Ford's Rough Ride in Europe Continues

It isn't getting any better for Ford (NYSE: F??) in the Old World: Ford's European branch posted a sobering 27% year-over-year sales decline for December, as market conditions in the region continued to be grim.

Ford's decline was steeper than some of its major rivals' ? notably market-leader Volkswagen (NASDAQOTH: VLKAY??) , which saw sales drop 14.5% ? as the Blue Oval's reluctance to offer deep discounts continued to cost it with bargain-hunting consumers.

Ford wasn't alone: General Motors' (NYSE: GM??) decline was as steep as Ford's. And at least for Ford, there were a few bright spots of note.

Small bright spots in a big grim picture
Ford's PR folks did the best?they could with the bleak news, and they managed to point out some legitimate bright (or at least not quite as dark) spots for 2012 as a whole:

• Ford held on to second place for the year. Ford was Europe's second-best-selling car brand in Europe in 2012 for the fifth year running, trailing only VW.
• A gain in the U.K. Sales in the United Kingdom were up 3% over 2011. (In the context of Europe, that's a huge increase.) Ford continues to be the best-selling car and commercial vehicle brand in the U.K., positions it has held for decades.
• Russia continues to be a bright spot for Ford. Sales were up 10.8% in 2012, paced by the hot-selling Focus compact, which Ford builds locally at a factory near St. Petersburg. Russia is now Ford's third-largest European market, after the U.K. and Germany.

Of course, the overall picture is still brutal, though Ford is mostly holding its own: Market share for the 19 countries Ford counts as "Europe" was 7.9% for the year, down 0.4 percentage points. Still, with the overall European auto market at its lowest levels since 1995, that's faint praise.

When Ford announces its full-year 2012 financial results later this month, it's widely expected that losses in Europe will total roughly $1.5 billion for the year. Worse, Ford said back in October ? and reiterated this week ? that those losses aren't going to end anytime soon. The company expects 2013's bottom-line results to look a lot like 2012's.

Already, though, Ford is laying the groundwork for a solid recovery.

A turnaround is unfolding... slowly
Ford's plan for a return to profitability in Europe has several components, including factory closings and a marketing shift, but a big part of the plan involves new products. Unlike in the U.S., where Ford offers everything from small cars to big trucks, the company's European model lineup has traditionally been limited ? essentially just a few cars and a couple of vans.

That's changing. Several new-to-Europe models drawn from Ford's global product portfolio are on the way, including the Edge SUV and the Mustang, as Ford seeks to capture incremental sales gains from product categories it hasn't traditionally contested in the region.

Ford is also planning to launch a bunch of new or heavily revised products in 2013, including updated versions of the Fiesta, the Transit commercial vans, and the Kuga (an SUV that is identical to the U.S.-market Escape), as well as the EcoSport, a small Fiesta-based SUV originally developed for emerging markets.

The upshot: Grim news will continue, but Ford's on the case
There's no way around it: 2013 is going to be ugly for Ford in Europe. Analysts expect overall European auto sales to fall again in 2013, and with Ford committed to restraint in the price wars that have caught up rivals like VW and Fiat, further sales declines seem all but inevitable.

Ford is taking a longer-term view, though. Avoiding steep discounts preserves the company's margins and pricing power ? as well as residual values of Ford's cars as they age. While reducing production capacity to sustainable levels and expanding the regional product line will take some time to complete, the company's commitment to decisive action should be reassuring for shareholders ? even as the losses continue for several more quarters.

Ford has been a longtime selection of Motley Fool co-founder David Gardner, helping lead his stock picks to gains of more than?113%?in our?Stock Advisor?service since it launched in 2002. Those returns have beaten the market by more than 87%. David has managed to trounce the market by always being on?the lookout for revolutionary stocks?and recommending them before Wall Street catches on to their disruptive potential. If you're interested in how David discovers his winners,?click here to get instant access?to a personal tour behind David's?Supernova?service.

Source: http://feeds.fool.com/~r/usmf/foolwatch/~3/1DH2r9C_4_o/story01.htm

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Remaining NFL teams worthy of our trust against the number

The San Diego Chargers did not qualify for the postseason, but I felt like I was watching them during the divisional round playoff games.

If you?ve ever gambled, you?re familiar with the Chargers of the last six years. Norv Turner on the sideline. Philip Rivers under center. A duo that was never worthy of your trust and would never deliver when you thought you had them solved. With Turner ? who was fired at the conclusion of the regular season ? and Rivers at the helm, you could always rely on mistakes and letdowns.

It was erratic, Chargers-like football that made me think three of the four divisional round competitors had lightning bolts on their helmets. The Broncos could have been hosting the AFC Championship game this weekend, but bowed out after playing not to lose. The Falcons advanced despite not being able to cover a 2?-point number ? and they were leading, 27-7, at the beginning of the fourth quarter. And I knew the Texans, even with a 9?-point head start, were doomed when their long return of the opening kickoff wasn?t converted into a touchdown.

I?m here to deliver hope, though. The remaining four teams have won a combined 51 games outright and have gone 38-29-2 against the spread. Three of them ? New England, Baltimore, and San Francisco ? reached conference championship games last season.

These clubs have r?sum?s worthy of our trust. Now we?ll make a case for two of them.

This week?s picks (home team in caps):

ATLANTA (+4) over San Francisco: According to Pregame.com, the Falcons are the biggest home underdog of any No. 1 seed in any round of the playoffs since the NFL expanded to 10 playoff teams in 1978. The 49ers may be a Super Bowl team, but Atlanta has the offensive weapons to hang around and cover against any opponent. Looking back at recent conference championship games, this matchup reminds me of New Orleans hosting Minnesota in January 2010. The Saints were favored by 4 and won by a field goal. I like a lot about San Francisco, but I like those points even more. Risking $165 to win $150.

NEW ENGLAND (-9) over Baltimore: The Ravens are lucky to be in this position. Denver?s unwillingness to put away Baltimore was baffling, but New England will experience no such hesitation. Risking $165 to win $150.

Last week: 1-3, minus $285. Season: 37-35-1, plus $132.

Get two weeks of FREE unlimited access to BostonGlobe.com. No credit card required.Ed Ryan can be reached at ed_ryan@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @EdzoRyan.

Source: http://feeds.boston.com/click.phdo?i=dea2dc826e148fbbc1fefda9c0af3d00

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Movie review: Anna Karenina | canada.com

Anna Karenina

3? stars out of 5

Starring: Keira Knightley, Jude Law, Aaron Taylor-Johnson

Directed by: Joe Wright

Running time: 130 minutes

Parental guidance: Adult themes

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There are moments in Joe Wright?s exquisitely artificial remounting of Anna Karenina when Keira Knightley stares at the camera in passionate close-up and we are invited to drink her in: the lush pout, the soft sculpt of her chin, the promise of her bare shoulders, the yearning in her eyes. It?s a face men might ruin lives for.

But that?s not all there is to Knightley. The actress, who has served as a kind of muse to Wright (Atonement, Pride and Prejudice) also arrives with a slouch and a crooked smile: It?s a face men with ruined lives might also have second thoughts about.

And so it is with Anna, a married woman in Leo Tolstoy?s vast love story who surrenders to forbidden desires and lives to regret them. It has been turned into a film that seems to be afraid of its passions and therefore mounts them behind glass: Anna Karenina is filmed as if it was a play into which we have been invited backstage to see the hidden workings of its artifice. Screenwriter Tom Stoppard may be commenting on the theatre of Imperial Russia ? filmed with sumptuous glitter, flickering lamps and embroidered excess ? or the theatre of desire itself. ?Love,? an older woman says to Anna on a train (a toy, chugging through an artificial field of snow). ?Is it love?? Anna asks. ?Always,? the woman says.

Anna is married to cold and proper bureaucrat Alexei Karenin (Jude Law, hiding behind a goatee and receding hairline) in St. Petersburg, but goes off to Moscow to attend to the adultery afflicting her sister Dolly (Kelly Macdonald). In Moscow, she comes under the spell of the dashing cavalry officer Vronsky (Aaron Taylor-Johnson, who seems hardly less prissy than Karenin), and they become the scandal of the steppes.

?Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way,? Tolstoy wrote, and the film applies the principle to love affairs. Vronsky and Anna ? she in a black dress ? fall in love while dancing, a trope so familiar that Wright turns it into a piece of framed performance, with Vronsky and Anna sweeping across a floor of aristocrats frozen into a tableau of formalized privilege. Wright extends the choreography to other key events: A horse race rushes across the stage of a theatre; government workers raise and lower their arms together to stamp documents.

The formalized structure works only if we feel the proscenium burned away by the heat of attraction. But unlike the melodrama of the 1935 version with Greta Garbo, which was designed to melt your heart, this version runs cool. Knightley is at once regal and gawky ? you half expect her to raise the hem of one of her lush dresses and kick a soccer ball ? and Taylor-Johnson seems half-formed and callow. ?Oh, to be young again,? Anna says. ?Shrouded by that blue mist.? But the mist seems too ephemeral to be real.

Anna and Vronsky are meant to be a contrast to Anna?s brother Oblonsky (Matthew Macfadyen), who wears his adultery lightly and complains that in a long marriage ?you find yourself a martyr to distraction.? His unfaithfulness is shallow and selfish but at least he seems to be enjoying life.

Anna Karenina is a tragic story about breaking the rules and the lavish punishments ? cut dead at the opera, disapproved by society ? that result. Wright has turned it into a rich operetta of unhappiness, tinged with hints of social commentary. We barely see the underclasses, and the Russian Revolution was still almost 40 years away, but there?s a proto-socialist hero in the wings.

He is a farmer named Levin (Domhnall Gleeson) who falls in love with Kitty (Alicia Vikander), the woman who lost Vronsky to Anna, and rescues her into a life of propriety and marital happiness. Levin works shoulder to shoulder with his farm workers, scything the crops with the kind of devotion that, decades later, Soviets would put on their propaganda posters. Levin is the future. Anna, alas, is the past.

Source: http://o.canada.com/2012/11/29/movie-review-anna-karenina/

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Ronda Rousey: ?I try to have as much sex as possible before I fight?

UFC/Strikeforce women's bantamweight champion Ronda Rousey appeared on Jim Rome's show on Wednesday. What does the champion use as her training secret? Does she have high-level training methods not available to amateur athletes and workout warriors?

Nope. She likes to have as much sex as possible before fights. Though Mick advised Rocky that women weaken the legs, Rousey believes it has the opposite effect on women.

"For girls it raises your testosterone, so I try to have as much sex as possible before I fight actually. Not with like everybody, I don't put out like a Craigslist ads or anything, but if I got a steady I'm going to be like, 'Yo, fight time's coming up,'" Rousey said.

It clearly works for her. Rousey has steamrolled every opponent she has faced on her way to the championship and a 6-0 record. She's won every fight with a first-round submission, and she recently was named the first woman in the UFC. Though her opponent and the date for her first UFC fight are currently unknown, UFC president Dana White said her bout will be a main event on a pay-per-view.

Rousey is also a two-time Olympian, and she won a bronze medal for judo in 2008. It was a fight before the Beijing Olympics that made her think she could be successful in the cage.

"Yes. I got in a fight with a couple of guys at the end of 2007 in a movie theater. It was four couples so four guys and one girl tried to get into it. And I had two friends with me. But I was only really handling two guys by myself. They sued me for assault because it didn't really go too well for them. I guess if you lose a fight in Santa Monica the next option is to sue. Everyone in the theater was cheering for me. I was thinking I might have a future in this. It was before the whole MMA thing."

Source: http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/mma-cagewriter/ronda-rousey-try-much-sex-possible-fight-171940850--mma.html

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Why did Obama invite Romney to lunch?

President Barack Obama is having Mitt Romney over for lunch on Thursday, and their meeting is already generating a lot of buzz. Here are five theories about the White House?s motives.

cspandebateObama and Romney were bitter rivals in the 2012 presidential campaign, with Obama getting a surprisingly big victory in the Electoral College.

Since then, Romney has stayed out of the spotlight, while Obama said he would invite Romney to the White House at some point.

The pair will have a private meeting for lunch, so there will be no press coverage or a photo opportunity.

So here are five theories that are floating around about the get-together.

1. Obama is extending a common courtesy

In 2008, President-elect Obama met with John McCain on November 17 in Chicago, and there was a photo op with the two men. McCain had lost to Obama, but he was still a U.S. senator.

At the time, McCain said he would ?obviously? help the incoming president, and the former foes issued a statement about bipartisanship.

Conditions are different in 2012, with Romney not holding a Senate position and Obama sitting in office as the incumbent.

We?re also not sure that there is a tradition of losing presidential candidates meeting with incumbent presidents.

The protocol for current presidents meeting with former presidents is entirely different.

You can read excerpts from a book called ?The President?s Club? for a look at how presidents interact.

2. Obama will offer Romney a Cabinet job

That doesn?t seem likely, since Romney is self-supporting financially and has a life outside politics, with 18 grandchildren.

If a job were forthcoming in the new Obama Cabinet, it would have to be approved by the U.S. Senate, with a majority vote.

Since the Senate is controlled by the Democrats, that could get interesting.

Also, as a Cabinet member, Romney would be reporting to Obama, which also would be interesting, given the mutual dislike between the candidates on the campaign trail.

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3. Obama will enlist Romney in the fiscal cliff debate

One issue where the candidates disagreed sharply on the campaign trail was on the fiscal cliff debate.

Romney was not in favor of raising taxes on higher income earners, because he believed it stunted the growth of business and hurt its ability to create jobs.

Obama was critical of Romney?s philosophy about the fiscal cliff, especially his attacks on entitlement spending.

However, one of Romney?s ideas on the campaign trail, a cap of income tax deductions for wealthier Americans, might become part of the negotiations in Congress in December.

Obama had floated out a similar plan in the past, but just after the election, Senate Democrats attached Romney?s name to it, as a way to get the Republicans to discuss it.

?Let?s just say there?s a renewed interest,? said Senator Kent Conrad, Democrat of North Dakota and chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, as reported in The New York Times on November 13. ?Part of it is people reflecting on Obama?s proposal, but when Romney said what he said, it just added fuel.?

4. Obama wants Romney?s advice on business issues

That?s also a distinct possibility, since President Obama praised Romney?s business acumen after the campaign.

?He presented some ideas during the course of the campaign that I actually agree with. And so it?d be interesting to talk to him about something like that. There may be ideas that he has with respect to jobs and growth that can help middle-class families that I want to hear,? Obama said.

Of course, President Obama has scores of business advisers already, including friends in the private sector.

5. Obama wants closure on the 2012 presidential election, or something else?

President Obama said after the election that he was interested in talking with Romney about ways the two men could work together.

He used similar words about John McCain in 2008, after Obama easily defeated the Republican candidate. That didn?t come to pass.

One theory is that Obama could just want to be consistent in how he publicly handles his consecutive wins in 2008 and 2012, and it would be a slight to Romney if he didn?t extend a similar invitation for a sit-down meeting.

But in an editorial in Wednesday?s Washington Post, former Romney strategist Stuart Stevens paints a portrait of Romney as a good man who is a Washington outsider, who was never accepted by the GOP establishment.

?I appreciate that Mitt Romney was never a favorite of D.C.?s Green Room crowd or, frankly, of many politicians. That?s why, a year ago, so few of those people thought he would win the nomination,? Stevens said.

Given that some key Republican leaders criticized Romney for his post-election comments about Obama using ?gifts? to win the election, could Obama approach Romney about some kind of position related to bipartisanship or public service?

As odd as the idea sounds, Romney has made it clear he?s done running for public office, but has no plans to retire.

An Associated Press story earlier this month cited a Romney insider as saying the former candidate had an interest in philanthropic efforts or having a role in future Olympics efforts.

Scott Bomboy is the editor-in-chief of the National Constitution Center.

Also Read

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/five-theories-obama-meeting-romney-100811036.html

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Suicide bomber wounds prominent Pakistani militant

DERA ISMAIL KHAN, Pakistan (AP) ? A suicide bomber on Thursday attacked a prominent Pakistani militant commander in the country's northwest who is believed to have a nonaggression pact with the army, wounding him and killing seven people, officials said.

A few hours later, a U.S. drone fired a pair of missiles at a house several kilometers (miles) from the bombing site, killing three suspected militants, Pakistani intelligence officials said.

The suicide bomber attacked Maulvi Nazir in Wana, the main town in the South Waziristan tribal area, as he was arriving at an office he uses to meet with locals and hear their complaints, said the commander's spokesman, Maulana Ameer Nawaz. Nazir was not critically wounded, said Nawaz.

Nazir was one of over a dozen people wounded in the attack, said Pakistani intelligence officials and a local government administrator, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media. They initially reported that three people died, but later raised the number to seven after some of the critically injured died of their wounds.

No group has claimed responsibility for the attack, but suspicion is likely to fall on the Pakistani Taliban, which has been waging a bloody insurgency against the government for the past several years and has jockeyed with Nazir for power in South Waziristan.

The tribal area was the Pakistani Taliban's main sanctuary until the army launched a large ground offensive in 2009 and pushed many of them out.

Nazir is widely believed to have cut a deal with the army ahead of the offensive that allowed him to stay in South Waziristan as long as he remained on the sidelines. The militant commander has in the past focused his fight against U.S.-led forces in Afghanistan, not against the Pakistani state.

Nazir had been running a secret campaign in recent weeks to push the Pakistani Taliban and foreign militants allied with them out of Wana and the surrounding areas, said intelligence officials.

Nawaz, the militant commander's spokesman, said the suicide bomber who attacked Nazir appeared to be a 15- or 16-year-old boy.

"The moment the chief got out of his vehicle, the boy ran toward him and detonated his explosives," Nawaz told The Associated Press by telephone.

Yar Mohammad, a resident of Wana who witnessed the attack, said the blast was huge.

"I'm seeing smoke everywhere," he said.

Nazir's fighters retaliated after the attack by killing two Pakistani Taliban militants in the main market in Wana, said intelligence officials. There were also reports of Nazir's fighters attacking Pakistani Taliban militants in the nearby village of Kari Kot, they said.

The house that was hit by a U.S. missile strike later Thursday was located in Sheen Warsak, another village near Wana, said intelligence officials. The identities of the suspected militants who were killed were not clear, said the officials.

The U.S. does not normally comment publicly about CIA drone attacks in Pakistan, but American officials have privately said that the strikes have killed senior Taliban and al-Qaida leaders and are a key counterterrorism tool.

_____

Associated Press Rasool Dawar contributed to this report from Peshawar, Pakistan.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/suicide-bomber-wounds-prominent-pakistani-militant-100441092.html

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makaskarler: World Racquetball News: no 1 racquetball player in ...

Donna Ryder from Newport, Co. Mayo, is a Sports Scholarship student at IT Sligo and is currently ranked the no 1 racquetball player in Europe. She was conferred with a Bachelor of Business in Recreation and Leisure at the 2012 IT Sligo Conferring.
Mayo graduates were among more than 1,800 graduates conferred at IT Sligo at its annual Conferring Ceremonies last week. President of IT Sligo, Professor Terri Scott, said encouraged the graduates to be entrepreneurial in their outlook.
She quoted the President of the USA Barak Obama who said that ?focusing your life solely on making a buck shows a certain poverty of ambition. It asks too little of yourself. Because it?s only when you hitch your wagon to something larger than yourself that you realise your true potential.?

Source: http://mauro-racquetball.blogspot.com/2012/11/no-1-racquetball-player-in-europe.html

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