FOREX-Dlr weakens as U.S. rate travel expectations ease

Mon Feb 22, 2010 4:05am EST

* Dollar down 0.2 pct versus currency basket

Currencies

* Cautious return of risk appetite after U.S. CPI

* German media report on Greek bailout supports euro

(Adds quote, detail; previous TOKYO)

By Neal Armstrong

LONDON, Feb 22 (Reuters) - The dollar weakened on Monday asinvestors reassessed the chances of an earlier-than-expectedinterest rate hike by the Federal Reserve, prompting a degree ofrecovery in risk appetite.

Currency markets took the Fed"s surprise discount ratedecision last week as a signal the U.S. central bank was comingcloser to tightening its benchmark rate, despite assurances fromFed policymakers to the contrary.

But a benign U.S. inflation reading on Friday, with consumerprices rising less than forecast in January [ID:nN19117929],caused markets to pull back those rate expectations, in turnprovoking a cautious return to risk appetite.

"There is some recovery in risk appetite, with marketsbelieving the CPI data will help to anchor the U.S. rate curve,even though the Fed hiked the discount rate last week," said RayFarris, chief currency strategist at Credit Suisse.

At 0840 GMT, the dollar was trading down 0.1 percent againsta basket of currencies .DXY, with the index at 80.570 afterhitting an eight-month high on Friday of 81.342 in the aftermathof the Fed discount rate hike.

The greenback held slight gains versus the euro EUR=,which traded at $1.3625 and gained support from reports thatGermany had prepared plans under which countries using thesingle currency would provide aid worth between 20 billion and25 billion euros for debt-laden Greece. [ID:nLDE61J05O]

Sentiment towards Greece has been weighed down by persistentconcerns about its ability to service a spiralling budgetdeficit, in turn forcing the euro down more than 10 percent fromits December 2009 highs.

The single European currency had hit a nine-month low of$1.3443 on Friday before bouncing back after the U.S. CPI data.

Currency speculators raised net euro short positions to arecord high in the week ended Feb. 16, and traders say anybounce in the single currency is merely a positioningadjustment.

"This is just a pause in the overall downtrend, the moves wehave seen are flow-driven and I would expect more dollarstrength to come," said Westpac currency analyst LaurenRosborough.

For a graphic on euro positioning, click

here

WAITING FOR BERNANKE

This week, all eyes will be on Fed chief Ben Bernanke"stestimony in Congress on Wednesday and Thursday. Investors willbe looking for clues on rates after the discount rate rise.

"Comments from Bernanke are expected to be similar to onesby other Fed officials last week, playing down the possibilityof an early hike in the fed funds rate," a trader at a Japanesebank said.

The dollar gave up slight gains versus the yen JPY= totrade flat at 91.60 yen. It hit a one-month high of 92.14 onFriday as the greenback made broad-based gains.

The yen stayed soft against the euro as the slight return torisk appetite allowed for some buoyancy in carry trades. It wastrading flat at 124.68 yen after moving back above 125.00 inAsia amidst a positive day for Asian equity markets.

(Additional reporting by Kaori Kaneko; Editing by NigelStephenson)

Currencies

Tony Pulis rages as Dean Whitehead becomes third Stoke player sent off by Mike Dean

Dean Whitehead became the third Stoke player sent off by referee Mike Dean this season, much to the annoyance of his manager Tony Pulis, who had tried during the week to get Dean replaced for the visit of Tottenham.

Pulis, who had seen Dean dismiss Abdoulaye Faye and Andy Wilkinson against Hull and Portsmouth, revealed he had called referees chief Mike Riley on Wednesday to see if someone else could take charge. He failed and saw Whitehead harshly shown a second yellow card for a foul on Luka Modric after 49 minutes.

Pulis said: ;We sent a letter to Mike Riley about our concerns. Then I spoke to him on Wednesday.

From health clubs to health hubs

Dominic Walsh & , : {}

A gift that runs hospitals, evidence services and worker health schemes is investing thirty million in converting the former Cannons health clubs it paid for dual years ago in to fitness and wellbeing centres.

Nuffield Health, that has ditched the Cannons code in foster of the Nuffield name, is additionally seeking at adding health hubs to a little of the 31 hospitals.

The target is to emanate an integrated charity that focuses not usually on diagnosing and restorative seizure but additionally on preventing people from descending ill in the initial place.

Nick Burrows, who was brought in only over a year ago as handling senior manager of Nuffields blurb fitness division, pronounced that the enlargement of the normal fitness bar indication in to a some-more broadly formed health and wellbeing judgment was on condition that a rival advantage.

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Mr Burrows, a former senior manager at Holmes Place, Rank and Whitbread, said: Until 4 years ago the health and fitness bar zone was all about a lurch for new sites. But right afar supply is descending marginally as the industry consolidates and the runts of the spawn are closed. Now code split is the key.

The change has meant a change in the skills it requires of the bar staff, about 250 of whom have been rebranded as wellbeing advisers. They have been lerned to run the 12-point health MoT that all members have to bear when they stick on a Nuffield Health Fitness & Wellbeing Centre, that includes red blood and cholesterol tests.

Where a bar is close to a Nuffield hospital, patients who have hip or knee deputy operations are charity a free three-month reconstruction and await programme at the health club. We goal that after that theyll wish to stay with us longer and spin members, Mr Burrows said.

Clubs are charity new membership categories, together with diabetes support, weight government and behind care, and are holding drop-in health fairs at that members get the possibility to encounter experts from the groups hospitals in areas such as physiology, physiotherapy and nutrition.

Mr Burrows was austere that, notwithstanding Nuffields free status, the mutation of the 51 clubs acquired for an estimated 170 million in Dec 2007 would be judged on the blurb merits: Fitness and wellbeing has to sell memberships. It has to be run to have a profit. The particular tools of the association have to be means to fly on their own.

By the finish of this year, the organisation will have finished the revamp of fifteen clubs underneath the new format at a cost of about fourteen million and it expects to outlay a identical volume over the subsequent dual years converting the infancy of the remainder.

Mr Burrows pronounced that the early signs were certain as the multiplication had managed to say the trade levels notwithstanding the ravages of the recession. Last year it available underlying gain (ebitda) of about 16.5 million and turnover of about 100 million. Mr Burrow is forecasting that the fifteen new integrated centres will progress ebitda by 2 million.

He pronounced that the change in concentration was carrying a certain stroke on the series of existent members, who were renewing memberships. Some 70 per cent of business who have had a health MoT are still with us, contra 53 per cent of those who have not had one. That is a indication change for this industry, where shake rates are high.

Many of the new-look clubs have GP surgeries and physiotherapy suites and suggest an senior manager health screening service. By innovating, were circumference afar from the comparable mass health and fitness market. We need to let people know were about some-more than a treadmill.

David Minton, senior manager of the Leisure Database, pronounced that nonetheless Bupa had had catastrophic partnerships with David Lloyd Leisure and Fitness First, he felt that Nuffields indication stood a great possibility of working. The approach it has brought the worlds of health and fitness together is unequivocally pioneering and but disbelief the approach brazen for the industry.

An practice in station out

A decade ago, the purchase of health and fitness bar bondage that were quoted on the batch marketplace were roughly as renouned as a little of the racier dot-com stocks. The shares of Fitness First, LA Fitness, Holmes Place et al were chased higher as investors paid for in to a story formed on exponential expansion.

Having a health bar membership, once the safety of bodybuilders and fitness fanatics, became de rigueur for wearied middle-class housewives, stressed-out executives, cash-rich pensioners and those pang a post-new year shame formidable about how most they had eaten and drunk.

Like the dot-com bubble, the fitness breakthrough shortly lost the radiance as a multiple of mercantile downturn and marketplace majority led to a mini-price fight on membership fees, flagging increase and slimy share prices. The pointy tumble in valuations fundamentally worried the seductiveness of in isolation equity and by 2007 the complete zone was behind in in isolation hands.

Since then, the fitness bar marketplace has been treading H2O both in conditions of revenues and membership numbers, whilst the retrogression has finished zero for the traditionally high shake rate as those seeking to stay in figure spin to cheaper options similar to using and cycling. While 10.5 per cent of the adult race have a in isolation health bar membership, twice that series are over members.

Finding ways of drumming in to those over members is the plea operators right afar face as there are really couple of places in Britain where there is range for construction new clubs. In a marketplace where code split has never been a clever suit, companies such as Nuffield Health, Virgin Active and LA Fitness are perplexing to rise models that will have their clubs mount out from a swarming field.

hair wig

Lords corroborated me over second homes order says Clerk of Parliaments

Sam Coates, Chief Political Correspondent & , : {}

The parliamentary central indicted of scuppering the charge of a Labour counterpart pronounced yesterday that his actions had the pithy capitulation of the Speaker of the House of Lords.

House of Lords sources strike behind at the warn conflict by Keir Starmer, the Director of Public Prosecutions. They referred to that Mr Starmer was formulating a smokescreen given he is reluctant to move prosecutions opposite total such as Lord Paul, the Labour donor who was privileged last week.

Michael Pownall, who acts as an central confidant on procedure, was told by prosecutors that his clarification of a peers main home had prevented charges being brought opposite Baroness Uddin, clarification that she is entitled to be reputed innocent.

Mr Pownall permitted last month that peers indispensable to revisit the skill they appropriate their main home no some-more than once a month for the clarification to apply. Mr Pownall, the Clerk of Parliaments, is a 60-year-old polite menial who has been operative at the Lords given he left university. He is the central accounting military officer for the House of Lords. The Lords will right away examine Lady Uddin and Lord Paul themselves.

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Mr Pownall expelled a matter yesterday observant that his letter of reference to shift the order was permitted by the Lords House Committee, that oversees the approach in that the cover operates.

The members of the cabinet embody Baroness Hayman, Speaker of the Lords, Lord Brabazon of Tara, who as authority of committees oversees the day-to-day using of the House, and Lord Wakeham, who is chairing an spontaneous exploration in to the destiny of Lords expenses.

A memo expelled of the assembly referred to that the clerk, who has been questioning a series of peers, was incompetent to perform a full eccentric exploration in to their responsibility claims, clarification that they contingency rely simply on assurances by peers. The cabinet concurred the stipulations of the Clerk of the Parliaments and resolved that the clerk was fit in relying on pithy created assurances from members, observant that the consequences for a part of found to have misled the Clerk would be serious.

Lady Hayman faced accusations over her own arrangements last year. She had claimed 200,000 in losses for vital in London by observant that her main home was a skill in Norfolk. She did so whilst additionally owning a family home in the capital, that she paid for in 1975.

Another part of of the House Committee, Baroness Hollis of Heigham, additionally faced accusations over her losses but was privileged by Mr Pownall. His matter pronounced that his statute last month was dictated to surprise his inner investigation, not to set a precident for the military review and prosecutors.

Lords sources referred to that the Crown Prosecution Service might have an distant ground for the assertive statement. One referred to that Mr Pownalls main home clarification would not have influenced Lord Paul, who certified that he never stayed and frequency the property. A Lords orator forked out that the manners had been strengthened in the past week, clarification that peers contingency right away acknowledgement where they outlay majority nights.

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John Radcliffe Hospital suspends childrens heart surgery after 4 new deaths

Sam Lister, Health Editor & , : {}

Childrens heart surgery has been dangling at one of the countrys heading cardiac centres after 4 patients died during operations. The John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford pronounced that it had acted after 4 fatalities given late last year.

Children with inborn heart defects, such as a hole in the heart or inadequate valves, are treated with colour with colour with colour at the hospitals paediatric unit. A orator pronounced that an examination had started in to the fatalities to see if there is anything to sense from them, but combined that all the young kids treated with colour with colour with colour at the section were undergoing high-risk surgery. The sanatorium treats about 100 such cases a year.

The preference to postpone operations was done in the past couple of days and twenty-six young kids available surgery are affected. The sanatorium is in the routine of informing patients family groups and those who need obligatory diagnosis will be placed with pick hospitals.

The hospital, that non-stop in the 1970s, is the citys main collision and puncture site and additionally provides strident healing and surgical services. It is located in Headington, about 3 miles easterly of Oxford city centre and is the largest of the Oxford Radcliffe Hospitals NHS Trusts sites. It houses the Childrens Hospital, that non-stop 3 years ago and treats patients with conditions such as heart disease, cancer and neurological disorders.

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A matter from the sanatorium said: We have at the moment dangling the paediatric cardiac surgery use whilst we examine concerns that have been raised. Our investigations are expected to embody an outmost examination of the deaths of a little really ill young kids who underwent surgery in the last 3 to 4 months.

The family groups of young kids available cardiac surgery are being contacted and we will be fixation those patients who need to be seen urgently with pick hospitals.

Roger Davidson, orator for the Care Quality Commission, pronounced that the health regulator would guard the incident intensely closely. He said: It is calming that the certitude has taken movement to safeguard evident reserve of patients. This is high-risk surgery and the certitude is receiving the right stairs in conducting this review.

The sanatorium pronounced that surgery outcomes were nationally certified and Oxford has been inside of normal result ranges.

The matter said: This is one of the reasons because we felt it was required to take a close see at the use to safeguard we go on to yield a high-quality protected use for the children. Any sanatorium might, at a little time, have a run of deaths in a use that provides diagnosis for patients who are really unwell. However, it is right that we take a postponement whilst we see in to the particular cases.

Up to 20,000 patients a year are treated with colour with colour with colour for heart conditions at the hospital. Last year the certitude non-stop the Oxford Heart Centre, to magnify genius and turn a informal NHS centre of excellence. It includes laboratories as well as complete caring and high-dependency beds and investigate facilities. Anyone with queries should call the sanatorium on 01865 741166.