Dec 6 (Reuters) - State Bank of India (SBI.BO), the country's top lender, said on Monday it will raise deposit rates by between 50 and 150 basis points for various maturities, with effect from Dec. 7.
In November, India's central bank raised interest rates for the sixth time this year to tame stubbornly high inflation.
NEW DELHI — India's home secretary says Pakistan's efforts to prosecute those behind the 2008 Mumbai attacks are a "facade" with Islamabad concerned that senior government officials might be implicated.
In an interview published in the Wall Street Journal on Monday, G.K. Pillai said India had provided Pakistan with extensive information on the identities of key conspirators behind the attacks that killed 166 people.
Some of the most compelling evidence was garnered from interrogating David Headley, a Pakistani-American who pleaded guilty to surveying the hotels and other targets ahead of the assault blamed on Pakistan-based militants.
Pillai said Headley had identified the voice of key conspirators from Indian intelligence intercepts and the information had been passed on to the Pakistani authorities.
"I don't think they're going to do anything about it," Pillai told the Journal, adding that Pakistan's moves to advance the case are a "facade" and ignored the people in the "control room" who orchestrated the attacks.
Pillai argued that Pakistan was wary of cracking down on top militants, for fear they will "sing" and implicate Pakistani government officials in the attacks.
"They just can't do it," he said.
The Mumbai attacks, which began on November 26, 2008, caused carnage as 10 heavily-armed Islamist gunmen stormed India's financial capital, sparking a bloody, 60-hour siege shown live on television around the world.
Nine of the gunmen were killed and the sole survivor, Mohammed Ajmal Kasab, was condemned to death by a Mumbai court in May. He is challenging the sentence.
Seven suspects in Pakistan, including alleged mastermind Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi, have been put on trial in the country, but none has been convicted.
The trial process has stalled, with Pakistani officials demanding Kasab be allowed to testify, which New Delhi has refused. Pakistan also wants to send a fact-finding commission to India to gather more evidence.
India sees these moves as stalling tactics and says it has handed over enough evidence to convict the accused men. Pakistan says the evidence is inadmissible in court.
The Mumbai attacks continue to dog relations between nuclear-armed India and Pakistan, whose slow-moving peace process broke down after the assault.
MUMBAI -- Air India has floated two tenders to lease a total of 57 planes as the loss-making national carrier tries to regain market share lost to local and overseas rivals.
The latest plan comes even as the airline continues to take delivery of 111 planes it ordered from Airbus and Boeing in 2005 for $15 billion.
The carrier aims to lease 10 long-haul Airbus 330 planes for international operations and an equal number of Airbus 320s, 15 ATR turboprop planes and 18 CRJ700 planes of Canada's Bombardier Inc. to expand its domestic operations, one of the tenders on its website showed.
The airline also aims to lease up to four Boeing 737-800 planes for its low-cost unit Air India Charters Ltd., which operates short-haul overseas flights under the brand Air India Express, according to the second tender document. The aircraft will be leased for a period of five years.
Air India has received deliveries of 81 planes so far from the 111 it ordered. It includes all 43 planes ordered from Airbus and 38 from Boeing.
The carrier has been in the red since 2007, but managed to trim its net loss by a fifth to 55.51 billion rupees [$1.23 billion] during the financial year ended March 31.
Large plane orders and a depleting cash flow forced the carrier to take on more debt during the global economic slowdown of 2008 and early 2009. Air India currently has a total debt of 400 billion rupees.
However, demand for air travel has been growing rapidly since the middle of 2009 and in recent months has exceeded capacity additions by airlines. Recent data from the Ministry of Civil Aviation showed that while flight seats offered by airlines for sale have risen 8%-10% from the year earlier during April to October, the number of passengers has increased 15%-20%.
To cash in on the rise in demand, low-fare carrier SpiceJet Ltd. recently placed a $900 million order with Canada's Bombardier Inc. for 30 planes and before that a $2.7 billion order for 30 Boeing planes. Rival budget airline IndiGo has also received government approval to buy 150 Airbus planes.
NEW DELHI—India's government is in discussions with companies that use Research in Motion Ltd.'s BlackBerry to gain access to employees' secure communications when seen as necessary, said a top Indian official.
Home Secretary G.K. Pillai also dismissed reports that the smartphone maker's services will be blocked if the government's surveillance demands aren't met by the end of January.
"We're trying to find solutions where everybody's interests are in one sense protected," Mr. Pillai said during an interview. "It's going to take a little time, because it's a new technology."
The secure nature of BlackBerry's corporate, or enterprise, email service has been one of its big selling points for business and government users. But that feature has been problematic for countries that say they can't intercept BlackBerry emails.
RIM, based in Waterloo, Ontario, has been engaged in a high-stakes tug of war with various countries including India, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, which had threatened to ban BlackBerry services that they couldn't monitor. RIM settled with some countries, but negotiations with India have continued, with its government citing heightened national-security concerns as reasons for needing to unlock encrypted messages. RIM has maintained that only its corporate customers have the ability to unlock secure email messages, and now India has initiated talks with some of those companies.
"We've had a round of meetings with the companies," Mr. Pillai said. He added that their response has been, " 'If you tell us you've got a suspect from our company who is a national security issue,' " the company will provide the necessary access.
Mr. Pillai didn't say which companies had discussions with the Home Ministry, which oversees domestic-security issues.
RIM already has provided a solution for its BlackBerry Messenger chat service that will be in place by the end of January, Mr. Pillai said, and gaining lawful data access to BlackBerry's corporate-email service will likely take longer than January because of the technology involved.
"If we can get the data as real-time as possible, that's good enough for me," Mr. Pillai said.
But he cautioned that if he doesn't eventually get a satisfactory technical solution—either through BlackBerry directly or its corporate customers—"then that service will then go, because I can't afford to have a black hole."
A spokesman for RIM in India cited the company's Dec. 3 statement, in which it said, "RIM has no ability to provide the customers' encryption keys" for BlackBerry enterprise email. The statement also said India had agreed RIM shouldn't be "singled out" from other companies with secure data services running on corporate networks and that any new moves to obtain lawful access to that data should be applied industrywide.
Some Indian media reports have said that Jan. 31 is the deadline for BlackBerry to comply with the government's surveillance requirements, after which RIM would face a service shutdown. But Mr. Pillai said that date is "more of a target" than a hard deadline.
Mr. Pillai's comments, the most detailed yet by the government on its deliberations over BlackBerry, come as good news for RIM as it tries to maintain its position in India, a market with 688 million wireless subscribers and increasing demand for advanced smartphones such as BlackBerrys.
RIM has more than 50 million subscribers globally but doesn't release figures for India.
The Indian government earlier this year threatened to ban BlackBerry corporate-email service and BlackBerry Messenger because their high levels of encryption—or data scrambling—made them too difficult for intelligence agencies to intercept.
India first raised publicly the prospect of a BlackBerry service ban in August, pressing RIM to make available encrypted corporate email data for certain users at the government's request. The government said it wanted a solution by Aug. 31 but later stretched the deadline as RIM promised modifications.
India can already monitor phone calls, text messages and consumer email on BlackBerrys, just as it can do for other telecommunications services in the country.
Various intelligence and investigative agencies have authority to initiate landline or mobile-phone wiretaps of suspects in cases ranging from terrorism to drug-trafficking, with the approval of Mr. Pillai in the Home Ministry.
A board that includes the telecom secretary, cabinet secretary and law secretary review Mr. Pillai's authorizations every two weeks, he said.
India's domestic surveillance capabilities have been in the spotlight in recent weeks after wiretapped phone conversations between a corporate lobbyist and powerful Indian politicians and journalists were leaked to the local media.
Mr. Pillai said he approved the wiretap as part of an investigation into tax-evasion and potential connections to a controversial allocation of mobile- phone spectrum by the Indian telecom ministry. He said government agencies are investigating how the leak of the recordings happened.
Mr. Pillai said about 6,000 to 8,000 wiretaps are happening in India at any given time, with roughly 80% aimed at gleaning information about potential militant activity in the restive Himalayan region of Kashmir, troubled northeastern states and areas affected by a widespread Maoist insurgency. Only about 3% to 5% are for white-collar investigations, he said.
Mr. Pillai said he will likely pursue some changes to the country's telecom laws to clarify the government's authority for intercepts of highly secure corporate communications, part of a broader set of changes related to lawful intercept policy and privacy.
He said the government has also initiated discussions with other communications providers whose services it has had trouble gaining access to, including Google Inc. and Skype. The government has received assurances from all players it has reached out to that they will do whatever possible to respond to lawful surveillance requests, he said.
A spokesman for Skype said the company hasn't been contacted by Indian authorities.
A spokeswoman for Google India said, "We evaluate requests on a case by case basis. Our goal is to provide our users access to information and also to protect the privacy of our users...Whenever we receive a request, we first check to make sure it meets both the letter and spirit of the law before complying."
Mr. Pillai said the government has faced a challenge getting up to speed on new technologies and keeping up with the "bad guys" as they try to take advantage of every loophole in India's surveillance capabilities.
"Technology is changing," he said. "The crooks are always one step ahead."
The deal for French nuclear group Areva to supply two reactors estimated at around 7 billion euros ($9.4 billion) is one of several Sarkozy is chasing on his four-day visit to the emerging Asian giant.
Areva has signed a memorandum of understanding with the Nuclear Power Corp of India (NPCIL) for the sale and India has given the green light for construction.
"What we have agreed to say with our Indian partners is that decisive progress has been made (on the deal) and therefore a point of no return has been reached towards the final signing of contracts," said a French source, who declined to be identified.
DEFENCE DEALS
Sarkozy also wants to win the support of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's government to push an ambitious agenda for the G20 group of nations, which France currently heads, including the reform of the global monetary system.
As U.S. President Barack Obama did in November, Sarkozy has pleased his audience with a pledge to support a long-standing Indian demand for a permanent seat at the U.N. Security Council alongside France, Russia, China, Britain and the United States.
Indian officials have also given France "reasons to be confident" the two sides would reach consensus on India's nuclear liability laws, the source said, which have in the past made foreign firms wary of entering the Indian market.
Sarkozy wants to give French firms a bigger share of India's lucrative defence market, including a contract to supply 126 fighter jets to India's air force. There is also a smaller deal that could be sealed soon for defence electronics group Thales to modernise 51 Mirage 2000 planes.
The French president, who arrived in India on Saturday, heads a delegation of 50 senior businessmen as well as cabinet officials including Economy Minister Christine Lagarde.
The Shanghai Composite Index, which tracks the bigger of China’s stock exchanges, rose 14.75, or 0.5 percent, to 2,857.18 at the 3 p.m. close. The CSI 300 Index gained 0.2 percent to 3,165.57. Stock symbols are in parentheses after company names.
Carmakers: SAIC Motor Corp. (600104 CH), the Chinese partner of General Motors Co., dropped 1.3 percent to 16.38 yuan. FAW Car Co. (000800 CH), which makes passenger cars in China with Volkswagen AG, slid 2.6 percent to 17.85 yuan.
China will end a preferential purchase tax for vehicles with engines no larger than 1.6 liters next year, the China Securities Journal reported, citing an unidentified person at the National Development and Reform Commission.
China CAMC Engineering Co. (002051 CH), an engineering construction company, gained 4.3 percent to 67.46 yuan, a record high since its listing in 2006. The company said it won 7.15 billion yuan ($1.07 billion) of contracts from Venezuelan state firms on Dec. 3 to build infrastructure, plant crops, and supply agricultural machines.
Dalian Port Co. (601880 CH), a port operator, surged 38 percent from its offer price to 5.24 yuan on the first day of trading in Shanghai. The company raised 2.9 billion yuan in its first-time domestic stock sales.
PetroChina Co. (601857 CH), the nation’s biggest oil company, jumped 4.7 percent to 11.77 yuan, the biggest gain since Nov. 11. PetroChina is the top recommendation among Chinese oil stocks because its natural gas business may spur growth and the stock is cheaper than rival Cnooc Ltd., BNP Paribas analyst Bradley Way wrote in a note today. China’s top planning body may encourage PetroChina to supply natural gas to the northeast region by raising prices, it said. PetroChina spokesman Mao Zefeng declined to comment.
Ericsson AB Chairman Michael Treschow plans to step down from overseeing the world’s biggest maker of mobile-phone networks in the next two years, saying the manufacturer is “in good shape.”
Treschow, 67, will leave Stockholm-based Ericsson next year or in 2012, the company said today in a statement. A successor to Treschow, who became chairman in March 2002, will be appointed at one of the next two annual shareholders’ meetings, Ericsson said.
“This is something that has grown inside me since the latter part of the fall,” Treschow said today in a phone interview. “Nine years is a long time. The company is also very stable and in good shape. The combination probably makes for a good time to find somebody else.”
The executive took over after a decline in sales led to Ericsson’s first full-year loss in more than half a century in 2001, prompting the company to sell 30 billion kronor ($4.4 billion) in stock and cut its workforce to restore earnings. Ericsson said on Oct. 22 that third-quarter net income jumped almost fivefold from a year earlier.
“The best accomplishment was probably to navigate Ericsson out of the crisis in 2002,” Treschow said. “At that time we had to go from 110,000 employees to 40,000 employees in about two years time. To be able to do that without actually dying in the process was the biggest achievement in my time.”
Stock Declines
Ericsson fell as much as 0.9 krona, or 1.1 percent, to 73.8 kronor and was down 1 percent as of 11:32 a.m. in Stockholm trading. That pared the stock’s gain this year to 12 percent, valuing the company at 241 billion kronor.
Treschow, who is a member of Ericsson’s nomination committee, declined to comment on who may replace him. Treschow also said has no plans to leave the chairmanship of London- and Rotterdam-based Unilever Plc, the world’s second-largest consumer goods maker, a post he has held since 2007.
Immediately before joining Ericsson, Treschow was chief executive officer of Electrolux AB. He was CEO of Atlas Copco AB, the world’s largest maker of air compressor and rock drills, from 1991 until moving to the Electrolux post in 1997.
Dec. 6 (Bloomberg) -- Gold fluctuated near a record in London on concern the U.S. economy may need more stimulus and as the dollar strengthened. Silver advanced to a 30-year high.
The dollar climbed against the euro as European officials voiced divisions over the steps needed to stop the sovereign- debt crisis. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke said the central bank may boost Treasury purchases to prop up the economy. Gold, which usually moves inversely to the dollar, traded within 1 percent of a record $1,424.60 an ounce set on Nov. 9.
“Without a stronger dollar, gold would probably trade higher,” Peter Fertig, owner of Quantitative Commodity Research Ltd. in Hainburg, Germany, said today by phone. “The Bernanke comments on quantitative easing are one of the factors supporting gold.”
Immediate-delivery bullion lost $2.18, or 0.2 percent, to $1,411.90 an ounce at 11:36 a.m. in London. Prices swung between a gain and a loss of 0.3 percent and reached as high as $1,418.80. The metal for February delivery was 0.4 percent higher at $1,412.50 on the Comex in New York.
Bullion rose to $1,411.50 an ounce in the morning “fixing” in London, used by some mining companies to sell output, from $1,403.50 at the afternoon fixing on Dec. 3. Spot prices reached a record 902.5109 British pounds, data compiled by Bloomberg show.
Currency Debasement
Bernanke said unemployment may take five years to fall to a normal level and Fed buying of Treasury securities beyond the $600 billion announced last month is possible, according to a transcript of an interview for CBS Corp.’s “60 Minutes” program. Gold is set for a 10th annual gain after governments spent trillions of dollars and kept interest rates low to bolster economies. European finance ministers meet in Brussels today.
“Given that further debasing of fiat currencies is back on the agenda, it seems likely the precious metals, particularly gold and silver, are poised for fresh gains,” James Moore, an analyst at TheBullionDesk.com in London, said in a report.
Gold will likely advance to $1,500 next year on demand from investors and central banks, Bank of America Merrill Lynch said in a report dated Dec. 3. Prices are up 29 percent this year.
Silver for immediate delivery in London added as much as 1.7 percent to $29.915 an ounce, the highest price since March 1980, and was last at $29.5825. The metal is up 75 percent this year and reached an all-time high of $50.35 in New York in 1980, a year after the Hunt brothers tried to corner the market.
Ratio Falls
One ounce of gold bought as little as 47.326 ounces of silver today, the least since February 2007, data compiled by Bloomberg show. Silver will average $29.50 next year as investors buy more metal and industrial growth spurs demand, Bank of America Merrill Lynch said.
“There is some substitution impact on silver as investors also see the metal as a store of value, just like gold,” Ben Westmore, an analyst at National Australia Bank Ltd., said today by phone from Melbourne.
Palladium fell 1.4 percent to $757.50 an ounce, after reaching $779.10 on Dec. 3, the highest price since April 2001. Platinum was 0.5 percent lower at $1,718.50 an ounce. Platinum will average $2,000 and palladium will average $775 next year, according to Bank of America Merrill Lynch.
Bank of Ireland Plc soared in Dublin trading as J. Christopher Flowers, founder of New York private- equity firm J.C. Flowers & Co, signaled he is continuing to look for Irish banking assets.
Bank of Ireland rose as much as 7.5 percent to 34.50 euro cents and was up 5.9 percent as of 9:09 a.m. Allied Irish Banks Plc was unchanged at 34.30 cents. Flowers said in a Bloomberg News interview on Dec. 3 that “if we can find the right opportunity to invest in Ireland, we would like to do that.” J.C. Flowers had been bidding for Irish lender EBS Building Society, two people with knowledge of the talks said on Sept. 8.
A stake in Allied Irish or Bank of Ireland, the country’s biggest lenders, may be attractive depending on government guarantees on potential losses from toxic assets, Flowers said in a Financial Times interview today. He also said that buying asset portfolios at discounts with government support might be a more appealing investment in the short-term.
Ireland’s government said on Nov. 28 that banks will be required to run down non-core assets, securitize or sell portfolios or divisions, with indemnities provided by the state if needed. The move is part of a bailout Ireland agreed with the European Union and the International Monetary Fund.
Central Bank Governor Patrick Honohan has said that some of the 10 billion euros ($13.3 billion) to be allocated to banks from the bailout will be in the form of “credit enhancements,” or loan-loss indemnities, to help banks dispose of assets.
“Potential acquirers are likely to want to purchase” Irish banking “assets at a discount to book value even with the loan loss guarantees, and this could drive up further capital requirements in Irish banks,” said Ken Darmody, an analyst with Goodbody Stockbrokers, in a note to clients today.
The chief executive of Pfizer, Jeffrey Kindler, has announced his surprise departure from the world's largest drugmaker to "recharge my batteries."
He is being replaced by Ian Read, 57, the global head of pharmaceuticals.
In his resignation statement, Mr Kindler, 55, acknowledged the personal toll of running a major organisation.
He said that the "24/7 nature of my responsibilities" had been "extremely demanding", especially after last year's $67bn (£42bn) takeover of Wyeth.
Mr Kindler, chief executive for five years, has overseen a 26% fall in Pfizer's share price, far stripping the 10% fall in the Arca Pharmaceutical index of major drugmakers.
He was formerly the company's legal counsel, and was seen as a surprise choice because of his relative lack of pharmaceuticals experience.
Analysts said Pfizer needed an injection of new blood, especially as it approaches a major challenge - the expiry in the US of its bestselling Lipitor cholesterol drug.
"The departure is sudden, but I doubt there was one event per se" that led to his resignation, said Tim Anderson, analyst at Sanford Bernstein.
* Dollar recovers from Friday losses
* Euro on back foot as finance ministers meet
* Stocks underpinned by Bernanke remarks
* Oil, commodities cling on to gains
By Mike Peacock
LONDON, Dec 6 (Reuters) - The dollar recouped some losses on Monday, having a taken a knock after the U.S. Federal Reserve said it was open to injecting more funds into the economy, while the euro weakened and world shares were flat.
Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke said on Sunday the central bank could end up buying more than the $600 billion in U.S. government bonds it has committed to purchase, if the economy fails to respond. [ID:nN05271909]
European shares were flat .FTEU3, supported by the belief that the Fed would do what it took to keep the U.S. economic recovery ticking along but still concerned about the spreading euro zone debt crisis.
"Markets have a clear message from the (U.S.) policymakers that they are in the business to ensure a sustained recovery," Mike Lenhoff, chief strategist at Brewin Dolphin, said.
The MSCI world equity index .MIWD00000PUS was down 0.1 percent at 321.78. Japan's Nikkei .N225 closed the day down 0.1 percent or 11.09 points at 10,167.23.
The prospect, following weak U.S. jobless figures, of more money sloshing around the U.S. economy had taken its toll on the dollar, but having shed more than 1 percent against a basket of currencies on Friday, it had scope for a bounce.
The dollar index .DXY was up 0.32 percent at 79.628, with the greenback pulling away from a three-week low against the yen JPY=.
"Friday's moves were so rapid that it is natural to have a bit of position unwinding," said Keiji Matsumoto, strategist at Nikko Cordial Securities. "There's also a feeling that there could be more bad news from the euro zone."
Cris Collinsworth, the Emmy Award-winning analyst for "Sunday Night Football and the most honored studio analyst in sports television history, and NBCSports.com today announced a partnership in which Collinsworth will provide content for NBCSports.com and his website, FootballPros.com, which he founded in July of this year, will move to NBCSports.com. The announcement was made today by Collinsworth on "Football Night in America."
Collinsworth will contribute regular columns and video posts from his home studio to NBCSports.com. Collinsworth’s website, FootballPros.com, will move to NBCSports.com in the first quarter of 2011, expanding NBC Sports Digital NFL section which already includes Mike Florio’s popular ProFootballTalk.com.
"I have always strived to know as much about each NFL team as its most passionate fan," said Collinsworth. "The conversation that I have been able to maintain with local fans through FootballPros.com has been a great resource for me as I study the NFL and I am really looking forward to bringing the site and my voice to NBCSports.com."
"NBCSports.com is fast becoming the online destination for more and more NFL fans," said Rick Cordella, vice president and general manager, NBC Sports Digital. "Adding Cris Collinsworth, the leading analytical mind among NFL commentators, and his FootballPros.com site complements our successful NBC Sports Talk strategy and helps to satisfy our growing fanbase."
FootballPros.com is the only sports forum where real football professionals participate in the discussion. Contributors to the site include NBC Sports’ Cris Collinsworth, former Bengals quarterback and Bills offensive coordinator Turk Schonert, former Giants’ wide receiver Phil McConkey and Emmy-Award winning reporter Josina Anderson.
About Cris Collinsworth
Cris Collinsworth, the most honored studio analyst in sports television, was named game analyst for "Sunday Night Football" starting with the 2009 season, in which he won the Emmy Award for Outstanding Game Analyst, his 11th career Emmy. Collinsworth has served as a studio analyst and co-host of NBC’s "Football Night in America" studio show since returning to the network in 2006 and co-hosted Super Bowl XLIII’s Pregame Show. Collinsworth, who was first part of the NBC Sports family from 1990-96, has won a record nine Emmy Awards for Outstanding Sports Studio Analyst and has twice received the Emmy Award for Outstanding Event Analyst.
Collinsworth won the Emmy Award in 2008 for Outstanding Sports Personality, Studio Analyst for his work on NBC’s "Football Night in America" studio show. The year before, Collinsworth was awarded both Outstanding Sports Studio Analyst for his work on NBC’s "Football Night in America" and HBO’s "Inside the NFL" and Outstanding Sports Game Analyst for his work on the NFL Network. He won Emmy Awards in 1998, 2002, 2003, 2004 and 2006 in the Studio Analyst category for his work on the Fox and HBO studio shows. He won his first Emmy Award in 1997 for his work on the "NFL on NBC" studio show. Collinsworth, known for his candid and insightful analysis, has received consistent critical acclaim throughout his broadcast career.
In 1990, Collinsworth joined NBC Sports as a game analyst for the network's NFL coverage and select college football broadcasts, highlighted by the 1994 Fiesta Bowl and the 1995 Orange Bowl national championship game between Nebraska and Miami. Collinsworth was assigned to the "NFL on NBC" pregame show in 1996, where he provided analysis that led to his first Emmy Award in 1997. While at NBC, Collinsworth proved his versatility and received critical praise while working as a reporter for track and field at the Atlanta Olympic Games. He also served as a commentator for NBC’s coverage of both the Beijing Olympic Games and, most recently, the Vancouver Olympic Games.
In 2005, Collinsworth returned to the NFL on FOX broadcast booth alongside play-by-play announcer Joe Buck and former quarterback Troy Aikman to form the network's lead broadcast team. Collinsworth first joined FOX Sports as a member of "FOX NFL Sunday" pregame show, in January 1998.
Upon completion of an eight-year NFL career as a wide receiver with the Cincinnati Bengals (1981-88), Collinsworth moved smoothly into broadcasting as a reporter for HBO's "Inside the NFL" in 1989. The following season he graduated to the show's studio cast. He currently serves as co-host on Showtime’s "Inside the NFL."
A three-time Pro Bowl selection during his NFL career, Collinsworth played in 107 games, catching 417 passes for 6,698 yards and 36 touchdowns. He had four 1,000-yard seasons, played in Super Bowls XVI and XXIII, and ranks first on the Bengals all-time career receptions list.
The Bengals selected him in the second round of the 1981 draft out of the University of Florida, where he graduated with a degree in accounting. An All-America and Academic All-America, Collinsworth was inducted into the Academic All-America Hall of Fame in 2001. He later returned to school at the University of Cincinnati Law School, completing his law degree in 1991.
Born January 27, 1959, in Dayton, Ohio, Collinsworth was raised in Titusville, Fla. He now resides in Kentucky with his wife Holly and their four children.
The Bulls will play in this bowl for the second time, getting the bid a day after falling to Big East champion Connecticut 19-16. They were picked over Pittsburgh, which played in the game last year, setting up Holtz's return to the state after he guided East Carolina for five seasons.
"This group has worked extremely hard throughout the year, so a trip to Charlotte is the perfect way to finish off the season," Holtz said.
In his first season at South Florida, Holtz's team came on strong late in the season after a slow start, winning four of its last six games. A victory will give South Florida at least eight wins for the fifth straight year.
"Coach Holtz has done a magnificent job with this football team and program in just a short time," USF athletic director Doug Woolard said. "He has provided outstanding leadership from day one and built a very competitive product on the field. I am so proud of our football team."
South Florida lost to N.C. State 14-0 in 2005 in Charlotte in the school's first bowl, the start of a six-year streak of bowl appearances.
Clemson, which has never played in the nine-year-old bowl, ranks ninth in the nation in scoring defense (17.8 points) while South Florida is 19th (19.5).
"South Florida presents us with an outstanding matchup," Swinney said. "Skip Holtz has done a great job in his first year as head coach of the Bulls. They beat Miami, who beat us, so it will be a great matchup."
The game, which will mark the first meeting between with the schools, will start at noon and be televised by ESPN.
"We feel that the Tigers and Bulls will be a very entertaining and compelling matchup on the field for everyone watching," bowl director Will Webb said. "We look forward to hosting everyone in Charlotte on New Year's Eve for this exciting game and all the surrounding events."
Vols End Regular Season With 4-Game Winning Streak:
NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- A North Carolina team whose season was overshadowed by an NCAA investigation will meet a Tennessee squad in the midst of a rebuilding effort under a new coach in the Music City Bowl in Nashville, Tenn., on Dec. 30.It's also game between two teams that were scheduled to meet at North Carolina during the 2011 season and at Tennessee in 2012, until Volunteers officials decided to pay a $750,000 buyout of the series contract with the Tar Heels.North Carolina (7-5) finished third in the Atlantic Coast Conference's Coastal Division after a season that had the NCAA looking into agent-related benefits and academic misconduct.Tennessee (6-6) finished third in the Southeastern Conference's Eastern Division in the Vols' first season under coach Derek Dooley, their third coach in as many seasons.
the Atlanta Falcons (9-2) might have the best NFL predictions record in the NFC Conference, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers (7-4) might be the most surprising this NFL picks season. The last time these two teams faced-off in a NFL predictions match-up was on November 7 in Atlanta, the Falcons prevailed 27-21 behind running back Michael Turner’s 107 yards and 2 TDs.
Since then, the Falcons have won three straight NFL predictions contests, including a 20-17 victory over the Green Bay Packers last week. Quarterback Matt Ryan has shown poise and leadership directing two late drives against the Packers and Ravens to win ball games. In the past five games, he has thrown 10 touchdowns against just one interception. The Bucs must find a way to defend the Falcons vertical passing game with Ryan and WR Roddy White (84 catches, 1,066). TE Tony Gonzalez remains a top red zone threat, though he only has four TDs this year. Turner has already proven dangerous and has 974 yards on the season. The Bucs may not have an answer for the big running back.
Tampa Bay did not offer much resistance last in last weeks NFL predictions contest against a tough Baltimore defense in a 17-10 loss but quarterback Josh Freeman remains a tough and elusive quarterback with 15 TDs against just 5 INTs. LeGarrette Blount is growing into his role as a top running back and Mike Williams has caught 6 TD passes. Overall, though, the Bucs lack explosive offensive weapons and have relied on a defense that has forced 27 takeaways this season. Freeman must guard against the pick TO and hope his own defense can find a way to force Atlanta into mistakes, though they have made few this season.
Atlanta is having a special season but Tampa can be a hostile environment when their fans are into the game. The Falcons are favored by 3 points in today’s week 13 NFL predictions match-up and Ryan has the talent to get the job done again.
Pervez Musharraf, the former President of Pakistan, talks during a public rally of his new political party, the 'All Pakistan Muslim League' in Birmingham, England (File Photo)Indian officials have confirmed that former Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf has been denied a visa. They did not give a reason.
Mr. Musharraf had been invited to speak at a seminar organized by business professionals in New Delhi.
Several of Mr. Musharraf's supporters, who were planning to visit India with him, were also denied a visa. The former Pakistani military ruler, who lives in Britain, is attempting a political comeback and launched a political party in October.
Foreign affairs observers say that India wants to avoid providing a platform for Mr. Musharraf's political ambitions, which they believe would be sending a wrong message to the civilian government in Islamabad.
"With Mr. Musharraf threatening to go back to Pakistan to start a political career, the Indian government is not very comfortable with helping him enlarge his political portfolio or image," said Bharat Karnad, a strategic affairs analyst with the independent Center for Policy Research in New Delhi.
New Delhi has also been irked by Mr. Musharraf's recent comments that India is responsible for creating unrest in Pakistan's south-western Balochistan province, and that India is trying to create an anti-Pakistan Afghanistan.
Mr. Musharraf was army chief when India and Pakistan came close to a fourth war in 1999. Later, when he became Pakistan's military ruler, the South Asian rivals embarked on a peace process which lowered tensions and led to a ceasefire along their tense Kashmir border.
That ceasefire is still holding. But the peace process remains stalled since the November 2008 terror attacks in Mumbai, which India says were planned by the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba.
Karnad says New Delhi is unlikely to resume a full-fledged peace dialogue with its rival until its repeated calls to clamp down on groups directing terror at India are heeded.
"There has to be something on the ground is what Delhi wants by way of reassurance before it gets into thinking of resuming the composite dialogue," added Karnad. "There is no give on Pakistan's part, so there is unlikely to be any movement in Delhi."
The top Indian demand is that Islamabad speed up the trial of the Lashkar-e-Taiba operatives it accuses of planning the Mumbai attacks.
A man pays homage in front of portraits of police officers killed in the Mumbai terror attack outside the Taj Mahal Palace hotel, one of the sites of the attack, on the second anniversary of the attack in Mumbai, 26 Nov 2010
Spain's Interior Ministry says police have arrested at least seven people suspected of ties to the 2008 terrorist attacks in Mumbai, India, that left 166 people dead.
Spanish media report the arrests took place late Tuesday and early Wednesday in and around the northeastern city of Barcelona. They say the arrested are mostly Pakistanis nationals and are suspected of falsifying passports and other identification documents.
The suspects are accused of sending money and the fake documents to the Pakistani-based militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba, the organization accused of carrying out the November 2008 attacks on luxury hotels, a rail station, a Jewish center, and a restaurant.
Nine of the 10 attackers were killed during the 60-hour siege. The surviving terrorist has been sentenced to death.
Two Palestinian terrorists were killed on the Gaza border on Thursday morning, when IDF troops opened fire on a number of suspects on the northern end of the Strip. The terrorists were apparenlty trying to infiltrate a kibbutz on the Gaza border.
An office of Ivory Coast opposition leader Alassane Ouattara has been attacked in the main city Abidjan, with at least four people killed.
The violence broke out despite a night-time curfew, as a deadline passed to release the results of Sunday's presidential election run-off.
Supporters of President Laurent Gbagbo are preventing the results from being declared, saying there was fraud in the north, where Mr Ouattara is popular.
The election is the first for a decade.
It is intended to reunify the country, the world's largest cocoa producer, divided since a 2002 civil war. Former New Forces rebels still control the north.
Mr Gbagbo's spokesman said they would appeal to the Constitutional Court to annul the results from parts of the north.
'Atrocity'The BBC's Valerie Bony says there were large pools of blood in the courtyard of the office and blood-stained clothes and bullet holes in the offices.
The office of the RDR party that was attacked is in the Yopougon district in the west of Abidjan - seen as a pro-Gbagbo area.
The building was reportedly targeted by a group of armed men at 2300 local time (and GMT) on Wednesday night - just an hour before the deadline to release the election results.
"They climbed the walls and the door and at that point they started shooting at people," an RDR official, who did not wish to be named, told the BBC.
He said some of the assailants were wearing civilians clothes, others in gendarme uniform.
"I saw three people lying down, and then they left them for dead. I'm devastated. It was a horrible atrocity and it was hard for me to take - to attack people in front of your own eyes, isn't easy to watch."
There has been no independent confirmation that gendarmes were linked to the attack.
Official from Mr Gbagbo's FPI party say their local office was subsequently attacked in an apparent revenge raid.
Both the army and UN peacekeepers have been patrolling Abidjan's streets since Sunday to prevent an outbreak of violence.
Other parts of Abidjan are reported to be quiet, with many people staying at home and many banks and businesses closed.
Both former colonial power France, the US and the UN have urged the Ivorian authorities to announce the results.
The UN mission says it has received reports of violence in parts of the west and north on election day, but that overall the voting seemed to be peaceful.
"Generally speaking, globally speaking, it went well, because all candidates, people were voting in a peaceful manner," said UN spokesman Hamoudoun Toure.
On Tuesday evening, Mr Gbagbo's representative in the electoral commission tore up the first batch of results as the commission's spokesman was about to announce them.
Mr Ouattara's supporters say the Gbagbo camp is blocking the announcement of the results because he has lost.
France retains close military and economic ties to its former colony, and on Wednesday, French Foreign Minister Michele Alliot-Marie said its forces would be able to intervene if French nationals or interests were affected by unrest in Ivory Coast.
Mr Gbagbo's supporters have previously accused France of bias, and French targets in the country have been attacked.
Dec. 2 (Bloomberg) -- Heavy snowfall and freezing temperatures continued to disrupt travel across Europe as airports at cities including London and Edinburgh remained shut and Eurostar Group Ltd. canceled almost half its services.
London’s Gatwick airport, the U.K.’s second busiest, will remain closed until at least 6 a.m. local time tomorrow, according to its website. Edinburgh airport pushed back opening until at least 4 p.m., and London City was closed until 2 p.m. Airports in Dublin and Geneva opened this morning.
In the U.K., the earliest widespread snowfall since 1993 has frozen over roads, disrupting traffic, with freezing weather likely to last until at least Dec. 8, according to private forecaster British Weather Services. The worst-hit areas overnight were south London, Sussex, Kent and Hampshire with as much as 8 inches (20 centimeters), said Robin Thwaytes, a spokesman for the state-funded Met Office.
In northern England, Yorkshire and the surrounding regions have had “snow shower after snow shower for days,” he said in a phone interview, though blizzards are likely to dwindle across the country in the next 24 hours. “By this time tomorrow it will be fairly dry but frosty.”
Eurostar Services
Eurostar canceled seven services from Paris to London and six in the other direction, plus five each way between the U.K. capital and Brussels, to avoid a repeat of last winter’s breakdowns in the Channel Tunnel. Speed restrictions in both the U.K. and northern France will create delays of as much as 90 minutes for other services, Eurostar said on its website.
Go-Ahead Group Plc’s Southern Railways, which operates commuter services from southeast England into London, said it canceled all trains because of adverse weather.
Temperatures were expected to drop as low as minus-14 degrees Celsius (7 degrees Fahrenheit) in northwest Scotland this morning, while London and southeast England will see temperatures of about minus-3 degrees Celsius, the Met Office said on its website.
The area affected most in the U.K. today was the south, from Kent through Dorset, said Paul Watters, a spokesman for the Automobile Association. The rescue service responded to 18,000 calls yesterday, and had 100,000 in the past six days, he said.
Germany, France
Fresh snowfall also blanketed Germany last night, exceeding 15 centimeters in some parts of the southeast. Temperatures will drop as low as minus-20 degrees Celsius in central Germany and very cold weather will persist until at least Dec. 4, according to the German Weather Service.
“We’re selling masses of scarves, woolly hats and gloves at the moment, said Hartmut Scheller, a store owner in Berlin’s southwestern suburb of Steglitz. “If temperatures persist at these lows, we’ll soon be out of stock.”
Frankfurt airport, Germany’s busiest, canceled 40 flights as of 7:30 a.m. local time, largely because of closures at other airports, Fraport AG spokesman Thomas Uber said by telephone, adding that the main runway opened again after the wind died down overnight. Flight traffic in Munich was largely back to normal, said Florian Steuer, an airport spokesman.
France’s DGAC civil aviation authority ordered the cancellation of one in four flights from Paris Charles de Gaulle today and one in ten from Orly, the city’s other major airport, according to an e-mailed statement.
Hundreds of vehicles were stranded early this morning in northern and western France after renewed snowfalls. The main RN12 highway along the northern coast of Brittany was closed and hundreds of heavy trucks taken off the roads in Normandy, AFP reported, citing the French meteorological agency.
Power Demand
U.K. same-day natural gas rose for a fifth day, the longest upward trend since October last year, with gas for today rising as much as 3.6 percent to 64 pence a therm, according to broker data on Bloomberg. About 80 percent of the country’s homes and businesses use natural gas for heating. It’s also used to generate about half of Britain’s electricity supply.
U.K. baseload power for the next working day lost 10.50 pounds, or 15 percent, to 60.50 pounds ($94.50) a megawatt-hour, broker data show. The contract closed at 71 pounds yesterday, its highest level in almost two years. Baseload is delivered around the clock.
--With assistance from Chris Peterson, Benjamin Purvis, David Altaner and Catherine Airlie in London, Warren Giles and Dylan Griffiths in Geneva, Laurence Frost in Paris, Mike Gavin in Frankfurt, Andreas Cremer in Berlin, Elena Logutenkova in Zurich, and Stuart Biggs in Tokyo. Editors: Peter Branton, Chris Jasper.
