coming in from the government which is helping a lot. Also, philanthropy as it increases over the years will help out with basic education, improving standard of living, mortality rates, longevity, and things like that. These will be slow changes, maybe 10- or 20-year changes, and you won't see them now.
The income distribution between the middle class and the upper to the middle class is there, and you will see that in any country; it's heavy. In a way its good because it leaves plenty of room for aspiration. But, it's sometimes frustrating because if you are unethical or immoral you can make a lot of money. It's a bit like Russia in regards to certain industries and certain regions. That should change.
I'm not a big macro guy. But I do think that the tide has turned and we're going to be increasingly capitalistic. Every five or ten years there will be a few shocks here and there. India is a bit hyped. I mean it's 2 or 3% of world GDP? Its per capita GDP is below many African countries. It's a buzzing market though. Ebbs and flows will happen, but the growth is there. It's very tough to dislodge that now because people have seen how that works and that it makes sense.
I'm not ruling out three years of problems where nobody looks at India, but it will bounce back. I think it's a sustainable growth in India. The economy is very domestic consumption oriented. An Indian today is increasingly buying an Indian shirt, an Indian watch and an Indian car. Also all of the services are domestic. Tech is also domestic. In the US, many things are made in China.
This country is great. I love the USA. This is where I would live if I didn't have a home in India. It's got the ability to allocate the right job for the right person in a free moving economy. It's got the potential to keep unlocking. It's not anywhere else in the world. It's stupid to write them off. India is a thousand dollar per capita country and yet America has made India believe that it's going to conquer America in 30 years, 40 years because of GDP growth. It's stupidity. It's amazing how the US has gone to the underdog mindset and said, "Oh we won't be able to fight China or India." If you're a young guy, then Obama tells you that you are fighting with the Chinese for your jobs. It's the underdog mindset. Per capita GDP in the US is $47,000 a year. In India its $1,200 and in China it's $4,000. Who are we kidding? I don't believe those stupid reports that claim in 2050 India will overtake the USA in terms of total GDP. Goldman could write it or anyone could write it and I won't believe it.
Who knows right? There are hundreds of decisions from now to then that would have to come right for that to happen. But, can I say that it will be a much larger country than it is today, GDP wise? Absolutely.
Amitabh Singhi is managing director at Surefin Investments, an India-based portfolio management and investment advisory company. Since inception in mid-2001 the fund has returned 27.9% annualized, net of all fees to investors (as of 2011). Mr. Singhi graduated with a B.S. in economics from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, with concentrations in finance and management. Amitabh was one of the speakers at the last Value Investing Congress in New York.


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The indices aren't up much but breadth is solid, there's a good supply of new highs and the tone of the action remains positive. The bulls keep pushing and there doesn't seem to be any reason to dump positions.
Solar stocks are leading again on hopes of a plug in the State of the Union speech tonight. Homebuilders are also seeing a bounce after recent weak action. Gold and silver remain laggards. Apple (AAPL) was seeing a little sell-the-news pressure as it presents at the Goldman Sachs technology conference, but it is perking up as discussion about what to do with all that cash is the focus.
The S&P 500 is hitting a new intraday high as I write and, once again, the bears are being squeezed. As I keep saying, if you want to short, wait for weak action rather than fighting this steady buying. The bulls have the edge and they aren't going away quickly.
I'm sticking with long trades but it isn't easy to keep cash at work. InvenSense (INVN), which I mentioned yesterday, is breaking out very nicely on good volume. Albany Molecular Research (AMRI), gapped up on a good earnings report and strong guidance and I'm averaging into that. SolarCity (SCTY) has been my solar energy play but I'm ready to sell that sector into tonight's speech.
I am going to keep digging, but it is a lot of work finding new setups right now. We need more emotion out there.


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Records: Nassau paid Looks Great per tree
Nassau County paid a Huntington tree service for each of 141 trees taken down in the Welwyn Preserve in Glen Cove after superstorm Sandy -- although county officials assured lawmakers the firm would be paid at a lesser rate for time worked, records show.
The bill for felling 117 trees and cutting up two dozen more already on the ground came to more than $105,000, not including labor costs, for the five days Looks Great Services Inc. was in Welwyn, according to the firm's invoice to the county. The county paid the bill on Jan. 31, a comptroller's office spokesman said.
Deputy Public Works Commissioner Richard Millett told county lawmakers several times that a crew paid for every tree felled had been sent mistakenly into Welwyn on Nov. 25, a month after the storm. He said he removed the crew immediately, replacing it with a team paid for their time and materials.
Legis. Judith Jacobs (D-Woodbury) asked him on Dec. 3 whether the Welwyn crew charged by the tree.
"No, their job went to time and material," Millet responded. "We changed their billing."
Nassau's contract with Looks Great allows the firm to be paid for labor, equipment, tree pruning and removal, and hauling.
The company gets from $193 to $4,692 per tree, depending on size. "Climbers" and bucket truck operators are billed at $90.35 an hour.
The Welwyn work sheets indicate there were two climbers at the preserve for most of five days, but does not identify them. The work reports indicate 142 trees were taken down or chopped up, while the invoice lists 141 trees.
The Welwyn work was a small part of Looks Great's 309-page bill for $4.7 million, which included all the company's countywide work from Nov. 23 through Nov. 30.
To date, the county has paid Looks Great $35.5 million of nearly $70 million it is set to receive. The county hopes for at least 90 percent reimbursement from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
Complaints about the tree cutting at Welwyn helped spark ongoing investigations into Sandy debris removal on Long Island. Preserve advocates say the county cut trees unnecessarily to increase FEMA reimbursements. Nassau officials denied the claims, saying the trees taken down were damaged and dangerous.
Legis. Delia DeRiggi-Whitton (D-Glen Cove), who has spearheaded questions about Welwyn and Looks Great, said learning that Nassau had paid Looks Great by the tree "only strengthens my instinct . . . that all the information we have been given on Sandy contracts is questionable."
Public Works Superintendent Richard Iadevaio Jr., supervisor of the department's review of Sandy work, said Thursday that he would look into the per-tree charges in Welwyn. But he said his understanding was that because of the complaints, billing for tree work in the county's 16 preserves was changed going forward.
"Originally the preserves were on a unit price," he said. "We were paying by the tree, which is how FEMA wants it. . . . When we started having an issue, we switched to a time-and-material operation for preserves to try to discourage an incentive for more trees. It was not necessarily true that they were taking down more trees, but we wanted to remove that possible incentive."
Public Works spokesman Michael Martino said Millett never intended "to suggest that the county would or could change billing methods for work already completed."
Jacobs said, "My understanding was they were going to go back and correct it. When they're on the record, they're on the record."
Looks Great spokesman Dave Arnold said the decision "about whether a specific job would be billed hourly or per-tree was made entirely by the county, based on FEMA reimbursement eligibility requirements. Had the county paid on an hourly basis, FEMA might not have reimbursed the cost, and Nassau County taxpayers could have been on the hook for the entire cleanup."
In a statement, FEMA spokesman Jim Homstad said unit price contracts are among four types that the agency reimburses.
Agency rules say time-and-materials contracts, where the contractor bills for items including labor, equipment and materials, "should be avoided, but may be allowed for work that is necessary immediately after the disaster has occurred when a clear scope of work cannot be developed."
Records show that before the tree-cutting crew arrived at Welwyn on Nov. 25, it had downed 15 trees at the Sands Point Preserve. The firm was paid for each of those trees cut.
County records show that ultimately 466 trees were taken down in the Sands Point Preserve after Sandy, with one crew on Nov. 28 reporting it had taken down 50 trees between 8 a.m. and 2:30 p.m. -- a tree every 7.8 minutes.


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Gordon Kerr. Old Castle Books (pocket essentials), isbn 978-1-84344-213-4, published 2015.
Exactly what it says, a short 149 page long, primer on the course of the two wars fought during the 20th century in that troubled region.
I have found that in common with many re-enactors, my new friends can explain in detail what they are wearing, how their weapons work, how the war was fought, etc, without having a knowledge of what went on and why. I am hoping that I can as I have no plans to actually fight in their skirmishes and so on and unlike my son have not got an encyclopedic insight into every Kalashnikov variant.
A short history of the Vietnam war.
Anything with a vague historical bent
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A short history of the Vietnam war.
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The words you speak when performing, change the impact your magic has on a spectator. Imagine having the ability to control objects with the power of your words. This is not an average psychokinetic effect. With just a quiet whisper from several feet away, you are able to make objects fall at your command. The Power Word principle allows you to perform the impossible, knock one object off another without affecting it or choose which objects will fall and which will remain standing.
No weird, unnatural hand movements, no complicated setups, you do not need to be close to the object, in fact, you can even have your back turned while performing Power Word: Fall. Complete with a method perfect for walk around and street magicians, Power Word: Fall is a must have in your arsenal of reputation makers.


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Friday, October 14.
The rain this week has been endless. Since the clouds blew in Tuesday afternoon, we haven't seen a scrap of blue above us. The channel is gray and choppy; the fishing boats toss and lurch and knock hulls, their sides christened with the mixed-up philosophies and word associations of life in modern-day Kenya. Uhuru. Respect. Manna. Beyoncé. The fishermen, wispy wraithlike figures wrapped in kikoys long faded by the sun, gather in the restaurant of the Stopover. They sit there at the empty tables, the day's takings too meager to justify even a single hot mug of chai. Their talk is as relentless as the rain. Inshallah. Inshallah. There is always room for hope. Donkeys plod the long sand track toward Lamu town, their backs loaded with sacks of cement or blocks of coral stone. Children, bare foot, in djellabahs and bui-buis, their voices carrying like birdsong. From my balcony, I have a sultan's-eye view of everything. The hotel staff bring me breakfast on the terrace: warm chapati, Spanish omelettes, big steins of coconut milk.
The weather's cast an inauspicious cloud over the week. I've arrived to report on the recent kidnappings of foreigners by suspected Somali pirates for a well-known luxury travel magazine. This is a tremendous deal for me, and one that had already heightened my anxiety before the rains blew in. Tuesday night's storm knocked out the only transformer in Shella; by 7pm, darkness drops on the village like a stone. While this probably hasn't posed too many problems at the high-rolling Peponi Hotel, where the constant thrum of gas-powered generators is as steady and reliable as the tide, it's complicated life at the thrifty Stopover. The cost of fuel on the island is high, and management has decided to fire up the generator for just a couple hours a night. Evenings bring an elaborate choreography of plugging and charging, trying to milk whatever feeble power is being pumped into my room before I'm left with nothing but moon- and candle-light to scribble my thoughts by.
It has lent a certain black comedy to the week. You would picture a luxury-travel writer being fed crab claws and caipirinhas and more or less getting fellated by Thai masseuses while he does his reporting; sadly, readers, this is not the case. I've been juggling laptop batteries and stocking up on spare SIMs, since a stray breeze will almost certainly knock out at least one of the major phone networks. (Not without good reason are dual-SIM phones pretty much de rigeur in Kenya.) There is the problem, too, that the kidnapping story – now two weeks old – has already been overreported. Local hotel owners, I quickly learn, have felt unfairly treated by the press. Some say they were blatantly misquoted; others that the general media consensus of a "panicky flight" from Lamu was grossly exaggerated. (Later in the week, I'll pay a visit to the offices of the three airlines which operate flights to the island. Between the three, they report a grand total of two tourists who had come to them in the days after the kidnappings to take the aforementioned panicky flight.) As the area begins to gear up for the high season, there's a sense among hoteliers and tour operators that the best press for Lamu right now would be no press at all.
Fortunately, my swank media credentials open up some doors, and many of the hotel owners around Shella are eager to at least set the record straight. Lars Korschen, at the Peponi – a de facto base for me, with its abundant outlets and prime Kenyan AA coffee – gestures to the empty dining room where I've come to meet him and says, "We're down to next to nothing at the moment." Korschen has a windswept, old-mariner's air about him; you can almost picture his vocal chords just sitting there on the beach, getting bleached by the sun and mottled with salt and sand. He walks me through some of the beefed-up security around the hotel – extra watchmen, armed police at night, floodlights that can light up the beach like the 4th of July at a moment's notice – and says he's hopeful that the American and British governments will soon lift their travel advisories. The Kenyan security forces, he says, "were caught a little bit unaware" by the September kidnapping at KSV, but "the security has stepped up dramatically." The police have announced increased patrols on land and sea of the border region, as well as round-the-clock aerial surveillance of the area and a greater presence on Lamu, Manda, and all area beaches. Plans are in place to create a regional command and control center, to coordinate the efforts of the different security branches. Still, says Korschen, it's impossible to deny that the threat exists.
"It's really hard for us to encourage people to come when that kind of thing's going on," he says. "I have to start off with saying, 'I assume you know about the travel advisories, and that you've checked your insurance and that you feel okay about coming.' And I tell them about the increased security, and it's still beautiful here, and I'm still here, and they'll probably enjoy themselves tremendously." He sighs. His face lights up.
"It might not be as good a season as we expected, but we're going to pull through," he says.
The mood in Shella seems to swing between steely resolve and forlornness. At any time of day, gathered around the village's small jetty, a dozen beach boys are limply plying their trade to the two or three tourists who pass by. No one is taking sunset cruises, no one is booking dhow tours of the mangroves or the old Swahili ruins on Manda island. While the kidnappings have hurt the hotel industry, they've been far more damaging to local villagers: according to official estimates, nearly 90 percent of income in Lamu is tourism-related. The fishermen braving the rough sea at night, the women squatting behind piles of fresh vegetables in the markets of Lamu town, rely on the hotels and restaurants for most of their business. Walking through Shella one afternoon, I find a man – Ousmane, or Osmond – shucking oysters on the small stoop outside his home. Beside him is a plastic bag full of mollusks. "I can give you a very good price," he assures me.
The listlessness around Shella is as dampening as the weather. When I ask a group of fishermen about recent events, and the government's response to the kidnappings, they grumble and shake their heads. "It is too late," says one man, Mohamed. "The story has already happened." Another, Hamdi, says that the problem lies with the country's lax security forces. "Our people, they are cowards," he says. There is a widely held view among islanders that the police are too lazy and corrupt to protect them. "They want the nice biscuits, the nice meat, good beer," says Hamdi. He complains that most of the local police and military come from upcountry towns. Few know their way through the mangroves and channels of the archipelago; many don't even know how to swim. (One beach boy, a wiry rasta with little coils of copper-colored dreads, suggests that the government give him a boat full of beer and marijuana and let him and his friends track down the pirates themselves.) The police have put on a good show of strength, says Hamdi, but who's to say if a boat-load of attackers couldn't slip through again? "It's like having a guard, but he is asleep at your door," he says.
The week drags on; the reporting is a slog. Government officials and security experts in Nairobi are impossible to reach by phone; when I finally manage to contact a spokesperson for the U.S. Embassy, she offers a limp response to my questions about American support for and involvement in Kenya's anti-piracy efforts. "The United States condemns this act of violence and offer our condolences to the family of the deceased," she writes. "We call for immediate release of the kidnapped victim." (In fairness, I don't know exactly what I was expecting.) On a rainy afternoon, I take a boat across the channel to Manda's Ras Kitau beach, where the swank, $1,800-a-night Majlis Hotel sits about 50 meters from the house where the Frenchwoman was kidnapped two weeks ago. The Majlis has a sumptuous, Arabian Nights air about it, with its ornate wall carvings and Oriental rugs. But while the Italian owners have defiantly decided to stay open (and have, in fact, praised the Kenyan police, who built a makeshift sentry box a couple hundred yards down the beach), the hotel is practically deserted. With a bulldozer plowing the sand out front, to help construction of a new seawall, the place feels like an excavation site of some ancient desert kingdom.
The Maasai watchman gestures toward the reception area with his knobkerry; a manager comes out to greet me. We've hardly gone through the preliminaries when he asks for my card. I'm slightly taken aback: I haven't had the foresight to print any cards for my Kenya trip, and haven't yet had one of the fortuitous encounters which, in Ouagadougou earlier this year, had me forking over ten bucks for a hundred business cards from a guy I met on the side of the road. The manager, whose slick-backed hair is, unlike mine, achieved with some deliberate effort, shakes his head and apologizes. "I'm very sorry," he says, "but I can't speak to you unless you have a card." The Majlis' owners, it seems, have grown as wary as the rest of the area's hoteliers toward media requests; without some sort of visual proof of my professional affiliations, management has been told to stay mum.
It's a dispiriting setback to the day; outside, on the beachfront, another indignity: I'd told my boat captain to come back for me in half an hour, imagining for myself a very busy and journalistic afternoon. Five minutes after he'd dropped me off, he's nowhere to be seen. The rain has intensified. My shirt is stuck to my chest; my notebook feels like a bunch of wet leaves. A long history of professional disappointments is gathering in my mind like the storm clouds above. Suddenly, a man materializes from behind an acacia tree, like a djinn in some Arabian myth. He stands there beside me and stares wordlessly at the channel. We watch the distant figure of some boat – most probably mine – ferrying some tourists to Lamu town. Pleasantries are exchanged. The man has a dark, pitted face, patches of gray stubble on his chin; his eyes seem to have been dredged up from the murky depths of some untold sorrows. For a second, I wonder if this is the same Osmond, or Ousmane, who I'd met shucking oysters a few days ago. As it turns out, it's his older brother; he'd come to Manda for the day to do some work. When I ask him what sort of work, he just looks at me. After some minutes we see a white boat puttering across the channel. The captain gives a cheery wave, as if it's a fine day indeed to be standing on the beach. By the time I get back to the Stopover, I'm soaked through to the bone.
With the week dragging on, it feels like I've hardly made any progress on my story. Frustrated, feeling both physically and spiritually sopping wet, I take a boat to Lamu town one morning to get some comments from local officials. The rain is coming down in sheets, wind-blown, practically horizontal; the crude gutters that run through the town are brimming with gray rain water and unspeakable things. I track down the District Commissioner and the area's tourism chief, filling my notebook with government-cleared assurances and platitudes. Waiting for Chief Jamal Fankupi, the principal chief of the entire coast region, the mud caked to my ankles, my shirt musty and fungal, I begin to wonder whether I should've made the trip at all.
It is a long wait. The principal chief is behind a closed door, entertaining the beseechers and supplicants. News clippings taped to the doorway sing his praises. "Kenya's sole principal chief key in Faza," reads one headline. A boy with a skull cap fusses with a beaded bracelet, the name "Abdul" worked into the design. Sitting on the bench beside me, a man in a kikoy takes a call; his ring tone chimes "We Wish You a Merry Christmas." Sandals scuff the floor, beat-up fishermen's feet, women in bejeweled slippers with henna tattoos up to their ankles. The roof is a tin awning held up by rough wooden crossbeams; weather stains distress the walls, the thin layers of Crown paint no match for the tropical climate. We sit and wait. Overhead a tangle of wires and cords spills from an electrical box, as if a very large and complicated bird's nest has been yanked apart by a strong hand. The sound of sandals clopping heavily up the concrete stairs. A boy in bluejeans, an umbrella tucked beneath his arm, carries a bucket of hard-boiled eggs, chopped tomatoes and onions. For ten cents he will crack and peel the shell; you sprinkle the piri-piri yourself.
The door opens, and the askari raises his eyebrows toward me. Chief Jamal is ready to see me. The paramount chief sits behind his desk – a tall tower of a man, seven feet plus – his face handsome, dignified, unabashedly skeptical. He has no idea who I am. I introduce myself and describe my assignment on the island, expressing my gratitude that he's decided to receive me on such short notice. Chief Jamal Fankupi is perhaps the most powerful man in Lamu – the only paramount chief in Kenya, a man who presides over the full length of the coastal region, from the Somali border to Tanzania. Even before we've gotten past the preliminaries a man barges in, bent at the waist, making small supplicatory gestures. He has come a long way, he says, to greet the chief. Chief Jamal receives and dismisses him with a single nod, then inclines his head toward me.
I put a few questions to him about the kidnappings, and the government's response to them. The voice that comes from his mouth is deep and methodical. He describes the increased security measures that have been put in place in Lamu, the commitment of government officials, the hosannahs of the locals who are, he assures me, completely satisfied with the efforts of their elected leaders. "They have seen it for themselves, what the government is doing," he says. It is like speaking to a press release. We dance around thusly for a few minutes, me making little inscrutable journalistic scrawls in my notebook, the paramount chief making a tent out of his long, slender fingers, as if imploring me to get to the point. Finally, I ask him whether he's concerned about reports pointing toward local involvement in the kidnappings. Is anything being done, I ask, to root out local sympathizers of Al Shabaab? The paramount chief gives me a look. "Since the investigation is still being carried on, we cannot tell that without the finish of the investigation," he tells me. He rests his big hands on the desk: they look like they could crush walnuts, or reporters. Gathering my things, I ask if he thinks the island is safe.
"It cannot happen again," he says. "It cannot happen again. It cannot happen again. And I repeat that. And it will never happen again."
I stand and extend my hand across the desk.
"Inshallah," I say.


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Encuentra y reserva alojamientos únicos en Airbnb
Los huéspedes están de acuerdo: estas estadías están muy valoradas por su ubicación, limpieza y otros aspectos.
Sleep among the treetops at Treefrog Tower!Treefrog Tower offers a truly unique Outer Banks getaway, nestled in the trees of a private 9 acre pine forest on the border Jockey's Ridge State Park. You may literally walk out our driveway to 450 acres of hiking trails, sound-side beaches, kayaking, kiteboarding, etc. It's a 3-minute drive to the nearest beach access and some favorite local restaurants. The cozy location offers total privacy, facing into the woods with windows everywhere for lots of treetop filtered sunshine.
Golf course location near beach1 bedroom, 1 bath apartment with private entrance on golf course. Close to beach, shopping, and restaurants. We are 550 yards from beach so you can walk to beach or use free parking at beach accesses close by. You do have to cross the main highway so with summer traffic it is a little harder but some people still choose to walk. Close to Wright Brothers National Park. During the summer we do require a 2 night minimum.
Modern Studio King Bed Kayaks & Bikes Dogs OKModern sound side studio. Access to upstairs decks & sunrise views. Sleeps 2-3 with king bed & sofa. Walk/bike to the beach&sound. 2 bikes, kayaks, SUP. Dogs OK $35 per dog (NO CATS). Quiet neighborhood with bike paths 100 yards away along the sound. WE ARE NOT Directly on the WATER. Ocean is 1/2 mile, bike or 8-10 minute walk (must cross hwy).Full size fridge, microwave,coffee maker,Keurig,blender,toaster oven, gas grill, smart TV. If unavailable click our profile for other properties we offer!


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Oil-rich Saudi Arabia has around seven million foreign workers who are sending home 70 billion riyals ($18.6 billion) a year, a senior Saudi official said in a newspaper report published Saturday, April 21.
"There are seven million foreign workers in the kingdom. Their total remittances every year reach 70 billion riyals. This sum will drop once more nationals enter the market," Social Affairs and Labor Minister Ali Al-Namlah told Okaz daily.
The Saudi government has launched a campaign to reduce the number of expatriates in the country by hiking fees on their recruitment and offering incentives for nationals to work in the private sector.
The fees will go into a special fund that has been set up to help "nationalize" jobs in the kingdom, whose population of Saudi nationals stands at around 16 million. — (AFP, Riyadh)
© Agence France Presse 2001
© 2001 Mena Report (www.menareport.com)


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This Prescription Drug Savings Program (the "Program") is administered by EnvisionRxOptions (the "Program Administrator"). The Program Administrator has negotiated discounts and dispensing fees with a network of participating pharmacies, and has contracted with the sponsor of the Program named on your card (the "Program Sponsor") to provide access to discounted drugs by cardholders through the participating pharmacies. No portion of the drug cost or dispensing fees for drugs purchased by cardholders under the Program is paid by the Program Sponsor or Program Administrator.
Cardholders are advised to check this website periodically for program updates. Contact the toll-free number on your card for more information or inquiries.


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