Online advertising and internet marketing ? Linked Data for Cultural ...

---

Internet internet marketing for novices is actually somewhat of a oxymoron. This is due to the fact whilst inside theory the concepts behind Online advertising may be rather simple, executing efficient techniques is extremely hard. This could additionally be tough for those who happen to be rather experienced within the planet of Online marketing. With this in your mind, this short article is going to attempt to explain the entire concept of Web internet marketing for beginners then can outline a few of the basic tips which can certainly aid a business owner to launch his own Internet marketing promotion. We'll cover concepts for instance creating an internet site, inserting banner advertisements, sending out e-newsletters, orchestrating a e-mail advertising campaign and in addition optimizing your individual web pages for search engines.

One of several most basic procedures for commencing a particular Online internet marketing campaign is to create a web site. Should you don't come with a web site or have a poorly crafted web pages you really need to think about creating or simply re-designing a web site to adequately marketplace a products immediately after which begin alongside promotion thru SEO optimizacija and also other approaches. Should you never have experience with regard to web design, indeed there happen to be a a number of software packages which make it easy for all those alongside no design experience to create a functional web page. Even so, hiring an internet designer typically is worthwhile considering he could function to create a web page which is appealing, practical and even suitable to a treatments and even series. He could also enable anyone consist of a lot more advanced attributes on your web site.

Banner advertisements are generally another popular solution for advertising your online business on the Internet. Banner advertisements are really promotions which usually develop across the top of a web page but it might equally consist of small ads with regard to some other locations. Banner advertisements usually consist of graphics and in addition text that entice Web consumers to click on the advertisement. Once an user clicks found on the ad, they are really guided to your own web page. This sort of advertising may be rather effective when care typically is taken to put the actual promotions on significant traffic sites that attract an readers who might have a great interest inside the products.

Sending out e-newsletters will as well be an element of an impressive Online internet marketing strategy. E-newsletters are generally basically emails that will contain a wide array of information and facts which includes useful articles, practical quizzes, relevant advertising or perhaps any some other critical information which is considered worthwhile for the particular recipients of the e-newsletter. The significance of these newsletters is the fact that they could certainly be utilized as marketing tools that are definitely not viewed by the particular recipients as a great advertisement. You means to do this really is to include hyperlinks or alternatively some other soft sale approaches back into the copy associated with the e-newsletters. But bear in mind, care could be taken to maintain many of these references minimal so the actual e-newsletter is definitely not viewed as junk e-mail.

E-mail marketing promotions could certainly be yet another lucrative aspect of an Online internet marketing promotion. E-mail internet marketing basically involves sending out emails to a group of people who could very well be interested in the items and even solutions. Care ought to be taken with regard to sending out these e-mail messages to avoid sending emails that are unsolicited and will be viewed because junk e-mail. You may attract a great deal of subscribers in the event you have suitable information not to mention making use of SEO. Specific way to do this really is to only send the e-mail messages to users whom currently have requested inclusion on a email mailing list. Another method to do this particular is to offer value with regard to the e-mail messages as opposed to simply just such as promotions. This particular is done by offering relevant guidance with regard to your emails plus other beneficial critical info which might be of interest to the actual recipients of the email.

Finally, optimizing the internet site for search engines is a critical aspect of an Internet advertising venture. Search engines rank sites according to standard and in addition relevance for particular search terms. Many Online consumers appreciate the effort by search engines plus make full use of many of these search engines to select the ideal sites on a particular subject. This means the actual Web users are generally probably to only pay a visit to web sites which rank well alongside search engines. Therefore in case the site is actually certainly not excellent ranking, you may be definitely not possible to generate a lot of traffic from Web users who incorporate search engines to find relevant sites. Top ranking websites are generally likely to find the a lot of traffic from search engines and even just about all web sites falling on the 1st webpage associated with the search engine outcomes will more than likely enjoy a little bit of degree of prosperity in improving their traffic.

Source: http://ldch.da.ulcc.ac.uk/index.php?title=Online_advertising_and_internet_marketing&diff=16452&oldid=0

Jenni Rivera Alive Facebook Down bo jackson bo jackson hanukkah justin tv justin tv

Congressional inaction could cost college students

WASHINGTON (AP) ? Congressional inaction could end up costing college students an extra $5,000 on their new loans.

The rate for subsidized Stafford loans is set to increase from 3.4 percent to 6.8 percent on July 1, just as millions of new college students start signing up for fall courses. The difference between the two rates adds up to $6 billion.

Just a year ago, lawmakers faced a similar deadline and dodged the rate increase amid the heated presidential campaign between President Barack Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney. But that was with the White House up for grabs and before Washington was consumed by budget standoffs that now seem routine.

"What is definitely clear, this time around, there doesn't seem to be as much outcry," said Justin Draeger, president of the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators. "We're advising our members to tell students that the interest rates are going to double on new student loans, to 6.8 percent."

The new rates apply only to those who take new subsidized loans. Students with outstanding subsidized loans are not expected to see their loan rates increase unless they take out a new subsidized Stafford loan. Students' nonsubsidized loans are not expected to change, nor are loans from commercial lenders.

But it translates to real money for incoming college freshmen who could end up paying back $5,000 more for the same maxed-out student loans their older siblings have.

House Education Committee Chairman John Kline, R-Minn., and the committee's senior Democrat, George Miller of California, prefer to keep rates at their current levels but have not outlined how they might accomplish that goal. Rep. Karen Bass, D-Calif., last week introduced a proposal that would permanently cap the interest rate at 3.4 percent.

Adding another perspective to the debate, Obama will release his budget proposal on April 10.

Neither party's budget proposal in Congress has money specifically set aside to keep student loans at their current rate. The House Republicans' budget would double the interest rates on newly issued subsidized loans to help balance the federal budget in a decade. Senate Democrats say they want to keep the interest rates at their current levels, but the budget they passed last week does not set aside money to keep the rates low.

In any event, neither side is likely to get what it wants. And that could lead to confusion for students as they receive their college admission letters and financial aid packages.

"Two ideas ... have been introduced so far ? neither of which is likely to go very far," said Terry Hartle, the top lobbyist for colleges at the American Council on Education.

House Republicans, led by Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, R-Wis., have outlined a spending plan that would shift the interest rates back to their pre-2008 levels. Congress in 2007 lowered the rate to 6 percent for new loans started during the 2008 academic year, then down to 5.6 percent in 2009, to 4.5 percent in 2010 and then to the current 3.4 percent a year later.

Senate Democrats, led by Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., say their budget proposal would permanently keep the student rates low. But their budget document doesn't explicitly cover the $6 billion annual cost. Instead, its committee report included a window for the Senate Health, Education and Pension Committee to pass a student loan-rate fix down the road.

But so far, the money isn't there. And if the committee wants to keep the rates where they are, they will have to find a way to pay for them, either through cuts to programs in the budget or by adding new taxes.

"Spending is measured in numbers, not words," said Jason Delisle, a former Republican staffer on the Senate Budget Committee and now director of the New America Foundation's Federal Budget Project. "The Murray budget does not include funding for any changes to student loans."

Some two-thirds of students are graduating with loans exceeding $25,000; 1 in 10 borrowers owes more than $54,000 in loans. And student-loan debt now tops $1 trillion. For those students, the rates make significant differences in how much they have to pay back each month.

The Congressional Budget Office estimates that of the almost $113 billion in new student loans the government made this year, more than $38 billion will be lost to defaults, even after Washington collects what it can through wage garnishments.

The net cost to taxpayers after most students pay back their loans with interest is $5.7 billion. If the rate increases, Washington will be collecting more interest from new students' loans.

For some, though, the interest rates seem arbitrary and have little to do with interest rates available for other purchases such as homes or cars.

"Burdening students with 6.8 percent loans when interest rates in the economy are at historic lows makes no sense," said Lauren Asher, president of the Institute for College Access and Success.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/congressional-inaction-could-cost-college-students-070946508--finance.html

packers Dancing With The Stars All Stars Joseph Gordon-Levitt space shuttle Torrey Smith Brother fiona apple awkward

Quarter of U.S. firms in China face data theft: business lobby

By Michael Martina

BEIJING (Reuters) - A quarter of firms that are members of a leading U.S. business lobby in China have been victims of data theft, a report by the group said on Friday, amid growing vitriol between Beijing and Washington over the threat of cyber attacks.

Twenty-six percent of members who responded to an annual survey said their proprietary data or trade secrets had been compromised or stolen from their China operations, the American Chamber of Commerce in China report said.

"This poses a substantial obstacle for business in China, especially when considered alongside the concerns over IPR (intellectual property rights) enforcement and de facto technology transfer requirements," the Chamber said.

A U.S. computer security company, Mandiant, said in February a secretive Chinese military unit was likely behind a series of hacking attacks that targeted the United States and stole data from more than 100 companies.

That set off a war of words between Washington and Beijing.

U.S. Representative Dutch Ruppersberger said last month American companies suffered estimated losses in 2012 of more than $300 billion due to trade secret theft, much of it the result of Chinese hacking.

China says the accusations lack proof and that it is also a victim of hacking attacks, more than half of which originate from the United States.

The Chamber's survey was conducted among 325 members across China late last year, before the release of Mandiant's report.

Only 10 percent of companies in the survey said they would use China-based cloud computing services, with most citing cyber security concerns as a reason. Blocked Internet searches in China had impeded business for 62 percent of respondents.

U.S. officials have pressed China to address Internet attacks and cyber spying against American companies. U.S. President Barack Obama raised hacking concerns in a phone call with Chinese President Xi Jinping earlier in March.

A recent assessment by U.S. intelligence leaders said for the first time cyber attacks and cyber espionage had supplanted terrorism as the nation's top threat.

INVESTMENT STAGNATION

Most firms expressed optimism about the business outlook in China, with many reporting higher margins for their China units.

But companies gave lower expectations for investment and cited rising labor costs as a top concern. Perceptions that China's investment environment is stagnating are increasing, according to the survey.

"Members ... have not felt over the last four or five years that there have been commercially significant positive changes in the business environment or the investment environment," Chamber president Christian Murck told reporters.

"When you have an economy which is making a transition to a market economy, but which is not yet there, there is a feeling that if you are not moving forward with an indicated path of future policy that you are effectively moving backward," he said at a briefing on the survey.

The Chamber's survey also cited a steep rise in concerns over IPR enforcement, with 72 percent of respondents saying enforcement was ineffective or totally ineffective, an increase of 13 percentage points over last year.

Perceptions that technology transfer was increasingly a requirement for access to China's market also jumped 10 points to 37 percent, the Chamber said, with higher rates of concern reported in the aerospace, automotive, chemical in information technology sectors.

(Editing by Paul Tait)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/quarter-u-firms-china-face-data-theft-business-050119247--business.html

Vine dr oz sag awards rajon rondo brazil usps Dick Van Dyke

Clean fuel regulations: EPA, oil industry vie over effect on gas prices

The Obama administration proposed on Friday new ? and more costly ? regulations of the refining industry to produce cleaner gasoline and clearer skies.

If the new rules are implemented as scheduled in 2017, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) says, they will spare thousands of people from premature death and prevent respiratory problems in tens of thousands of children. The cost: on average less than a penny gallon.

Not so, says the oil industry, which has been battling the EPA over the proposed rules. The new rules will add as much as nine cents a gallon to the cost of making fuel and will produce ?ambiguous? results, says The American Petroleum Institute. API, the industry?s lobbying arm in Washington, refers to the proposed new rules as part of a ?tsunami of regulations? the industry faces this year that could add as much as 65 cents to the cost of producing a gallon of fuel in the future.

RECOMMENDED: How much do you know about gas prices? Take our quiz!

Gasoline prices are politically sensitive. Consumers often know how much they have paid for a gallon of gasoline compared with their prior fill-up. When pump prices are rising, consumers grumble and, if prices get high enough, cut back on other discretionary purchases. As a result, economists refer to rising fuel prices as a tax on the economy.

But will Americans pay more for fuel and smile about if they believe it will result in cleaner air?

?Some will, but the majority won?t,? answers Tom Kloza, chief oil analyst at GasBuddy.com. ?There is a sense among a lot of people that we are entitled to cheaper fuel prices than the rest of the world.?

The proposed changes would make US standards the same as most of Europe, Japan, and South Korea, Mr. Kloza says. ?We would be joining 45 other countries with tougher fuel standards,? he says.

Republicans quickly attacked the proposed regulation. ?The Obama Administration is modeling our regulations after California, which has the worst economy in the nation, and today?s announcement is essentially a guaranteed energy tax hike and unfortunately is just one of many radical policies coming out of this Administration that will deal a heavy blow to middle-class families and small businesses,? said Rep. Steve Scalise of Louisiana, chairman of the Republican Study Committee, in a statement.

In January, Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research, often associated with Democratic issues, conducted what it termed a ?bipartisan survey? of 800 registered voters for the American Lung Association on whether Americans favored tougher fuel regulations and improved antipollution laws. It found 62 percent of voters supported new gasoline and vehicle standards, and 32 percent opposed them.

If the new rules are implemented as proposed, the EPA says, the new standards would cut smog-producing chemicals by 80 percent, cut down on particulate matter by 70 percent, and reduce vapor emissions to near zero.

In the case of sulfur, one culprit in producing smog, the new standard would cut the emission to 10 parts per million in 2017 compared with the current standard of 30 parts per million. Only eight years ago the standard was 300 parts per million.

Implementing the new standards will, by 2030, avoid 2,400 premature deaths per year, 23,000 cases of respiratory ailments in children, 3,200 hospital admissions, and 1.8 million lost school days, work days, and days when activities would be restricted due to air pollution, the EPA estimates. Total health-related benefits in 2030 would be between $8 billion and $23 billion annually, according to the agency.

One proponent of the new standard is the auto industry, which is under pressure to boost fuel mileage to meet tougher government regulations on greenhouse gas emissions and fuel economy. In a background press release on Friday, the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, a lobbying group, called the EPA announcement ?a big step forward.?

According to the alliance, cleaner fuel immediately reduces emissions from vehicles of any age. Sulfur damages catalytic converters over time, so the new regulation would be especially helpful in older vehicles.

?And, cleaner fuel allows for new energy-efficient technologies like lean-burn engines that are going to be necessary to comply with the challenging 2017-2025 greenhouse gas and fuel economy standards,? said the alliance in its release.

The auto industry would also like to see the EPA?s proposed new standards implemented because they would then be closer to those used in California. This would allow the auto companies to sell the same cars in all 50 states, says the EPA.

In fact, the EPA in its release mainly talked about the benefit to the auto industry, which the US government rescued during the height of the Great Recession.

?The Obama Administration has taken a series of steps to reinvigorate the auto industry and ensure that the cars of tomorrow are cleaner, more efficient and saving drivers money at the pump and these common-sense cleaner fuels and cars standards are another example of how we can protect the environment and public health in an affordable and practical way,? said EPA Acting Administrator Bob Perciasepe, in a statement.

The proposed rules come at a time when refinery profit margins are relatively high, says GasBuddy.com's Kloza.

?Let?s just say the environment for refining is prosperous,? he says, noting that the cost of natural gas used to make gasoline is low, and that the price of oil produced in the US is lower than oil produced in other parts of the world. This gives the refineries a cost advantage.

However, he says, the industry can see a turnaround in a hurry. ?We know refining can go from a renaissance to the dark ages in a heartbeat,? he says.

The API says it is sees nothing but rising costs ahead because of proposed federal regulations. If the EPA adds an additional mandate to lower vapor pressure, that will cost an extra 25 cents a gallon to make gasoline, the API calculates. Moreover, the API says, gasoline costs during manufacturing will rise another 30 percent if federal mandates to use more ethanol by 2015 are not relaxed. The API also worries that the EPA will propose new ozone reduction standards at the end of the year.

?That?s why we call it a tsunami of regulations,? says Carlton Carroll, a spokesman for the API in Washington.

The EPA will take public comments on the new regulations before finalizing them, possibly by year's end.

RECOMMENDED: How much do you know about gas prices? Take our quiz!

Related stories

Read this story at csmonitor.com

Become a part of the Monitor community

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/clean-fuel-regulations-epa-oil-industry-vie-over-191558657.html

ozzie guillen castro comments phish gluten free diet barry zito mac virus santorum drops out bby

New study aims to prevent sports-related brain injury in youngsters

Mar. 28, 2013 ? Ice hockey accounts for nearly half of all traumatic brain injuries among children and youth participating in organized sports who required a trip to an emergency department in Canada, according to a new study out of St. Michael's Hospital.

The results are part of a first-of-its-kind study led by Dr. Michael Cusimano that looked at causes of sports-related brain injuries in Canadian youth and also uncovered some prevention tactics that could be immediately implemented to make sports safer for kids.

"Unless we understand how children are getting hurt in sport, we can't develop ways to prevent these serious injuries from happening," said Dr. Cusimano, a neurosurgeon and the lead author of the study. "One would think that we know the reasons why kids are having brain injuries in sports, but until know, it was based mainly on anecdotes."

The study used data from The Canadian Hospitals Injury Reporting and Prevention Program to look at the almost 13,000 children and youth aged 5-19 who had a sports-related brain injury between 1990 and 2009. The results appeared in the journal PLOS ONE today.

The researchers categorized injuries by players' ages, what sport they occurred in and what mechanisms had caused them -- "struck by player," "struck by object" (such as net or post), "struck by sport implement" (such as ball or stick), "struck by playing surface" and "other."

Hockey accounted for 44.3 per cent of all injuries and almost 70 per cent of them occurred in children over 10 as a result of player-to-player contact or being hit into the boards.

Dr. Cusimano said they expected to see high numbers in hockey because it's Canada's "national sport."

"This shows that body contact is still an area where we need to make major inroads to preventing brain injuries," Dr. Cusimano said. "For example, enforcing existing rules and making more effective incentives and disincentives about checking from behind could make huge improvements."

Nineteen per cent of the youth who suffered brain injuries got them during soccer, with most in the 10 to 14 or 15 to 19 age group. In these age ranges, the most common cause of injury was being struck by another player, kicks to the head or head-on-head collisions. In the younger group, age five to nine, players were more likely to suffer a traumatic brain injury from striking a surface or a goal post than those in older groups.

"There's a really straightforward solution here," Dr. Cusimano said. "Padding the goal posts could have potentially prevented a large number of these brain injuries in young children."

The results also found that the youngest age group was at the highest risk for getting seriously injured in baseball. Most of the 15.3 per cent of injuries occurred in children under the age of 14, with 45 per cent of them in children under nine.

Ball and bat injuries were most common, with the majority of injuries caused because the players stood too close to the batter or bat and were not supervised by an adult.

"These results give us a very specific prevention message for kids under nine who play baseball: make helmets and supervision a mandatory," said Dr. Cusimano. "The younger the child, the more supervision they need when using things like bats and balls. Simple rules around not being close to the batter can be taught to children and adults."

Football and rugby accounted for 12.9 per cent 5.6 per cent of injuries respectively, and the majority of them were caused by tackling.

Basketball made up 11.6 per cent of injuries, mostly caused by player-to-player elbowing, which increased as players got older.

"There is a real opportunity for prevention here," Dr. Cusimano said. "Having educational programs, proper equipment, rules and other incentives that support a culture of safety in sports should be a mandate of parents, coaches, players, sports organizations, schools, sports sponsors, and other groups like governments."

Funding for the research was provided by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and the Ontario Neurotrauma Foundation.

Share this story on Facebook, Twitter, and Google:

Other social bookmarking and sharing tools:

---

Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by St. Michael's Hospital, via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

---

Journal Reference:

1. Michael D. Cusimano, Newton Cho, Khizer Amin, Mariam Shirazi, Steven R. McFaull, Minh T. Do, Matthew C. Wong, Kelly Russell. Mechanisms of Team-Sport-Related Brain Injuries in Children 5 to 19 Years Old: Opportunities for Prevention. PLoS ONE, 2013; 8 (3): e58868 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0058868

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/~3/3M3mmJkKrl8/130329125301.htm

St Patrick lisa vanderpump Dancing With the Stars 2013 NIT Bracket March Madness 2013 bracket March Madness 2013 selection sunday

Analysis: Austerity threatens EU's competitive edge in infrastructure

By Anthony Deutsch

BERLIN (Reuters) - Europe's carefully maintained autobahns, high-speed TGV trains and vast network of modern airports have long been the envy of the world.

But thanks to austerity budgets that are slashing infrastructure spending just as other parts of the world are ramping it up, that may not be true for much longer.

European infrastructure spending rose just 1.5 percent last year to $741 billion, compared to global growth of 4.5 percent and a 7.1 percent rise in the Asia-Pacific, according to data compiled by Marketline, a business information provider.

Spending in Europe will increase slightly over the next four years, to 4.3 percent growth by 2016, Marketline told Reuters, but will continue to significantly underperform the world average. Only the United States will do worse, with growth of just 1.8 percent seen in 2016.

Company executives, trade groups and even European Union officials themselves say the region is in danger of falling behind competitors, with possibly irreversible consequences.

"We are out of pace with other parts of the world. We are not rejoicing," said Harold Ruijters, who leads the Transport Commission's Trans European Network unit, which aims to connect Europe's fragmented railways, roads and airports.

Brussels' main infrastructure funding budget, the Connecting Europe Facility, was cut in the latest EU budget announced in February from an originally allocated 50 billion euros to 29.3 billion euros over the next seven years.

Broadband and digital infrastructure took the biggest hit, cut from 9.2 billion to just 1 billion euros.

The budget for spending on major transportation through 2020 was cut by 38 percent from 21 billion to 13 billion euros, forcing the Transport Commission to drop air and road projects, which will instead need to seek uncertain sources of commercial funding.

"We are dealing with a severely reduced budget. At the same time, during a time of crisis we are acknowledging that this was perhaps the best deal we could get," Ruijters told Reuters.

Several years of earlier austerity cuts in infrastructure have already started hurting Europe's competitive position, he said, citing railways and aviation as problem sectors.

Reduced budgets and the prospect of long-term weak economic growth in the bloc will make it virtually impossible to meet spending needs in the coming two decades, he said.

The financial reality is out of sync with the EU's long-term strategic goal of creating jobs, and increasing competitiveness and growth in a single European market, which the EU Commission had estimated would require 1.5 trillion euros of spending on transportation infrastructure by 2030.

"At the moment we have one of the best infrastructures in the world, but it is ageing and we have to invest billions just to keep it up. We are far away from completing the internal market, in all transportation modes," said Jurgen Thumann, head of Business Europe, a Brussels-based industrial lobby group.

"As other world regions are launching ambitious transport modernization and infrastructure investment programs, it is crucial that European transport continues to develop and invest to maintain its competitive position," Thumann told Reuters.

Currently 12 of the top 20 nations in a ranking by the World Economic Forum for 2012-2013 are in Europe.

But this year China will for the first time spend more on infrastructure than Europe, though per capita it is still a small fraction of what is spent in the United States and in Japan, Marketline said.

Pedro Rodrigues de Almeida, director of infrastructure studies at the World Economic Forum, concurred that even after the European economy recovers, which economists expect could happen as early as the second half of this year, essential spending will lag requirements for years to come.

"We will not recover the levels of construction expenditure that we had in 2007-2008, or just before the crisis, until around 2016. This is something that is going to take several years," he said.

WHERE'S THE MONEY

A decades-long trend of falling global public expenditure on infrastructure, from around 9.5 percent of gross domestic product in 1990 to 7 percent in 2005, has been driven by rising costs for pensions and health care, according to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development.

Until the global financial crisis hit, the private sector had increasingly filled that gap.

Now, while there are plenty of investors such as pension funds or insurance companies who have money available, they are restricted in how that money can be invested to avoid too much risk and meet targets, meaning only a small percentage of their total funds may be allocated for infrastructure projects which often require billions over many years, if not decades.

The same applies for banks, which face tougher regulations over lending money.

The number of infrastructure projects to be financed fell eight percent last year, the first decline in a decade, the OECD said. Lending to European projects, including total debt and equity, slowed by nearly 39 percent to slightly more than $49 billion.

"The cost of Europe's infrastructure needs are so great they go beyond what is imaginable," an infrastructure investor who asked not to be named told Reuters.

"This will hurt Europe in the long run. It is inevitable."

STRUCTURAL UNDER-INVESTMENT

In Germany, which makes up 15 percent of total European infrastructure spending, 41.5 billion euros worth of projects will be started, continued or finished between 2011 and 2015, down from an initially budgeted 57 billion euros.

A spokesman for the German Ministry of Transport told Reuters the situation was one of "structural under-investment."

"There are so many projects waiting to be carried out, but there's no money there. We have succeeded in getting some more funding, but more is needed. We need it because this investment is important for jobs, the economy and prosperity of Germany."

A high-profile plan that may be dropped is the four-billion-euro French canal originally cited as one of 30 priority infrastructure projects backed by Brussels, which Paris has said it can now only afford if 30 percent is paid out of European funds.

The Seine-Nord canal is a 106-km, high-capacity waterway that will link Seine river to Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands. It would relieve Europe's most congested transport corridor with more than 130 million tons of traffic per year.

Construction which was supposed to start next year was expected to create 4,500 jobs, with around 25,000 new permanent jobs between 2025 and 2030. Its future is highly uncertain as the French government reviews 245 billion euros worth of costly projects.

A Transport Ministry spokeswoman said two working groups were evaluating technical aspects, costs and financing options, with an outcome expected in April.

In Ireland, the transport budget for the period 2010-15 was reduced by almost 50 percent in just two years from 17.5 billion to eight billion euros.

Plans to give Dublin its first underground rail services - one to connect the airport to the city centre and another to link two existing rail lines - have been scrapped. The projects would have cost 2 billion euros, the government estimated.

Italy's parliament in December froze a 3.9-billion euro contract to build a road and rail bridge connecting Sicily to Italy's mainland, known as Ponte sullo Stretto di Messina.

Spain is budgeting 9.6 billion euros in public infrastructures in 2013, down 16 percent from a year earlier and down 36 percent from 2008, when 15 billion were targeted. Several major toll-road projects were pulled after going bankrupt due to over-spending.

That led to the halt of the construction of 14 luxury stations along the high-speed rail network, saving 3.5 billion euros, and the cancellation of a railway from Madrid to Lisbon.

TRANSPORT NETWORK

Trade within Europe, which has a population of more than 730 million and represents roughly 22 percent of the world's cargo by value, is expected to double in the coming decade.

Brussels said in a policy paper released before the recent budget cuts that 550 billion euros in high-priority projects were needed through 2020 to create a core transportation network to meet the increased demand.

The investment would connect 120 major ports and airports to rail, upgrade 15,000 km (9,300 miles) of rail tracks to high speed and remove 35 key cross-border bottlenecks. The region's railways use seven different gauges and only 20 major airports and 35 major ports are directly connected to the rail network.

The upgrades would not only make the distribution of goods faster and cheaper, but also be required to meet EU targets to reduce carbon emissions by 60 percent, halve conventional car use and shift 50 percent of long distance freight onto trains and ships by 2050.

Airline executives have been among the most outspoken about concerns that Europe risks losing its competitive position if it fails to implement these plans.

Paris' Charles de Gaulle Airport plans to spend 2.1 billion euros between 2011 and 2015 on new facilities, for example, while Dubai said last year it plans to invest six billion euros in airport expansion by 2018 to boost capacity by 50 percent.

"Europe was a leader in terms of quality infrastructure," Air France-KLM chief executive Jean-Cyril Spinetta told Reuters. "I am very concerned about the future, especially airports. The amount of investment in other regions is incredibly high."

(Additional reporting by Victoria Brian in Berlin, Elena Berton and Gilles Guillaume in Paris, Conor Humphries in Dublin, Danilo Masoni in Milan and Jose Elias Rodriguez in Madrid; Editing by Sonya Hepinstall)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/analysis-austerity-threatens-eus-competitive-edge-infrastructure-071948211--finance.html

virginia beach jet crash ridiculously photogenic guy amanda bynes dui ghost ship tiger woods masters jet crash virginia beach petrino

Breathometer: A Tiny Breathalyzer That Plugs Into Your iPhone

It's always better to be safe than sorry if you've had too many drinks to get behind the wheel. Breathometer is a new breathalyzer that works with your smartphone to make absolutely sure you're clear. And it's a whole lot cheaper than a DUI. More »

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/xvVcdBbMV-A/breathometer-a-tiny-breathalyzer-that-plugs-into-your-iphone

aubrey born to run pranks pregnancy test april fools day 2012 ja rule amityville horror