Stephen King

DVD on Stephen King:

	The Wizard of Oz (Two-Disc Special Edition) EDITION:  DVD MANUFACTURER:  Warner Home Video RELEASE DATE:  25 October, 2005
	O Brother, Where Art Thou? EDITION:  DVD MANUFACTURER:  Touchstone RELEASE DATE:  12 June, 2001
	The Mist (Two-Disc Collector's Edition) EDITION:  DVD MANUFACTURER:  Genius Products (TVN) RELEASE DATE:  25 March, 2008
	National Treasure (Widescreen Edition) EDITION:  DVD MANUFACTURER:  Buena Vista Home Entertainment RELEASE DATE:  03 May, 2005
	The Shining [Blu-ray] EDITION:  Blu-ray MANUFACTURER:  Warner Home Video RELEASE DATE:  23 October, 2007
	National Treasure (Full Screen Edition) EDITION:  DVD MANUFACTURER:  Buena Vista Home Entertainment RELEASE DATE:  03 May, 2005
	The Shining [HD DVD] EDITION:  HD DVD MANUFACTURER:  Warner Home Video RELEASE DATE:  23 October, 2007
	Henry V Derek Jacobi EDITION:  DVD MANUFACTURER:  MGM (Video & DVD) RELEASE DATE:  18 July, 2000
	The Last King of Scotland (Widescreen Edition) EDITION:  DVD MANUFACTURER:  20th Century Fox RELEASE DATE:  17 April, 2007
	King Arthur (Director's Cut) [Blu-ray] EDITION:  Blu-ray MANUFACTURER:  Touchstone Home Entertainment RELEASE DATE:  03 April, 2007

Latest Film News

Latest news on Stephen King

Europe

Credit squeeze will hit poor nations

Developing countries face the threat of a financial drought in the next 12 months, as rich governments embark on a round of "capital market protectionism", corralling the funds of their battered banks for borrowers back home.The conditions placed on many banks as a result of government bail-outs are forcing them to focus on key domestic customers such as small businesses, leaving overseas borrowers out in the cold, according to analysis by Stephen King, chief economist at HSBC."If the flow of credit to ring-fenced sectors is to be held at prescribed levels, net lending to the remaining sections of the economy will fall by a greater amount than would otherwise be the case," he said in his forecast for 2009. "The most vulnerable area during this process could well be international lending."King added that this would "threaten an outbreak of capital market protectionism" - a more subtle, financial version of the protectionist trade policies which were widely seen as exacerbating the Great Depression of the 1930s.Most notoriously, the 1930 Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act in the US slapped punitive import taxes on a wide range of goods, as Washington fought to protect domestic manufacturers. It was followed by tit-for-tat measures from America's international rivals, and a dramatic slump in international trade flows.Clare Melamed, head of policy at Action Aid, said banks should be encouraged to take a long-term perspective. "There are two things in play: on the one hand, we can see that governments want to encourage banks to lend domestically, and the political imperative there is very strong; but they also want profitability, so if you can make investments overseas that are more profitable, then that's also going to be good in the long run for domestic banks - so it's a trade-off," she said.She added that developing countries could be hampered in their battle against poverty by a lack of funds from overseas investors. "The opportunity costs for developing countries, in terms of investors being more risk averse, are quite high, because that is where new employment is going to come from."Mansoor Dailami, a senior economist at the World Bank and author of its annual Global Development Finance report, said even without the imposition of protectionist measures, developing countries faced a sharp decline in capital flows."I think the concern we have right now is that we may see a significant number of corporates and sovereigns coming to the markets to refinance debts, and running into difficulties, even for short-term trade finance," he said. Investments into developing countries soared to a record $1.1 trillion at the height of the boom in 2007, but next year the World Bank expects them to total just $550-600bn. As this emerging market credit squeeze bites, Dailami said the Washington-based lender would be monitoring a number of countries with urgent financing requirements that could find themselves short of funds.He urged investors not to lose sight of potentially profitable opportunities in emerging markets. "I think from a medium-term perspective, the potential in developing countries is sound. If you look at the size of their populations, if you look at their investment requirements, particularly in infrastructure and social areas, there's a significant need for capital flows, both from banks and from equity finance," he said.Global economyCredit crunchGlobal recessionguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
Published: Sun, 04 Jan 2009 00:07:47 GMT - Source: Guardian.Co.Uk - Read the article

Literature

RIP, Forrest J Ackerman

RIP, Forrest J Ackerman, the pioneering science fiction fan, editor and writer who coined the term "sci-fi" and founded Famous Monsters of Filmland magazine. 4e left the party on December 4, at 92, after a long illness. of heart failure at home at the legendary Ackermansion in Los Feliz in Los Angeles. Among those who grew up reading Famous Monsters of Filmland was author Stephen King. Other childhood readers included movie directors Joe Dante, John Landis and Steven Spielberg, who once autographed a poster of "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" for Ackerman, saying, "A generation of fantasy lovers thank you for raising us so well." Ackerman was a celebrity in his own right, once signing 10,000 autographs during a three-day monster-movie convention in New York City. This, after all, was the man who created and wrote the comic book characters Vampirella and Jeanie of Questar and was the ultimate fan's fan: a man who actually had known Lugosi and Karloff and whose priceless collection of science-fiction, horror and fantasy artifacts ran to some 300,000 items. Forrest J Ackerman, writer-editor who coined 'sci-fi,' dies at 92 (Thanks to all the readers who suggested this!) (Image: Forrest J Ackerman at the Ackermansion.jpg by Alan Light, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)...
Published: Mon, 08 Dec 2008 04:54:50 GMT - Source: Boingboing.Net - Read the article

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