It's Goofy to the rescue!
"Euro Disney gets bailout as shares dive" by Greg Keller | Associated Press October 07, 2014
PARIS — In Europe, even Mickey Mouse is getting a bailout.
The Disney resort near Paris is getting a financial lifeline from its owner, Walt Disney Co., to handle rising debt and a decline in visitors at a time of economic uncertainty in Europe.
The $1.3 billion lifeline will see the park’s California masters take control.
Give your$elf to the dark $ide.
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Debt has strangled Mickey Mouse’s Paris park from the beginning, and Monday’s reckoning is the latest in a series of bailouts and financial restructurings.
‘‘This proposal to recapitalize the Euro Disney Group is essential to improve our financial health and enable us to continue making investments in the resort that enhance the guest experience,’’ company CEO Tom Wolber said.
The company has over $2.1 billion in debt, owed to Walt Disney Co.
The European venture has never lived up to its founders’ goal.
Disney parks in Tokyo and Hong Kong seem to be doing fine....
With all due respect, Hong Kong is NOT doing fine!
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"Hong Kong protest led to dialogue, organizers say" by Michael Forsythe | New York Times October 07, 2014
My printed byline says Chris Buckley.
HONG KONG — As the protests dwindled and life in Hong Kong returned to its frenetic routine on Monday, organizers of the biggest prodemocracy movement in China since the 1989 demonstrations in Tiananmen Square in Beijing, said they had moved the needle toward a more democratic future for the city.
Hundreds of police moved into downtown Hong Kong on Tuesday morning, pushing back pro-democracy protesters who overnight had erected barricades around their main street camp after a day of deepening contention that brought thousands onto the streets.
A slight rewrite from my print copy which read:
Monday began with attempts by the police and hundreds of other opponents of the prodemocracy protests in Hong Kong to tear down the barriers around the protesters' main camp. It ended with thousands of supporters of the protests swarming onto downtown streets and helping to erect stronger barriers.
You make your own mind up as to whether the New York Times is to be believed, readers.
Before the movement made headlines around the world more than a week ago, the prospect of meaningful talks between democracy advocates and a government bent on doing Beijing’s will was nonexistent, democrats said.
Bankers, builders, engineers and smartly dressed office workers were among the surge of people who gathered deep into Monday night to keep the police from squeezing the student-led protests out of the three major areas of the city they have clogged for two weeks.
Verbatim!
Now preliminary talks have begun, and the student-led movement has strengthened the hand of Hong Kong’s democratic lawmakers.
“The power shown by the people in this civil protest is the power of the powerless,” Albert Ho, the former head of the Democratic Party and a candidate for chief executive in 2012, said in a telephone interview.
“We have been able at least to create sufficient pressure on the government for the commencement of a dialogue,’’ he said. “They know that the theme of discussion is political reform. Previously, everybody treated this as a closed chapter.”
Now go vote, 'murkn!
Patrick Chan, an accountant, taking a brief break from helping to raise an elaborate fortress of bamboo and plastic binding on the edge of Central, the city’s main financial district. “The government doesn’t listen to the Hong Kong people, so we must do this,” he said, his voice choked with emotion.
I know how he feels.
Although the protest leaders and the remaining participants, who still numbered in the low thousands, insisted that the so-called Umbrella Revolution was a long-term project that was far from over, there was a sense on Monday of a winding down and, after 11 days of overnight street protests, a dissipation of energy.
When you get a catchy nickname it's a hallmark of an attempted western overthrow, as is the case here. Sorry.
I'm keeping in mind the low thousands for later, too.
"Actions by the police and threats from opponents of the protests have repeatedly backfired, making the pro-democracy demonstrators more determined to hold fast.
As opposed to when such a thing happens in AmeriKa.
Two weeks ago, when the police used tear gas and pepper spray to try to break up the demonstrations, even more people went out into the streets in solidarity.
That is where we all failed Occupy.
This time, police attempts to pare back the protesters’ barricades have prompted supporters to build more, using bamboo poles, garbage cans, concrete, bus stop signs and even large potted plants and carpet scavenged from office renovations.
This next paragraph was butchered and rewritten and I think I know why:
The eight-lane avenue called Queensway, which is flanked by shopping malls and skyscrapers, was by nightfall occupied by more than 1,000 students and their supporters, who were erecting tents and barricades, effectively expanding and deepening their hold over some of the world's most expensive real estate.
Now it is only a little over thousand, huh, NYT?
Back to verbatim print:
“Before, the street barriers were just symbolic, but the ones going up now are something else,” said Jo Wu, an office worker who went out into Queensway, a major shopping thoroughfare, to express support for the protesters, while also walking her pet pug, Mimi. “People are showing their distrust of the government.”
An epidemic sweeping the planet like Ebola.
Butchered:
The pro-democracy protests have become known as "Occupy Central," after a movement that threatened to state a much smaller sit-in in the financial district.
The CIA co-opted it!
Back again:
“We came to show our support for something we really treasure: democracy,” said Steven Tsui, a financial analyst in his 20s who works in the financial district. “We need to show that this is not only students who are angry.”
Thousands of people sat on the pavement of Harcourt Road on Monday night, listening to speeches and music, while thousands more milled about the hundreds of tents that have sprung up on the avenue.
Look, American Occupy kids: the NYT loves you!
One was Nelson Lee, 26, who works in the insurance and fund management industry. “Students just want democracy, and the government uses so many means to destroy the protests.”
I want a job.
That gets me to the end of my printed article; however, you are welcome to go read more slop from the New York Times.
“I’m very, very, very tired,” said Dennis Chan, 28, letting out a sigh as he prepared to go home to sleep after 10 days at the sit-in near the government center. “We all are.”
You know what I'm tired of, readers.
“It won’t end today, but maybe tomorrow, maybe later, too, when there are fewer and fewer people,” he added. “It’s hard to say that we’ve won this battle. But it’s been positive in making pressure on the government to open a conversation with the students.”
Even the protest leaders, as they began to reflect on what the movement achieved and where it failed, were already adopting the past tense....
On Monday, the student groups that are the driving force behind the protests honored a commitment they made to the government the night before to clear the barricades enough to allow civil servants to return to work.
Actually, the did not if Buckley was to be believed, but whatever. This all gets filed and flushed in the same place now, no matter what it is.
By early Monday morning, all the entrances to the main government office complex were open, and workers were streaming in.
Protesters remained at the camps, and some roads remained blocked at the two main protest sites — at the city government offices in the Admiralty area downtown and in the Mong Kok neighborhood across the harbor in Kowloon — but just steps away, it was business as usual in this bustling financial hub.
I'm sick of seeing that word in my paper, especially since my college writing instructor told me that was a bad word to use in a report. Yet it is prolifically prevalent in my new$paper every damn day.
Even People’s Daily, the Communist Party’s mouthpiece, scaled back its criticism of the movement on Monday.
If that ain't the NYT pot calling the kettle black.
Pfffft!
Although past days had featured front-page articles denouncing the movement as causing chaos, dismissing any chance of compromise, and warning of dire consequences if it continued, the Monday edition confined coverage of the events in Hong Kong to the fourth page, with one article criticizing the movement as undemocratic because it represented only a minority of Hong Kong’s citizens.
Given all the crap my ma$$ media flings at me and all the stuff they ignore, f*** you!
Despite the lowered tensions, the two sides remained miles apart and the existence of talks hardly assured their success.
The official talks between student leaders and the Hong Kong government, led by the second-highest-ranking official in the territory, Hong Kong’s chief secretary, Carrie Lam, have not begun.
But on Monday night, their representatives announced that they hoped to begin negotiations this week, though they had not yet agreed on the subjects to be discussed.
The protesters are pushing the central government to revisit a decision made in late August by China’s Parliament, the National People’s Congress, that effectively limited candidates for Hong Kong’s highest office, the chief executive, to those approved by a pro-Beijing panel.
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Related:
"Hilton Worldwide is selling the Waldorf Astoria New York to the Chinese insurance company Anbang Insurance Group for $1.95 billion. Hilton will continue to manage the storied hotel for 100 years. Hilton Worldwide Holdings Inc. plans to use proceeds of the sale to buy more US hotels. It was taken private in 2007 by Blackstone Group LP. The hotel chain returned to public stock markets in December 2013. It is the world’s largest hotel group, with more than 690,000 rooms in 93 countries and territories."
Boycott staying at the Hilton, where are the calls?
With Ebola being such a threat I would travel or stay in hotel, readers.
As for Japan:
"Typhoon Vongfong was downgraded to a tropical storm as it hit the Japanese island of Kyushu after battering the southern island of Okinawa. At least 37 people were injured, and authorities advised 150,000 people to evacuate. Train service and flights were disrupted in Kyushu and the neighboring island of Shikoku.... A tropical storm could reach the Tokyo area early Tuesday. At typhoon strength earlier, Vongfong hit Kyushu island after battering Okinawa. At least 37 people were injured, and 400,000 were advised to evacuate."
I guess Fukushima hasn't hurt business at Tokyo Disney, 'eh?
