Christine Lagarde Gains Support For IMF Role From Middle East & Asia

The French finance minister, Christine Lagarde has won support from a number of new countries which include the United Arab Emirates, Indonesia and Egypt in her bid to become head of the International Monetary Fund.

Government officials in the respective countries spoke at the weekend saying that she is the best candidate. This news came after Stanley Fischer, the Governor of the Bank of Israel announced joining the IMF presidential race. The 3rd candidate looking to become head of the International Monetary Fund is Mexico’s central bank governor, Augustin Carstens.

Ms Lagarde embarked on a quick tour of the Middle East and Asia after rumours emerged that emerging market countries were looking for a non-European to be appointed to the IMF post. After a meeting with Ms Lagarde in Cairo, Egypt’s foreign minister Nabil al-Arabi told the media “The Egyptian government supports the candidacy of French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde for the post of managing director of the IMF.”

Indonesia’s Finance Minister Agus Martowardojo also offered support for his French counterpart saying, “Personally I support France.She’s a professional person, very skilful in interacting between organisations, has high integrity and expertise.”

Mr Carstens is looking to gain support from developing nations saying that they should have a louder voice within the IMF after announcing his candidacy, saying “A unique, unplanned and possibly once-in-a-lifetime opportunity has arisen to run for the head of the International Monetary Fund, which after consideration, I decided I wanted to pursue,” even though Carstens is 2 years over the current age limit for IMF leaders.

Maple Group Joined By 4 Financial Partners In TMX Bid

Maple Group Acquisition Corp has been joined by 4 additional financial institutions in its hostile bid for TMX Group, topping the friendly offer from the London Stock Exchange Group.

Dundee Capital Markets, GMP Capital Inc.,Manulife Financial and Desjardins Financial Group have agreed to join Maple’s C$3.6 billion bid for the operator of Canada’s main bourse. Maple Group which is named after the country’s maple leaf symbol said its offer is more financially beneficial than the all stock bid from the London Stock Exchange worth circa $3.4 billion, with the additional advantage of keeping the ownership of TMX within the country.

Maple’s original banking members are the Bank of Nova Scotia, National Bank of Canada, Toronto Dominion Bank and the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce as well as 5 pension funds which included Caisse de depot et placement du Quebec, Alberta Investment Management Corp, Fonds de solidarite des travailleurs du Quebec, Canada Pension Plan Investment Board and the Ontario Teachers Pension Plan Board.

Maple has less than 2 and a half weeks to convince investors its ‘all Canadian’ offer is better for the Canada’s capital markets, as shareholders will vote on the TMX-LSE deal on June 30th.

Monique Leroux, CEO of Desjardins which is Canada’s largest cooperative financial group said, “We believe Maple’s vision … includes a real commitment to further Montreal’s position as a centre of financial excellence.”

Mercedes Announce Next Generation ML

Mercedes have announced details of the revised ML, the 3rd generation of the vehicle which remains very close to the established formula that has made the model successful as well as adding improvements over its predecessors.

Mercedes have had to address the environmental performance of their big SUV vehicle which modern day opinion demands and will offer the new ML with a brand new 4 cylinder diesel which will allow the car to travel more than 900 miles on a single tank of fuel as well as a variety of petrol and diesel variants that will offer improved economy.

The new ML shares the same architecture as Jeep’s Grand Cherokee although the wheelbase and kerb weight will remain virtually unchanged from the current model. Although Mercedes have not confirmed the final specs for UK models it is widely expected that the new ML will feature additional features and improved safety as well as noise insulation.

Mercedes will release a hybrid version of the ML later on in the year but for now the green credentials will be championed by the ML250 Bluetec, the 4 cylinder twin turbo producing 201 bhp and 368lb ft of torque and replacing the old 300CDI V6 model which produced the same power but the new model using 28% less fuel. Mercedes will also offer the ML350 Bluetec which uses a V6 diesel engine and produces 254bhp allowing the ML to get to 62mph in 7.4 seconds. Mercedes expect the ML250 Bluetec to account for over 30% of European sales.

IBM Create Ultra Thin High Speed Graphene Circuits

IBM have announced that it has successfully designed very quick circuits from graphene, an incredibly thin material that will allow a number of promising applications which includes flat screen television displays, smartphones and high bandwidth communication.

Researchers from the company have reported the circuit advance in the Journal Science and it is known as a broadband frequency mixer built on a wafer of silicon. The circuits are largely used in all number of communication products where they transfer signals from 1 frequency to another.

IBM published the science paper describing how they have placed a number of layers of graphene on a silicon wafer and then created circuits based on graphene components known as inductors. The research team have managed to demonstrate frequency mixing up to speeds of 10 gigahertz.

This step forward however does not mean that graphene transistors are ready to replace today’s CMOS transistors which are the basis for today’s microprocessors and computer memory chips in consumer electronics systems, as graphene does not possess the same physical properties as current semiconducting materials.

Korea and the European Union have recently invested $1.5 billion in efforts to use graphene as the next generation display material.

The president of Envisoneering Inc., Richard Doherty said “It allows you to tame a spectrum that before was the wild, wild West.” For example, it might make possible a new class of Wi-Fi-style communications gear for wireless applications, or allow set-top cable boxes to be redesigned to send and receive ever-larger amounts of high-resolution video and data.

Scientists Stumble Across Reason Why Smokers Gain Weight When Quitting

Researchers at Yale University have stumbled across the scientific reason why many smokers look skinny and more interestingly why many people who smoke and then quit gain weight.

Yann Maneur, an associate research scientist at Yale said, “Interestingly, initially we were not looking into feeding behavior but depression.We were trying to find new drugs to treat depression. And as I was testing these new drugs I realized the animals were not eating as much.”

Maneur and his research team were testing nicotine when they came across an unexpected effect, “We found that nicotine, when it enters the brain, activates specific nicotine receptors that are located on specific neurons known to decrease feeding and increase energy expenditure when activated.”

Nicotine the scientists discovered triggers a brain pathway that tells you that you have had enough and to stop eating while at the same time signalling the body to start using up some energy.

Maneur has warned however that smoking should not be advocated and that there are alternatives that could create the same effect. Maneur went onto to explain that there is potential for “drugs to mimic this effect to help people maybe lose weight. Or even better, when people try to quit smoking they could use drugs that are already available and known to trigger this pathway in order to potentially limit their weight gain.”

Weston Cage In Psychiatric Hold Following Violent Incident

The son of Nicholas Cage is set to be released from an L.A. hospital this weekend after staying there on a psychiatric hold following a violent incident outside a restaurant in Hollywood on Tuesday.

Weston Cage’s mother, Christina Fulton has requested that her son who is 20 years old be kept at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center for an additional 2 weeks. “I do not want him with Nicolas Cage,” Fulton said. “I do not want him in that care. That is not the care my son needs.”

Fulton is currently suing Nicholas Cage over a number of financial issues which include unpaid taxes and the Hollywood home where she raised Weston who according to court documents suffers from “a number of mental, psychological and physical ailments.”

Weston Cage made a statement which was delivered by his father’s lawyer saying that he didn’t want his mother involved in his care at all. “I am an adult,” Weston Cage said. “I don’t want to have anything to do with my mother. Any problems that I have ever had is because of the relationship that I had with my mother.”

Fulton replied to the statement saying “My son is under a spell, he’s under a trance,Weston would say whatever his dad wants him to say.It’s his dad’s fault that he’s in the hospital.He had his chance. He had his chance to make it right. My son had a healthy environment here. He had a system that was fantastic. I built that with myself and my team.”

Mavericks Win NBA Finals Game 5 Against Heat

The Dallas Mavericks moved to within 1 game of clinching the NBA finals with a 112-103 win over the Miami Heat in game 5 on Thursday.

The Mavericks had their 1st good shooting game of the series which they lead 3-2, hitting 65.7% of shots from the floor in the 1st half and an overall game shooting percentage of 56.5%. From beyond the 3 point arc Dallas hit 13 of 19, recording an impressive 68.4% 3 point success rate.

Nowitzki had a steady evening scoring 29 points as the Mavs had 5 players score 13 or more points with Jason Terry having a huge 4th quarter finishing up with 21 points. Terry managed to score 8 points down the stretch with 3:23 remaining in the game, whilst importantly the Heat were held to just 4 points in the final 4:36 of the game.

The Mavs centre Tyson Chandler managed to draw a charge from James immediately after his team regained the lead proving a decisive defensive play. Nowitzki and Terry managed to keep the Mavs on course to see out the game with a 9 point advantage.

It seems coincidental that the 2 players that caused the most damage to the Miami Heat in game 5, Dirk Nowitzki and Jason Terry are the only 2 remaining players on the Mavericks team that suffered a cruel collapse against the Miami Heat in the 2006 NBA Finals, losing 4 straight games after winning the 1st 2 in the series finals.

S&P 500 & Dow Head For 6th Straight Weekly Decline

The 2 most significant indices in the U.S., the S&P 500 and the Dow were heading for their 6th straight weekly drop on Friday, the longest consecutive fall since midway through 2008 due to the concerns raised by China’s weaker trade data and Greece’s potential 2nd bailout helping to slow the global economic recovery.

The previous day had seen a 6 day losing streak broken with a stock market rally but the gains were short confirming many analysts expectations. The Nasdaq lost its yearly gains earlier in the trading session and late on the Dow just managed to breach the 12,000 level.

The majority of stocks that advanced on Thursday, many cyclical stocks in the financial and commodity sectors resumed their decline as a number of economic reports published fell below expectations and prompted investors to shy away from risk assets.

The S&P 500 was around 7% lower than the intraday highs it reached in early May and many investors believe that the index will drop to around the 1,250 level, its March low where valuations will be low enough to tempt investors back into equities.

Robert Lutts, president and CIO of Cabot Money Management said “Could sellers overwhelm the buyers for awhile? It’s possible, but once we get down to the correction level in March, I think the market will hold.”

Wal-Mart To Introduce Smaller Express Stores

Wal-Mart have announced that it is going to test a small-store format named Wal-Mart Express, aimed at the urban and rural areas that lack any nearby grocery stores.

The first store to use the prototype format is scheduled to open next week in Gentry and it is 15 to 20 feet tall and has room for 45 parking spaces, a big departure from the usual Wal-Mart superstore model that has high ceilings and huge parking areas.

Later on this year the company will look to test the express store format with 2 sites in Chicago. By the end of 2011, Wal-Mart will have 15 Express stores across the U.S. according to Anthony Hucker, the company’s VP for strategy and business development. Mr Hucker went onto to say that the express store idea was inspired by Wal-Mart’s small store success in Mexico, Argentina and Brazil.

An express store will contain around 15,000 square foot of space in contrast to the normal 100,000 square feet of the superstores. Wal-Mart already operate smaller stores of 40,000 square feet that it has called neighborhood market stores.

Analysts at Janney Capital Markets said in a report just released, “We believe the concept has substantial opportunity to drive incremental sales, the key is finding a model with acceptable returns.”

VW Show Off Golf R Cabriolet At Tuning Festival

VW has revealed an R version of its latest Golf convertible at it’s Worthersee tuning event in Austria. The Volkswagen Golf R Cabriolet concept features the same 4 cylinder turbocharged petrol engine as the hard topped 3 and 5 door R versions.

Although no exact figures have been released for the Golf R Cabriolet, the company have said that it will get to 62mph from rest in under 6 seconds and go on to reach a top speed of 155mph, the same speed that the majority of German luxury models are restricted to but also a speed making the sporting cabriolet the fastest Golf cabrio ever made.

The vehicle has a ‘sports chassis’ which sits 25mm lower than the standard Cabriolet and it is shod with 19 inch Talledega alloy wheels. The car also gets ventilated brake discs and high performance brake calipers.

The interior of the car sees the use of carbon leather with contrastingly coloured Nappa leather, as well as sand-blasted aluminium door sill plates and a carbonfibre trim.

Volkswagen also showed off a GTI version of the Golf Cabriolet at Worthesee but because it was not an official launch event, no production dates or prices have been released yet.