Category: News

DANA CIMILLUCA, JEFFREY MCCRACKEN and ILAN BRAT

JANUARY 19, 2010, 6:43 A.M. ET

Kraft Foods Inc. on Tuesday clinched a deal to acquire Cadbury PLC for £11.9 billion ($19.44 billion), in a trans-Atlantic tie-up that ends the nearly 200-year independence of Britain’s most famous candy company.

After more than four months of public sparring that followed Kraft’s hostile-takeover approach for the U.K. confectioner, Cadbury’s board accepted the U.S. food giant’s offer as Kraft relented to the demands of Cadbury management and shareholders, sweetening its bid and adding cash.

Kraft agreed to pay 840 pence a share for Cadbury, as well as a 10 pence dividend. The revised offer is for 500 pence in cash for each Cadbury share and 0.1874 new Kraft shares for each Cadbury share, an increase from its original offer of 300 pence in cash and 0.2589 new Kraft shares.

Tuesday’s deal unites Cadbury, which focuses solely on candy and traces its roots to 1824, with its larger and more diversified U.S. counterpart. Kraft covets Cadbury in part because of the U.K. company’s access to fast-growing developing markets such as India and Brazil.

The deal came as Kraft faced a deadline imposed by U.K. takeover authorities to make a final offer for Cadbury by the end of Tuesday. Cadbury has repeatedly rebuffed Kraft since the Northfield, Ill., company first publicly announced its offer in early September, which was then valued at about $16.5 billion.

Many Cadbury shareholders in recent days have been vocal in their opposition to Kraft’s cash-and-stock offer, which until the weekend was valued at about 770 pence a share. They might now be won over by the new offer, since many of the holders are hedge funds that bought Cadbury stock after Kraft put the company in play, and are only looking for a relatively small return. The recommendation from Cadbury’s board is also likely to make a big difference in convincing long-term Cadbury shareholders, many of them big U.K. institutional investors, that selling to Kraft now is the right thing to do. Cadbury shareholder have until Feb. 2 to accept the offer.

The latest round of talks was initiated by Kraft on Monday, according to a person familiar with the matter.

The move to engage with Kraft was an abrupt U-turn for Cadbury and its chairman, Roger Carr. He called Kraft a “low-growth conglomerate,” accused it of showing “contempt” for Cadbury shareholders with its initial offer price and asked those shareholders not to let their company be “stolen.” He and Cadbury Chief Executive Todd Stitzer have also criticized the track record of Kraft management, led by CEO Irene Rosenfeld. The two men repeatedly signaled that they would rather do a deal with Hershey Co., which they indicated would be a better cultural and operational fit for Cadbury.

Bloomberg News

The deal comes with significant risks for Kraft. Cross-border transactions have tended to fare poorly over the years. And Kraft’s own shareholders—including its largest holder, Warren Buffett‘s Berkshire Hathaway—have publicly worried about overpaying for Cadbury.

Ms. Rosenfeld met with Mr. Buffett recently and he was “totally supportive” of the new terms, a person familiar with Kraft’s offer said. Mr. Buffett didn’t return calls requesting comment.

Combining with Cadbury would catapult Kraft into the highest tier of the global confectionery industry, potentially expanding Kraft’s sales outside of North America and Europe. Already, Cadbury is the biggest confectioner in growth markets such as India, Mexico, Egypt and Thailand, according to consulting firm Euromonitor International, and emerging markets provide 38% of the company’s global sales, compared with about 20% at Kraft. Cadbury’s sales in the Asia-Pacific region alone amount to about 20% of the company’s revenue. Cadbury has about $500 million in sales in Mexico, while Kraft has about $350 million there, according to Barclays Capital analyst Andrew Lazar.

Buying Cadbury would also add strong sales of chewing gum, especially in Latin America, to Kraft’s portfolio. Confectionary products typically have higher margins than Kraft’s company-wide margin.

In addition, Kraft would be able to secure more sales at convenience stores in the U.S. and Europe, a growing outlet for selling food in small servings. The gum, chocolate and other food sold in those outlets tend to carry higher profit margins than food sold at a grocery store, and convenience stores typically carry few Kraft products. Grabbing hold of Cadbury would immediately give Kraft a potentially new, and more profitable, channel of distribution.

“It’s a great deal for Kraft as it minimizes dilution of shareholders,” said William Ackman, head of Pershing Square Capital Management, which owns about 2.2% of Kraft shares. “Cadbury could not have achieved the same values on its own.”

Should the talks between Kraft and Cadbury prove successful, it is likely that Hershey, which has been considering a bid of its own, will drop out, said people close to the U.S. chocolate maker. A deal would largely consign Hershey to selling chocolate in the U.S., a country with a slow-growing population in the midst of deep economic turmoil. Without greater access to growth markets Hershey faces a future of sales and earnings growth largely dependent on price increases or cost cuts. A spokesman for Hershey declined to comment.

For Mr. Carr, the Cadbury chairman, the current saga began at the Lisbon airport one Friday afternoon last August. On his personal mobile phone, he found a voice mail from Kraft CEO Ms. Rosenfeld asking him for a meeting in London the following week.

When the two later met at Mr. Carr’s office, Ms. Rosenfeld surprised Mr. Carr by almost immediately announcing she had a proposal to make. What surprised him even more was that she expected a swift answer, he recalled. Mr. Carr said the price she had proposed was inadequate and that he needed to confer with Cadbury’s board. The meeting with Ms. Rosenfeld lasted a mere 20 minutes.

“She got on her Gulfstream, she flew back to America and I never heard from her again —until the letter,” Mr. Carr recalled, referring to the Aug. 28 letter that put the iconic company on the block.

—Michael Carolan and Cecilie Rohwedder contributed to this article.

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The government has crafted rules for trading of certificates aimed at rewarding producers of clean energy, a move expected to boost the share of electricity from renewable sources in one of the world’s top carbon polluters. India’s power regulator …

The following is an edited version of the diary of 36-year-old Helen Hawking, from the UK, who has been working in Haiti for Oxfam as a health promoter since July. This is her story of the first four days after the earthquake struck.

Tuesday 12th January
It had been an average day in the office; conference calls, report writing, fighting off mosquitoes. My clock showed just 10 minutes until it was time to leave for the day, when the ground made slight movements, which rapidly became violent. The earth shook harder than I have ever felt before, I ran to the door but could not get out. I hid under my desk, my hand pressed up against the surface protecting my head, hoping it would hold up two stories falling on it. If I were buried under debris, would I ever get rescued? Was this the end for me?
As quickly as the earthquake started, the violent tremor stopped. Covered in dust, I scrambled over the rubble and made it out to the safety of the street. People were coming out stunned, some crying, some injured. A count of heads showed one member of the team was missing, stuck under the rubble. Companions brought him out and carried him unconscious to the nearest hospital, where he died. Several hospitals collapsed. Homes, schools, offices – the buildings we spend our lives in become our greatest danger.
Cars were left abandoned, roads were impassable. We walked the long way home not saying much, amongst people praying, crying, hysterical. It was surreal. We made a large detour around the petrol station that had exploded. A couple of people were wailing outside a collapsed building, the broken sign showed it had been a university.
I had no way of letting my family know that I had survived and hoped that they wouldn’t hear about the earthquake until tomorrow.

Wednesday 13th January
Last night we walked home in the dark and tried to sleep in the space in the garden least likely to have a wall or building fall on it. I lay feeling the aftershocks through the night under a beautiful sky heavy with stars.
Today we walk back to the office. We pass a man carrying his dead child, repeating that he has his beloved dead child in his arms, not knowing where to go. We pass people being carried on makeshift stretchers, doors, blankets or whatever they can get their hands on.
We went up and down the main road six times, each time more corpses appeared, some covered in sheets some just lying contorted and stiff and coated in dust. I wonder if their families know where they are?
In Canape Vert Park, hundreds of people are sitting on the street. The smell of urine and excreta is strong.
Supermarkets have either collapsed, been looted or are closed for fear of aftershocks. The only food for sale is some unappetizing fruit a group of women are selling. The cost of water has gone up. I wonder how long we can last on the food we have at home, maybe two or three days? I am concerned about the possibility of unrest related to the lack of food.
We attend an Oxfam staff meeting; we are a small organization yet seven people had their homes destroyed. Haitians are heeding the advice that it is dangerous to sleep in their beds because of the aftershocks. Most are sleeping on the street.
We go to the meeting with a group of organizations who work in Water, Sanitation and Hygiene to coordinate the WASH response. In an emergency many organisations come to help so we need to work together and organize who does what and where.
Streams of people with suitcases are leaving to stay with friends and family in other parts of Haiti and the Dominican Republic. The earth moves almost constantly. I feel queasy. Just before midnight a large noisy trail of people pass our house, worried that a Tsunami is coming. It´s raining a little. Tonight Port au Prince is spending its second night sleeping under the stars.

Thursday 14th January
Haiti is not known for having a good security record. We hear that all the inmates from the huge local penitentiary who were not killed by the earthquake have escaped.
Today we do a rapid appraisal of the communes where we have recently trained teams in emergency WASH response. Visiting the open areas, the main needs are drinking water, food, medicines and latrines.
Several private water companies are offering their services to provide water to key locations in the city, which is wonderful news. These organizations will provide 80 trucks full of water. The international organizations including Oxfam need to organise storage and management of the water, an enormous task.
Unfortunately we also find out that our emergency stocks have become inaccessible following the quake. This is a huge setback, as tomorrow we want to start distributing water. People are hungry and thirsty.
The most disturbing sights of today were not the piles of debris, but the bodies. A neat row of 16 bodies carefully wrapped in sheets, the group of 20 at the Canape Vert roundabout, a pile with no sheet covering them and the two bodies on the corner of a street, an adult motionless under a dead child.
We are told that a plane is sending emergency materials for us and it should arrive tomorrow! This is great news.

Friday 15th January
Today was spent preparing to distribute water. I visited a golf course, currently home to about 10,000 people. There are a lot of sick and injured people sleeping out here. I was looking for an appropriate place to mount a portable water storage container.
I am really curious about why people are walking around with thick white cream smeared under their noses. I imagine it must be something sweet smelling to counter the bad smells here. In fact it is toothpaste put there supposedly to stop them getting ill!
We are still sleeping outside. I am not sure what I miss more; sleeping in my bed or eating cooked meals! Tomorrow we will start installing the water points and distributing drinking water.

January 19, 2010: 05:48 AM ET

LONDON -(Dow Jones)- Cadbury PLC (CBY) Tuesday accepted an GBP11.9 billion takeover offer from Kraft Foods Inc. (KFT) of the U.S., a deal that ends a four- month acrimonious battle and nearly 200-years of independence for the U.K.’s largest confectionery company.

THE DEAL:

Kraft has agreed to pay 500 pence in cash for each Cadbury share as well as 0.1874 new Kraft shares for each Cadbury share, up from its original offer of 300 pence in cash and 0.2589 new Kraft shares. The original hostile bid had been rejected by Cadbury for being “derisory” and had been criticized by some shareholders for offering too little in cash.

The new offer values Cadbury at GBP11.9 billion, compared with the original value of GBP10.2 billion.

THE RATIONALE:

Kraft says the takeover, creating a global confectionary giant with more than 40 confectionary brands and annual sales above $100 million. will result in ” meaningful” cost savings and revenue synergies.

The U.S. company also says the deal gives Cadbury scale, an improved delivery infrastructure, and a leading position in developing markets including Brazil, Russia, India, China and Mexico.

WHAT NEXT:

A rival bidder could emerge for Cadbury, although this now seems unlikely. People close to U.S. chocolate maker Hershey Co. (HSY), which had been mulling a counterbid for Cadbury, told the Wall Street Journal Monday that Hershey would likely drop out of the running if Cadbury and Kraft agreed a deal.

Cadbury has also agreed to pay a break fee of GBP117.7 million if it ever decides to recommend a competing offer–lessening the chance of a successful Hershey bid.

The U.K. takeover authorities have set a Jan. 25 deadline for Hershey, or Italian chocolate maker Ferrero–which had also been considering its options but is believed to have dropped out–to make final offers.

THE BACKGROUND:

Kraft first went public with an informal cash-and-stock bid for Cadbury on Sep. 7, but Cadbury has consistently rejected its approach, saying the takeover offer was “derisory” and Cadbury’s shareholders shouldn’t swap the company’s growth prospects for Kraft’s “low-growth, conglomerate” model.

Carr had also been critical of Kraft’s management, saying they had “a long track record for over-praising and under delivering.”

It’s unclear what persuaded Carr and Cadbury Chief Executive Todd Stitzer to turn to recommend Kraft’s new offer, but the U.S. company went a long way to meeting the demands of shareholders, who had requested a higher offer and more cash.

Kraft’s offer should appease Kraft’s largest shareholder Warren Buffett, who warned the company earlier this month against issuing too much new Kraft stock to pay for a deal.

WHAT THEY SAID:

“We are supportive of the (Cadbury) management’s decision although the achieved price is slightly light of our stated target.” – David Cumming, head of UK Equities at Standard Life Investments, a Cadbury shareholder with less than 1% of the stock.

“We believe the offer represents good value for Cadbury shareholders and are pleased with the commitment that Kraft Foods has made to our heritage, values and people throughout the world. We will now work with the Kraft Foods’ management to ensure the continued success and growth of the business for the benefit of our customers, consumers and employees.” – Kraft Foods Chairman Roger Carr

“For Kraft Foods shareholders (the deal) transforms the portfolio, accelerates long-term growth and delivers highly attractive returns, while maintaining financial discipline.” – Kraft Foods Chairman and CEO Irene Rosenfeld.

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Solar powered bibles are just one of the few things being sent to Haiti as a relief for its disaster struck citizens. Now, 1000 solar powered mobile phones are being sent to Haiti, a country where communication has been cut of from its roots due to the recent earthquake. The company’s, Intivation (a company that manufactures solar chargers that are built into a phone) and Digicel (a Haitian mobile operator) will take the initiative of sending these phones there. These phones can work in areas with moody electric supply and use solar power to juice themselves up instead.

These phones were released in June 2009 and more than half a million of them have been sold by Intivation worldwide. The mobile operator, Digicel has shown a huge support to the disaster relief funds with is generous contribution of $10 million in $5 credits to its one million customers in Haiti. This act and initiative by these companies is sure to help Haiti back on its communication track soon.

[eWeek europe]

By David Jones

LONDON (Reuters) – Kraft Foods agreed a recommended deal to buy Cadbury for around 11.9 billion pounds ($19.6 billion), creating the world’s top confectioner after frantic last-minute talks broke an impasse over price.

Kraft’s CEO Irene Rosenfeld had to inject more cash into her bid and drop the number of new Kraft shares in the offer to win over Cadbury Chairman Roger Carr and mollify her top shareholder, billionaire investor Warren Buffett.

Kraft’s cash-and-share deal values each Cadbury share at 840 pence, with shareholders also set to get a 10p special dividend, bringing it to a total of 850p, which prompted a unanimous recommendation from the Cadbury board in favor of the deal.

Cadbury shares hit a record high of 838 pence in early trade and were up 3.7 percent 837-1/2p by 1003 GMT (5:03 a.m. EST).

“Kraft has got a very good deal here. 850p is predicated on the current Kraft share price, and I would expect Kraft’s shares to rise today on the back on substantially less Kraft shares being issued as part of the deal,” said Panmure Gordon analyst Graham Jones.

Kraft said the deal would be accretive to earnings in 2011 by around 5 cents on a cash basis and give a mid-teens percentage return on investment, well in excess of Kraft’s cost of capital.

The new bid consists of 500p of cash and 0.1874 new Kraft shares, compared to Kraft’s original offer of 300p cash and 0.2589 new Kraft shares, which valued the shares in September when the deal was first proposed at 745p.

Buffett, who owns a near-10 percent stake in Kraft had warned Rosenfeld not to overpay and issue too many new Kraft shares.

Kraft said on Tuesday it was issuing 265 million new Kraft shares compared with its original plan to issue 370 million.

SWEET DEAL

The deal would create the world’s largest confectionery group ahead of privately owned Mars-Wrigley and bring under one roof Cadbury’s Dairy Milk chocolate and Trident gum and Kraft’s Milka, Toblerone and Terry’s chocolate brands.

Cadbury investor Standard Life Investments said it supported the board’s decision to recommend the Kraft offer.

“We are supportive of the management’s decision although the achieved price is slightly light of the stated target,” said David Cumming, head of UK equities at Standard Life.

Cadbury unions have opposed the move fearing big job cuts and UK politicians have also weighed in, with general elections looming.

UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown told a news conference after the deal was announced that he wanted to protect investment and jobs in Cadbury.

“The one thing I want to say is this: we are determined that the levels of investment that take place in Cadbury’s in the United Kingdom are maintained,” he said.

(Additional reporting by Paul Sandle and Keith Weir)

(Reporting by David Jones; editing by Dan Lalor and Sitaraman Shankar)

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Walk through the swing door entrance to Michelle’s kitchen and be prepared to swoon. Not only does the space have all the requisites for a great cooking situation, but Michelle actually loves to cook!

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Although Mikko Hirvonen’s participation in this year’s Monte Carlo Rally was regarded as mostly a preparation event prior to the official start of the 2010 WRC season, the Finn made it very clear that he aims for the victory in this week’s event.

Unlike in the WRC, Hirvonen will drive the newly-developed Ford Fiesta S2000 car during the Monte Carlo event, which will mark the season opener in the International Rally Challenge. He will not be the only driver competing on a Fiesta for M-Sport, a… (read more)

If you’re a fan of the gangster scene from the 1930s then the 39th Annual Barrett-Jackson Collector Car Auction in Scottsdale has something special in store for you. The auction will feature the 1930s Ford Model A used by John Dillinger in 1934 to outrun cops.

After Dillinger was killed as he exited the Biograph Theater in Chicago, the Ford Model A was impounded by police and returned to Robert Johnson, the original owner of the vehicle until he was robbed by Dillinger’s gang. The bullet-bruised vehicle was left parked and nearly untouched for three decades, after which a man by the name of Alfred Love bought it from Johnson. Love eventually passed on the Model A to his son Mark Love, the current owner.

In 2007, the Ford Model A was carefully restored to appear in “Public Enemies” a movie starring Johnny Depp who portrayed Public Enemy No.1, John Dillinger.

Seems like a true piece of America History.

Press Release:

THE 1930 FORD “MODEL A” THAT CARRIED GANGSTER JOHN DILLINGER TO SAFETY WILL CROSS THE BARRETT-JACKSON BLOCK IN SCOTTSDALE

* 1930 Ford Model A that John Dillinger used in an escape to be sold at Barrett-Jackson at No Reserve
* The car also starred in the recent blockbuster “Public Enemies” with Johnny Depp
* The Model A (Lot #1309) includes meticulous documentation from the current owner

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. – Jan. 4, 2010 – The 1930’s Ford Model A (Lot #1309) used by the notorious gangster John Dillinger and later in the blockbuster 2009 movie about his life, will be sold at No Reserve during the 39th Annual Barrett-Jackson Collector Car Auction in Scottsdale on Jan. 18-24, 2010 at WestWorld. The Ford, which carried “Public Enemy” number one to safety in 1934 while Dillinger sprayed pursing cops with his Tommy gun, will cross the block as the world watches on SPEED.

“While Bonnie and Clyde, Machine Gun Kelly, Pretty Boy Floyd and Baby Face Nelson were media celebrities, none were more famous than John Dillinger,” said Barrett-Jackson Chairman/CEO Craig Jackson. “His daring robberies and hold ups fed the nation’s hunger for sensationalist news. His ability to elude capture and escape by using fast, reliable cars with seeming impunity made him a folk hero.”

Dillinger and his gang raged throughout Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Illinois, Kentucky, South Dakota, Iowa and Wisconsin during the Great Depression. One of Dillinger’s most memorable escapes took place at the Little Bohemia Lodge in Manitowish Waters, Wis. on April 22, 1934. Dillinger, Homer Van Meter and John “Red” Hamilton, his two top lieutenants, escaped in the 1930 Ford Model A coupe offered at Barrett-Jackson.

“This car is a piece of American gangster history and as much a part of Dillinger’s legend as his Tommy guns and Colt automatics,” stated Steve Davis, president of Barrett-Jackson. “Not only did this particular car get the famous gangster out of a fix with the cops in hot pursuit, it was used in the recent Johnny Depp movie about Dillinger. So it’s played an important role in history and cinema emulating history.”

After a series of robberies, Dillinger and his gang hid out at the Little Bohemia Lodge in Manitowish Waters. The proprietors, Emil and Nan Wanatka, recognized them and managed to tip off the authorities to the gang’s location.

Upon arrival, the Feds perforated the Lodge with bullets until Dillinger, Van Meter and Hamilton bailed out of doors and windows, rushing through the woods until they found the Model T nearby. The gangsters politely but firmly commandeered the Ford and its owner, Robert Johnson, to drive it.

Johnson was let out near Park Falls, Wis. The trio of crooks eluded law enforcement and drove to Hastings, Minn., over 200 miles away from the Lodge. There, they were once again identified and fled in a high speed pursuit. Hamilton was fatally shot in the hail of gunfire. Dillinger, it is said, smashed the Ford’s rear window with his Thompson and sprayed his pursuers with bullets as he escaped.

Heading for the anonymity of Chicago, they dumped the bullet-riddled Model A in favor of a stolen 1934 Ford V8. Just three months later, Dillinger was killed as he exited the Biograph Theater in Chicago.

Bullet pocked and blood stained, the Ford was impounded by the police. Files from the Division of Investigation (now FBI) identified it as “1930 Ford coupe, 4 cylinder, Model A, Wisconsin license #92652, Motor #2980001.”

“The Model A was eventually returned to Johnson who determined that it wasn’t worth repairing and parked it for nearly three decades,” noted Davis. “The car ended up in the barn of Alfred Love’s mother in-law, where Johnson rented a bungalow. Love bought it from Johnson and eventually passed it to his son, Mark, the current owner.”

The Ford was carefully restored in 2007 to appear in “Public Enemies”, preserving the original bullet holes and dimples under body filler and carefully documenting the original appearance including the upholstery soaked with blood. This car is comprehensively documented with its transfer paperwork, articles, books, before-restoration photographs and a selection of documents copied from the federal files.

“This Ford was at the center of one of the most famous shootouts in gangster history,” added Jackson. “It is, more than any automobile and even firearm, identified with Dillinger. It’s been owned by only two families since it played a crucial role in the Little Bohemia Lodge escape. The Dillinger Ford Model A coupe would be an incredible addition to a collection, museum or attraction that commemorates the history of Ford, the Model A or American history.”

About The Barrett-Jackson Auction Company

The Barrett-Jackson Auction Company was established in 1971 and headquartered in Scottsdale, Ariz., Barrett-Jackson specializes in providing products and services to classic and collector car owners, astute collectors and automotive enthusiasts around the world. The company produces the “World’s Greatest Collector Car Auctions™” in Scottsdale, Palm Beach, Fla., Las Vegas, and Orange County, Cali. Barrett-Jackson also endorses a one-of-a-kind collector car insurance offering for collector vehicles and other valued belongings. For more information about Barrett-Jackson, visit www.barrett-jackson.com or call (480) 421-6694.

– By: Kap Shah

The worlds largest cruise ship, the Oasis of the Seas now goes green with the fitting of 21,000 square feet of solar thin film by a Miami cruise line operator. Costing a whopping $750,000, the solar panelswill help power up the ship and satisfy a few of its energy needs making it a bit more efficient and environment friendly and decreasing its emissions by a small amount in the sea during cruises. The work on the mega ship was carried out by BAM Solar Power, a solar energy firm form Jacksonville, Florida. The energy collected using these thin film solar panels will be used to light up the ships promenade and central parking areas.

However the cost of these fittings may turn the company’s face sour, since it does not cause any significant changes in the powering up of the ship. Is this move taken by Royal Caribbean, the second largest cruise company in the world, a waste of financial resources? Well, we need to go on a cruise to prove that!

[SolarFeeds]

I’m a bit pressed for time this morning, so discuss among yourselves: Daniel L. Bowling et al., “Major and minor music compared to excited and subdued speech“, Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 127(1): 491–503, January 2010.  The abstract:

The affective impact of music arises from a variety of factors, including intensity, tempo, rhythm, and tonal relationships. The emotional coloring evoked by intensity, tempo, and rhythm appears to arise from association with the characteristics of human behavior in the corresponding condition; however, how and why particular tonal relationships in music convey distinct emotional effects are not clear. The hypothesis examined here is that major and minor tone collections elicit different affective reactions because their spectra are similar to the spectra of voiced speech uttered in different emotional states. To evaluate this possibility the spectra of the intervals that distinguish major and minor music were compared to the spectra of voiced segments in excited and subdued speech using fundamental frequency and frequency ratios as measures. Consistent with the hypothesis, the spectra of major intervals are more similar to spectra found in excited speech, whereas the spectra of particular minor intervals are more similar to the spectra of subdued speech. These results suggest that the characteristic affective impact of major and minor tone collections arises from associations routinely made between particular musical intervals and voiced speech.

As always, comments are likely to be more interesting if you read the paper and figure out what they did before expressing an opinion. You might find it interesting to compare and contrast this work.

[I’ll explain and discuss what they did in another post, when I have a spare 45 minutes or so to explain it.]

Responding to the Haiti earthquake has been one of the toughest challenges ever, international aid agency Oxfam said today, one week since the quake struck, killing at least 80,000 people.

Although aid is beginning to get through, the impact of the earthquake on Oxfam’s Haitian and international staff, the logistical challenges combined with a destroyed office and warehouse and the loss of communications have made this the one of the hardest responses the agency has ever mounted.

The agency lost two employees and most of its staff have endured harrowing personal losses as a result of the quake. Most of Oxfam’s staff had their homes damaged or destroyed and are sleeping outside like the rest of the Haitian population.

Part of the Oxfam office and a key warehouse full of £75,000 worth of vital water and sanitation equipment were destroyed when the quake struck.

Oxfam Country Director, Yolette Etienne said: “Many of my staff here have lost their homes, and some have had family losses. Two Oxfam members of staff were killed when the quake struck and I lost my own mother.  But we are still here working.  I told my staff that we have no choice, no other option but to work and to work harder since we have the privilege of still being here and we can help people to overcome their desperation. A day after the quake most of the staff were back at the office planning our response.”

Broken communication channels – no phone lines or internet – meant it was difficult for staff on the ground to communicate their needs and order vital equipment and supplies to headquarters in the first few days. Communications are beginning to improve – mobile phones are starting to work as well as the internet in some areas of Port-au-Prince.

The staff salvaged some stocks from the destroyed warehouse, but new equipment for providing clean water and sanitation is now arriving.  Oxfam is using Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic as a hub for supplies from the UK, which will go by  road to Port-au-Prince.

Ten tonnes of new stock was flown from the United Kingdom to Santo Domingo

in the Dominican Republic on Saturday and has now arrived in Port-au-Prince. Thirty tonnes of stock will depart from the UK today and will be followed by a further flight, carrying 50 tonnes of Oxfam aid on Friday.  Water trucking has begun in several locations across Port-au-Prince, but operations were briefly halted because of lack of fuel around the capital.

Praying has never felt greener before until the use of solar power to juice up electric bibles. We all know the problems the people of Haiti have faced recently, and how much they need to pray. So to fulfill this, a faith group from the U.S. known as “Faith Comes by Hearing” has, sent these bibles to the people of Haiti. These solar powered bibles are capable of broadcasting to 300 people at one time the Holy Scriptures in Haitian Creole. This innovation gets cooler and greener with the fact that it enables the poor and illiterate to access the Holy Scriptures with a digital quality. Baptized as the “Proclaimer”, these digital bibles draw energy from the sun to power themselves up, eliminating the wastage of power in needy areas like Haiti, and spread the word of God using audio.

[Image For Representation]

Hopefully, the prayers of those needy people in Haiti are answered and they live better lives in future with the help of the Proclaimer.

[Alertnet]

Ke$ha makes Courtney Love “go all maternal.” (Her words, not ours.) Now that the State of California has snatched her own daughter away from her insanity, the Hole frontwoman has turned her focus to “saving” the “Tik Tok” party girl-turned-pop sensation before her image is ruined by the music industry.

(Who’s going to save us from Ke$ha’s bad singing?)

Courtney is a big fan of the singer but wants to “school her” because she fears record company executives will try to “mold” her into a family friendly act.

In a series of posts on her Twitter.com page this week, Courtney writes:

-”Ke$ha is in dire need of a vibe that matches her… shes (sic) being molded into something not her that will fail. I want to save her… f**k Ke$ha I need to school her… Ke$ha I will save you…..”

-”(Ke$ha) sweetheart you make me go all maternal, I want to save you from the jaws of impermanence and soul death…

-”When I watched the Youtube (video) of (Ke$ha I saw) a lost little soul… the u (You) tube had a lady from (record label) RCA /Jive/(CEO) Barry (Weiss)’ nightmare correcting her every time she spoke, they grabbed pushed and she’ll be gone…..”

APX Inc., the leading infrastructure provider for environmental and energy markets, is pleased to announce that the Missouri Public Service Commission (PSC) has selected the North American Registry TM as the renewable energy certificate (REC …

Oxfam health promoter Helen Hawkings was working in Port-au-Prince when the devastating earthquake struck. As the relief and recovery effort unfolds, she describes the situation on the ground.

12 January: It had been an average day in the office: conference calls, report writing, fighting off the mosquitoes that plague us here. My clock showed just 10 minutes until it was time to leave for the day, when without any warning the ground made slight movements, which rapidly became violent. The earth shook harder than I have ever felt before, I ran to the door but could not get out. I hid under my desk, my hand pressed up against the surface protecting my head, hoping it would hold up to the pressure of two storeys falling on it. If I were buried under a tonne of debris, would I ever get rescued? Was this the end for me?

As quickly as the earthquake started, the violent tremor stopped, everything became still again. Covered in dust, I scrambled shaking over the rubble by the office and made it out to the safety of the street outside. People were coming out stunned, some crying, some injured, some silent. A count of heads to check everyone was present showed one member of the team was missing, stuck under the rubble. Companions brought him out and they carried him unconscious on a piece of the gate on their shoulders to the nearest hospital where he later died. Several of the hospitals had already collapsed. Home, schools, offices – the buildings we spend our lives in become our greatest danger.

Cars were left abandoned in the street, roads were impassable covered by collapsed walls, buildings, telegraph poles and crushed vehicles. We walked the long way home not saying much, amongst people praying, crying, hysterical. It was surreal. We made a large detour around the petrol station that had exploded but was still making uncomfortable noises. A couple of people were wailing outside a collapsed building, the broken sign on the wall showed it had been a university.

Communication in emergency situations is often not easy. The phone networks were either down or overloaded so it is impossible to find out if our friends were ok. I had no way of letting my family know that I had survived and just hoped that they wouldn’t hear about the earthquake until tomorrow. We have no idea where was worst hit or how the rest of the country is doing.

People wander the streets in front of the remains of a boarding school in the downtown area of Port-au-Prince on 13 January 2010. [Photo credit: Frederic Dupoux/Getty Images]

13 January – City in shock: Last night we walked home in the dark, slept, or tried to sleep in the space in the garden least likely to have a wall or building fall on it should the aftershocks cause more damage. I lay feeling the aftershocks through the night under a beautiful sky heavy with stars, kept awake by the loud singing, clapping and shouting at what must be a local church and by our local confused cockerel who spent the night letting us know he was still alive!

Today we walk back to the office in the stark light of day. We pass the collapsed hospital at the end of our street. We pass a man carrying his dead child, repeating out loud that he has his beloved dead child in his arms, not knowing where to go. We pass people being carried on all kind of makeshift stretchers, doors, blankets or whatever they can get their hands on to carry their loved ones to medical facilities for help.

We went up and down the main road six times today, each time more corpses appeared, some covered in sheets some just lying contorted and stiff and coated in the dust that covers the city. I wonder if their families know where they are? It is impossible to make even a wild estimate at the number of people who have died, are missing or affected by this earthquake, which measured 7.3 on the Richter scale.

In Canape Vert Park, hundreds of people are sitting on the street, in the small open space. The smell of urine and excreta is strong. As the days pass the corpses and waste will become increasingly pungent.

Supermarkets have either collapsed, been looted or are closed for fear of trapping people in collapses from the aftershocks. The only food we find for sale is some unappetising fruit that a group of women are selling on the side of the road. The cost of water has already gone up. Food and drinking water are scarce. I wonder how long we can last on the food we have at home, maybe two or three days. People are currently searching for family members or are in shock. I am concerned about the possibility of unrest related to the lack of food available in the coming days. Haiti is not exactly the breadbasket of the region.

We attend an Oxfam staff meeting, we are a small organisation yet seven people had their homes destroyed and several other homes were damaged. Haitians are heeding the advice that it is dangerous to sleep in their beds because of the aftershocks. Most people are sleeping on the street.

Teams are organised to go to different coordination meetings and collect information about the situation here in Haiti. We suggest that those members who are not coming into work this week help dig out people still alive trapped in the rubble.

We go to the WASH cluster meeting with a group of organisations who work in Water, Sanitation and Hygiene to coordinate the WASH response. In an emergency many organisations come to help so we need to work together and organise who does what and where.

Streams of people with suitcases are leaving the city to stay with friends and family in other parts of Haiti and the Dominican Republic.

The earth moves almost constantly this evening. I feel queasy. This evening is colder. Not like England in January cold, but chilly. Just before midnight a large noisy trail of people pass our house, they are worried by the rumour that a tsunami is coming and are seeking refuge higher up in the hills. Itis raining a little. Tonight Port-au-Prince is spending its second night sleeping under the stars.

A man carries an injured person along a destroyed area of Port-au-Prince on 14 January 2010. [Photo credit: REUTERS/Jorge Silva, courtesy of www.alertnet.org]

14 January 2010 – Day 3: Haiti is not known for having a good security record. We hear that all the inmates from the huge local penitentiary who were not killed by the earthquake have escaped.

Today we do a rapid appraisal of the communes where we have recently trained teams in emergency WASH (Water, sanitation and Hygiene) response. Visiting the open areas where displaced people are sleeping, the main needs we are told, not surprisingly are drinking water, food, medicines and latrines.

The WASH coordination meeting does not go as planned but in a good way. Several private water companies are offering their services to provide water to key locations in the city, which is wonderful news. These organisations will provide 80 trucks full of water. The international organisations including Oxfam need to organise storage and management of the water, which is an enormous task.

Unfortunately we also find out that our emergency stock, (the materials that we keep stored so that we came respond quickly when there´s an emergency) have become inaccessible following the quake. This is a huge setback as tomorrow we want to start distributing water. People are hungry and people are thirsty.

The most disturbing sights of today were not the piles of debris that just 2 days ago were homes and local schools. The sights that made me draw breath were the bodies. A neat row of 16 bodies carefully wrapped in sheets, the group of 20 at the Canape Vert roundabout some identified with ripped cardboard name tags, a pile with no sheet covering them, just thrown one on top of the other and the two bodies on the corner of a street, an adult motionless under a small dead child.

Today lots of people are covering their faces with scarves and face masks, they believe this will protect them from diseases spread by dead bodies. Red scarves are particularly popular. Red is believed to be the strongest colour and helps ward off disease. . It is true that dead bodies from cholera victims can spread disease, but just walking past the bodies of the ordinary healthy people that the quake has taken does not. But it is a link that people often make probably because of how traumatic it is to see the bodies.

We are told that a plane is sending emergency materials for us and it should arrive tomorrow! This is great news.

Oxfam staff set up a water bladder to distribute over 10,000 litres of water to those worst affected by the earthquake. [Photo credit: Oxfam]

15 January – Day 4: Today was spent preparing to distribute water. I visited a golf course, currently home to about 10, 000 people. There are a lot of sick and injured people sleeping out here. I was looking for an appropriate place to mount a portable water storage container (a bladder).

I am really curious about why people are walking around with thick white cream smeared under their noses. I imagine it must be something sweet smelling to counter the bad smells here. In fact it is toothpaste put there supposedly to stop them getting ill!

We are still sleeping outside and will continue to do so for a few days to come. I am not sure what I miss more, sleeping in my bed or eating cooked meals! Tomorrow we have a long but hopefully really productive day ahead of us. We will start installing the water points and distributing drinking water.

16 January – Day 5: Today we were back at the golf course, previously an exclusive area for the rich of Port au Prince, it is now home to an estimated 10 – 15, 000 people during the day and 50, 000 at night. Our mission for the day is to start distributing water.

People staying in the camps have organised committees to manage the site. There seem to be more committees than are absolutely necessary and they do not always agree on how things should be done. Unfortunately when the water distribution started there was a disagreement regarding which committee was in charge and the situation became rather heated.

Every day many people approach me asking me what can I give, what am I doing here, why am I only working in this camp when there are so many people still staying in the communities near their homes who need help? I am not God, I tell them that today we are starting with providing water here. There is a colossal amount of aid pouring into the country so I tell them that we are starting in areas with the biggest concentrations of people so that we can reach lots of people in a short space of time but that we have not forgotten them and that we are doing as much as we can.

This evening the team of Oxfam staff that we have been working with in Cap Haitien in the north of Haiti arrived at our door. We have been training them and working closely with them in emergency preparedness so that when disaster strikes they are ready to immediately respond. This was a wonderful end to the day.

While I would like to believe that the loud bangs that rang out near our house just before midnight last night were fireworks, I think that would be slightly naïve of me. Reports of pillaging are rife. This afternoon we passed 2 bodies on the road, which were left there uncared for. We were told that locals killed them as they were looting and stealing. An unofficial curfew of 10pm has been proposed

17 January – Day 6: Something that you can be sure about here is that your day will not go as you expect it to. After all the complications that we were dealing with yesterday, today we had planned a problem free day. It was an important day for us. We wanted to have the two bladders that we installed yesterday and the three that the teams prepared today full of water so that we could distribute 100, 000 litres of drinking water to people who really need it.

I arrived at the golf course at midday. The truck containing 5, 000 litres of water was filling the water storage container that we had constructed. After a quick final leak fix things were looking good, and we were ready to go. Our first recipient was a young boy looking slightly overwhelmed clutching a small white water container, which he quickly filled. Soon the people who had waited patiently in the queue were receiving fresh drinking water. It feels great when we can see our work is making an impact. I had ordered 10 more lorry loads of water to go to the sites we were working in. Our national WASH team had set up committees to manage each water point. We waited and waited for the trucks to come with the water. No one came. Drinking water is not the only scarce liquid in high demand. There is also an acute shortage of petrol. The water company was unable to come and distribute the water, of which they had plenty, because their lorries did not have enough petrol. I had to relay this hugely disappointing information to the committees and to the people waiting to receive water who took the news well considering the situation.

The number of people staying with us has risen from just the four of us on Tuesday night, to a respectable 21. Today Oxfam staff arrived from the Dominican Republic, England and Mexico. Together we will be able to achieve great things. In the meantime we have to cope with not having a functioning flushing toilet, no cooking facilities and a limited water supply. This makes entertaining at home a more creative challenge!

Tomorrow is a new day that I hope will be problem free and full of 100, 000 litres of fresh drinking water!

Donate now and find out more about Oxfam’s Haiti Earthquake response

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