news blog from Chana

A newspaper seller organises British papers in his shop

The life business has an embedded value of around 1.6 billion euros.The company’s board and Ireland’s Department of Finance will consider the bids.Finance buyout firm J.C. Flowers in a partnership with private equity firm Apollo Global Management , Canada Life Ireland and U.S. insurer Unum were all interested in Irish Life, the source previously told Reuters.U.S. insurer Delphi dropped out of the bidding, Bloomberg news agency reported earlier this month.Ireland’s Finance Minister Michael Noonan told Reuters earlier this month he hoped to have a deal for Irish Life concluded before the current parliamentary term ends in mid-December.

By Tabassum ZakariaWASHINGTON, Oct 14 (Reuters) - The alleged Iranian plot to assassinate a Saudi ambassador to the United States may have revealed the biggest secret of all — intelligence agencies mess up and do not always live up to the James Bond ideal.Skeptics have questioned whether the operation was really backed by high-level Iran officials because of its sloppiness.A Texas used-car salesman allegedly tried to hire a hitman in Mexico to kill the Saudi ambassador in Washington — all while talking about having ties to Iranian authorities. He got nabbed because the hitman turned out to be a confidential informant of the U.S. government.The Quds Force, the covert arm of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards, is considered a force to be reckoned with — which left Iran experts scratching their heads over how such a messy endeavor could possibly have been the work of usually sophisticated operators.Intelligence experts point out that even the most competent intelligence services, which most of the time operate successfully in the shadows, have had their share of very public blunders.In 2010, the Israeli Mossad, no slouch in the spy world, was accused of sending a hit squad to assassinate a Hamas militant in a Dubai hotel. The suspected operatives were caught on videotape following Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in the hotel, and photos of them were distributed to the media by the Dubai police department.In 2004, two Russian intelligence officers were convicted in Qatar in the assassination of Chechen rebel leader Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev. The Washington Post reported that police were able to trace a van near the attack back to a car-rental agency where the renters were caught on video camera.In 2005, an Italian court ordered the arrest of CIA agents suspected of kidnapping an Egyptian cleric, Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr, in Milan and flying him to Egypt for interrogation in 2003. Court documents showed the agents left plenty of documentation of their stay in Italy, including frequent-client cards when they registered at hotels.In 1999, the only target the CIA picked for NATO’s 11-week bombing campaign on Yugoslavia led to the U.S. attack on the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade. U.S. officials said it was a huge mistake and were embarrassed that they did not have the correct location of the embassy in their databases.In 1997, two Mossad officers posing as Canadian tourists attempted to spray poison into the ear of Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal in Jordan. They were caught and the botched incident led to the Mossad director’s resignation.Some intelligence experts say the alleged Texas plot could very well have been a bumbled Quds force operation.”This is the Quds force, this is not the MOIS,” a former intelligence official said, referring to Iran’s foreign intelligence service, considered more skilled in delicate spy tradecraft.”Sometimes intelligence operations do really dumb things.”

NEW YORK Oct 14 (Reuters) - U.S. stocks rose on Friday as better-than-expected retail sales further relieved fears of another recession while optimism kept growing that the euro zone was making progress on a solution to its debt crisis.Tech shares rallied after a blowout quarter from Google Inc , putting the S&P 500 on track for back-to-back weekly gains for the first time since early July.French and German officials are trying to put flesh on the bones of a crisis resolution plan in time for a European Union summit on Oct. 23, overshadowing Standard and Poor’s cut of Spain’s credit rating, a move that underlined the challenges facing Europe’s finance ministers.Adding to the positive tone, U.S. Commerce Department data showed September retail sales rose 1.1 percent from a month earlier, beating the median forecast in a Reuters poll for a 0.7 percent rise. Sales growth during August was revised upward to 0.3 percent.”People are growing more hopeful that European policy-makers are going to announce a comprehensive plan, and the retail sales data was the latest in a number of datapoints that have caused people to lessen their worries about an imminent recession,” said Nick Sargen, chief investment officer at Fort Washington Investment Advisors in Cincinnati.The Dow Jones industrial average gained 70.16 points, or 0.61 percent, to 11,548.29. The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index added 9.88 points, or 0.82 percent, to 1,213.54. The Nasdaq Composite Index rose 19.80 points, or 0.76 percent, to 2,640.03The recent rally since the S&P 500 briefly hit bear market territory on an intraday basis on Oct. 4 has pushed the benchmark index near 1,220, a key resistance point it’s been unable to cross since early August.”We’re definitely showing signs of stabilizing, but if the plan from Europe is a disappointment, we’ll probably retest our lows,” said Sargen, who helps oversee $38 billion in assets under management.Google Inc led the Nasdaq higher as shares jumped 5.9 percent to $591.78 after its results late on Thursday blew past Wall Street’s expectations, helped by strong advertising sales and deft cost controls.Apple Inc rose 1.8 percent to $415.90 as the newest version of its iPhone went on sale across the country.On the downside, Mattel Inc fell 1.5 percent to $27.36 as higher costs hurt its margins in the third quarter.Consumers remained pessimistic, despite the growth in retail spending. The Thomson Michigan’s preliminary October reading on consumer sentiment slipped to 57.5 from 59.4 the month before. It fell short of the median forecast of 60.2 among economists polled by Reuters.The Labor Department said overall import prices increased 0.3 percent, after falling 0.2 percent in August. Economists polled by Thomson Reuters had expected prices to drop 0.3 percent last month.