Inside Business News

There is added ball off-stage than on at Opera Australia as a austere breach is developing amid the company's brilliant accompanist and its British agreeable director.

The mezzo-soprano Fiona Janes has accused the aggregation of sliding into "an abysm of mediocrity" as musical, articulate and aesthetic standards fall.

Adding an added agenda of astriction is the actuality that there is a Briton at the centre of the row.

In a leaked email, she abhorrent Richard Hickox, the agreeable administrator who abutting Opera Australia in 2005, for the company's decline. In the email, she declared that beneath his directorship, the aggregation has assassin "second- and third-rate singers" from overseas, placed adolescent singers in roles that are too big for them and alone earlier artists over 40, abnormally women.

Janes aswell accused Mr Hickox, who created the City of London Sinfonia, of getting abroad too abundant and of assuming boldness to accustomed bounded singers.

"As our civic aggregation we should all be appreciative of Opera Australia, however, as it stands now, not abounding humans are," she wrote in the email, which was acquired by the Sydney ... Read more »

Leftist ex-bishop Fernando Lugo shoved abreast Paraguay's abominable 61-year history of absolutism aphorism as he took appointment bygone with promises to end bribery and ache in the poor South American nation.

Almost shouting to affirm that he would advocate the constitution, the about amiable Lugo was met with ample acclaim from added than 50,000 Paraguayans awash about a date alfresco Congress.

Lugo batten in Spanish and the aboriginal Guarani language, alliance to end the acute poverty, institutional political bribery and barter in atramentous bazaar appurtenances that authentic Paraguay beneath the Colorado Party, which had disqualified continuously back 1947 and was the alone affair acceptable by the anti-communist Gen. Alfredo Stroessner during his barbarous 1954-1989 dictatorship.

"Today Paraguay break with its acceptability for corruption, break with the few feudal lords of the past," said Lugo, dressed in covering sandals and his brand white, mandarin-collared shirt to set himself afar from the nation's acceptable politicians.

After the commencement to a 5-year term, he gave balmy buck hugs to the continent's three a lot of arresting leftist ... Read more »

Most of the patients in the labyrinthine Gudushauri Hospital on the eastern outskirts of Tbilisi are getting advised for injuries suffered during the Russian invasion, with added than 600 humans accepted in the accomplished few days.

But in one corridor, closed off by eight black-clad guards armed with Kalashnikov rifles, there were two patients actual altered from the rest.

Vyacheslav Markovich and Igor Zinov were not beat from the Russian attack, they were arch it. On 9 August, their planes were hit by anti-aircraft fire, banishment them to banish and parachute to the ground. Georgia claims to accept destroyed 15 planes during the conflict, killing two Russian pilots and capturing a added two during the aboriginal canicule of the conflict.

Georgia intends to accommodate with Russia to barter them for captured Georgian soldiers, the Interior Ministry said.

The Russian patients said they were getting advised well. Both are bed-bound and are captivated in abstracted rooms, although their guards accept kept them adapted on the advance of the war.

Flying Officer Zinov, 50, who suffered added austere injuries than his compatriot, banned to be inte ... Read more »

How connected shall we break in Gori? As connected as we wish to," the adolescent Russian catchbasin administrator replied with accidental arrogance. A mile down the alley Georgian troops endured the airless calefaction for a additional day, cat-and-mouse for the Kremlin's permission to access their own city.

There was no assurance bygone of the Russians constant by their acceding to abjure from the cardinal boondocks of Gori, and duke it over to Georgian forces. Instead, just as Condoleezza Rice was due to allege about Russian withdrawal, an armoured column, escorted by helicopter gunships, confused out of the city-limits to beforehand a added seven afar central the country, demography up positions abreast the apple of Igoeti.

The Russian attendance in Gori, as able-bodied as in Abkhazia and the anchorage of Poti, which is in Georgia "proper", is the absoluteness of Moscow's ability on the arena and the attribute of Georgia's civic humiliation. By demography Gori and abutting areas the Russians authority a cardinal position little added than an hour's catchbasin drive to the Georgian capital. They accept aswell bisected the country east to west, authoritative move ... Read more »

The little resort boondocks of Tavira, in Portugal's Algarve, is fed up with the hordes of blatant foreigners who affair all night on the beach, bubbler themselves absurd and again trashing sunshades, deckchairs and life-saving equipment.

So disgusted accept the bounded association become with the agitated antics of these invaders that this summer the town's mayor, Macario Correia, is calling on the government in Lisbon to change the law so as to ban binge-drinking in accessible places.

Those amenable for this bank commotion are not bashed Britons, nor are they added bloodless arctic Europeans. They are from Spain – Portugal's neighbour 12 afar up the road. Mr Correia said: "Thousands of adolescent Spaniards appear actuality at night, burdened with huge containers of vodka, whisky and beers, get bashed and go on the rampage, committing all sorts of acts of vandalism."

He added that adolescent Spanish revellers could cause about €200,000 (£160,000) of accident a year in Tavira. "When it gets algid at night, they go so far as to accomplish bonfires" from items of accessible acreage they accept destroyed on the beach, he said.

The botheration has develop ... Read more »

Bradford & Bingley, whose accident-prone rights issue finally closed yesterday with a better than expected take-up, will get its £400m capital boost, but the mortgage lender still faces a precarious future.

B&B's shares hovered around the rights price of 55p at the 11am deadline for taking up the offer and closed unchanged on the day at 54.75p.

Take-up looked like being significantly better than the 8 per cent achieved by HBOS in its £4bn rights issue last month, and is thought to have come in well above 20 per cent.

Those close to the offer are said to be reasonably comfortable with the result. B&B is due to announce the take-up of the rights issue on Monday.

Most shareholders will have made their decision over the past few days, when the bank's shares have traded at around the 55p offer price.

But almost all the bank's 950,000 retail investors, who own about 40 per cent of the former building society, are expected to reject the right to buy new shares.

Citi and UBS have fully underwritten the offer after renegotiating terms because B&B gave them out-of-date informat ... Read more »

Chrysalis, the administrator of David Bowie and Gnarls Barkley, is admiration full-year losses afterwards a "perfect storm" of contest wreaked calamity with its performance.

The aboriginal 10 months of the banking year saw the company's Net Publishing Allotment (NPS) abatement by 2.9 per cent, and admitting a 12.8 per cent year-on-year access in the third division it expects anniversary basal losses on a par with March's half-year results, which recorded losses trebling to £1.2m.

Chrysalis has had some successes in 2008. Estelle was amount one in the singles blueprint for several weeks, and Pendulum, addition Chrysalis signing, accept two albums in the Top 40. But they were not abundant to tip the balance.

"We've had a boxy 12 months or so because of a amount of factors all conspiring at one time," said Jeremy Lascelles, its arch executive.

The better individual annoyance on achievement was the 155p-a-share takeover angle from EMI, which was assuredly rebutted by Chrysalis in April on the base that it undervalued the company. Not alone did the agreement action amount about £1m, but it aswell larboard the accumulation clumsy to assurance new artists. < ... Read more »

Michael Page has pulled out of talks with Adecco afterwards three months, abnegation its rival's attack to yield ascendancy with an action that ethics the accumulation at £1.3bn as "materially undervaluing the company".

The UK headhunter has alleged on the takeover babysitter to affair a "put up or shut up" adjustment afterwards its battling banned to accession its bid but insisted it hasn't accustomed up achievement of a deal.

Michael Page bygone appear an official account adage it had alone an apocalyptic 400p-per- allotment takeover action from Adecco, and again a consecutive angle to yield majority control. The account added that, afterward added affairs amid the chief managers, Michael Page "is catastrophe discussions with Adecco". Admitting the two abandon administering talks aback May, they are accepted to be no nearer to affair anniversary other's valuation.

Michael Page, which is listed on the FTSE 250, had set an breezy borderline of Monday for Adecco to access its bid if it comes out with its half-year results. Adecco has so far banned to access its action and Michael Page alone its overtures on Wednesday.

The Swiss accumulation said bygon ... Read more »