L'augmentation très forte des prix du pétrole ces dernières années a été économiquement bénéfique pour l'Irak. Le pays est en marche pour se redresser, d'autant que la situation sécuritaire s'améliore, même si elle prend de nouvelles formes. Mais avec la crise économique mondiale qui se profile, la baisse, forte également, des prix du pétrole, cette situation peut-elle perdurer ? Enfin, la situation sanitaire et sociale, les droits humains souvent bafoués, notamment ceux des femmes, sont toujours un problème majeur pour le futur développement.div class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/Populationdata?a=lvHgO"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/Populationdata?i=lvHgO" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/Populationdata?a=dFHFO"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/Populationdata?i=dFHFO" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Populationdata/~4/474390282" height="1" width="1"/

If you said that they both posed topless, well, you’d be correct.  The actual answer I was driving at was that they’ve both had their Facebook accounts deleted.

According to Nick O’Neill at All Facebook, there are (not surprisingly) quite a few Lindsay Lohans on Facebook.

So, what did Lindsay do as soon as she found out her account was shut down?  The same thing Robert Scoble did, she blogged about her experience, only at her MySpace profile:

okay, so i love myspace, because it is secure, and the people at myspace don’t disable your account because they think that you are a fake you.

[..]

when i typed my password and “log in” name in, a red sentence came up saying..

Account Disabled
Your account has been disabled by an administrator. If you have any questions or concerns, you can visit our FAQ page here.

wow! i was in shock. i clicked on the link that they told me to click on and then to another link that said: my account may of been disabled by mistake. once i got to that it gave a note saying why it was disabled which stated the note saying that it was disabled because they believe that i was a fake of myself. genius.

Lohan, in her own way, criticized the vaunted Facebook Connect, the account management system that the social network has opened up for other blogs and sites to use as a way of managing their site’s userbase.

To paraphrase Lohan, it’s infuriating that Facebook arbitrarily decides who is and isn’t the real account holder, and it’s equally infuriating that they don’t at least offer account holders the opportunity to respond to the company’s accusation before the account is shut down.

The sentiment is almost identical to the insight of Scoble’s reaction to his account being deactivated:

Facebook claims it is a “utility.” Well, I like how Kara Swisher put it. Hint: “utilities” have due process and don’t just shut down someone’s account without a warning. You should see the comments on my last post. Some people didn’t even knowingly break the rules and never got a good answer for why their accounts were shut down.

Turning away from the amusing similarities between Scoble and Lohan for a moment, it’s interesting to note the echo outside the bubble on this one.

As social networking tools go more and more mainstream, people who are real celebrities as well as those with real world influence (and not just the “Internet Famous”) will have the same scenarios have happen to them we’ve experienced a year prior. For more proof of this, see CNN’s epiphany over Twitter’s Mumbai coverage versus our epiphany over Twitter’s earthquake coverage a year earlier.

The difference here is this bad bit of PR could be avoided for Facebook.  They’ve had a year to figure out how to straighten out their account deactivation process, and they’re in the midst of talking up how awesome Facebook Connect is to everyone. Any bit of blowback they get on this is well deserved.

---
Related Articles at Mashable | All That's New on the Web:

What Would You Ask Robert Scoble?
LiveStream: Pete Cashmore and Robert Scoble at CommunityNext!
SXSW Plague Takes Down Twitterers
Scoble Lands Channel 9 interview with Bill Gates!
Loic Lemeur’s “Video Twitter” to Announce Funding [Video]
PicApp Makes it Easy to Legally Blog the Latest Britney and Lindsay Pictures
Robert and Shel: Making New Media Less Hippie; More Naked

Auteur: a href=http://www.freeplayer.org/profile.php?mode=viewprofileu=48152 target=_blankmaucare/abr / Sujet: FREEBOX amp;amp; Serveur NAS D-LINK DNS-323br /br / span class="postbody"span style=color: black/spanBonjour img src=http://www.freeplayer.org/images/smiles/icon_smile.gif alt=Smile border=0 / br / br / Je souhaite acquérir le serveur NAS D-LINK DNS-323 pour me permettre : br / 1°) de consulter les fichiers multimédias contenus dans ce disque depuis ma FREEBOX HD br / 2°) de disposer d'un partage de données en réseau local en profitant de la fonction RAID1 br / 3°) de disposer d'un accès distant aux données de ce disque via FTP br / br / - Selon vous, ce NAS permettra t-il de répondre au point n°1 ? img src=http://www.freeplayer.org/images/smiles/icon_scratch.gif alt=Scratch border=0 / br / - Si OUI, qu'est ce que je devrais paramétrer pour que ça fonctionne ? img src=http://www.freeplayer.org/images/smiles/info.gif alt=info border=0 / br / br / Merci d'avance pour vos lumières img src=http://www.freeplayer.org/images/smiles/icon_salut.gif alt=Salut border=0 / br / br / PS : J'espère avoir été clair et que ma question ne soit pas stupide img src=http://www.freeplayer.org/images/smiles/icon_redface.gif alt=Embarassed border=0 / /spanbr /

I feel like I have no brains. I am having trouble copying and pasting. Specifically, I want to copy the code on Playlist.com and paste it to my page on Sodahead.com. I know all about ctrl - C, ctrl - V, I even bought a rt and left click mouse. I highlight the appropriate code, go to Edit or rt. click mouse to copy. When I move the cursor to where I want to paste it, the paste is no longer an option because it brings the Sodahead page to the front. I've been able to add pictures and text to the site, (questions and answers) and I've 'added media' to my profile. But to save my life I can't get my playlist to paste on my profile page. Has anyone who has a MacBook had the same problem or am I the only 'dense' one of the bunch.:confused::confused:

div align="center"a href="http://www.kogan.com.au/blog/2008/dec/4/here-it-kogan-agora/"img vspace="4" hspace="4" border="0" alt="" src="http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadgetmobile.com/media/2008/12/12-3-08-kogan-agora.jpg" //abr //div We'll be totally honest -- we pretty much blew Ruslan Kogan off when he a href="http://www.engadgetmobile.com/2008/11/06/aussie-sez-hell-produce-a-199-android-phone-by-december-15th/"proclaimed/a that he was about to push out a $199 a href="http://www.engadgetmobile.com/category/android/"Android/a phone by the year's end. And truthfully, the guy still hasn't emtotally/em delivered, but you won't find us kvetching about more Googlephones, regardless of MSRP. The Agora (AU$299; US$192) and Agora Pro (AU$399; US$256) are available for pre-order as we speak, though neither one is scheduled to ship out until the end of January. For those unfamiliar with a href="http://www.engadgethd.com/2008/11/20/kogan-intros-au-349-profile-1-1-blu-ray-player-for-australia/"Kogan/a, it's an online-only enterprise that has wares built specifically to its dimensions in China, and so far as we can tell, it's as legit as they come. As for specs, the Agora packs a 2.5-inch touchscreen (320 x 240), 3G networking, a backlit QWERTY keyboard, Bluetooth 2.0 and a microSD card slot; the Pro adds in GPS, 2-megapixel camera and WiFi. So, with unsubsidized prices this low, are you willing to take a chance?br /br /[Via a href="http://www.itwire.com/content/view/22082/1168/"iTWire/a]pFiled under: a href="http://www.engadget.com/category/cellphones/" rel="tag"Cellphones/a/pp style="padding:5px;background:#ddd;border:1px solid #ccc;clear:both;"a href="http://www.engadget.com/2008/12/03/kogan-intros-worlds-second-android-phone-agora-agora-pro/"Kogan intros world's second Android phone: Agora / Agora Pro/a originally appeared on a href="http://www.engadget.com"Engadget/a on Wed, 03 Dec 2008 22:23:00 EST. Please see our a href="http://www.weblogsinc.com/feed-terms/"terms for use of feeds/a./ph6 style="clear: both; padding: 8px 0 0 0; height: 2px; font-size: 1px; border: 0; margin: 0; padding: 0;"/h6a href=http://www.kogan.com.au/blog/2008/dec/4/here-it-kogan-agora/Read/anbsp;|nbsp;a href="http://www.engadget.com/2008/12/03/kogan-intros-worlds-second-android-phone-agora-agora-pro/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent link to this entry"Permalink/anbsp;|nbsp;a href="http://www.engadget.com/forward/1390760/" title="Send this entry to a friend via email"Email this/anbsp;|nbsp;a href="http://www.engadget.com/2008/12/03/kogan-intros-worlds-second-android-phone-agora-agora-pro/#comments" title="View reader comments on this entry"Comments/a pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/4OvKkhB-soGLMkNAja1F4IdwGaw/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/4OvKkhB-soGLMkNAja1F4IdwGaw/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pdiv class="feedflare" a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/weblogsinc/engadget?a=7Hbra3Az"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/weblogsinc/engadget?i=7Hbra3Az" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/weblogsinc/engadget?a=0KsMlq34"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/weblogsinc/engadget?i=0KsMlq34" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~4/qR1kKQRcph8" height="1" width="1"/

a href="http://www.careerjournal.com/article/SB122826483720274329.html""We're not selling here -- we're hunting!"/a The young man or woman at the mall kiosk who grabs your shoulder and says quot;Can I have twenty seconds of your time to show you something amazing?quot; might be a young Israeli saving up for a pre-army jaunt to Asia or South America. The U.S. kiosk trade has become popular enough in Israel to inspire a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1cc55QnowDc"a folk-rock song/a by musician and kiosk veteran Rami Feinstein. The Wall Street Journal offers a generally admiring profile of the Israeli a href="http://www.careerjournal.com/article/SB122826483720274329.html"quot;natural-born closers.quot;/a The Capital Times, in Madison, WI, a href="http://www.madison.com/tct/business/313887"wishes they'd buzz off./a br /

guys, i know this is a stupid question. but i just bought a new macbook today, and i'd like to calibrate the color profile a bit. how do you guys find the panel model number of the macbook, and what is the best profile for the panel?


thanks very much

The outlook for the majority of the U.S. information technology sector is negative for 2009, Fitch Ratings said Wednesday. Worldwide IT spending will decline 2 to 3 percent in 2009, led by hardware and semiconductors, headwinds that will hurt profits and weaken credit profiles, the ratings agency said.div class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/ibtimes/tech?a=SbSYO"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/ibtimes/tech?i=SbSYO" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/ibtimes/tech?a=kHKXo"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/ibtimes/tech?i=kHKXo" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/ibtimes/tech?a=Mjbvo"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/ibtimes/tech?i=Mjbvo" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/ibtimes/tech/~4/474223497" height="1" width="1"/

centerimg title="Microsoft Ought To Acquire Coolness" style="MARGIN: 0px" alt="Microsoft Ought To Acquire Coolness" src="http://www.ubergizmo.com/photos/2008/12/ms-cool.jpg" border="0" //centerbr / pMicrosoft ought to reflect on their image at this point in time, and acquiring some "cool" would do a whole world of good for them. Case in point, adding Twitter and Digg to their portfolio would definitely raise their profile by a notch, although it remains to be seen whether users of both services will actually head for the hills when they see the association with Microsoft then. It would be interesting to see Microsoft try to enhance their corporate image among the younger generation of users instead of being thought of as a big, bad wolf that is out to gobble whatever innocent, fledgling company. How much moolah do you think Microsoft will have to fork out before either company agrees to go under the Seattle company's fold?/p pPermalink: a href="http://www.ubergizmo.com/15/archives/2008/12/microsoft_ought_to_acquire_coolness.html"Microsoft Ought To Acquire Coolness/a from Ubergizmo (a href="http://www.ubergizmo.com"US/a, a href="http://www.ubergizmo.com/fr"FR/a) | a href="http://www.uberbargain.com/"Good deals/a | Hot: a href="http://www.ubergizmo.com/15/archives/2008/11/blackberry_storm_review.html"Storm Review/a/p pmap name="google_ad_map_081203181145" area shape="rect" href="http://imageads.googleadservices.com/pagead/imgclick/081203181145?pos=0" coords="1,2,367,28"/ area shape="rect" href="http://services.google.com/feedback/abg" coords="384,10,453,23"//map img usemap="#google_ad_map_081203181145" border="0" src="http://imageads.googleadservices.com/pagead/ads?format=468x30_aff_imgamp;client=ca-pub-7335032025195922amp;channel=9684588219amp;output=pngamp;cuid=081203181145amp;url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ubergizmo.com%2F15%2Farchives%2F2008%2F12%2Fmicrosoft_ought_to_acquire_coolness.html"//p pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/TTNB6P6aaTFwD8Sgkv58RHVYVso/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/TTNB6P6aaTFwD8Sgkv58RHVYVso/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pdiv class="feedflare" a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/ubergizmo?a=YMf0CXan"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/ubergizmo?d=41" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/ubergizmo?a=RDJZZvAl"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/ubergizmo?i=RDJZZvAl" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/ubergizmo?a=wJjs9vU9"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/ubergizmo?d=52" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/ubergizmo?a=zVlGcmYd"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/ubergizmo?i=zVlGcmYd" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/ubergizmo?a=FegONdk1"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/ubergizmo?i=FegONdk1" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ubergizmo/~4/TYGG0m9wqMI" height="1" width="1"/

Publication Date: 2008 Dec 1 PMID: 19046430br/Authors: Liu, B. - Wang, X. - Lin, L. - Dong, Q. - Wang, X.br/Journal: BMC Bioinformaticsbr/br/ABSTRACT: BACKGROUND: Protein remote homology detection and fold recognition are central problems in bioinformatics. Currently, discriminative methods based on support vector machine (SVM) are the most effective and accurate methods for solving these problems. A key step to improve the performance of the SVM-based methods is to find a suitable representation of protein sequences. RESULTS: In this paper, a novel building block of proteins called Top-n-grams is presented, which contains the evolutionary information extracted from the protein sequence frequency profiles. The protein sequence frequency profiles are calculated from the multiple sequence alignments outputted by PSI-BLAST and converted into Top-n-grams. The protein sequences are transformed into fixed-dimension feature vectors by the occurrence times of each Top-n-gram. The training vectors are evaluated by SVM to train classifiers which are then used to classify the test protein sequences. We demonstrate that the prediction performance of remote homology detection and fold recognition can be improved by combining Top-n-grams and latent semantic analysis (LSA), which is an efficient feature extraction technique from natural language processing. When tested on superfamily and fold benchmarks, the method combining Top-n-grams and LSA gives significantly better results compared to related methods. CONCLUSIONS: The method based on Top-n-grams significantly outperforms the methods based on many other building blocks including N-grams, patterns, motifs and binary profiles. Therefore, Top-n-gram is a good building block of the protein sequences and can be widely used in many tasks of the computational biology, such as the sequence alignment, the prediction of domain boundary, the designation of knowledge-based potentials and the prediction of protein binding sites.br/br/post to: a href = http://www.citeulike.org/posturl?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov%2Fentrez%2Fquery.fcgi%3Fcmd%3DRetrieve%26db%3DPubMed%26dopt%3DAbstract%26list_uids%3D19046430title=Entrez+PubmedCiteULike/a

br / bAuthor:/b a href='http://forum.newsbin.com/profile.php?mode=viewprofileu=20073'DaveXVI/abr /br / bPosted:/b Thu Dec 04, 2008 2:55 ambr /br / br /br / /spantable width=90% cellspacing=1 cellpadding=3 border=0 align=centertr tdspan class=genmedbQuade wrote:/b/span/td /tr tr td class=quotexzver will give you up to 10 times faster header DOWNLOAD. Not loading./td /tr/tablespan class=postbodybr / br / I understand that, I'm saying I don't see any difference because for me, it worked well (10 times faster) in B8 as well.br / br / On the other hand, the speed limiter didn't work for me in B8, but it seems to be accurate in B9.

br / bAuthor:/b a href='http://forum.newsbin.com/profile.php?mode=viewprofileu=5'Quade/abr /br / bPosted:/b Thu Dec 04, 2008 2:40 ambr /br / br /br / On your 32 inch monitor, the difference in feature size between 800x600 and 1024x786 is pretty small. I mean GUI feature size. When's the last time you tried 1024x768? You can also access the quot;Load Specialquot; from the group right click too. br / br / I'd be more inclined to add a shortcut than layout the screen for 800x600.

br / bAuthor:/b a href='http://forum.newsbin.com/profile.php?mode=viewprofileu=5'Quade/abr /br / bPosted:/b Thu Dec 04, 2008 2:37 ambr /br / br /br / Bandwidth limiter? It's not a question of connections but, one of speed. Set newsbin to restrict the speed to come fraction of the total speed you're paying for and you browsing should get faster.

br / bAuthor:/b a href='http://forum.newsbin.com/profile.php?mode=viewprofileu=5'Quade/abr /br / bPosted:/b Thu Dec 04, 2008 2:36 ambr /br / br /br / Search your disk for NBI files and if you find the one you were using, try double-clicking it to start Newsbin.

br / bAuthor:/b a href='http://forum.newsbin.com/profile.php?mode=viewprofileu=5'Quade/abr /br / bPosted:/b Thu Dec 04, 2008 2:33 ambr /br / br /br / Don't know. I'll have to look.

br / bAuthor:/b a href='http://forum.newsbin.com/profile.php?mode=viewprofileu=5'Quade/abr /br / bPosted:/b Thu Dec 04, 2008 2:33 ambr /br / br /br / You can do 3 pane if you want. Move the mouse to the right top, feel around for a border and pull it open. Then in the options, move whatever tab you want quot;top rightquot;. It's best to restart to move the tabs but, closing and re-opening them again will work. br / br / You should give 2 pane a chance. I used to use 3 pane and now much prefer 2.

br / bAuteur:/b a href='http://www.cinezik.org/forum/profile.php?mode=viewprofileu=2'Fluxus/abr /br / bPosté le:/b Jeu Déc 04, 2008 4:37 ambr /br / br /br / je viens de réaliser que Klaus badelt (Pirates des Caraïbes 1) n'avait pas son topic. C'est chose faite à l'occasion de span style=font-size:18px; line-height:normala href=http://www.cinezik.org/compositeurs/index.php?compo=badelt target=_blank class=postlinkl'interview de Cinezik en ligne/a/span !!

br / bAuthor:/b a href='http://forum.newsbin.com/profile.php?mode=viewprofileu=41744'DurangoKid/abr /br / bPosted:/b Thu Dec 04, 2008 1:52 ambr /br / br /br / I just upgraded from 5.33 to 5.42 and noticed a wonderful performance increase. What I am less thrilled about is the screen layout. Is it possible for me to revert back to the layout in 5.33?br / br / Many thanks,br / dK

br / bAuthor:/b a href='http://forum.newsbin.com/profile.php?mode=viewprofileu=8850'feinbergfl/abr /br / bPosted:/b Thu Dec 04, 2008 1:34 ambr /br / br /br / I never noticed this problem in the earlier betas. I left work today with 5.50B9 minimized in my tray. It finished downloading some files from Giganews so it was sitting idle. When i attempted to log in from my home computer to Giganews, I couldn't get on because my work computer was still logged in even though there was no activity. Is this a problem which just developed because of a change in the new beta or did I just never run into this problem before.

img src="http://c.fsdn.com/fm/screenshots/69928_thumb.png" align="right" alt="Screenshot" hspace="10" vspace="10" gtklick is a simple metronome with a GTK interface and native JACK support. It offers four different sounds, arbitrary meters and beat patterns, and a speed trainer. It's possible to save profiles and restore them later. hr / strongLicense:/strong GNU General Public License (GPL) hr / strongChanges:/strongbr / This version adds an option to manually configure which JACK ports to connect to, and fixes a few minor bugs. pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/ff4T9pwraZ80mjMnuvShXQCFtGk/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/ff4T9pwraZ80mjMnuvShXQCFtGk/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/freshmeat/feeds/fm-releases-unix/~4/9s2L7z2exzw" height="1" width="1"/

img src="http://c.fsdn.com/fm/screenshots/69928_thumb.png" align="right" alt="Screenshot" hspace="10" vspace="10" gtklick is a simple metronome with a GTK interface and native JACK support. It offers four different sounds, arbitrary meters and beat patterns, and a speed trainer. It's possible to save profiles and restore them later. hr / strongLicense:/strong GNU General Public License (GPL) hr / strongChanges:/strongbr / This version adds an option to manually configure which JACK ports to connect to, and fixes a few minor bugs. pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/yDdRPLFbseY5mwdXqcpn5Mk9hjE/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/yDdRPLFbseY5mwdXqcpn5Mk9hjE/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/freshmeat/feeds/fm-releases-global/~4/9s2L7z2exzw" height="1" width="1"/

divimg alt="" src="http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-feeds/1/H.15.1/5737?ns=guardianpageName=Business%3A+State-controlled+banks+take+over+fund+manager+New+Starch=Businessc3=The+Guardianc4=New+Star+Asset+Management+Group+%28Business%29%2CBanking+sector+%28Business%29%2CMergers+and+acquisitions+%28business%29%2CBusiness%2CCredit+crunch+%28Business%29c5=Investments%2CCredit+Crunch%2CBusiness+Marketsc6=Jill+Treanorc7=2008_12_04c8=1128396c9=articlec10=GUc11=Businessc12=New+Star+Asset+Managementc13=c14=h2=GU%2FBusiness%2FNew+Star+Asset+Management" width="1" height="1" //divpBanks rescued by the taxpayer have seized New Star, the troubled fund management group which is to delist from the stock exchange after a radical restructuring./ppJohn Duffield, the founder of New Star, is ceding control of up to 95% of the operation to a consortium of banks led by HBOS to relieve its pound;240m debt. /ppDuffield is thought to have been reluctant to agree to the terms of the debt for equity swap which was finally ratified by the New Star board late yesterday afternoon. The fund manager, which took out high profile billboard adverts to attract savers, had been forced to find a way to eradicate the debt to address the concerns of major clients who were reluctant to place their money with the firm./ppDuffield is not expected to remain with the group he founded for much longer after a long City career during which he has developed a reputation as a maverick - albeit a successful one./ppThe complex restructuring is expected to leave banks rescued by the government with control over New Star, which Duffield launched after a high-profile row with the owners of his previous venture, Jupiter. /ppThe combined Lloyds-HBOS bank in which the taxpayer is likely to own about 40%, will have an estimated 45% stake in New Star and RBS - now 58% owned by the taxpayer - with about 15% in the fund management group. HSBC and National Australia Bank will also have stakes./ppYesterday Duffield, 69, was unrepentant about the restructuring which will also hurt his own pocket as he owns around 5% of the company./pp"The cost of this restructuring is regrettably a substantial dilution for ordinary shareholders, including me. However, in current market conditions we have to recognise that there is no option to ensure the stability of the business," Duffield said./pp"We are now free to focus all our attention on improving our investment performance. Our existing share-based bonus scheme will be replaced by a new scheme to ensure that our key people are locked in." /ppTwo new share-based incentive schemes are being put in place for New Star staff, many of whom had been lured to work at the group by the promise of lucrative incentive schemes. Until the credit crunch began to bite, the schemes had proved attractive to employees after its flotation at 225p three years ago. The shares reached 450p before collapsing to just 4p which values the company at barely pound;20m./ppStaff own about 25% of the company and the debt for equity swap will wipe out all existing shareholders who will have to approve the de-listing of the shares. The company took on the debt to return pound;363m to shareholders last year before the credit crunch began./ppDuffield has taken out a total of pound;150m from the company which had been forced to renegotiate the terms of the loan last month amid client withdrawals. Funds under management are now pound;13.9bn from a peak of pound;20bn./ppNew Star had already embarked upon a cost cutting exercise and is losing 60 jobs from its workforce of 380. More posts may now be shed as the banks exert their influence. Directors such as the chief executive Howard Covington may also decide to step aside. The anxiety about the company's debt was heightened after the market mayhem caused by the collapse of Lehman Brothers. Its customers' nerves were further frayed by the suspension of dealing in its high-profile international property fund. The board also blamed its stock market listing for its plight./pp"The board believes that the reporting requirements and public scrutiny that are part of being a listed company have served to magnify these concerns," New Star said./ppThe restructuring involves the banks converting pound;240m of the pound;260m they are owed into pound;94m of preference shares and enough ordinary shares to allow them to own 75% of New Star. The preference shares pay an annual interest and convert into ordinary shares that could ultimately allow the banks to own 95% of the company. While returns for investors in its funds will be affected by the financial turmoil, all investors' money is held in separate trusts and therefore ring-fenced from the fund manager's operations./pdiv style="float: left; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;"ullia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/newstarassetmanagementgroup"New Star Asset Management/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/banking"UK banking sector/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/mergersandacquisitions"Mergers and acquisitions/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/creditcrunch"Credit crunch/a/li/ul/diva href="http://www.guardian.co.uk"guardian.co.uk/a copy; Guardian News Media Limited 2008 | Use of this content is subject to our a href="http://users.guardian.co.uk/help/article/0,,933909,00.html"Terms Conditions/a | a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/webfeeds/1,,1309488,00.html"More Feeds/a pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/RHXG0pP5ERb01w-KlTnCK9ho30w/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/RHXG0pP5ERb01w-KlTnCK9ho30w/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/p

br / bAuthor:/b a href='http://forum.newsbin.com/profile.php?mode=viewprofileu=20073'DaveXVI/abr /br / bPosted:/b Thu Dec 04, 2008 1:04 ambr /br / br /br / /spantable width=90% cellspacing=1 cellpadding=3 border=0 a