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Metals – Brazil – Gerdau planning 80Mt/y iron ore port in Rio de Janeiro state May 06, 2012 // Jorja McKinneyNo Comments »Iron/Steel
Brazilian steelmaker Gerdau (NYSE: GGB) is planning to build its own port terminal at Sepetiba Bay near the company’s Cosigua mill in Rio de Janeiro state, CFO Osvaldo Schirmer said during a conference call to discuss Q1 results.
The port terminal will be implemented in two phases and will be able to export 70Mt/y of iron ore and to receive 10Mt/y of mineral coal to meet the demand from the company’s steel plants in Brazil’s southeastern region, according to the CFO.
The port being planned is part of Gerdau’s strategy to expand production at its mines in Minas Gerais state from current 6.5Mt/y to 11.5Mt/y and achieve iron-ore self-sufficiency by 2014.
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PPC: The Perils of Set it & Forget It May 05, 2012 // Anthony Isabel
Managing and optimizing PPC campaigns can seem, at first glance, like a simple, straightforward process. Once you’ve done all the hard work –setting up a campaign, selecting keywords, creating ad groups, writing ad copy, establishing bid rates – shouldn’t it just run? Clients sometimes ask us to do the setup, then expect to just sit back and let the leads flow in. Why, they ask, do you need to keep tweaking it if you’ve set it up well in the first place?
The short answer can be summed up in 2 words: Google & Competitors. Neither one
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Analysts don’t predict doomsday for insurers Apr 13, 2012 // Jorja McKinneyWASHINGTON – Within the debate over the law that overhauls the U.S. health care system, speculation swirls about a doomsday scenario for the health insurance industry.
As the Supreme Court pondered the legal merits of the Affordable Care Act last week, Justice Antonin Scalia mentioned the possibility of “bankrupting insurance companies and the whole system … tumbling down.”
Outside the court, Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota whipped up a crowd of Tea Party protesters, predicting “chaos on an economic spectacle like we have never seen.”
The doomsday theory plays out like this: The high court eliminates only the individual mandate within the health care law that requires all Americans to buy insurance or face a fine.
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Info. Technology – Mexico – SCT launches digital agenda Apr 04, 2012 // Jorja McKinneyMexico’s communications and transportation ministry (SCT) has launched the digital agenda to boost the country’s ICT development, SCT head Dionisio Pйrez-Jбcome announced during local IT association Canieti’s general assembly.
The country’s Agenda Digital.mx includes feedback and recommendations from all the different players involved in developing the ICT industry, according to Pйrez-Jбcome.
The agenda establishes goals to be met by 2015 and is divided into six lines of action:
1. Implementing strategies to continue increasing internet penetration in the country, promoting competition in the telecommunications market, and supporting a social coverage policy.
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Open Networking Summit 2012 Announces its 2012 Exhibitors Apr 03, 2012 // Anthony IsabelAfter receiving overwhelming interest, Open Networking Summits, Inc. has announced the final 30 demonstrations that will showcase the latest OpenFlow and Software Defined Networking (SDN) technologies at the 2012 event. With 21 corporate exhibitors and 10 academic tabletop demonstrators, the exhibition hall in the Grand Ballroom at the Santa Clara, Calif. Marriott, will provide attendees with an unmatched opportunity to see the future of networking.
This year’s Open Networking Summit exhibitors will highlight how OpenFlow and SDN can help network operators and owners. Attendees will have the opportunity to engage and learn from numerous organizations, small and large, who have seen success in deploying OpenFlow and SDN into their products and services. H
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Report: Springs still fighting to rebound from recession Mar 28, 2012 // Jorja McKinneyColorado Springs is still struggling to fully escape the shadow of the recession, according to a report by the Brookings Institution.
The Mountain Monitor, a quarterly report produced by the nonprofit Brookings Institution and the University of Nevada at Las Vegas, studies 10 large metropolitan areas in Colorado, Arizona, Idaho, Nevada, New Mexico and Utah. The latest report, released Wednesday, found the economic recovery was firmly under way in the fourth quarter in the Intermountain West — but with the pace varying widely.
Colorado Springs “continued to struggle to rebound overall,” the report said. Though the Springs saw job gains in the third quarter, a 0.1 percent contraction in the fourth quarter eroded some of those gains, the report found. And w
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General Mills’ 3Q profit dips slightly, in line with expectations Mar 21, 2012 // Jorja McKinneyGeneral Mills’ quarterly profit slipped a bit as the big food maker continued to grapple with high ingredient costs, but its earnings Wednesday were still in line with Wall Street expectations.
Like many packaged food makers, General Mills has passed down its own cost increases to retailers and ultimately consumers. But once again during the company’s third quarter, consumers showed resistance to those price hikes as U.S. sales volume, as measured in pounds, fell 3 percent.
“We’ve lost some volume as consumers saw these higher prices,” General Mills Chief Executive Ken Powell said in an interview Wednesday with the Star Tribune.
In a conference call with analysts Wednesday, Powell said “Clearly, it’s been a tough year.
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Saving money and seeking debt relief goes hand in hand – Steps to follow Mar 14, 2012 // adminWith the personal finances going haywire, most US consumers are trying their best to make sure that they don’t get mowed down by the approaching recession. As the financial analysts are warning the entire nation about bucking up their finances, the debtors have grown cautious about each and every financial move that they take. As there is a wide array of debt relief options, you shouldn’t feel that getting help from any one of them or enrolling yourself in a debt relief program is the ultimate solution to your financial woes. You have to save your dollars in order to be able to repay your debt obligations on time without getting help from any professional financial company. Read more…