Business news for Thu, 29 Nov 2007 & with word industry. 28 news.

A Manitoba couple is calling for greater accountability from the real estate industry after buying a home filled with so much toxic mould that it had to be demolished.

Washington and Beijing resolved a dispute over government subsidies to Chinese industry, averting a long legal battle at the World Trade Organisation

EastLink is considering whether to enter the wireless business now that Ottawa plans to open up the industry to more competition.

Massachusetts state government leaders have agreed to take action on a bill for a $1 billion initiative to support the life sciences industry by mid-February 2008, according to a statement from the governor's office.

The Bush administration and the mortgage industry, trying to combat a massive wave of foreclosures, are hammering out a proposal to temporarily freeze interest rates on certain troubled subprime mortgages. If adopted, it would be the biggest action taken to cope with the unfolding crisis.

GRAND China Airlines, China's fourth biggest airline, was inaugurated today after the merger of four carriers including Shanghai-listed Hainan Airlines in a bid to compete with the nation's top three players in the booming market. Grand China will start flights from Beijing today with the first flight heading to the northeastern city of Dalian, the company said in a statement. It plans to add flights gradually ahead of next year's Beijing Olympics in August. Preparations for the new carrier started in July 2004 by consolidating the operations of Hainan Airlines, Xinhua Airlines, Chang'an Airlines and Shanxi Airlines under a newly set-up parent group called Grand China Airlines Holdings Co. The parent company is 48.6 percent held by the Hainan government. United States financier George Soros owns 18.6 percent of the venture while HNA Group, parent of Hainan Airlines, holds 32.8 percent. "The competition in the air transport industry is set to intensify following the set-up

Reuters - Warner Music Group , the world's third-largest music company, on Thursday posted a fall in quarterly profit, hurt by an industry-wide slump in sales as more fans choose to buy songs online rather than physical albums.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Warner Music Group , the world's third-largest music company, on Thursday posted a fall in quarterly profit, hurt by an industry-wide slump in sales as more fans choose to buy songs online rather than physical albums.

Warner Music posted a 58% drop in quarterly net income, due to poor international sales and an industry still reeling from lost CD sales and illegal music downloads.

Britain's most spectacular moneymakers have tripped up. Over the next year or so, the fall will hurt not just them but Gordon Brown and the rest of the country too "I WOULD rather see finance less proud and industry more content," said Winston Churchill in 1925, shortly before he took the fateful decision to subject Britain's northern manufacturing heartland to an overvalued pound by returning to the gold standard. Over the past decade finance has seldom been more proud--and nowhere more so than in the booming City of London. Once again industry has been the poor relation, suffering from the strength of sterling, while northern regions have fallen further behind a more prosperous south. This autumn the proud City has taken a fall. Bank shares have fallen by nearly 20% since the summer as investors worry about potential losses linked to dodgy mortgages in America. Banking jobs are being axed and financiers are no longer looking forward to the usual Christmas cheer of bumper bonuses. Yet in a bleak irony, the biggest casualty to date has been in Newcastle, the north-eastern base of Northern Rock. The mortgage lender's woes have undermined confidence in the ability of one of Britain's poorest regions to build a post-industrial future. ...

Kansas sets out to be the industry hub THE ambition, in Kansas City at least, is to make the "Animal Health Corridor" as recognisable to everyone as, say, Silicon Valley. The hope was born last year, with the publication of a study by Ron Brakke, a Dallas-based animal-health consultant. Mr Brakke found that the region houses more than 120 companies serving the animal-health and nutrition industries, including four of the ten largest international manufacturers of animal-health products. Businesses based in the region account for 27% of the $5 billion national animal-health market and 32% of the $15 billion worldwide market. These numbers have been the basis of a busy branding campaign by Kansas City. The effort began with the official designation of the corridor and a $300,000 donation from Joerg Ohle, the president of the animal-health division of Bayer HealthCare, which has its headquarters in a local suburb. The University of Kansas will soon begin offering a master's degree in business administration for animal-health students. The Kansas City Life Sciences Institute is offering $50,000 grants to universities that undertake research of interest to local companies. And the state of Missouri has adopted its own veterinary-student loan programme. ...

Such a lot of data, so little information IMAGINE you are an advertiser, you want to place your banners on the most popular website, and you want to know how much to pay. Globally, the leading site is Google, which has the most "page views". Or is it Microsoft, whose various sites have, in the jargon, the most "time spent"? Or should you go by unique users, duration, hits, click-through, impressions, queries, sessions, streams, or engagement? Whether or not there is truth in advertising, there is certainly none for online advertisers, at least none that is immediately obvious and simple. Bob Ivins, who is in charge of all non-American business for comScore, a big web-measurement firm, says that the web produces data as "a fire-hose shoots water", and that working out what those data mean is rather like "putting a straw into the fire hose to take a sip". Get the angle even slightly wrong, and you are blown away. Take, for instance, the case of page views, the most widely used measure for much of the past decade. It is the number of times web surfers call up web pages on a given site. Page views became popular in the late 1990s, because they were far superior to the existing measure of "hits", also known as "file requests". Hits are confusing because every graphic on a page, as well as the page itself, counts as a hit. If a site owner puts more graphics on his pages, he gets more hits, even if visitors, clicks and everything else stay the same. "We produced hits numbers because we could, not because it was useful," says one old-timer in the industry. ...

The pet industry is mounting a campaign against a proposal to ban pet shops from selling cats and dogs in New South Wales.

Canada's consumer watchdog has launched a sweeping probe of the country's $2.3 billion a year candy industry, the agency confirmed yesterday.

Poor lumber markets and the impact of a high Canadian dollar continue to bleed the west-coast forestry industry, with Canfor Corp. the latest company to announce it must cut workers due to a downturn.

The International Business Times, Inc., a Global Leader in Business News, Announces the Launch of the World's First Foreign Exchange News Portal, Powered by Content From Top Industry Analysts and Forex News Specialists

Recalls of dangerous playthings have prompted some parents to shop for electronic gear instead of traditional toys. Kathleen Buczko a mother of three, is the toy industry's Grinch this year, with plans to cut back spending on toys by 25%.

Wall Street's best two-day performance in five years is certainly nothing to scoff at, but few people are trusting the gains just yet. As this year's volatile stock market has shown, confidence can vanish quickly on Wall Street with a single headline about a troubled bank, obstinate Federal Reserve member or oil price spike. With more adjustable-rate mortgage resets, bank losses and lackluster economic readings on the way, many market participants are waiting for another shoe to drop. The Dow Jones industrial average soared 331 points Wednesday after a Fed official hinted that the central bank -- which seemed loath after its Oct. 31 meeting to reduce rates again after cutting them twice -- may be more open to the idea now. The financial markets have been turbulent, and several major banks have revealed additional billion-dollar portfolio devaluations, so a rate cut could help keep corporate America investing, lending and borrowing at reasonable levels. Stocks also surged because some embattled companies, notably Citigroup Inc. and Freddie Mac, are coming up with ways to raise cash to offset their debt. The news encouraged investors that at least some of the damage from the months-long credit crisis was finally being mitigated. However, Wall Street has been fickle in recent months, and no one is betting that the mortgage crisis that tripped up the nation's financial industry this year is over, or that the market's huge gains so far this week will stick. Despite its spectacular advance in recent days, the Dow remains more than 6 percent below its Oct. 9 record close over 14,000.

WALL Street barreled higher yesterday for the second day in a row, giving the Dow Jones industrial average its biggest two-day point gain in five years after a Federal Reserve official hinted that the central bank may lower interest rates again. Investors' renewed hopes for a rate cut added to their relief that companies that made losing bets on subprime mortgages, such as Citigroup Inc and Freddie Mac, are coming up with ways to raise cash. The market was clearly optimistic that at least some of the damage from the months-long credit crisis was finally being mitigated. However, Wall Street has been fickle in recent months, and no one is betting that the mortgage crisis that tripped up the nation's financial industry this year is over, or that the market's huge gains so far this week will stick. Despite its spectacular advance this week, the Dow remains more than 6 percent below its October 9 record close over 14,000, having plunged due to worries that the housing market's slump

For many years, Barbara Viola, president of the Long Island chapter of the Association of Information Technology Professionals, kept the faith in tech.