Click here for Myspace Layouts

Kamis, 21 Juni 2012

Accounting Article



Disciplining the Corporate Sector
The chairman of the board of directors of a public company can no longer don two hats at the same time that of the chairman as well as the managing director. The ‘Code of Corporate Governance (CCG) 2012’ launched by the Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) recently, among other things proposes this important reform of separation of the board from the management.
The chairman of the board is often the majority shareholder in a company and therefore, regardless of the company having public stake, a single person directs as well as manages company affairs. This raises the spectre of conflict of interest.
But the chairman is not altogether powerless. Though distanced from ‘involvement in day-to-day operations of the company,’ which are left to the CEO or the managing director, the CEO would be ‘under the oversight of the board’.
Section (4) of 4 proposes that every company “shall elect the chairman of the board from amongst the independent directors so as to achieve an appropriate balance of power, increase accountability and improve the board’s capacity for exercising independent judgment.” The CEO’s wings have been further clipped as the appointment, remuneration and terms and conditions of employment of the chief financial officers (CFO), company secretary and the head of internal audit of listed companies would be determined by the board rather than by the MD.
Some other reforms related to the board include, at least one seat for ‘independent director’ while it is preferred that a third of the total members on the company boards be ‘independent directors’. The new code has also expanded the criteria for assessment of independence.
The section 2(e) of the code defines ‘independent director’, as a person who is not connected or does not have any other relationship with the public sector company, its associated companies, subsidiaries, holding company or directors. The test of independence principally emanates from the fact whether such person can be reasonably perceived as being able to exercise independent judgment without being subservient to any form of conflict of interest. The company shall disclose in the annual report non-executive, executive and independent directors.
“The transparency through enhanced disclosure is the purpose of introduction of a reformed Code 2012” SECPchairman says, underscoring the point: “The code will result in availability of enhanced information to market participants and hence it will provide better protection of the rights of all investors, particularly minority shareholders.”
Most corporate law experts say that of what they have read of the Code 2012, it seems to provide reforms, which if implemented in letter and in spirit could bring revolutionary changes in the way affairs are carried out in public sector listed companies. A former commissioner of the SECP, however, said that the issue was ‘implementation’. He observed that there was bunch of laws that were in place but lacked implementation.
Investors in public listed companies have forever looked forward to those happy prospects of separation of ownership from management, empowerment of independent directors and safeguarding interest of small shareholders.
Most market participants believe that the dual role of chairman and CEO of the same person has been at the heart of many ills.
The appointment of chairman of the board from independent directors would forestall many corporate wrongdoings, one being the unjustified inter-corporate financing.
“For every listed company there are on average eight subsidiaries and non-listed smaller entities,” to which such companies extend loans and advances only to write off a year or two latter.
But regulators are now moving to frame laws that would give minority shareholders the voice that would be heard. There is a global small shareholders’ activism. They seek new rights to influence the policy of the companies they invest in, through independent directors.
Many corporate experts say that though well-intentioned, the idea of ‘independent directors’ seem impractical. “Minority shareholders are disorganised and election of candidates through cumulative voting by stockholders is a difficult task”, says one expert, adding that “the sitting sponsor directors, on the other hand, would be perfectly pleased to put puppets on the board, though that would clearly be seen as ‘conflict of interest’.”
It is understandable then that the revolutionary step of empowering minority shareholders through ‘independent directors’ on the board would possibly be met by enormous resistance from powerful sponsoring directors.
There is also the possibility of listed companies making a dash for the exit door. Already only one out of hundred among the 60,000 registered companies have sought listings at the stock exchanges. With more stringent code in place, there exists the possibility of more ‘de-listings’ than new listings. “So be it”, says an official at the regulatory agency.
“Transparency and good governance cannot be sacrificed in quest for greater number of companies on stock exchanges” he says, adding: “Companies with clean record and desirous of mobilising cheaper funds from public, would, in any case, enter the capital markets.”

Senin, 11 Juni 2012

5 ARTICLE


Article 1
Dog rescues abandoned newborn
A farm dog in Ghana has attained hero status after spending a night protecting an abandoned newborn human. Authorities say the dog, along with its two-week-old charge, was found under a bridge in Winkongo (which is near Bolgatanga, the Upper East Regional Capital of Ghana), near the farm where he lives – with the tiny baby snuggled against him.
A search party had been convened to look for the dog, not the baby, when the pooch's worried owner got concerned that her pet hadn't returned home in the evening. Searchers spent most of the night tracking the hound through nearby fields and woods, and came upon the unlikely pair quite some time later; finally locating him under the bridge near the farm he calls home, they were surprised to find the dog curled around a human infant.
Madam Rosemary Azure, Director of Health for the Talensi-Nabdam District, shared the remarkable story with the Ghana News Agency at a ceremony for a different occasion entirely – the launch of two vaccines that will help prevent diarrhea and pneumonia – although it's not impossible that officials will find themselves presiding over a medal presentation to "Hairy Poppins" sometime soon.
The baby himself is in relatively fine fettle after his adventure. His umbilical cord had not been cut, and had gotten infected, but the little one was otherwise unharmed; he's had all his vaccinations, and is currently in the custody of a local health directorate until new, non-bridge arrangements can be made for him. Azure noted that she couldn't say what had led to the baby's desertion by his mother, but speculated that the parents were teenagers, and took the opportunity to caution locals against unprotected sex. Police are investigating.

Comment :
From the above article tells the story of a dog and help keep an infant in its cradle andthrown away by her parents. Sometimes people are not responsible for any action he has done. As was discussed in the article above there is a baby who had been thrown by his parents and turns of human action is no better than a dog. Although he was a dog he has a conscience for the help and keep the baby under the bridge Winkongo and the dog was kept with the baby until the baby finally someone found it to be saved. We should be able to take a lesson from the dog that lives of all living things it is worth it.

Article 2

Drastic measures as China students sit exams

More than 9 million students sat China's notoriously tough college entrance exams on Thursday, with "high-flyer" rooms, nannies and even intravenous drips among the tools being employed for success.
With just 6.85 million university spots on offer this year, competition for the top institutions is intense, and attempts to cheat are rife -- 1,500 people have been arrested on suspicion of selling transmitters and hard-to-detect ear pieces.
Parents and students this year are also resorting to some outlandish but legal methods to ensure nothing goes wrong in the make-or-break two-day exam.
Students have reportedly been given pre-exam injections and intravenous drips designed to boost energy levels, while girls have resorted to hormone injections and birth control pills to delay menstruation.
"There are situations where girls take pills to delay their periods until after the exams," a gynaecologist at Beijing's Chaoyang Hospital, who declined to give his name, told AFP.
Some of the more affluent parents have rented houses close to the 7,300 exam venues across the country, while so-called "high-flyer rooms" are being offered in the northern port city of Tianjin, according to the state-run China Daily newspaper.
The special hotel rooms -- which cost up to 800 yuan ($126) more than an ordinary room -- are billed as having previously been rented out to someone who scored high points in the exams.
Rooms with lucky numbers such as six -- which symbolises success in Chinese culture, or eight -- which represents wealth -- are also favourites.
"Every year the house rental market heats up ahead of gaokao (the Chinese name for the exam)," Jin Guangze, a teacher from the Beijing Experimental High School told the China Daily.
The exam has also given rise to a new and lucrative industry -- the gaokao baomu -- or "exam nannies" -- who are tasked to look after students during the exam period.
"The nannies are well-qualified with at least a college-level degree," said Jennifer Liu, marketing manager at Coleclub -- an agency that provides household help and has offered the service since 2009.
"They are there to help the students -- cook meals, wash clothes, tutor the students and offer support for their mental well-being," she told AFP.
Liu declined to disclose how much it cost to hire a nanny, but media reports say the service costs an average 4,000 yuan over a 10-day period.

Comment :
China's population is very dense and in many countries and China is very difficult to get a lot of work just to be working alone but for the citizens of China's education is very important because if the higher education the opportunity to get a better job will be greater. That is a factor increasing interest in China students are racing to take exams and get into leading universities in the country and in every way by their parents to nurture their children and provide motivation before the test to be ready to take the exam in order not to stress is a test entry for competitors in the entrance examination the country very much.

Article 3

97-year-old gets high school diploma

Here's one graduate who may feel a little more senior than most: Ann Colagiovanni, 97 years old, is finally receiving her high school diploma.
The Depression-era student quit school at the age of 17, back in 1930s, to work in her father's market.
The Ohio resident never returned to finish her education but instead became a student of life. She worked at the family store until the 1960s when it closed. She got married and has two daughters and 11 grandchildren.
Daughter Emilia Colagiovanni Vinci told Fox 8 Cleveland, "When I told her she was getting a diploma, she sobbed as if a pain had been relieved from her heart," adding, "I never knew what it meant to her. She wanted this."
Emilia noted that during the Depression, work was more important than an education.
But receiving a diploma certainly seemed important to the nonagenarian. The oldest member of the class of 2012 appears in the news video in a white cap and gown, at a special ceremony at Shaker Heights High School, which presented her with an honorary diploma--in her name--dated June 1934. "Finally, I'm going to be a graduate," she says.
Grandma isn't the only graduate this year: Her grandson, Thomas Vinci, will also receive a diploma from the suburban Cleveland high school one day after his grandmother.
Emilia Colagiovanni Vinci said, "She did what her father wanted her to do, even though she wanted to graduate. She put her father, her family, before herself."
Seventy-eight years later, Ann Colagiovanni finally put herself first.

Comment :
In the article above about a grandmother who finally get his high school diploma at the age of 97 years. This proves that age is not to limit people in getting education as has been done by the grandmother Ann Colagiovanni, although the school was stopped but he was still fighting for diplomas until the old age so she could finally get what he wants and all this at the time of receiving a diploma the long-delayed high school he was very happy to shed tears. We should be able to take lessons from Ann's grandmother and learn well, and that education is very important.

Article 4

World War I veteran’s missing medal turns up on eBay

The grandson of a decorated World War I veteran had searched in vain for years for his late grandfather's missing war medals. One of them finally turned up, a Victory Medal being auctioned for less than $2 on eBay.
"I sent a message to the seller straight away. I suppose I should have bid for it because the starting price was only 99 (pence)," Martin Robson Riley, 45, told the BBC. "The seller replied and said he would send me the medal because I had more right to it than anyone else. I didn't pay for it. I'm so grateful."
Riley said several medals awarded to his grandfather, Private Henry Riley, disappeared in the years after his death in 1927. Martin Riley's father discovered the medals were missing when he went to clean out his parents' house in 1981, sometime after his mother had died.
The Victory Medal was awarded to British men and women who served in a combat theater at the conclusion of World War I.
The eBay seller told Riley that he had made a bulk purchase of war medals during an auction in Cornwall. The Victory Medal belonging to Private Riley was just one of many included in the original auction.
Riley, who works for the National Library of Wales, said he occasionally would put his grandfather's name and service number into search engines, which is how he stumbled across the eBay listing.
"Every now and then I'd join the Great War forum and type hid name into an internet search, half hoping that his medals might turn up one day," Riley told Wales Online. "With there being six million issued, I suppose I thought the odds were very slim."
And while his grandfather's British War Medal remains unaccounted for, Riley said he's just grateful to have found at least one of the missing medals.
"'We don't know if they were stolen, sold or given away, but after 30 years I cannot explain how wonderful it is to hold it," he said.
Comment :
In the article above to tell someone named Martin Robson Riley is looking for his grandfather's medals and medals are eventually found in an online sales site. Eachperson must have some very valuable to him as happened to Martin Robson Rileyeventually finds medal veteran in World War I his grandfather's long-gone and bought iton a site online selling on Ebay and bought it for $ 2 and he did not feel the loss with what has been issued to recover his grandfather's medals yangt has long since disappearedand it is to keep him happy at all.

Article 5

Police Wrongly Tell Woman Her Husband Died in Motorcycle Collision

When officers told Melody Halls, 31, that her husband died early Tuesday morning in a motorcycle accident, she went immediately to the first stage of grief: denial.
And she was right.
Two Alberta, Canada, police officers and a grief counselor arrived at Halls's Medicine Hat, Canada, home and told her to sit down. Once they asked whether her husband had tattoos, they told her he'd been killed in a 1 a.m. collision, Halls told ABC News.
"As soon as he said that, I knew something was wrong. ... I'd seen my husband at 7 a.m.," Halls said. "It was instant disbelief because it's the worst thing that anyone can ever say to you -- that your husband has been killed this morning."
Halls' husband has tattoos on his forearm and calf, but the officers told her the accident victim had tattoos on his stomach and back, strengthening Halls' conviction that her husband was alive.
Halls led the officers out to the garage.
"Sure enough, the door to our shed was open and the lock was missing off of it," she said.
The motorcycle and helmet were gone.
Police determined the motorcycle had been stolen, and the thief -- whom police have not yet named, but Halls said was a neighbor -- died in the accident.
"Although efforts were made to identify the victim of the collision based on the information available at the time, the Medicine Hat Police Service sincerely apologizes for the distress that was caused to the family of the motorcycle owner, when they were incorrectly notified," Medicine Hat Police Service Deputy Chief Richard Wigle said in a news release.
The service will be reviewing its next-of-kin notification practices, according to the police statement.
With officers in and out all day, Halls had to tell her 9- and 10-year-old children about the mix-up. They were mostly shocked at the thought of losing their father, she said.
As for her husband?
"He's really upset about his motorcycle being stolen more than anything," she said. "And that somebody died crashing it."
Halls said she isn't mad about what happened to her, but she wishes the police asked about the last time she'd seen her husband before doing anything else. She said she accepted the police chief's apology on one condition: "as long as this never happens again."

Comment :
The article above tells police mistakes in giving information to the families of victims of accidents and misunderstandings that lead to human fatal.Terkadang enough to do something wrong. Actually the police are only trying to help provide information tofamilies who are suspected of families of accident victims and the police may seek andobtain information such motorcycle owners to find information about the accident victimwho turns the bike had been stolen and the thief motor accident resulting in incorrectinformation from the police to the family of the owner of the motor. The police should beexamined further information from the accident so that no misinformation