The Evening Standard (London, England) articles from February 2005

The Evening Standard (London, England) archives from February 2005

Evening Standard, London, business briefs column.
February 1, 2005... Feb. 1--XP POWERS AHEAD AS DEMAND GROWS: Profits at XP Power, which supplies power units to the electronics industry, soared more than 80 percent last year as demand grew from the defence, industrial and medical sectors. Profits before tax and...

Evening Standard, London, City Spy column.
February 1, 2005... Feb. 1--WHATEVER YOU THINK about Libyan leader Colonel Gaddafi, it seems you can't fault his memory. American oil firms, led by Occidental, have won a flurry of exploration licences -- the first such concessions since international sanctions...

Evening Standard, London, Anthony Hilton column.
February 1, 2005... Byline: Anthony Hilton Feb. 1--GOODBYE TO HIGH ST ALSO-RANS? One might have thought the collapse last week of department stores group Allders and the bad publicity surrounding the deficit in the pension fund might have dulled the appetite...

Builders in line for [pounds sterling]3.8bn homes cash lift.
February 1, 2005... Byline: James Rossiter Feb. 1--Britain's builders are primed for a [pounds sterling]3.8 billion injection of taxpayers' money over the next two years to fund expansion of the country's social housing stock. Several of the largest...

Kensington sees 'flat' home prices.
February 1, 2005... Byline: James Rossiter Feb. 1--Specialist mortgage lender Kensington Group is ruling out any "dramatic fall" in UK house prices but sees them remaining flat in London for the rest of the year. The predictions from chief executive John...

BOC backs off on buying British.
February 1, 2005... Byline: Steve Hawkes Feb. 1--Industrial gases group BOC is toning down its commitment to buying British as it battles the effects of the weak US dollar. The group is changing tack after seeing the ailing greenback knock [pounds...

Evening Standard, London, market report column.
February 1, 2005... Byline: Mickey Clark Feb. 1--EXEL A WARM ORDER: Transport and logistics outfit Exel accelerated 7 1 1/2p, or almost 9 percent, to 87 2 1/2p today, having briefly touched a record high of 900p. The price went to a two-and-a-half year...

Virgin Mobile rings up its fifth million.
February 1, 2005... Feb. 1--Virgin Mobile, the virtual network launched by Sir Richard Branson, breezed past the five million-user milestone shortly after Christmas as it added another 417,000 customers in the key final quarter. Chief executive Tom Alexander...

How seamstress Milka needled Kraft.
February 1, 2005... Byline: Ross Tieman Feb. 1--The all-conquering-power of corporate America is the bete noir of every right-thinking French citizen. So the spectacle of a suburban tailor from the southern French town of Valence standing up to the world's...

Job-cutting Siemens boss gets slap on wrist over vanishing Rolex.
February 1, 2005... Byline: Allan Hall Feb. 1--Germany is gripped by the case of the vanishing Rolex watch, which disappeared from the arm of a boardroom baron on the day he announced 1350 job cuts. Klaus Kleinfeld, 47, new chief executive of industrial...

Standard Life bonuses lopped by another 7%.
February 1, 2005... Byline: Steve Hawkes Feb. 1--Troubled insurance giant Standard Life today hit more than two million policyholders with yet another reduction in the bonuses paid out on their savings plans as it geared up for its historic stock market...

Sixty in queue to bid for Allders stores.
February 1, 2005... Feb. 1--A total of 60 would-be bidders for stores in the Allders chain have emerged since it was put into administration at the weekend. That was the claim of the administrators at Kroll, who today fired 130 staff at the company's Croydon...

Apax pair may break up Woolworths.
February 1, 2005... Byline: Fiona Walsh Feb. 1--Roger Pedder and Brent Wilkinson, the former DIY executives behind the Apax approach for Woolworths, could be planning a break-up of the group, auctioning many of its sites and selling the entertainment side for...

Local high school student sets sites on Saturn.(Science Scoops)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2005... Most high school seniors hit the beach during summer vacation. Not Jessica Luttkus. This senior from La Canada High School (about a mile from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, CA) spent 40 hours a week last summer searching for...

Saturn has two new moons!(Science Scoops)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2005... The Cassini spacecraft has discovered two new moons around Saturn, increasing to 33 the number of satellites orbiting the ringed wonder. The two new worlds are tiny tots--each measuring about two miles in diameter. They lie 120,500 miles and...

"Rock" star is a big hit!(Science Scoops)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2005... It can happen to you... being hit by a stone from space, that is. Although the incident is still under investigation, it appears that Pauline Aguss, a 76-year-old woman from Suffolk, England, may have been hit by a meteorite. Here's what...

Weird whale worms!(Science Scoops)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2005... Just when we thought we knew so much about worms, along come O. rubiplumus and O. frankpressi, two strange new species. Now, don't go digging up your lawn to find these babies, because they live 9,400 feet below the surface of California's...

Lost island of Atlantis ... found?(Science Scoops)
February 1, 2005... Let's begin at the beginning. In 360 B.C., a Greek philosopher named Plato wrote about Atlantis--an island in the Atlantic Ocean where an advanced civilization developed some 11,500 years ago. He also tells us that Atlantis sank beneath the...

Chocolate & you: did you ever have one of those days when you've just got to have chocolate? If so, read on!
February 1, 2005... There are four basic food groups: milk chocolate, dark chocolate, white chocolate, and chocolate truffles.--ANONYMOUS M'm! M'm! Good! Containing over 500 chemicals, cocoa has a truly unique flavor. When mixed with the right amount of...

Growing chocolate!(drinking chocolate)
February 1, 2005... The divine drink, which builds up resistance and fights fatigue. A cup of this precious drink [cocoa] permits a man to walk for a whole day without food. --MONTEZUMA, AZTEC EMPEROR (1490-1520) Ever wonder where chocolate comes from?...

From bean to bar: ever wonder how cacao beans get made into chocolate bars? It's a sweet story.
February 1, 2005... Dried and Roasted First, workers ferment the beans. They spread moist, slimy, cacao beans between big banana or palm leaves to make large, multilayered sandwiches. Over the next week, they periodically flip the stacks over. Besides...

Home, sweet home: Milton S. Hershey's chocolate legacy.(Biography)
February 1, 2005... From his apprenticeship as a child with a candy- and ice cream-maker in Lancaster, PA, to the chocolate empire he left behind at age 88, you could say that Milton Hershey led a "sweet" life. Hershey was born in 1857 to Mennonite parents and...

Coming soon to a museum near you ... the traveling chocolate tour!
February 1, 2005... You know how it is. You have a craving for chocolate. You've tried the candy dish in the living room, your jacket pockets, the stash your brother usually has hidden even though he doesn't know you know about it. You might even head for the...

Ahhh ... chocolate ... ahhh ... candy bars!
February 1, 2005... Never mind about 1066 William the Conqueror, 1087 William the Second. Such things are not going to affect one's life...but 1932 the Mars Bar and 1936 Maltesers and 1937 the Kit Kat--these dates are milestones in history and should be seared...

Chocolate ghosts.
February 1, 2005... The body was lying on a woven mat. Its sunken face and gaping jaw pointed upward, exactly the same way it had for over 2,000 years. Scattered around the man's mummified remains were ceramic pots of all shapes and sizes. Although it was a...

Melts in your mouth--not in Iraq: how schoolgirls from Wales created tomorrow's high-tech chocolate.(Activity To Discover)
February 1, 2005... At Afon Taf High School in Troedyrhiw Merthyr Tydfil (that's not a typo, it's Welsh!), students are skipping lunch to eat sweets. But they're not just snacking--a team of schoolgirl scientists there has just invented unmeltable chocolate bars...

Sweet dreams? Is this a recipe for disaster? Use the chocolate-related terms in the glossary to make Theo's dream even more bizarre.(Activity To Discover)(Short Story)
February 1, 2005... Theo Broma finished the fudge ripple candy bar hidden by his bed and headed for his nightly wash-up. He couldn't bear an assault of cinna-mint toothpaste on the lingering chocolate taste, so he decided that brushing his teeth could wait until...

The other chocolate.
February 1, 2005... It looks like a pale version of chocolate, tastes creamy and sweet, and forms solid bars. It melts at body temperature, comes from cacao beans, and is processed like chocolate. It is even called chocolate. But, white chocolate isn't really...

Cut the chocolate.(Brain Strain)(mathematics)
February 1, 2005... Professor Harry E. Hersh is a mathematician and a master chocolate chef. He loves chocolate bar problems like this one: Divide the 8x8 gridded chocolate square into rectangles or squares such that each quadrilateral contains one chocolate...

Chocolate to die for: an interview with Chef Marcel Desaulniers.(People To Discover)(Interview)
February 1, 2005... I admit it... I absolutely love chocolate. So when I heard about a dessert called "Death by Chocolate," I just had to check it out. Although this enticing name is applied to many rich, gooey, chocolate desserts, the creator of the...

The chocolate club.
February 1, 2005... In a large kitchen on the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) campus in Cambridge, MA, 20 members of the MIT Laboratory for Chocolate Science huddle over double boilers filled with hot cream. The students carefully stir in tea leaves,...

What's up.(Calendar)
February 1, 2005... The monthly All-Sky Chart depicts the sky (minus the moon) as it appears at 6 p.m. (your local time) on Feb. 15. Useful all month, the chart (except for planet positions) is also accurate for 7 p.m. on Feb. 1 and5 p.m. on Feb. 28. To use...

StarGazing with Jack Horkheimer.
February 1, 2005... "I EAT GREEN CATERPILLARS" WHENEVER I LOOK AT JUPITER GREETINGS' GREETINGS, FELLOW STARGAZERS. I ALWAYS THINK OF GREEN CATERPILLARS WHENEVER I LOOK AT JUPITER. WHY? WELL, JUPITER IS BY FAR THE EASIEST PLANET TO SEE THROUGH EVEN THE...

A world-class chocolate tour.(Fantastic Journeys)(Column)
February 1, 2005... Editor's Note: This month's "Fantastic Journeys" takes us to L.A. Burdick's Chocolate, located in Walpole, NH. Our student advisers from the South Meadow School in Peterborough, NH, toured the facility, where chocolatiers craft some of the...

Correction.(Correction Notice)
February 1, 2005... In the October 2004 issue, page 7 had a mislabeling. What was shown as "centrioles" is actually the Golgi apparatus. The centrioles are really the two objects at center right that look like bundles of orange candles.

Marvelous midges.(Animal Angles)
February 1, 2005... To know them is to love them!" That's what Canadian research scientist Art Borkent says about Ceratopogonidae--commonly called biting midges. They certainly do bite--that is, the females do. These bites can cause severe burning and...

Mr. Nasty and Mr. Fixit go out on a limb for new flights to Isle of Man.
February 2, 2005... Byline: Robert Lea Feb. 2--It is quite surreal. In a country club in the middle of the Isle of Man, more than 200 of the tax haven's political and commercial elite have taken wine and are in the aisles clapping and laughing as Pop Idol's...

Evening Standard, London, business briefs column.
February 2, 2005... Feb. 2--FIAT AND GM ON ROAD TO COURT AFTER STALEMATE: Car giants General Motors and Fiat look to be heading for court after failing to settle a dispute in which the American group could be forced into a multi-billion dollar buyout of its...

Peter Jones is the real deal on business reality show.
February 2, 2005... Byline: Chris Blackhurst Feb. 2--If i had been at school with Peter Jones, it is more than likely I would have hated him. Not because he's an odious character but because, when God dipped into his bag of tricks and handed out the bits that...

Evening Standard, London, City Spy column.
February 2, 2005... Feb. 2--HOW THINGS have changed at that most British of establishments, the Savoy. First came fancy cuisine in the Grill, courtesy of Gordon Ramsay protege Marcus Wareing (brought in by new US venture capitalist owner Blackstone). Then there...

US bribery case could spell the end for Wembley.
February 2, 2005... Byline: Y Jim Armitage Feb. 2--A director of the Wembley leisure group based at its huge Lincoln Park casino in the US was convinced future success depended on bribing a politician, a court has heard, writes Jim Armitage. In a case...

Germany's jobless tally leaps above five million.
February 2, 2005... Byline: Allan Hall Feb. 2--There are now more than five million unemployed in Germany -- a post-Second World War record, the government admitted today. Official figures showed the number of people without jobs in Europe's largest...

Car wars for Fiat and GM.
February 2, 2005... Feb. 2--Car giants General Motors (GM) and Fiat look to be heading for court after failing to settle a dispute in which the American group could be forced into a multi-billion dollar buyout of its loss-making, heavily-indebted Italian partner....

Evening Standard, London, Anthony Hilton column.
February 2, 2005... Byline: Anthony Hilton Feb. 2--ALL CHANGE FOR CITY'S BIG BANG 2: When Big Bang occurred 20 years ago, the entire securities industry sold out within a few months. With the abolition of single-capacity which kept agency broking and...

Evening Standard, London, market report column.
February 2, 2005... Byline: Mickey Clark Feb. 2--PRUDENTIAL LOOKS TO HAVE CRACKED EGG SALE AT LAST: The stock market rumour mill was working overtime today as share prices touched another two-and-a-half-year high. This time, City speculators switched...

Merrill is called to account over sex bias hearing 'lies'.
February 2, 2005... Feb. 2--Merrill Lynch is to be hauled before the Employment Appeals Tribunal over how "lies" by four senior executives played a part in a [pounds sterling]7.5 million sex discrimination claim. The appeal, brought by former Merrill banking...

Xstrata digs deeper for WMC with [pounds sterling]3.3BN bid.
February 2, 2005... Byline: Bill Condie Feb. 2--London-listed miner Xstrata has dramatically raised the stakes in its battle for control of Australia's WMC Resources, lifting its bid 13 percent to A$8.4 billion ([pounds sterling]3.3 billion). Investors...

Mayfair office rents set a course for new world-beating highs.
February 2, 2005... Byline: James Rossiter Feb. 2--The Mayfair office market is expected to roar further ahead this year with rents expected to push total costs per square foot past [pounds sterling]100, making it the most expensive commercial space in the...

Phones4U in court battle over website name.
February 2, 2005... Byline: Malcolm Withers Feb. 2--Phones4U, the 353-strong mobile phone shop chain owned by telecoms tycoon John Cauldwell, is suing similarly named Phone4U UK Internet for alleged trademark infringement. In the High Court, lawyers for...

Whittaker's Mersey move.
February 2, 2005... Byline: Robert Lea Feb. 2--Property magnate John Whittaker moved to close out a deal to add Mersey Docks to his extensive range of privately-held interests and thwart an attempted takeover by the major City venture capital house CVC. ...

National Express seeks Thameslink service.
February 2, 2005... Feb. 2--National Express today threw its hat into the ring for the Thameslink service, the Bedford-to-Brighton cross-capital route, as well as the new Greater Western train franchise out of Paddington. Both are up for tender next year....

Cowell in TV link with Rupert's clan.
February 2, 2005... Byline: Robert Lea Feb. 2--Talent show multi-millionaire Simon Cowell is jumping into bed with Elisabeth Murdoch to launch the next stage of his entertainment empire, which he claims will be worth [pounds sterling]100 million in a few...

Murdoch brightens the sky growth picture.
February 2, 2005... Byline: Nick Goodway Feb. 2--James Murdoch's strategy to reinvigorate growth at Sky seems to be working after a much better-than-expected performance in the key Christmas quarter. Chief executive Murdoch's new advertising campaign...

Autonomy's eyes set on TV.
February 2, 2005... Feb. 2--Software group Autonomy is hoping to spark a TV revolution with a new piece of kit that allows viewers to search for and watch their favourite programmes on the internet or mobile phone. Its IPTV is already being used by one video...

Aim's [pounds sterling]7 billion Oil Boom 'A Bubble Waiting To Burst'.
February 2, 2005... Byline: Steve Hawkes Feb. 2--City experts are warning of a dramatic end to the oil boom on the buoyant Alternative Investment Market after seeing the value of its oil and gas sector soar 25 percent so far this year to a massive [pounds...

Free delivery hits Amazon results.
February 3, 2005... Byline: Bill Condie Feb. 3--Despite a Christmas season that brought more online shopping than ever, Amazon.com missed Wall Street targets for its fourth quarter with a net profit of $346.7 million ([pounds sterling]183.8 million). The...

1000 Deutsche jobs go as axe falls on London.
February 3, 2005... Byline: Nick Goodway Feb. 3--Well over 1000 jobs are to be slashed in the London offices of Deutsche Bank, it was revealed today as the German bank said it would cut 6400 jobs worldwide, or around 10 percent of its total workforce. The...

Evening Standard, London, business briefs column.
February 3, 2005... Feb. 3--BMIBABY PASSENGERS AND FARES ON THE INCREASE: Bmibaby became the latest budget airline to rubbish the warnings of Ryanair's Michael O'Leary that the low-cost market could collapse. The British Midland offshoot said passenger volumes in...

BA 'facing a superjumbo headache'.
February 3, 2005... Byline: Robert Lea Feb. 3--Goldman Sachs is warning the City that the launch of the 555-seater A380 superjumbo will spell bad news for British Airways for years to come, whether the carrier decides to buy the new airliner or not. BA...

US buyout giant in [pounds sterling]624m move for British Vita.
February 3, 2005... Byline: James Rossiter Feb. 3--American buyout giant Texas Pacific Group (TPG) wants to take chemicals company British Vita into private ownership for [pounds sterling]624 million in cash to add to its roster of investments ranging from...

Evening Standard, London, City Spy column.
February 3, 2005... Feb. 3--BUSINESS leaders everywhere are being enticed along to Sydney Opera House in the last week of August for the Forbes magazine Global CEO Conference. (Think a sort of Davos.) Big ads are appearing in the heavyweight US business magazine....

[pounds sterling]12M black hole forces Mowlem into red.
February 3, 2005... Byline: Robert Lea Feb. 3--The curse of the Private Finance Initiative struck again today as major contractor Mowlem said it had been hit by a [pounds sterling]12 million accounting black hole. Just weeks after the Ministry of Defence...

De Beers sets record but warns of dollar damage.
February 3, 2005... Byline: Steve Hawkes Feb. 3--De Beers, the world's biggest diamond producer, pushed up sales to an all-time high last year but warned today that the weak dollar meant the coming months would be more challenging. Diamond prices rose at...

Bush takes the fight to economic home front.
February 3, 2005... Byline: Bill Condie Feb. 3--In A signal that President Bush hopes to move on from foreign wars to the battle on the home front for the economy, his State of the Union address last night concentrated on plans for tax cuts, beating the...

UK kicks off the year on upbeat note.
February 3, 2005... Feb. 3--Britain's economy looks to have got off to a flying start this year with news today of an acceleration in the services sector and another rise in house prices. In the latest in a recent string of unexpectedly upbeat reports, the...

Caffe Nero froths up as profits soar.
February 3, 2005... Byline: Jim Armitage Feb. 3--Espresso bars chain Caffe Nero saw its shares soar today as it reported surging like-for-like sales from its mature stores and rapid growth of profits in and outside London. Nero, which now has 198 shops,...

Deadlock fears over China and US issues as G7 rolls into town.
February 3, 2005... Byline: Jane Padgham Feb. 3--Finance ministers and central bankers from the Group of Seven rich nations descend on London tomorrow for one of the biggest days in the financial calendar. But, despite the crucial issues of China's rigid...

Evening Standard, London, Anthony Hilton column.
February 3, 2005... Byline: Anthony Hilton Feb. 3--HOW AMERICA FAKES ITS FIGURES: The State of the Union address from President Bush last night, and the speech just hours before from European Commission head Jose Manuel Barroso, again gave centre stage to the...

Why this man thinks his bold policy can revive Standard Life.
February 3, 2005... Byline: Steve Hawkes Feb. 3--It's a fair bet Standard Life chief executive Sandy Crombie kept his Porsche in the garage this week. Ever since being acutely embarrassed by the timing of his [pounds sterling]65,000 purchase last year -- it...

Evening Standard, London, market report column.
February 3, 2005... Byline: Mickey Clark Feb. 3--Shares of recruitment specialist Whitehead Mann were on the retreat again today, with brokers warning there may be worse to come. The company's market value plunged by a third in after-hours trading...

Trump gives Martha an outside chance.
February 3, 2005... Feb. 3--American lifestyle guru Martha Stewart, jailed last year for insider-trading related offences, is to be given a helping hand as she adjusts to life on the outside when she is released next month. Donald Trump's hit reality TV show...

Rio piles it up on Chinese demand.
February 3, 2005... Feb. 3--Anglo-Australian resources giant Rio Tinto today became the latest miner to announce booming results on the back of huge demand from China for its output of copper, iron ore and coal. The company posted a 66 percent rise in...

Shell cuts reserves again as profits hit record.
February 3, 2005... Byline: Steve Hawkes Feb. 3--Shell has slashed its reserves for the fifth time in just over a year in another huge blow to the standing of the Anglo-Dutch oil giant. Despite reporting its best-ever profits of $17.6 billion ([pounds...

Actuaries sued over independent crash.
February 4, 2005... Byline: Jim Armitage Feb. 4--Liquidators of Independent Insurance are suing actuaries Watson Wyatt in a claim likely to run to tens of millions. Independent crashed in 2001 after a huge shortfall in the amount of reserves it had in its...

Evening Standard, London, Jim Armitage column.
February 4, 2005... Byline: Jim Armitage Feb. 4--INDEPENDENT INSURANCE COLLAPSED 4 YEARS AGO -- AND SINCE? In four months, Britain's insurance company bosses will be receiving the annual letter they despise, the one demanding they cough up their share of the...

Evening Standard, London, business briefs column.
February 4, 2005... Feb. 4--MONSTERMOB ON THE PROWL FOR BIGGER MOBILES PREY: Mobile phones content provider iTouch, 36 percent owned by Independent News & Media, saw its value surge [pounds sterling]20 million to [pounds sterling]159 million after it confirmed...

British Airways Profits Lift-Off As The Premium Cabin Fills Up.
February 4, 2005... Byline: Robert Lea Feb. 4--British Airways is on course to reveal its biggest profits since the turn of the millennium as returning first class and business class passengers, plus a controversial fuel surcharge on ordinary passengers,...

Danes hope bullet trains will hit franchise target.
February 4, 2005... Feb. 4--Passengers into and out of King's Cross on the East Coast Main Line could get Japanese-style bullet trains travelling at 140 miles per hour, according to a bid by Danish State railway DSB to run the franchise. DSB and bidding...

Capital's cabbies see long road ahead for economy.
February 4, 2005... Byline: James Rossiter Feb. 4--London's economy faces a bleak road ahead following a steady shift down in gear over the past nine months, according to the latest poll of the capital's cabbies. Less than half are optimistic about their...

Evening Standard, London, City Spy column.
February 4, 2005... Feb. 4--ONCE, it seemed, the only people destined to make serious money out of the web were pornographers. But online gambling businesses are running them close. Latest to prosper is PartyGaming, a poker and casino operator that is...

Allders faces break-up as Alchemy exits bidding.
February 4, 2005... Byline: Fiona Walsh Feb. 4--Alchemy is out of the bidding for collapsed department stores chain Allders, which is now set to be sold off store-by-store to rival retail groups. Jon Moulton's private equity firm put in a bid of [pounds...

Speculators Take Stock As Well-Oiled Exel Gets Worldwide Attention.
February 4, 2005... Byline: Robert Lea Feb. 4--In the global corporate marketplace there are few British champions, but amid the axle grease of logistics group Exel is a world leader. Yet if the so-called men in dark glasses who fuel the City rumour mill...

Evening Standard, London, Anthony Hilton column.
February 4, 2005... Byline: Anthony Hilton Feb. 4--HARD TIMES FOR HOUSE PRICES? Figures from the Halifax yesterday suggested that if we are in the middle of a housing crash, it has a funny way of showing itself. If the January numbers are echoed for the full...

Return of tourists to lift London hotels.
February 4, 2005... Byline: Jim Armitage Feb. 4--London hotels are set for a bumper year as overseas visitors flock to the capital, according to an influential forecast. The industry will see profitability -- measured by revenue per available room...