news blog from Cherelle

Thirty years ago this Wednesday, I was sitting, chain smoking, in the basement of a children’s needlework school in Kensington, London. It was a few doors away from the Iranian Embassy, which for six days had been under siege as six Iranian dissidents held two dozen hostages captive. Five days earlier, on April 30th, I had been released from the embassy after suffering what the hostage-takers, and myself, thought was a heart attack, though it was probably self-induced through terror and self survival. The needlework school had another function that day – it was the HQ for the police and  military preparing to break the siege. I had been summoned there to assist in the hostage negotiations, though as I arrived the Iranians dumped one dead hostage onto the street. They had shot him in the head and threatened to shoot another within the hour. Within minutes members of Britain’s Special Air Services (SAS) were given orders to storm the embassy and break the siege. They did so in 43 minutes, rescuing all but one of the hostages and shooting dead five of the six dissidents. The sixth later stood trial at the Old Bailey and was jailed for life. It was history in the making. The SAS’s finest hour. All covered live on television (though, remarkably, the interruption of regular programming – a John Wayne western on one channel, the final of a snooker contest on the other – was considered a bold move on the part of the programmers, subject to much criticism from viewers in the days after.) Three weeks later, on June 1st, 1980, CNN was launched and a revolution in continuous news began. As a former hostage, and a newsman for more than 40 years, I am conflicted. How would the modern-day media cover a siege such as the 1980 one?  How would the relentless, frequently breathless and opinionated media of 2010 report on the delicate, terrifying negotiations that went on 30 years ago this week? There was at least one television set inside the Iranian embassy, though for some reason it was not working. There was a radio – and the hostages and their captors sat around it like attentive children, sobbing, laughing and occasionally arguing as broadcasts were made. The slightest error or nuanced report was a cause for distress. These were pre-Internet days. No texts by phone – telephone pagers were considered state of the art. No Facebook, no Flickr, and absolutely no Twitter. As a journalist that seems terrible. As a former hostage I am not so sure. What might have been the outcome if insensitive, speculative or just plain bad reportage had been provided and available to the hostage takers? Supposing clandestine filming of the preparations to break the siege had been transmitted on the BBC, CNN or Fox? Experience tells me there is no such thing as a complete news blackout. The very best intentions by responsible media organizations can be confounded either by screw-ups or by commentators sitting outside what used to be a cozy circle. And social media contributors have their own take on information flow – mostly innocent chatter, sometimes rabid or with a fixed agenda. It’s a good time for media outlets to plan for the next siege. And to determine, in advance, what their response might be. It’s also a good time to reflect on our reporting of the victims of terrorist acts. My ordeal was a brief one, though sufficient to write my Last Will and Testament and leave me with long-lasting after-effects. It ended my ambition to be a dashing war correspondent and started me thinking about the effects of trauma on members of the media. Thirty years on, responsible media organizations –Reuters, AP, the BBC, CNN and others – take for granted the duty of care they have for their own staff. Other media organizations might care to examine their own consciences.

* China could take opportunity to consider reforms* Widening trading band may be next move* Yuan at 6.3785, up 3.31 pct so far this yearBy Lu Jianxin and Jacqueline WongSHANGHAI, Oct 14 (Reuters) - The yuan closed up slightly against the dollar on Friday due to bank clients’ dollar purchases late in the session, but traders said investors trimmed their expectations of yuan appreciation in the near term amid renewed Chinese-U.S. tensions on the currency front.The People’s Bank of China set its mid-point, from which the yuan can rise or fall 0.5 percent in a day, slightly weaker on Friday, adding fuel to speculation that the yuan’s steady gains seen so far this year may take a breather.Some traders believe China could take the opportunity of a slowdown in yuan appreciation to consider new reforms, with a widening of the yuan/dollar trading band possibly a next move.”China may feel frustrated that the yuan’s steady gains since the start of this year without any U.S. prodding still fail to convince U.S. politicians that it is moving towards the right direction,” said a trader at a U.S. bank in Shanghai.”Renewed U.S. pressure appears to be pushing China and the United States into a new round of a cat-and-mouse game in which China will make periodical yuan gains a political bargaining chip. This will mean a temporary pause in yuan appreciation.”Spot yuan closed at 6.3785 compared with Thursday’s close of 3.3820. It has now risen 3.31 percent since the start of this year and 7.02 percent since it was depegged from the dollar in June 2010.Before trade began, the PBOC set its mid-point against the dollar weaker at 6.3762 compared with Thursday’s 6.3737.The Chinese central bank, which uses the reference rate to signal the government’s intentions for the yuan, has let its daily fixing weaken every day since the U.S. Senate approved a controversial bill on Tuesday aimed at forcing Beijing to push the yuan higher against the dollar.CAT AND MOUSEAlthough the fate of the bill is uncertain in the House of Representatives, it has drawn sharp rebukes from Beijing.The PBOC argues that a stronger yuan would not on its own reduce the bilateral trade imbalance nor save American jobs.Many China-based traders believe that the Senate’s bill has come at a wrong time when major economies, including the world’s top two — the United States and China — need to cooperate to fight against a prospect of another global recession.The bill also comes after China had let the yuan appreciate steadily this year.”There is a feeling among Chinese traders that the United States is trying to manipulate China’s currency, although I am not discussing whether China manipulates it,” said a trader at a major Chinese bank in Beijing.”Renewed U.S. pressure has apparently interrupted the yuan’s steady appreciation seen for the bulk of this year,” he said. “Yuan appreciation is likely to be intermittent again and be subject to the political environment once more.”Some traders said that U.S. domestic politics was playing too much into Chinese-U.S. relations and was hurting ties.Candidates of U.S. presidential elections have made China an easy scapegoat of U.S. economic problems, vowing to punish China after being elected but rarely doing so later.U.S. Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney on Thursday threatened trade sanctions against China if it does not halt what he said was currency manipulation, unfair subsidies and rampant intellectual property theft.And the Obama administration, under fire for not taking a harder line on China over its currency, appears set to move against the Asia export powerhouse on other fronts as next year’s U.S. election approaches.Until the yuan’s gains this year outside of obvious U.S. pressure, China had let the currency appreciate, largely intermittently ahead of major political events such as the meeting of the two countries’ leaders and publication of the U.S. Treasury’s currency reports typically in April and October.While the Chinese government paints a picture of resisting U.S. calls for a stronger yuan, it has made political concessions when tensions escalated in the past, until pressure lessened in early 2011.Such a pattern is now seen returning, propelling traders to forecast a pause in this year’s yuan appreciation for now.Offshore, one-year dollar/yuan non-deliverable forwards (NDFs) were bid at 6.4000 in late trade, falling slightly from 6.4070 at the close on Thursday.They implied yuan depreciation of 0.37 percent in 12 months from Friday’s PBOC mid-point, compared with depreciation of 0.48 percent they implied on Thursday.

In a company statement issued Monday, Hastings said of the surprise about-face, “there is a difference between moving quickly — which Netflix has done very well for years — and moving too fast, which is what we did in this case.”“Consumers value the simplicity Netflix has always offered and we respect that,” Hastings said.Needham & Co. analyst Charlie Wolf put it more bluntly: “The subscribers voted and Netflix realized the whole thing was stupid. It was an act where you didn’t raise prices but you lost subscribers.”Netflix shares rose more than 9 percent in early trading but gave back those gains, ending at $111.62, down 4.8 percent, on the Nasdaq. In July, Netflix shares traded at more than $300.”When you step back and start analyzing some of the biggest questions surrounding Netflix, nothing has really changed,” Cowen and Company analyst Jim Friedland said.”You still have a 60 percent price increase in what is still a challenging economic environment” as well as growing competition, said Friedland, who has a “neutral” rating on Netflix shares.Hastings announced the original plan on Netflix’s blog last month, writing that the company was putting its DVD service on a different website and naming it Qwikster as a way to differentiate it from its growing online streaming offerings. The move would have forced customers of both streaming and DVD options to visit different websites and maintain different accounts for each subscription. Customers also would have received separate credit-card charges.The announcement prompted confusion and outrage from customers who expressed bewilderment on the Netflix blog and Facebook page over the planned move to the Qwikster name for DVDs sent through the mail in the company’s signature red envelopes.The decision was one of several costly missteps in recent months that have helped drive shares of the one-time Wall Street darling down about 60 percent since July.Hastings, the company’s co-founder, had a 2.35 percent stake in the company’s shares that was worth around $300 million as of September 2.Michael Pachter, an analyst at Wedbush Securities, downgraded Netflix to “neutral” from “outperform” on the news to return to one unified website. Pachter had speculated the splitting of the DVD and streaming operations would help pave the way for Amazon.com Inc to buy the Netflix streaming business, but said that deal now appeared unlikely.As part of its course reversal, Hastings said in a short blog post Monday that Netflix no longer planned to rename the DVD service. “This means no change: one website, one account, one password … in other words, no Qwikster,” he wrote.Hastings is dealing with a customer backlash that began in July after Netflix announced it was raising prices by as much as 60 percent, or $6 a month, for some subscribers who wanted to keep DVD and streaming options.With cancellations rolling in, Netflix last month cut its third-quarter forecast by 1 million subscribers. The company said it expected to have 24 million subscribers at the quarter’s end.Though Hastings later apologized for the handling of the price increase, he is sticking with that decision as the company works to build its online movie and television streaming service.He also stopped short of an apology to customers for the confusion caused by the original Qwikster plan.”It is clear that for many of our members two websites would make things more difficult,” Hastings offered in lieu of an apology in a terse, 140-word blog post. “While the July price change was necessary, we are now done with price changes.”On the blog, reaction from customers was mixed. “Thank you for doing what makes sense for the consumer,” one person said. But, in an indication the some subscribers are still frustrated, another countered, “Too late. Already canceled. Not coming back.”When the Qwikster plan was announced in September, Hastings had said Netflix DVD plans would come with an option to rent video games. But on Monday, Netflix spokesman Steve Swasey said the company was “still considering video games.”Netflix is under pressure from Hollywood studios and cable programmers to pay more for streaming content. Negotiations with Liberty Media’s Starz were recently called off because the two sides could not reach an agreement on pricing. The company also faces competition from Amazon.com, Hulu and others.

The report said those factors will make Wall Street’s bonuses, jobs and profits weak this year.”The securities industry had a strong start to 2011, but its prospects have cooled considerably for the second half of this year,” DiNapoli said. “It now seems likely that profits will fall sharply, job losses will continue, and bonuses will be smaller than last year. These developments will have a rippling effect through the economy and adversely impact state and city tax collections.”Last year, securities-related activities accounted for 14 percent of the state’s tax revenue and almost 7 percent of the city’s tax revenue, the report found.One in 8 jobs in New York City and 1 in 13 jobs in New York State are linked to the securities industry. Given the current weakness, tax collections are likely to fall short of city and state targets in their current fiscal years and may decline more the following year.”As we know, when Wall Street slows, New York City and New York State’s budgets feel the impact, and that is a concern,” DiNapoli said.