InBev said it has closed its $52 billion (41 billion euro) deal to take over Anheuser-Busch to create the world’s largest brewer. The new company is called Anheuser-Busch InBev from Tuesday and will also be one of the top five global consumer products companies.
The deal should help Budweiser beer expand into emerging economies such as Asia and Russia, driving growth for the company as beer sales decline in North America and Europe. InBev said it now had all the regulatory clearances it needed. Last week it agreed to sell Labatt USA to win U.S. Department of Justice approval for the takeover.
The Irish and US governments have announced details of a pre-clearance agreement for transatlantic services from Shannon Airport, which will make it the first airport in Europe to have the facility.
The announcement was made by Transport Minister Noel Dempsey in Shannon this afternoon. The agreement will be formally signed by him in Washington on Monday and will allow for passengers to undertake all the necessary inspections before departing Shannon for the US. In addition to immigration facilities, the airport will now get customs and agricultural inspections as well
After what seemed like weeks of searching, I have finally found a new theme for the blog, and so far it looks like it loads a lot quicker too. That was the main reason for changing, the old one seemed to take ages to load on certain pages. so here it is, the new look.
I shall also be switching to the new Wordpress 2.7 soon enough. I have already loaded it on the testblog and while it does take a bit of getting used to, it is a grower. Its just a matter of finding out where everything is in the new vertical admin section, and then remembering where you put it next time you need it.
Some great news for mortgage holders today, the European Central Bank (ECB) has cuts its rates by 0.5% to 3.25%. This comes less than 1 month after the last rate cut, also of 0.5% on the 8th October and brings interest rates to their lowest level for two years. But what came as a big shock from the Bank of England was their announcement that they were slashing rates by 1.5% to 3.25%. This brings interest rates in the UK below those in the Eurozone and the lowest level in the UK since 1955.
Either way its welcome news to mortgage holders, except those on fixed rate loans
Sky has announced extended high definition coverage of NFL games, following on from its Monday night coverage announced in August. Starting on 6th November with the Denver Broncos at the Cleveland Browns, six Thursday night matches will be shown in high definition, plus the three matches being played on Thanksgiving Day (27th November), the wildcard, divisional and conference playoffs, and the Super Bowl XLIII next February.
Here’s a full rundown:
* 6th November: Denver Broncos at the Cleveland Browns
* 13th November: New York Jets at New England Patriots
* 20th November: Cincinnati Bengals at Pittsburgh Steelers
* 27th November: Tennessee Titans at Detroit Lions,
* Seattle Seahawks at Dallas Cowboys,
* Arizona Falcons at Philadelphia Eagles
* 4th December: Oakland Raiders at the San Diego Chargers
* 11th December: New Orleans Saints at Chicago Bears
* 18th December: Indianapolis Colts at Jacksonville Jaguars
Wildcard matches begin on the weekend of 3rd January 2009, with divisional matches following the next week, and the Conference Championships a week later.
It’s enough to make you cry. If physical disc formats really do have some shelf life, then Royal Digital Media’s new optical disc format may have some worth, but if it’s at the expense of Blu-ray, it’s going to play havoc with the consumer.
Technical part first: Royal Digital Media has developed a 100GB-capacity disc which can handle four hours’ worth of 1920p HD video — “the next generation of high definition” according to the company. The killer part of the equation is that the cost of the discs and players is expected to equal those of traditional DVDs, therefore undercutting Blu-ray. Continue reading »
A driver is stuck in a major traffic jam just outside Dublin on the M50 motorway.
Nothing is moving.
Suddenly a Garda knocks on the window.
The driver rolls down his window and asks, “What’s going on?”
“Pensioners have kidnapped Brian Cowen, Brian Lenihan & Mary Harney, and a bunch of Bankers.
They’re asking for a €30 million ransom, otherwise they’re going to douse them with petrol and set them on fire.
We’re going from car to car taking up a collection.”
The driver asks, “How much is everyone giving, on average?”
The big statistic is that US consumers have bought over 200 million TV shows from Apple’s iTunes store since it started offering them. The HD-relevant statistic is that one-million of those have been of high definition programmes, which started selling in the US last month.
It seems that the extra dollar, plus increased download bandwidth that could eventually incur the wrath of broadband providers, is a small price to pay for these HD-esque programmes. While (as usual) we’re not blessed with such a huge array of available programmes in the UK and Ireland, Apple’s continued dealmaking with TV studios will hopefully see more offerings, including HD versions, here.
