Ireland impresses with post-bailout bonds

IRELAND has made a triumphant return to global debt markets as it saw strong demand for its first sale of benchmark 10-year bonds since the country exited its international bailout last month.

Analysts say Tuesday's offering has attracted bids of nearly 15 billion euros ($A23 billion), five times the conservative target set.

Investor enthusiasm for Ireland's new debt securities influenced the wider market. Yields on the country's existing 10-year bonds fell to 3.25 per cent, an eight-year low.

Further details are expected later on Tuesday but the demand augurs well for the rest of the year. Ireland had hoped to sell around 10 billion euros in 2014.

Last month, Ireland exited its three-year emergency loan program supplied by European partners and the International Monetary Fund. Greece, Portugal and Cyprus remain bailout recipients.

08.52 | 0 komentar | Read More

Dinosaur bones found near Red Sea

DINOSAURS have been identified in Saudi Arabia for the first time, highlighting how widespread the creatures once were.

Scientists unearthed tail bones from a giant plant-eating "titanosaur" together with teeth from a six-metre-long predator, thought to be a distant relative of Tyrannosaurus rex.

The 72 million-year-old fossils were discovered in the northwest of the Kingdom along the Red Sea coast.

When the dinosaurs were alive, the Arabian landmass was largely under water and formed the northern coastal edge of the African continent.

Dr Benjamin Kear, from Uppsala University in Sweden, led the team of scientists studying the remains.

"Dinosaur fossils are exceptionally rare in the Arabian Peninsula, with only a handful of highly fragmented bones documented this far," he said.

"This discovery is important not only because of where the remains were found, but also because of the fact that we can actually identify them.

"Indeed, these are the first taxonomically recognisable dinosaurs reported from the Arabian Peninsula."

The titanosaur identified by the researchers was a lumbering giant with a long neck and tail that stood on four legs.

In contrast, the meat-eating abelisaurid whose teeth were recovered was a fast-moving, bipedal theropod.

Similar dinosaurs have been found in North Africa, Madagascar and South America.

The finds are described in the online journal Public Library of Science ONE.

08.52 | 0 komentar | Read More

Eurozone crisis 'fuelling EU migration'

THE migration of European Union citizens in search for work in other member states is a "major signal" that more efforts are needed to fight the economic crisis, the EU's top labour official has warned, amid a fierce debate on so-called benefit tourism.

Since January 1, citizens from Romania and Bulgaria have been free to look for work anywhere in the EU, prompting fears of a flood of migrants seeking welfare benefits rather than employment.

EU Employment Commissioner Laszlo Andor said on Tuesday this discussion would likely "calm down" in a few weeks' time, when "people see that there is no influx of Bulgarian and Romanian workers."

He warned, however, that the EU was experiencing "increasing numbers migrating away not from Romania and Bulgaria but (from) the more peripheral regions of the eurozone, because of the continuing eurozone crisis".

"I believe this is also a major signal which we have to pay attention to," he said, adding that the response to the economic crisis should "speed up rather than slow down".

The pressure on eurozone economies to reform has receded since the bloc exited from recession last year.

Andor has previously warned that the austerity-driven approach to the eurozone crisis was harmful to workers and entrepreneurs, while increasing inequalities, undermining EU growth prospects and alienating citizens.

"The eurozone must be reformed to avoid the risk that the EU itself could be destroyed by political conflict among the winners and losers," Andor wrote in December on the Vox website associated with the Centre for Economic Policy Research.

The freedom to live and work anywhere in the EU is considered a key achievement of the bloc. Only Croatia now faces labour restrictions, which EU countries can impose for up to seven years on a new member state.

But migration issues have recently dominated the headlines in leading European economies including Britain, where Prime Minister David Cameron has proposed capping net immigration at below 100,000 people annually by 2015.

Business Secretary Vince Cable, who has previously distanced himself from the coalition government's immigration policy, said on Tuesday that such a target was "not helpful" and would not achieve the desired effect.

There are also questions over whether such a cap would be in line with EU law.

Meanwhile, UK Independence Party leader Nigel Farage dismissed the argument that immigration often brings economic benefits.

"I would rather we had communities that felt more united and I would rather have a situation where young unemployed British people had a realistic chance of getting a job," Farage told BBC radio on Tuesday.

A survey by NatCen Social Research commissioned by the BBC revealed that 77 per cent of the British public want a reduction in immigration.

08.52 | 0 komentar | Read More

Two plead guilty to UK banknote tweets

TWO people have pleaded guilty to sending "menacing" tweets to a feminist campaigner following her successful campaign to ensure a woman features on British banknotes.

John Nimmo, 25, and Isabella Sorley, 23, admitted a charge of sending the messages in July last year to 29-year-old student Caroline Criado-Perez.

Nimmo, from Tyne and Wear, and Sorley, from Newcastle-upon-Tyne, sent the tweets after the Governor of the Bank of England Mark Carney revealed that Pride and Prejudice author Jane Austen would replace Charles Darwin as the face of the STG10 note.

The announcement was hailed as a "brilliant day for women" by Criado-Perez.

She led a high profile campaign to ensure a female face on British banknotes in the wake of the Bank's announcement in April that social reformer Elizabeth Fry was to be dropped from the STG5 note in favour of Winston Churchill.

08.52 | 0 komentar | Read More