| As country tiptoes into 21st century,
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia -- Last fall, women here were permitted for the first time to enroll in law school. In a country famous for not letting women drive or reveal their faces in public, the change has some young female students almost giddy with optimism. "Law is an open field. You can do anything when you study law," says 20-year-old Jamila Shalhoud. "We are going to help women know their rights," adds her classmate Sara Alayyaf, 19, looking like an American college girl in tennis shoes with no laces. "Everything is going to change." It can't change soon enough for ... .
Royale loaded with revelations
The willingness to pull open the curtain and reveal the truth behind the illusion is a sure sign an icon is comfortable about its place in the pop firmament. And there's no icon more secure – some would say smug – than the James Bond franchise, which with Daniel Craig as the new 007 is confidently motoring towards its 50th anniversary in 2012. Fears that the first blond Bond might be a bust were soundly trounced by the release last fall of Casino Royale, which wowed both critics and regular filmgoers. So even though the DVD of Casino Royale comes up rather short on extras, turning a four-star movie into a three-star DVD experience, the ones we do get are more revealing than is the norm – especially for a movie this fraught with controversy. Most studios go out of their way not to remind us of their troubles in making a film.
The Subprime Market: Smart Money Versus Stupid
Most money is running from the subprime market as fast as its can. Not so Goldman Sachs. The firm's CFO indicated that the low-end home loan market may represent a huge investment opportunity as the stock prices of some lending companies have fallen over 80%. A Merrill Lynch analyst made the point to the WSJ that the current turmoil is "exactly the kind of dislocation" brokers look for. The Mortgage Bankers Association was quoted by MarketWatch as saying that "the rate of homes entering the foreclosure process hit a record 0.54% and the delinquency rate on U.S. home loans leaping to 4.95% from 4.67% three months earlier." But, it is fair to ask a question about whether Goldman Sachs is that much smarter than the management at New Century (NEW) or Accredited Home Lenders.
Colleges criticize US News rank criteria
The US News and World Report “America's Best Colleges" rankings have been published every August since 1983, but many education administrators and college consultants are becoming more vocal in blaming them for providing inaccurate portraits of institutions and for heightening the stress of the admissions process. Twelve private colleges are preparing an appeal to the higher education community that asks if other schools would be willing to stop sending information for the rankings, stop publicizing their ranks, or provide alternate data to the magazine that they think would make the rankings more meaningful, according to an article published in “Time Magazine" last week. The schools are arguing that US News' assignment of numerical values to particular features of a college produces misleading judgments on the college as a whole.
John Pankauski: Some myths and realities of estate planning
You're on top of your finances, right? You regularly read personal finance magazines and take tips from friends and neighbors. You can identify how much you earn and spend down to the penny. But is your estate planning in order? Even with all the information available through seminars, advisors, speeches, publications and the Internet, there are still some estate planning myths that linger. .
THE SUPERIOR SIDEMAN: Sid Cooper
The drummer hits the downbeat, and the big band blasts out - a sound like no other. The deep undertone of the sax rises up to outline the melody, and Sid Cooper smiles. The sax is his instrument, the big band his favorite mode of musical expression. .
Currency hedges: The pros and cons for foreign stocks
Currency swings can quickly erase hard-won gains in a portfolio, but money managers at most of Canada's largest equity mutual fund groups with billions of dollars in foreign holdings do not hedge or insure their portfolios against exchange rate fluctuations. Andrew Massie, vice-president investment management and a portfolio manager with the Mackenzie Cundill group, says that to his knowledge, Cundill managers are "pretty much the only guys in Canada" that take such precautions full time." Volatile currencies are a two-edged sword in that they have the potential to help or wreak havoc on a portfolio. In 1998, the latest time the yen carry trade suffered a major breakdown, the yen climbed 35 per cent over five months against the U.S. dollar. The yen carry trade refers to borrowing of money at low interest rates in Japan and reinvesting it in higher-yielding securities and emerging markets.
Foundations a fount of aid
Four years ago, Allyson was diagnosed with Ewing's sarcoma, a type of bone cancer. She has faced surgery to cut out the cancerous bone in her leg, replacing it with cadaver bone. She's gone through chemotherapy twice. Now the cancer has returned and metastasized in her spine and brain. It's been a difficult road for Woodbury, 18 — who is now in hospice care — and her parents, Tom and Pat Woodbury. But thanks to the efforts of the Tony Gonzalez Foundation, she has had one little friend who has been by her side since the beginning — her Shadow Buddy. Shadow Buddies are small dolls given to children going through illnesses, as well as to senior citizens. "It helped me understand what was going to happen to me," said Woodbury, who has three Shadow Buddies, including a Tony Gonzalez doll.
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