SEC delays plan to adopt IFRS

Rachelle Younglai WASHINGTON Wed Feb 24, 2010 5:02pm EST Related News SEC to consider new short sale curbs next weekFri, Feb 19 2010Japan seeks bigger say on global accounting rulesTue, Feb 9 2010IASB plans no fair value changes for EU-chairmanThu, Jan 28 2010

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Securities regulators on Wednesday delayed plans to allow domestic companies to use international accounting standards because it will take businesses at least four years to switch to new rules.

The soonest companies could start using the International Financial Reporting Standards, or IFRS, would be in 2015 instead of 2014, but even that date is not certain.

The Securities and Exchange Commission is grappling with how to move to one set of high-quality, globally accepted accounting standards.

Under the previous plan, the SEC would have allowed U.S. companies to use the international rules as early as 2014. But industry and investors told the SEC that U.S. companies would need about four to five years to implement the changes successfully, thus pushing the date out to 2015.

A host of issues remain, such as whether the international rules are sufficiently developed, whether the United States is prepared to convert to IFRS and ensuring that the international rules are set by an independent standard setter.

"We do not have all the information necessary to make these decisions today," said SEC Chairman Mary Schapiro at a public agency meeting.

Next year, the SEC will decide whether to incorporate IFRS into the financial reporting system. The agency will only proceed if it is satisfied that progress is being made on issues such as improving IFRS.

The U.S. audit and business community said it was pleased that the SEC reiterated support for a single set of high-quality global accounting standards. However, the vagueness of the plan frustrated some foreign accountants.

"The current cautious approach does not offer the much-needed certainty required by U.S. companies and the many jurisdictions still in the process of making final decisions about switching to IFRS reporting," said the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales.

U.S. companies are required to use U.S. Generally Accepted Accounting Principles, or U.S. GAAP, which are considered more prescriptive than the international rules.

Meanwhile, the rest of the world is adopting the international standards, which could potentially leave the United States and global companies at a disadvantage if they have to comply with two sets of rules.

Financial centers such as Hong Kong and the European Union already require international accounting rules.

(Reporting by Rachelle Younglai; Editing by Andre Grenon and Steve Orlofsky)

Viewers go cold on Winter Olympics as Canadas TV ratings destroy to review to Turin

After sending 22 more staff to the Winter Olympics than there areathletes in the British team, the BBC must have had high hopes for itscoverage.

But despite their efforts, TV ratings for this year"s event are well down on the previous games.

The number of viewers for the event in Vancouver has dropped by an average of 1.4million on the 2006 games in Turin.

Paula Walker and Kelly Thomas compete in the women"s bobsleigh. The BBC sent more staff to Vancouver than Great Britain had athletes competing

The event had been due to take place on Saturday, February 13 but the competition was delayed by two days because of adverse weather conditions, meaning schedules were changed.

Last week, viewers complained that there was not enough coverage of the actual sport and too many reporters "chatting".

The BBC has defended its staffing levels at the games pointing out it was expanding its coverage to 160 hours on network and providing around 2,000 hours of interactive coverage.

Marrying my cousin equates to I dont have to understanding with a mother-in-law

Case study: Will Pavia and Ruth Lewy & , : {}

Khurshid Drabu initial met his cousin Reefat in Kashmir in 1969. It was some-more identical to a hermit and sister attribute at that point, he said. I was 23. My wife-to-be was 21.

Their dual fathers were brothers, their particular mothers were sisters: the dual couples had tied together on Jul 10, 1944, in a encampment in the plateau of Kashmir, the brides nearing on horseback from Srinagar.

The dual brothers went to university in Lahore in the years prior to Partition. My father accomplished his law grade in 1947 and managed to get behind to India, he said. Her father was still investigate disinfectant and got stranded in Pakistan.

Neither family could revisit the alternative until Mr Drabus uncle changed to Britain and set up a healing use in Manchester. From there, in 1969, his family could transport to Kashmir, where Khurshid and Reefat met for the initial time.

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Two years after that Mr Drabus uncle sponsored him to transport to Britain and investigate for the club at the University of Manchester, where his daughter was investigate medicine.

Suddenly I saw her in a opposite light, he said. After a month and a half he told her how he felt. I said, You are the lady for me. What do you say?

He thinks that people might be captivated to those who see identical to them. I think that contingency be right, he said. There is a chemistry there.

They tied together in Sep 1973, and have 4 full of health young kids and 4 grandchildren. He dismisses the thought of a higher risk of genetic problems between the young kids of initial cousins, though he accepts it might be a cause if it happens over most generations.

His own young kids have tied together opposite cultures: his new in-laws are Turkish, Dutch, Scottish and English. There is one combined good to marrying ones cousin, he said. I dont have a full of blood mother-in-law to understanding with and have jokes about. Just an aunt twice over.

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Candy brothers to pile-up Grosvenor House sale

Jenny Davey and Matthew Goodman & , : {}

THE Candy brothers, skill developers to the super-rich, are staid to come in the behest conflict for the Grosvenor House road residence on Londons Park Lane.

The five-star road residence is owned by Royal Bank of Scotland, the state-backed bank. It has allocated skill agents at CB Richard Ellis to proceed offered the property, that overlooks Hyde Park. RBS is anticipating to sell it for some-more than 500m.

Nick and Christian Candy, who are offered One Hyde Park, Londons majority costly residential scheme, are thought to be operative on the bid plans in partnership with an Asian monetary backer.

The brothers, whose clients embody Kylie Minogue and Gwyneth Paltrow, are accepted to have shown seductiveness in shopping a serviced unit retard subsequent doorway to Grosvenor House.

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Property experts pronounced they hold the Candy brothers wish to buy the apartments and the road residence to emanate a hulk oppulance residential intrigue for the über-wealthy.

Detailed monetary report about the hotel, that is operated by Marriott, will be sent out during the subsequent couple of weeks to intensity buyers.

RBS has invested about 135m in the Grosvenor House, refurbishing guest bedrooms and adding 48 additional rooms. The Great Room can residence functions for some-more than 2,000 guest and is continually used for endowment ceremonies and corporate dinners.

The construction was once one of the largest in isolation houses in Mayfair and the site was the home of the Duke of Westminster and the Grosvenor family.

It was in the familys receive until the initial universe war, when the supervision requested it for state use. After the fight the Grosvenors motionless it was as well intemperate to say so it was sole and incited in to a hotel.

RBS took carry out in 2001 when it paid 1.2 billion for twelve Le Meridien hotels as piece of a sale and leaseback understanding that was used by Nomura, the Japanese bank, to financial the 1.9 billion merger of Le Meridien from Compass.

RBS is right away offered the road residence to money in on rising skill values, as it seeks to tell large portions of the skill portfolio.

+ The association run by the maestro hotelier Sir Rocco Forte available a 35.8m loss in the year to Apr 2009, according to the ultimate accounts.

The waste at the company, that not long ago renegotiated the lending arrangements with Lloyds Banking Group, were due in piece to write-downs compared with skill valuations and toilsome leases totalling 21m.

The organisation lost 10.5m the prior year. Forte pronounced that traffic was improving. Sales were up 10% this month compared with Feb 2009.

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US daredevil smashes Evil Knievels Harley-Davidson burst jot down (includes video)

Rhoda Buchanan & , : {}

A motorcycle stuntman currently pennyless the universe jot down for the longest area jumped on a motorcycle twice in one hour after the media longed for the initial death-defying leap.

American Seth Enslow was due to try the attempt at 9:30am, but instead took off at 8:45am drifting 175ft (53.34m) on his Harley-Davidson XR1200.

But usually a third of the approaching media had arrived so the stuntman was forced to repeat the burst nearby Australias Sydney Harbour.

Second time around he extended his lead by a serve 8.7 feet (2.6m) - sailing by the air for 183.7ft (56m) to mangle the prior 11-year-old record, once hold by mythological daredevil Evel Knievel, by some-more than twenty-five feet.

This is awesome! Im stoked! Enslow pronounced after entering the jot down books.

The heavily tattooed stuntman, a star of the Crusty Demons motorbike troupe, hold his arm and grimaced after alighting awkwardly on the second jump, but did not humour any critical injury, a mouthpiece said.

I think the only the approach he landed but the zero as well drastic, as far as Im aware, she said.

Enslow has a repute for eventful universe jot down attempts. When he attempted to mangle the altogether area jot down behind in 1999, roving a made to order Honda bike, he overshot his alighting ramp and crushed his head opposite the handlebars of his bike, abrasive his eye socket.

Bubba Blackwell set the prior jot down for the longest area jumped in 1999 with a 157 feet (47.85 meters) burst in Las Vegas, after violation Knievel"s jot down set in 1975.

Knievel had formerly privileged fourteen buses on a Harley XR-750 at Kings Island, Ohio, only a couple of months after famously crashing at Londons Wembley Stadium.

Lily Allen: Why we contingency save BBC 6 Music Media The Guardian

Lily Allen. Photograph: Samir Hussein/Getty Images

The BBC is an extraordinary establishment when tranquil by the right people. Unfortunately I think it"s going by a really apocalyptic proviso at the moment.

We"re in the runup to a ubiquitous choosing in that it"s seeking increasingly expected that David Cameron will be the budding minister, and I think that whatever decisions are being finished right away are being finished so with a perspective to who will be in assign of the nation this time subsequent year.

If you see at all that"s happened in the last year or so at the BBC – with Russell Brand, with Jonathan Ross, with losses – you can"t assistance but feel that they are frightened of receiving risks. What is function right away reflects a huge, politically encouraged reshuffle.

It will be horrible if they do confirm to close BBC 6 Music, and I goal that the recoil they"ve perceived so far will have them think twice. Clearly it will go on to means an uproar, that is the last thing the BBC want. Perhaps they weren"t awaiting this turn of seductiveness in a niche station. I review that they wish to deposit in peculiarity over quantity, but how does that have sense? If they close 6 Music, instead of acts similar to Seasick Steve and presenters similar to Lauren Laverne, it will be the Pussycat Dolls and Fearne Cotton on Radio 1. The usually approach this preference will be savoury is if they soak up the elements of BBC 6 Music that set upon a chord with the open in to one of their alternative channels, such as Radio 2.

That would meant creation a joining to showcasing new and unsigned bands, not only bands on vital labels, and giving space to bands who haven"t got a height anywhere else, not only the subsequent hyped act. But overtly I don"t feel really carefree that this will happen. Closing BBC 6 Music is bad headlines for unsigned acts and new British music.

Chinas ultimate mystery: Hu Jintao and the declining micro-blog

Jane Macartney in Beijing & , : {}

Chinas President dismayed the internet at the week end by opening a micro-blog the Chinese homogeneous of Twitter.

Fascinated netizens began signing up at the rate of some-more than ten people a minute. But a day after the comment of Hu Jintao disappeared.

A short pro-forma note this sunrise on the dull site, hosted by the Communist Party spokesman Peoples Daily Online, pronounced simply: This object cannot be found, the writer might have erased it.

That fails to insist the poser of the presidents blank micro-blog.

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Did the famously discreet personality of 1.3 billion people confirm he wasnt ready for such open interaction? Has he assimilated the ranks of those censored by the Great Firewall of China? Was it a box of temperament theft? Had the Peoples Daily unsuccessful to lift out the correct checks? Or was it a elementary computer error?

A journal inform on the remarkable disappearance offering dual central explanations. One was that the site simply crashed underneath the assault of 1,000 people an hour signing up to follow President Hus micro-blog.

The second was that a new ascent combined an involuntary micro-blog for any one who had purebred their temperament in the Peoples Daily chatroom as the boss did for an online review with the open on Jun 20, 2008.

A notice on the website pronounced all Strong Country VIP accounts were at the moment dangling to concede acknowledgment of the identities.

Whatever the case, the result is a serious annoyance for Peoples Daily Online. Today, would-be micro-bloggers were incompetent to register new accounts, at slightest for the moment, notwithstanding the notice that pronounced users were still acquire notwithstanding the strong overkill the day before.

Registered supporters of President Hu will be disappointed. He had nonetheless to post a singular blog prior to the site disappeared.

His micro-blog had been reliable as genuine, according to the Global Times an English-language announcement underneath the Peoples Daily.

Perhaps users should have been alerted to intensity problems by the deficiency of a photograph. Instead, micro-blogger Hu Jintao was represented simply by the animation light-bulb used by those reluctant or incompetent to pulp up a self-portrait.

His blog had been listed as @hujintao. It gave his temperament as General Secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, Chinese President and Chairman of the Central Military Commission.

The pretension was roughly as prolonged as a singular entry. By the time the micro-blog left it had gained some-more than 16,000 supporters and a thousand-plus comments, most of that were adulatory.

Blogger Shao Mingbo wrote on Sunday: "I will keep watchful tonight to see who can be the initial propitious supporter of the account." An hour later, a blogger declared "feiquanmingqin" was hailed as the initial supporter of President Hu"s micro-blog and wrote "Calm down, ease down as others offering congratulations.

Another voiced disappointment, saying: "It"s a empathize he hasn"t created anything yet.

Some had even asked either the boss would concede Twitter criminialized in China to reappear.

It looks as if they will be watchful utterly a little time for a twitter from that sold micro-blogger.