Web Two

Rolex history

2007-01-20T10:09:00.000-08:00

In 1908, Rolex was founded by Mr. Hans Wilsdorf, a German National Citizen. Initially the company was named Wilsdorf & Davis as Wilsdorf founded company together with his brother in law. At the time, mostly pocket watches were produced by Swiss watch manufacturers as manufactures still had difficulty to produce accurate and reliable movements in such small size that they would fit in a wrist watch. Wilsdorf was a perfectionist who improved the standards for watch making as he did strive for smaller and more accurate movements that transformed style and fashion from larger pocket watches to smaller more practical wristwatches. Aegler, a small Swiss company agreed to supply Wilsdorf with movements small enough to be worn on the wrist. Wilsdorf's production included a variety of case designs: casual, formal and sporty.

In 1910, Rolex sent their first movement to the School of Horology in Switzerland. It was awarded the world's first wrist watch chronometer rating. Wilsdorf recognized two major requirements for watches: 1) To keep accurate time, and 2) To be reliable. With the Chronometer Award, 'accuracy' of timekeeping was considered to be under control and Wilsdorf started to work on improving the reliability of his watches. One of the main problems at the time was, that dust and moisture would enter in the watch case and progressively damage in movement. To solve, one would need to develop a completely dust and waterproof watch case. Dust and water would enter watch cases via the casebook and via the crown. Wilsdorf developed a screw crown and casebook mechanism that revolutionized the watch industry.

The first waterproof watch was cleverly advertised around the world. At the time, the public was rather skeptical if the watch would be really waterproof. However, after seeing a watch in an aquarium in the shop window, many people were convinced. Around the world one could see windows of watch shops with an aquarium and submerged Rolex watches. This campaign created an enormous brand awareness for Rolex. Since then, Rolex has continued to be at the forefront of the watch making industry. Today, almost every watch manufacturer followed Rolex and offers waterproof watches.

The Rolex Prince, developed in 1928 became a best seller with its dual dial and rectangular case. In 1931 Rolex invented the "Rotor" - a semicircular plate of metal that with gravity, would move freely to wind the watch. Thus, the Rolex "Perpetual" (automatic) movement was born. Rolex's star has risen much higher since those days of the First World War. "People want to own a Rolex because it shows that they made it.". It is something to which you aspire and then treat yourself after a successful venture or a windfall.

Industry watchers say that what distinguishes Rolex from other premium timepieces is its signature look--a big, round face paired with a wide metal band--that's become as familiar on a basketball court as at a black-tie reception. Identifiable from across a room, the Rolex look has an unrivaled, near-universal appeal. Sportsmen value its ruggedness, adventurers its reliability and royalty its elegance. The design's evolution could be best described as glacial. There have been changes over the years, but it's all in the details. Take Rolex's first calendar watch, the Datejust. If you put a Datejust from 1945 beside a Datejust from 1998, you'll see the resemblance. There probably won't be a single part inside that's interchangeable, but the outward design has evolved ever so marginally."

This timeless appeal often translates into an excellent investment. At Christie's auction house in London last September, the excitement created by the sale of a private collection of 360 Rolex watches dating from the 1910s to the 1990s surprised even the most nonchalant pundits. The highlight of the auction was the sale of a cult icon--a late-1960s stainless-steel manual-wound Paul Newman Cosmograph Daytona (so named because the actor wore one in the 1969 racing flick Winning) that took the hammer for a cool $21,212, twice its estimated value. The Paul Newman, with its flashy dial and oversized indexes, wasn't an immediate success and was produced for a very limited time. Its meteoric ascent in popularity didn't begin until the mid-1980s. The Italians were the first to go for it. It was perfectly possible 16, 17 years ago to buy a Daytona at 20 to 25 percent under list price in England or America at the same time Italians would pay you 30 to 40 percent over list. Let's just say it was a nice little earner for quite a number of enterprising people.

By the time Daytona fever swept across Europe and the United States in the late 1980s, a relaunch was already in the works. Introduced in 1991, the updated Daytona replicated the original's racy chronograph--a built-in stopwatch that's perfect for timing the morning sprints of Kentucky Derby contenders or your nine-year-old's dash for first base--but added an automatic winder. Today, the $5,150 stainless-steel Cosmograph with a white face--the rarest combination and the one that Paul Newman reportedly wears off screen--is one of the country's most-coveted timepieces. The Daytona is actually worth more on the secondary market than its retail price. I mean, here's a watch that--assuming you could find one, that is--you could pick up new and turn around and resell for a $2,000 profit. And in steel.

But the best-known Swiss watchmaker has always been something of an outsider in Geneva. Perhaps it's because the company didn't start out Swiss. As mentioned, Rolex was founded in London, in 1905, by the 24-year-old Wilsdorf, a German who became a British citizen after taking an English bride. It was an era when national borders tended to define men's ambitions, but Wilsdorf thought big from the beginning. In 1908, before anyone had uttered the term multinational, Wilsdorf trademarked the word Rolex, a name that's easily pronounced in different languages and short enough to fit on a watch dial. It's said that Wilsdorf dreamed up the word while riding a London bus, having been inspired by the sound a watch makes as it is wound. Rolex didn't leave England until after the First World War, when an import tax hike of 33 percent made receiving its Swiss-made movements prohibitively expensive.

The company's first decade was driven by its founder's relentless obsession with precision. "Wilsdorf wasn't content merely to invent the first wristwatch. He wanted to invent the first truly accurate wristwatch, one that you could actually run your life by." Validation came in 1914, when London's Kew Observatory certified a Rolex wristwatch to be as precise as a marine chronometer. It was the first time that a watch had received "chronometer" status--a classification that, even today, is held by a relative few timepieces.

Still, improved accuracy didn't immediately transform the wristwatch into an essential item in the common man's wardrobe. Dust, heat and moisture had a way of wreaking havoc with a wristwatch's intricate mechanical movements, and the earliest models required too much maintenance to be practical. Rolex's big breakthrough came in 1926, when Wilsdorf developed a case that was impervious and waterproof. The secret was a revolutionary double-locking crown that screwed down on the case like a submarine hatch to create an airtight seal. Recalling his difficulty in prying open an oyster at a dinner party, Wilsdorf christened his creation the Rolex Oyster.

To launch his company's new timepiece into the popular consciousness, Wilsdorf came up with an ingenious publicity stunt. After learning that a young British woman named Mercedes Gleitze was planning to swim across the English Channel, he presented her with a Rolex Oyster and dispatched a photographer to chronicle her endeavor. When Gleitze emerged triumphantly from the sea, her Oyster was keeping perfect time and, true to its name, had remained waterproof. Wilsdorf capitalized with a splashy front-page ad in London's Daily Mail newspaper, touting "The Wonder Watch that Defies the Elements: Moisture Proof. Waterproof. Heat Proof. Vibration Proof. Cold Proof. Dust Proof." It was the genesis of the famous Rolex testimonial ad campaign that continues to this day.

If the first Oyster had an Achilles' heel, it was its winder button. The watch was hermetic only when the button was screwed down. To discourage people from toying with the winder, Wilsdorf came up with another innovation that propelled the industry forward even further. In 1931, Rolex introduced a "perpetual" rotor that literally rewound a watch with every flick of the wearer's wrist. The world's first successful automatic watch became the bedrock of the Rolex empire. "The Oyster Perpetual is really what makes a Rolex a Rolex--it's waterproof, with a tiny engine that you power every single time you move your arm."

Nearly 70 years later, the Oyster Perpetual has proved undaunted by the worst possible conditions. It has survived the depths of the sea with Jacques Piccard and the summit of Everest with Sir Edmund Hillary's Sherpa. It has retained its accuracy in subzero arctic temperatures, the scorching Sahara and the weightlessness of outer space. It has shrugged off plane crashes, shipwrecks, and speedboat accidents, broken the sound barrier, and been ejected from a fighter jet at 22,000 feet. Some of the most colorful recommendations are the cautionary tales: the Englishman who inadvertently laundered his Oyster in a scalding cycle, then rinsed, spun and tumble-dried it; the Australian skydiver who dropped his from 800 feet above the outback; or the Californian whose wife accidentally baked his in a 500-degree oven. In each case, the recovered Rolex was running perfectly.

By the advent of the Second World War, the Rolex name had become so prestigious in Britain that pilots in the Royal Air Force rejected inferior government-issued watches and used their paychecks to nearly deplete England's supply of Oyster Perpetuals. The compliment was duly returned: any British prisoner of war whose Rolex was confiscated had only to write to Geneva to receive a replacement. Yankee GIs returned home with a new trinket on their wrists. And so Rolex's romance with America began.

Though he lived in Geneva for 40 years, Wilsdorf never became a Swiss citizen. He died a Briton in 1960 and was remembered by colleagues as a good-humored, fatherly man who loved life as much as he loved a fine watch. Two years after his death, the company's board of directors appointed 41-year-old André Heiniger as Rolex's new managing director. While working under Wilsdorf for 12 years, Heiniger had come to share his boss' vision for the company, as well as his high energy level and sanguine outlook. All three traits proved invaluable when the Swiss watch industry found itself slipping into oblivion.

Just as video killed the radio star, the quartz boom of the late 1960s and early 1970s nearly snuffed out the mechanical timepiece faster than you can say "Seiko." By substituting low-cost, digital technology for labor-intensive artisanship, the Japanese sent the Swiss horology industry into crisis mode. Yet while most of Geneva's watch houses feverishly hitched their star to the digital bandwagon, Rolex stuck resolutely to its mechanical guns. By the time the dust had settled, more than half of Geneva's watch manufacturers had gone under. Fully a third of the survivors, including such prestigious names as Omega, Longines, Blancpain, Tissot, Rado, and Hamilton, were subsumed into a publicly owned consortium to avoid bankruptcy. This fate won't befall Rolex. Wilsdorf, an heirless widower at his death, created a private trust run by a board of directors to insure the company would never be sold.

What made Rolex so resilient? "The single most important thing that saved Rolex is that up until then the company had only been run by two managing directors: Hans Wilsdorf and André Heiniger. They really never had to worry about this quarter's results. They could think long-term appeal: 'Where will we be in five or ten years' time?' That's a completely different philosophy than at another watch house. Even in times of uncertainty, Rolex's greatest policy was never to adopt change for change's sake." Revealingly, the single quartz model developed by Rolex in the 1970s never exceeded 7 percent of the company's total production. (Today, that figure is 2 percent).

"If Rolex had gone to quartz there's no way it would have the image and prestige it has now." And being a private company without external shareholders, Rolex can better afford to remain aloof to fads than many of its counterparts. That means no chunky cases, no madcap numerals, no avant-garde shapes--nothing that's going to look dated in a decade's time.

In 1992, Patrick Heiniger replaced his father as Rolex's managing director. Both Heinigers share the twin virtues of undying optimism and ironclad discretion, according to colleagues. It's a combination that generates intrigue among rivals and industry observers. Montres Rolex S.A. is hugely secretive. Rolex always was an outsider company in Switzerland. Their top executives almost never do interviews. Essentially, their philosophy has always been to let the product speak for itself. At Rolex, the product is an obsession."

Consider the care taken to decorate the inside of a Rolex--the parts the wearer never even sees. At the company's Geneva headquarters, Rolex's craftsmen, dressed in white laboratory smocks, pull up to ergonomically designed workstations, then execute minute operations in near silence. Each component of every tiny movement is sculpted with swirls, lines or loops. Every angle is rounded and polished to a brilliant shine. This provides absolutely no value to the consumer, except as a gesture of the brand's refinement.

That Rolex has always produced its own movements separates it from other well-known mechanical brands. More than 200 craftsmen and technicians will work on a watch before it acquires Rolex certification. "There's so much more to a Rolex than the average person will ever need. And in that sense it's the Mercedes-Benz of wristwatches. It's over engineered. Not because Rolex wants to squander money but because that's just the way they do things."

Before leaving Geneva, every Rolex watch must travel through a high-tech obstacle course of quality-control checks. Every dial, bezel and winder will be checked and double-checked for scratches, dust and aesthetic imperfection. The microscopic distance between its hour and minute hands will be painstakingly calibrated to ascertain that they are lying perfectly parallel. An ominous-looking air-pressure chamber will verify that each watch is waterproof to a depth of 330 feet. (The Submariner and Sea-Dweller divers' models are guaranteed to 1,000 and 4,000 feet, respectively.) And every watch will engage in a precision face-off against an atomic-generated "überclock" that loses but two seconds every 100 years. Only after successfully passing dozens of checkpoints does a watch receive the Rolex seal.

Such attention to detail limits Rolex's production to about 650,000 watches a year, based on industry estimates. "That might sound like a lot," insists Lister of Christie's, "but it's very far below market demand." But, as André Heiniger once said, "We've never wanted to be the biggest, but certainly one of the finest in the field."

Saddam Hussein's top aides hanged

2007-01-15T03:25:00.000-08:00

Two of Saddam Hussein's key aides have been hanged in Baghdad, two weeks after the chaotic execution of the former Iraqi president.

There were "no violations" this time, officials said, but Saddam Hussein's half-brother, Barzan al-Tikriti, was decapitated as he was hanged.

He and Awad Hamad al-Bandar, a top judge under Saddam, were convicted over the killing of 148 Shias in the 1980s.

The country's president Jalal Talabani had urged their executions be delayed.

Government officials said the decapitation of Barzan was not abnormal, although it was rare for the head to be severed during hanging. One described it as "an act of God".

The executions took place at 2400 GMT, apparently in the same building where Saddam Hussein was put to death on 30 December after being convicted of the same crime.

The manner of his execution has sparked controversy around the world, after unofficial mobile phone footage was released showing him being taunted and insulted in his final moments.

Iraq's Shia-dominated government pledged a full investigation. Government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said this time everyone present at the facility had signed a document pledging appropriate behaviour.

Correspondents say the gruesome detail about Barzan's decapitation was probably made public in order to avoid it being leaked later with accompanying allegations of mistreatment.

A member of their defence team, Issam al-Ghazzawi, told the Reuters news agency he was outraged by the execution.

"When a man is hanged, he does not lose his head," he said. "The way Barzan was executed is shameful."

The bodies of the men are to be handed over to their families within the next few days.

'Key target

Barzan Ibrahim al-Tikriti was the former Iraqi leader's half-brother and served as the head of his feared secret police, the Mukhabarat.

He was a senior figure in the Iraqi government at the time of the US-led invasion of 2003 and was a key target for capture.

During his captivity, it emerged he had cancer and a number of calls were made for his release for treatment on humanitarian grounds.

Awad Hamad al-Bandar was chief justice of the Iraqi Revolutionary Court. According to his indictment, he conducted show trials which often led to summary death sentences.

The court he headed issued death sentences against residents of the town of Dujail in the aftermath of the failed assassination attempt on the president on 8 July 1982.

His lawyers argued that he had simply been following the letter of Iraqi law, as it was written at the time, and also denied that he had ordered the execution of juveniles.

(BBC)

Caricature

2007-01-08T12:04:00.001-08:00

Caricature

2007-01-08T12:03:00.002-08:00

Paddy Boehm's caricature (Ben Heine)

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Seba Caricature by Debby

2007-01-08T12:02:00.001-08:00

A CARICATURE ARTIST AT WORK!

2007-01-08T12:01:00.002-08:00

Justine sitting for her caricature

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Tiffany's Caricature

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Cindy's Caricature

2007-01-08T11:58:00.000-08:00

Niall's caricature (Ben Heine)

2007-01-08T11:57:00.002-08:00

Caricature

2007-01-08T11:57:00.001-08:00

Dani and her caricature

2007-01-08T11:56:00.000-08:00

caricature

2007-01-08T11:55:00.002-08:00

caricature

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Caricature

2007-01-08T11:54:00.002-08:00

Caricature of Marisa and Justin

2007-01-08T11:54:00.001-08:00

Caricature of Walter Matthau...

2007-01-08T11:43:00.000-08:00

Murders up in New York, other big cities

2006-12-27T15:40:00.001-08:00

NEW YORK - After many years of decline, the number of murders climbed this year in New York and many other major U.S. cities, reaching their highest levels in a decade in some places. Among the reasons given: gangs, drugs, the easy availability of illegal guns, a disturbing tendency among young people to pull guns when they do not get the respect they demand, and, in Houston at least, an influx of Hurricane Katrina evacuees.

In New York, where the city reported 579 homicides through Dec. 24 — a nearly 10 percent increase from the year before — the spike is mostly the result of an unusually large number of "reclassified homicides," or those involving victims who were shot or stabbed years ago but did not die until this year. Thirty-five such deaths have been added to this year's toll, compared with an annual average of about a dozen.

At the same time, Police Department spokesman Paul Browne noted that this year's total is only slightly higher than last year's 539 homicides — the city's lowest death toll in more than 40 years.

Browne blamed the rise in part on the availability of guns, particularly weapons from out of state. The city this year sued dozens of out-of-state gun shops that it says are responsible for many of the illegal weapons on the streets of New York.

In Chicago, homicides through the first 11 months of the year were up 3.3 percent compared with the same period in 2005, reversing a four-year decline. A police spokeswoman said gang violence has been a contributing factor.

In New Haven, Conn., there were 23 homicides as of Tuesday, compared with 15 in 2004 and in 2005. Police Chief Francisco Ortiz said that about half of this year's killings involve young people settling disputes with guns instead of fists.

"They're all struggling with this thing about respect and pride," Ortiz said. "It's about respect. It's about revenge. It's about having a reputation. It's about turf and it's about girls."

Houston police attribute the 15 percent increase in the homicide count to the influx of Katrina evacuees from the Gulf Coast.

"So we expect that to settle," Lt. Murray Smith said. "We're hoping it will go down."

New Orleans, with its post-Katrina exodus, is the only major U.S. city that saw a sharp decline in the number of homicides. There were 154 in New Orleans this year as of Monday, said police spokesman Sgt. Jeffrey Johnson, down from 210 in 2005. But the city was largely empty during the fall and winter of 2005-06, and even now has only about half of its pre-Katrina population of 455,000.

Some cities, like Cincinnati — which has had 83 homicides so far, up from 79 in 2005 — posted their highest numbers ever. Others saw their highest death tolls in years.

Oakland, Calif., had 148 homicides as of Wednesday, up 57 percent from last year and the highest in more than a decade. Philadelphia's 2006 homicide total was 403 as of Wednesday, the first time the number has topped 400 in nearly a decade. There were 380 killings in all of 2005.

Philadelphia officials have struggled all year to reduce the violence. In July, Mayor John F. Street gave a televised address in which pleaded with young people: "Lay down your weapons. Do it now. Choose education over violence."

A few cities reported slight decreases in murders. Los Angeles' total was down about 4 percent to 464 homicides through Dec. 23. San Francisco's fell about 15 percent. San Francisco Police Sgt. Steve Mannina said the drop is partly due to increased patrols in violence-prone areas and more overtime approved by the police chief.

The FBI does not release its national crime statistics until several months after the end of the year. The bureau's statistics for the first six months of 2006 showed an increase of 1.4 percent in the number of murders in the first half of 2006 compared with the first six months of 2005.

Andrew Karmen, a criminologist at John Jay College in New York, said that while there are various theories for the drop in murders in New York and other cities in the 1990s, no one knows for sure why it happened. And if they are going up again, no one knows the reason for that, either, he said.

He noted that police departments tend to take credit when the murder rate goes down. "When crime goes up it will be interesting to see whether they will accept responsibility," Karmen said.
(AP)

Ford's state funeral begins Friday

2006-12-27T15:37:00.000-08:00

WASHINGTON - Gerald R. Ford's state funeral will begin Friday in his beloved California, with the late president then to lie in state in the U.S. Capitol over the weekend, a family representative said Wednesday.

Giving the first details of funeral arrangements for the 38th president, family representative Gregory D. Willard said events will last until Wednesday, when Ford will be interred in a hillside tomb near his presidential museum in his home state of Michigan.
(AP)

John Edwards joins presidential race

2006-12-27T15:34:00.000-08:00

Former Democratic vice presidential nominee John Edwards jumped into the presidential race Wednesday a day earlier than he'd planned, prodded by an Internet glitch to launch a candidacy focused on health care, taxes and other domestic issues.

The North Carolina Democrat's campaign accidentally went live with his election Web site a day before an announcement Thursday that was supposed to use Hurricane-ravaged New Orleans as a backdrop.

The slip-up gave an unintended double-meaning to his campaign slogan on the John Edwards '08 Web site: "Tomorrow begins today."

Aides quickly shut down the errant Web site but could not contain news of the obvious, even in the shadows of former President Ford's death.

"Better a day earlier than a day late," said Jennifer Palmieri, an Edwards adviser.

Earlier Wednesday, Edwards visited the site of his planned announcement for a photo opportunity. He did yard work at the home of Orelia Tyler, 54, whose house was gutted by Hurricane Katrina and is close to being rebuilt.

The campaign Web site featured some of Edwards' expected campaign themes.

"This campaign is about changing America," the Web site read, listing five priorities that fit neatly with Edwards' message of economic equality. Among them: "Providing universal health care for all Americans," "Rebuilding America's middle class and eliminating poverty," and "Creating tax fairness by rewarding work, not just wealth."

Edwards, 53, also issued a statement on Ford's death, saying he was deeply saddened by the news and calling the former Michigan Republican a "true leader."

"He called on us to never lose faith that we can change America," Edwards said.

Taking turns with about 30 young people shoveling loads of dirt in Tyler's backyard, Edwards declined to discuss the campaign, focusing instead on the slow recovery in New Orleans, where whole neighborhoods remain a wasteland.

"Anyone who's not concerned with the rate of recovery is not paying attention," said Edwards. He said finger-pointing is part of the problem, adding that the student volunteers he worked with provided an example of what can be accomplished through cooperation.

Edwards arrived promptly at 1:30 p.m., clad in jeans and a khaki work shirt. His aides kept more than two-dozen reporters and photographers at bay as he and the students prepared Tyler's yard for landscaping.

Tyler is still living in a
Federal Emergency Management Agency trailer in her yard.

"I feel like a child with Santa Claus," Tyler said before Edwards arrived.

The son of a textile mill worker, Edwards has been on a fast track most of his life despite his up-by-the-bootstraps roots.

A standout law student who became a stunningly successful trial lawyer, Edwards vaulted from nowhere politically into the U.S. Senate and then onto the 2004 Democratic presidential ticket — all in less than six years.

In 1998, in his first bid for public office, Edwards defeated incumbent Sen. Lauch Faircloth, R-N.C., a leading advocate for impeachment of
President Clinton.

Edwards began building support for his first presidential bid shortly after arriving in the Senate. He quickly made a name for himself in Congress, using his legal background to help Democratic colleagues navigate the impeachment hearings.

Edwards launched a bid for the Democratic nomination in 2003 and quickly caught the eye of Democratic strategists. Although he won only the South Carolina primary, his skills on the trail, his cheerful demeanor, and his message of "two Americas" — one composed of the wealthy and privileged, and the other of the hardworking common man — excited voters, especially independents and moderate-leaning Democrats.

Edwards' handsome, youthful appearance also gave him a measure of star quality.

Those were among the qualities that led Massachusetts Sen.
John Kerry, the Democrats' 2004 standard bearer, to select Edwards as his runningmate. It was a stunning success for someone who had majored in textile management as an undergraduate as a kind of insurance policy in case a law career didn't pan out.

Republicans have sought to cast Edwards as a money-chasing trial lawyer. It is an image that Edwards has tried to counter by arguing that he represented ordinary people wronged by big corporations.

"I spent most of my adult life representing kids and families against very powerful opponents, usually big insurance companies," he liked to say. "And my job was to give them a fair shake, to give them a fair chance."
(AP)

Toyota shares trade at record high

2006-12-27T15:32:00.000-08:00

Toyota shares rose to a record level on Wednesday after its chairman Fujio Cho met Ford's chief executive Alan Mulally amid speculation about possible co-operation between the two car makers.

Most observers believe a broad-ranging alliance between the two companies is unlikely, but there is recognition that more selective tie-ups would make sense for both.

Toyota shares rose 1.9 per cent to Y7,920 ($66.58) after earlier climbing to a record Y7.970. Ford shares were 1.2 per cent higher at midday in New York.

Toyota described the meeting as a courtesy call, and Ford noted that it met regularly with other automakers on "topics of mutual interest."

Mr Mulally is an admirer of the Japanese company's product development and manufacturing processes, some of which he sought to apply in his former job as head of Boeing.

After a robust year for global mergers and acquisitions, markets were quick to seize on the scantest possibility that Ford might be poised to forge a partnership with the world's most profitable big carmaker.

Producers, including Toyota, face broadly similar challenges of high costs, overcapacity, and growing regulatory constraints.

However, analysts expressed doubt that Toyota might seek a full-fledged alliance with financially troubled Ford.

"Toyota has a very crisp view of why it wants to partner with companies and that doesn't include turning around companies," said Ron Tadross, global automotive analyst with Banc of America Securities in New York.

In October General Motors broke off talks with Renault and Nissan on a possible three-way alliance.

Carlos Ghosn, Nissan's chief executive, has since said the company wanted to add production capacity in the US in the long term, but that an alliance was "not an urgent issue."

Rick Wagoner, GM's chairman and chief executive, says his company has no plans for a broad-ranging alliance with another carmaker.

However, GM does co-operate on individual projects, such as a venture with BMW and DaimlerChrysler to develop "dual-mode" hybrid technology.

Analysts said Ford and Toyota might also co-operate in developing alternative fuel technologies, building on their existing partnerships in a fast-evolving area where Toyota is recognised as an industry leader.

Despite its financial problems, Ford has one of the biggest research and development budgets of the world's carmakers. Besides hybrid vehicles, it has built a number of hydrogen-powered airport buses.

(F Times)

5 Dead In British Helicopter Crash

2006-12-27T15:28:00.000-08:00

(AP) Five people were killed after a helicopter carrying seven passengers and crew crashed Wednesday as it flew off the coast of Morecambe Bay in northwest England, police said.

Lancashire police, who are coordinating the search, and the Maritime & Coastguard Agency, said five bodies had been found by searchers in the cold water of the large bay.

The search for the other two people aboard the helicopter, which was carrying five Centrica PLC employees when it went down 24 miles of the coast around 6:40 p.m., was continuing.

It was not immediately known what caused the crash.

A pair of Royal Air Force helicopters, two lifeboats and other vessels were searching for the other two missing people.

Energy concern Centrica PLC did not immediately comment on the deaths, but in an earlier statement said that a helicopter used to ferry its workers had gone missing in the East Irish Sea.

It did not say if it had crashed into the water or had to ditch.

"Centrica is working closely with HM Coastguard who have mounted a full scale search and rescue operation," the company said. "Centrica is contacting all families connected with its Morecambe Bay gas fields and expresses its thoughts for those missing at this time."

Centrica said it had contracted with CHC Scotia Helicopters to operate the aircraft.

The Maritime & Coastguard Agency said the craft was thought to have ditched in the cold water of the large bay that is just east of the Isle of Man.

Royal Air Force Rescue Center official Michael Mulford said that signals from a distress beacon believed to be part of the helicopter were detected after it hit the water.

There were no immediate details on what type of helicopter it was.

Gas was discovered offshore of Morecambe Bay in 1974, and some rigs operate there extracting the 6 trillion cubic feet of natural gas that is beneath the sea floor.

In February 2004, 23 shellfish collectors from China died when they were trapped by the tide on the sand at Morecambe Bay and drowned.
(AP)

The Avatar of Presidential Fade-Outs

2006-12-27T15:25:00.000-08:00

Death is sad, at least in most cases. But the death of a former president has become an almost cheery television event.

It has been more than 40 years since John F. Kennedy was assassinated. His successors died out of office, relatively painlessly, and most were well into old age. The passing of a retired commander in chief perks up the day with a wallop of stately special reports and bittersweet nostalgia (plaid jackets, “Saturday Night Live,” détente), without undue anxiety or grieving.

And in Gerald R. Ford, who was 93 and served less than one term, television has found the avatar of comfortable presidential fade-outs. The deaths of Lyndon B. Johnson and Richard M. Nixon were too fraught with the Shakespearean tragedies they lived in office. Ronald Reagan’s life and two terms were so momentous that the days leading to his funeral, though full and colorful, were also weighed down with mournful Hollywood pageantry.

As president, the likable, reliable Mr. Ford was most memorable for pardoning Nixon; all day, television screens showed Mr. Ford’s address to the nation, as well as grainy color images of him looking on, stone-faced, as Nixon flung his arm in farewell from his helicopter on the White House lawn.

All the networks went live on Wednesday to Crawford, Tex., to cover President Bush’s tribute to his predecessor. Reporters stood vigil in front of the flags flying at half-staff at the White House, and in Rancho Mirage, Calif., and Grand Rapids, Mich. Most morning news programs were too respectful to repeat clips of Chevy Chase doing his pratfall impression of Mr. Ford as the great fumbler on “Saturday Night Live.” By midday, however, cable news shows were gingerly exploring the “lighter side” of Mr. Ford’s tenure.

In retrospect, it was remarkable how open to reporters the Ford White House was. On NBC “Today” flashed a black-and-white photograph by the former White House photographer David Hume Kennerly that showed Mr. Ford, seated at a table with three aides, in a long-sleeved shirt and pajama bottoms. (One of those aides was his chief of staff, Donald H. Rumsfeld, who recently retired as secretary of defense; Mr. Rumsfeld, along with Vice President Dick Cheney, who also worked in the Ford White House, stood out as among the most lasting, and contested, elements of Mr. Ford’s legacy.)

Mr. Ford’s presidential retirement was dignified and decent but not particularly distinguished: old news clips showed him in the 1980s and 1990s playing golf and attending fund-raisers for Republicans, not raising roofs for the homeless or public awareness about pandemics in Asia and Africa.

Richard Norton Smith, a former director of the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Museum and Library, told ABC News that the former president “swam twice a day well into his 90s.”

On CBS the presidential historian Douglas Brinkley somewhat apologetically told Harry Smith, a host of “The Early Show,” that while Mr. Ford’s post-White-House legacy is eclipsed by the charity work of former President Jimmy Carter, “we must not forget what the Fords have done for people who have a drug addiction.” But it was Mr. Ford’s wife, Betty, who shattered taboos, first by publicly discussing her breast cancer, and later, her dependence on drugs and alcohol, and it was she who led the way for the Betty Ford Center in Rancho Mirage, Calif.

After he tumbled into the presidency, Mr. Ford earned respect for the way he rose to the occasion. But as Wednesday’s television eulogies showed, it was his first lady who seized it.

Tom Brokaw, who covered the Ford White House for NBC, went on “Today” to lead the network’s special report, but on ABC it was Charles Gibson and not Diane Sawyer, who was on vacation. And that was a pity: Ms. Sawyer worked in the press office of the Nixon White House during the final days and was on the plane that took the disgraced president to San Clemente, Calif.; her reminiscences would most likely have been more interesting.

All of Mr. Ford’s acquaintances and biographers spoke of his modesty and stalwart nature. In an interview with Mr. Brokaw taped for Wednesday’s History Channel special, “Gerald Ford: A Man and His Moment,” his daughter, Susan, described him as the “Steady Eddie” of the family.

It seems that his persona was not so overwhelming that it drove commentators to fold into the shadows.

On “Today” the NBC correspondent Andrea Mitchell mentioned that she last spoke to Mr. Ford in California last February, “when he came over to see me, and we had lunch.” (It is hard to imagine a former president in his 90s going out of his way to meet a television reporter, so it was hard not to suspect that Mr. Ford was going out of his way not to invite Ms. Mitchell over to his house.)

Except for Ann Curry, who on “Today” adopted her usual smarmily maudlin tone, most of the encomiums were by turns affectionate and respectful, but not overly mournful.

Mr. Ford lived on healthily and happily for three decades after leaving the White House; as even recent clips show, he, more than anyone, made the Oval Office seem like a ticket to longevity.

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2006-12-27T13:19:00.000-08:00

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