Jamaica newly appointed Ambassador to Brazil Alison Stone Roofe

She is career diplomat Alison Stone Roofe, the current director of the Caribbean and Americans Department in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The ambassador designate is also the former deputy director of the Foreign Trade Department and Private Sector Liaison for the Caribbean Regional Negotiating Machinery.

Ms Roofe is a part-time lecturer of International Relations at the University of the West Indies, and brings with her 20 years working experience in the ministry. She serves as a member of the CARICOM Inter-Governmental Task Force on the review of the Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas and a member of the Caricom-appointed Evaluation Committee overseeing the reconstruction of the Caricom Secretariat.

Word of the appointment was made yesterday by Minister of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade, AJ Nicholson, and signals a deepening of relations within the hemisphere.

“The opening up of a mission in the capital Brasilia is part of the strategic vision of the ministry in a bid to encourage trade and investment opportunities and strengthen Jamaica’s advocacy in the global arena,” the ministry said yesterday.

BMW's 300 Jobs and Million 900 Dollars Investment

Officials for the German automaker said the move will boost production at the plant, BMW’s only one in the United States, to at least 300,000 cars this year from 276,065 in 2011 and include the introduction of its new X4 crossover.

“This site is an essential pillar of our international production,” said Frank-Peter Arndt, BMW’s board member responsible for production, speaking during a webcast of the celebration.

BMW has invested $6 billion at the plant since it opened in 1994. It was the German automaker’s first full manufacturing site outside of Germany.

Arndt said the expansion is a response to rising demand worldwide for its X series four-wheel-drive vehicles. The plant will have 7,500 employees by the end of the year and be able to produce up to 350,000 vehicles by 2014.

The plant has expanded four times and produced six different BMW models including a version of the top-selling 3 Series sedan, the Z3 and Z4 roadsters, and three different X series models. Arndt said the plant produced 73 percent more vehicles in 2011 than the year before, and 70 percent were exported.

Thursday’s announcement follows a trend of domestic and foreign automakers increasing their U.S. production capacity and hiring more workers to meet higher U.S. demand.

- Also on Thursday, fellow German automaker Daimler AG said its commercial truck division will add 1,200 jobs at two facilities in North Carolina. Most will staff a new second shift at its truck plant in Cleveland, N.C. Another 100 jobs are to open at a logistics center in Gastonia, N.C.The Cleveland plant, one of Daimler’s largest in North America, produces heavy-duty trucks under the Freightliner, Cascadia, Columbia and Argosy product lines.

_ Chrysler said earlier this month that it will add 1,250 jobs at two Detroit factories next year to help build a Jeep Grand Cherokee diesel model and make a Street Racing Team version of the Dodge Viper muscle car.

_ General Motors said in November that it will begin building its Chevrolet Equinox at its idled Spring Hill, Tenn. plant this year and make a midsized vehicle there in the future. The initial $61 million investment will create nearly 700 jobs and the subsequent $183 million investment in the unnamed midsized vehicle will create another 1,200, GM said.

Lowe's pulls Ad

LOS ANGELES _ A decision by retail giant Lowe’s Home Improvement to pull ads from a reality show about American Muslims following protests from an evangelical Christian group has sparked criticism and calls for a boycott against the chain.

The retailer stopped advertising on TLC’s “All-American Muslim” after a conservative group known as the Florida Family Association complained, saying the program was “propaganda that riskily hides the Islamic agenda’s clear and present danger to American liberties and traditional values.”

The show premiered last month and chronicles the lives of five families from Dearborn, Mich., a Detroit suburb with a large Muslim and Arab-American population.

A state senator from Southern California said he was considering calling for a boycott.

Calling the Lowe’s decision “un-American” and “naked religious bigotry,” Sen. Ted Lieu, D-Torrance, told The Associated Press on Sunday that he would also consider legislative action if Lowe’s doesn’t apologize to Muslims and reinstate its ads. The senator sent a letter outlining his complaints to Lowe’s Chief Executive Officer Robert A. Niblock.

“The show is about what it’s like to be a Muslim in America, and it touches on the discrimination they sometimes face. And that kind of discrimination is exactly what’s happening here with Lowe’s,” Lieu said.

The Florida group sent three emails to its members, asking them to petition Lowe’s to pull its advertising. Its website was updated to say that “supporters’ emails to advertisers make a difference.”

Suehaila Amen, whose family is featured on “All-American Muslim,” said she was disappointed by the Lowe’s decision.

“I’m saddened that any place of business would succumb to bigots and people trying to perpetuate their negative views on an entire community,” Amen, 32, told The Detroit News on Sunday.

Lowe’s issued a statement Sunday apologizing for having “managed to make some people very unhappy.”

“Individuals and groups have strong political and societal views on this topic, and this program became a lightning rod for many of those views,” the statement said. “As a result we did pull our advertising on this program. We believe it is best to respectfully defer to communities, individuals and groups to discuss and consider such issues of importance.”

The North Carolina-based company did not say whether it would reinstate advertising on the show.

The apology doesn’t go far enough, Lieu said. The senator vowed to look into whether Lowe’s violated any California laws and said he would also consider drafting a senate resolution condemning the company’s actions.

“We want to raise awareness so that consumers will know during this holiday shopping season that Lowe’s is engaging in religious discrimination,” Lieu said.

Besides an apology and reinstatement of the ads, Lieu said he hoped Lowe’s would make an outreach to the community about bias and bigotry.

Lieu’s office said a decision was expected Wednesday or Thursday on whether to proceed with the boycott.

Lowe’s issued another statement later Sunday, saying company officials are seeking to talk to Lieu about his concerns and clarify the company’s position.

“We are aware of the senator’s comments and have reached out to his office to arrange an opportunity for us to speak with him directly to hear his thoughts,” the statement read.

Dawud Walid, Michigan director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said his group felt “extreme disappointment” at Lowe’s “capitulation to bigotry.”

Walid said he has heard expressions of anger and calls for a boycott by Muslims but said a key to resolving the Lowe’s advertising controversy will be how non-Muslim religious leaders and others react to Lowe’s decision.

“I will be picking up the phone tomorrow to some of our friends and allies to explain the situation to them,” Walid said Sunday.

The radio and TV host is doing what he can for those close to him in need of money or work, he said. For the broader problem, Smiley is using his PBS series this week to put what he calls a “human face” on the nation’s poverty statistics.

Each nightly episode of “Tavis Smiley” is featuring clips from an 11-state, 18-city tour Smiley and Princeton University professor Cornel West took in August to detail the economy’s effect on individuals and families. There are follow-up discussions with anti-poverty advocates and other guests, including Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius.

His intent, Smiley said, is to “get this issue higher up on the American agenda.”

“We have to get serious about eradicating poverty in the long run while we create jobs in the short run,” he said.

While millions of Americans are suffering financially, Smiley said he also felt compelled to address the particularly harsh blow the economy has dealt black Americans.

According to a recent Census Bureau report, the overall poverty rate climbed to 15.1 percent last year, from 14.3 percent the year before, as a record 46.2 million Americans were counted among the impoverished.

Poverty increased among all ethnic groups, except Asians, with blacks the hardest hit by a poverty rate of 27.4 percent and with 26.6 percent of Hispanics in poverty. In comparison, the poverty rate for white Americans was 9.9 percent.

What Smiley and West found on their tour was both heart-breaking and inspiring, they said. It was also an introduction to poverty’s changing face.

“The new poor in this country is the former middle class,” Smiley said.

West recalled one Illinois husband and wife who fell from earning $100,000 a year to $15,000. The couple experienced a shift in perspective that the professor hopes will resonate with viewers.

“Once they had blamed the poor for their plight. Now they can see being poor is a different kind of reality,” he said.

A national poverty summit that brings together economic, social and cultural leaders is needed, Smiley said. He also called for continued government action in the face of sharp political division.

His journey across America uncovered “rays of hope in programs that are working on the ground, right now. The federal government has to find the will to continue to fund those programs in honor of a better tomorrow,” he said.

According to marketing consultant Betsy Kruger, the problem is that many businesses treat all their customers exactly the same way and wind up sacrificing a lot of profit in the process.

“Virtually every business seeks to increase its profit, but few business leaders realize that a universal law predicts profit from customers,” said Kruger, author of Top Market Strategy: Applying the 80/20 Rule (www.BetsyKruger.com). “The law in play here is called the Pareto principle and it’s named for Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto, who observed in 1906 that 20 percent of the people consistently own 80 percent of the wealth. He also noticed that 20 percent of the pea pods in his garden contained 80 percent of the peas. Fast forward a century and recent research confirms that Pareto was right – the Pareto principle is universal and predicts results.”

“Extending the 80/20 rule to your business, you can expect the most profitable 20 percent of your customers to generate 80 percent of your profit. Kruger asserts the 80/20 rule predicts that customers in the top 20 percent will generate 16 times more profit than customers in the bottom 80 percent. Kruger’s book explains why this is true and demonstrates how to profit from the 80/20 rule. Her recommendations apply to any type of business. For example, if you are a distributor, you can quickly enact these three steps:

• Distinguish – Distinguish the most profitable 20 percent of your customers from other customers. Allocate one day a week to serving them with a top market strategy. Expect to make 80 percent of your usual weekly profits from only 20 percent of your customers.
• Target – Target similar prospects on the other four days of the work week. Allocate neither time nor other resources to serving customers in the bottom 80 percent. Admit they caused more problems than they’re worth.
• Convert – Convert these prospects into customers by using a top market strategy. Predict that these new customers will be highly profitable. Anticipate that your profits will quadruple.”

“Should we treat customers equally?” Kruger retorts, “Absolutely not! Your customers do not treat your business equally. Your top customers generate massive profits, whereas your other customers generate minimal profits. This means that your business can magnify its profits by targeting your most profitable customers. For example, Trustpoint Insurance personally services the top 20 percent of its customers, but automates services to its other customers. As a result, its sales force has the time to prospect for highly profitable new customers. This top market strategy is a classic win-win game plan: both sales commissions and profits have magnified at Trustpoint Insurance. A top market strategy for your business can be your win-win game plan.”

About Betsy Kruger

Betsy Kruger owns Strategic Power, a marketing consultancy committed to empowering world prosperity, one business at a time. She writes, speaks, and consults about the 80/20 rule. Business Expert Press released her book, Top Market Strategy: Applying the 80/20 Rule in August, 2011. Her book enriches marketing textbooks and shows business leaders how to profit from the 80/20 rule.

iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad users around the world can now download the free Real-Vibez mobile application by the Jamaican entrepreneurs that gives the user the inside track on Caribbean entertainment from the App Store.

Co-founders of Random Media, brothers David and Robert Mullings handled content and monetization, Kathryn Mullings, the wife of David and the chief creative officer of Kaizen Interactive handled graphics and Dominic Powell, a close family friend and technology consultant handled technology partnerships.

David Mullings is serving as a judge for the upcoming BlackBerry App Developers competition being run by the Ministry of Education and Department of Information and Telecommunication in Jamaica.

The competition, which was originally slated to complete in August, has had its submission deadline pushed back to November 18, with the awards ceremony now to be held on December 2. The Ministry of Education explained that the contest was devised to boost students’ understanding of technology and improve their utilisation of technological innovations through the development of mobile applications for either the BlackBerry smartphone or the BlackBerry Playbook and the deadline was extended in response to requests from schools for more time to fully develop their applications.

“We have always believed in the idea of globalization of the local as explained by Thomas Friedman in his book The World is Flat. Like the web, mobile applications allow us to be instantly international and help expose quality Caribbean entertainment to the world,” said Mullings

The RealVibez phone app is targeted to an international audience interested in Reggae, Dancehall and Soca music. It is similar to the Fader magazine app and is updated at least monthly with new music, videos, news, show dates and other content.

While it is currently on iPhone, android and BlackBerry versions of the RealVibez app will be released in the next few months, the developers stated.

“The app was actually an idea Dominic brought to us a few months ago” said Robert Mullings. “He has been around us and supporting RealVibez since the website first launched in February 2002 and he felt that it would be a good fit” Mullings continued.
“If education allows for greater imagination, then technology has allowed us to create the unimaginable,” said Powell.

Random Media was approved earlier this year as an Apple iOS developer and Kaizen Interactive handled the actual app creation. The team already has been approached by a prominent dancehall artiste to build a similar app for him as well.

Revenue mainly comes from Apple placing advertisements in the app and sharing revenue with Random Media. Other revenue channels include entertainers paying to list upcoming performance dates and getting approved content featured. The app currently features the song “Here We Go” by Wayne Marshall and Sean Paul.

Golding would resign once a new leader of the Jamaica Labor Party (JLP) is elected. The party’s leader automatically becomes the prime minister.

The announcement was made in a brief statement from the party, which said Golding informed its central executive committee of his decision at a quarterly meeting in the capital of Kingston. The 63-year-old Golding is a veteran lawmaker who was expected to lead his party into the 2012 general elections.

“(Golding) said the challenges of the last four years have taken their toll and it was appropriate now to make way for new leadership to continue the programmes of economic recovery and transformation while mobilizing the party for victory in the next general elections,” the party statement said.

Dennis Meadows, a senator and member of the Jamaica Labour Party’s executive committee, said there has been an “overwhelming response” for Golding to stay on as party leader.

Vice Premier Hui Liangyu said Beijing is committed to assisting Jamaica, a heavily indebted middle-income country that gets most of its foreign exchange from tourism, remittances from Jamaicans working abroad and exports of bauxite.

“China is determined to give you the necessary help in the future,” Hui said through a translator during a brief ceremony at the Jamaican prime minister’s office.

He made the comments after Chinese and Jamaican officials signed two grants worth $3.1 million. The money will go to projects mutually agreed upon after consultation by both governments.

Jamaican Prime Minister Bruce Golding said China has recently signed off on nearly $8 million in grants, including a pact made last week at a two-day trade forum in Trinidad.

The Chinese delegation touring the region underlined the growing economic links between the Asian industrial powerhouse and the tourism-dependent Caribbean. Finance officials across the region, where the U.S. is still the largest investment source, have welcomed China’s growing involvement.

Last week, Hui visited Trinidad for a China-Caribbean economic and trade forum attended by hundreds of Chinese and Caribbean government officials and business executives. At that meeting, China announced it will provide up to $1 billion in soft loans to Caribbean countries to help bolster its economic relationship with the region.

Another Chinese vice premier, Wang Qishan, announced he wanted to see the implementation of more projects that focus on finance, infrastructure and tourism. China’s ministry of commerce announced that Beijing intends to collaborate on solar energy projects and the construction of schools.

Guyana’s government said China has pledged to give that country $4.7 million. A Chinese delegation that visited the Bahamas before the forum in Trinidad pledged up to $5 million in funding for the island chain off Florida’s eastern coast.

In Jamaica, Li Ruogu, chairman of the state-owned China Exim Bank, which handles most of China’s overseas aid loans, said he was committed to developing strong economic ties between China and Jamaica.

“That is our very determined and firm commitment. So ladies and gentlemen and friends, please trust us. We will be your development partner,” he said.

China is making similar pledges elsewhere in the Western Hemisphere. It is lending and investing tens of billions of dollars in Latin American countries in return for a guaranteed flow of commodities, particularly oil.

Recent deals have made China a key financier to the governments of Venezuela and Argentina. At the same time, Chinese companies have secured a decade’s worth of oil from Venezuela and Brazil, and steady supplies of wheat, soybeans and natural gas from Argentina.

Benjamin Krause from Penn’s relief group J/P HRO says the money from the World Bank will be used for rent subsidies, repairs to houses and building new homes and solar-powered water kiosks.

The project is part of a $95 million effort financed by the World Bank and Haiti Reconstruction Fund that is aimed at helping more than 500,000 people move back into redeveloped neighborhoods.

Penn co-founded the relief group shortly after the January 2010 earthquake and has overseen maintenance of a large settlement camp on a golf course. He’s also testified in Washington.

Magic Johnson Enterprises and EdisonLearning announced Monday that the partnership will concentrate on services to help urban school districts boost their performance and reduce dropout rates.

Johnson said in a statement that he hopes to help boost graduation rates and educational achievement in those districts through his participation in the partnership with EdisonLearning. The company seeks contracts with school districts to manage all or part of their operations, including staffing, curriculum development and testing.

“When just over 40 percent of students in Los Angeles, Houston, and Baltimore are graduating from high school and less than 30 percent of black males in New York, Detroit and Miami, steps need to be taken to recapture these students into the education system to better their opportunities in life,” he said.

EdisonLearning spokeswoman April Hattori said the company will benefit from Magic Johnson Enterprises’ knowledge of the urban communities where the partnership will seek to operate.

“Through partnerships with urban school districts throughout the United States, we want to link Mr. Johnson’s passion and leadership for improving the quality of life in urban communities with the expertise we have developed over the past 20 years helping to improve urban schools,” EdisonLearning President and CEO Jeff Wahl said.

Hattori said the company hopes to establish 25 so-called dropout recovery centers bearing the Magic Johnson Bridgescape name by 2013.

Some existing centers _ such as those provided by school districts in the Ohio cities of Columbus and Cleveland _ will become Magic Johnson Bridgescape entities, while other facilities will be created where centers do not exist, Hattori said.

The partnership will also offer its testing, professional development and other services to districts that are seeking to boost student achievement, EdisonLearning said. It currently offers such services to 80 schools in Virginia, Maryland, Hawaii, Delaware and Nevada.

Guilbert Hentschke, a professor at the University of Southern California’s Rossier School of Education who studies corporate involvement in public schools, said he thought the company was allying itself with Johnson because public school districts are suspicious of the profit motives of firms such as EdisonLearning.

“Everybody knows Magic Johnson, therefore he’s a semi-trusted commodity,” Hentschke said.

Brown sought to extend a public goods charge that adds $1 to $2 to the average monthly household electric bill and has been in effect since 1997. He wanted to use about $400 million in annual proceeds to fund renewable energy and efficiency programs.

“The public goods charge debate is not done; just call it a major bump in the road,” Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, said Monday.

The California Energy Commission says California receives more electricity from renewable resources than any other state. Supporters say the surcharge has helped California earn that title because it pays for programs that make homes and businesses more energy efficient and subsidizes renewable energy research at public and private universities.

The commission says the state has used more than $700 million from the surcharge to fund alternative energy research, creating jobs, spawning new industries and attracting investors. The state has set a goal to generate one-third of its electricity from renewable resources such as wind, solar and geothermal by 2020.

The effort has provided funding for clean energy companies that employ thousands of people. Research funded by the surcharge also has helped develop wireless lighting controls, thinner solar cells and improved wind turbines.

Some opponents of the surcharge called it redundant to the state’s environmental efforts. Unless lawmakers find a way to revive it, it will expire at the end of the year.

“In this economy, you just can’t keep adding ratepayer charges,” said Sen. Tony Strickland, R-Thousand Oaks. “There’s going to be revolt among ratepayers.”

Strickland was one of the few Republicans who supported the bill establishing the 33 percent renewable energy standard for utilities.

David Wolfe, legislative director for Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, an anti-tax group, said renewing the surcharge meant siphoning $3.2 billion from residents and businesses over the next eight years, an amount that families cannot afford right now.

“This was a massive win for California taxpayers,” Wolfe said. “It would have been an egregious hit to consumers and people looking for jobs in an uncertain economic climate.”

The bill, AB724 by Assemblyman Steven Bradford, D-Gardena, failed in the Senate, 19-17, with some Democrats and Republicans voting no or abstaining. A companion bill, SB870 by Sen. Alex Padilla, D-Los Angeles, that would have provided oversight for the surcharge passed the Assembly on a simple majority vote but was not taken up in the Senate before the session ended last week.

The public goods charge was intended to promote energy efficiency work as the state deregulated the electric industry in the 1990s. The surcharge has been modified in the past and the structure was last reviewed by lawmakers in 2007.

Under Brown’s proposal, the surcharge would have allocated $228 million for energy efficiency, $65.5 million for renewable energy, and $62.5 million for research and development.

“If the public sector pulls back, it sends a bad message to the private sector that we might not be interested in this any longer,” said Dan Kalb, California policy manager for the Union of Concerned Scientists. “I don’t think that’s the message we want to send.”

The governor could look to pass the surcharge without a two-thirds vote of the Legislature but it’s not clear what he plans to do next. Among some politically difficult alternatives: The Public Utilities Commission, which directs the programs, could raise fees administratively, or the Legislature could rewrite the bill in way that requires a simple majority vote.

“Gov. Brown will sidestep the usual partisan paralysis and pursue a path forward that will help put Californians back to work,” wrote Brown’s spokesman, Gil Duran, in an email.

John White, executive director of the Center for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Technologies, a partnership of environmental groups and private-sector clean energy companies, called the failed effort disappointing. With earlier planning and negotiating, he said the governor could try again for a two-thirds vote to extend the surcharge.

“In retrospect we started too late and the process didn’t provide enough opportunity for an agreement to be reached,” White said. “But I’m optimistic.”

Stephen Levy, senior economist at the Center for the Continuing Study of the California Economy in Palo Alto, said he would have liked to see a larger package for a state with 12 percent unemployment, the second highest in the nation. Obama’s plan released this week calls for about $447 billion, about half as much as the 2009 federal stimulus program.

“I like the plan. I would have liked more,” Levy said Friday.

According to the administration, California would get more than $13 billion to prevent layoffs of teachers and public safety workers, modernize schools and community colleges, and build highways and public transit. It would provide an estimated $4 billion to support 51,500 construction jobs, $3.6 billion to support up to 37,300 teachers and public safety workers, and $2.8 billion on school upgrades for as many as 36,600 jobs.

The president proposed changes to unemployment insurance, which could help as many as 1 million long-term unemployed Californians. Obama introduced a new “Pathways Back to Work Fund” to provide low income youths and adults with job training.

The program could help 19,800 adults and 58,600 young people in California.

“It’s a no-brainer: Congress should pass the bill. Now,” said Gov. Jerry Brown, a Democrat.

The jobs plan also calls for cutting the payroll tax in half to 3.1 percent for employers for the first $5 million in wages, which could benefit an estimated 710,000 businesses in California.

The jobs plan would extend the worker payroll tax cut passed last December. By cutting that tax in half next year, a typical working California family with a median income of about $56,000 would get a tax cut of about $1,740.

Jobs and the economy loom over the state’s finances. The budget approved by the Legislature’s Democratic majority in late June assumed the economic recovery would bring in $4 billion more than projected early in 2011. If that assumption proves wrong, it would trigger billions in additional cuts to schools, universities and other government services.

In July, the number of people unemployed in California was 2,167,000 _ up by 34,000 over the month.

Although Obama’s jobs package does good things for the state, it’s not clear it will help the state with its overall economy, said Christopher Thornberg, a founding partner with Beacon Economics in Los Angeles.

He points out that while the jobs package would boost consumer spending in California by putting more cash into people’s pockets and keeping teachers and construction workers employed, it could translate to consumer production outside of California.

“The point of stimulus is to stimulate production,” Thornberg said.

He said the job training program will need to be monitored. And he would have liked to hear the president commit to speeding up highway and transit projects so that infrastructure spending can be put to work faster. He said Obama’s first federal stimulus program is still doling out infrastructure projects.

“Here we are three years from when they passed that bill and the money’s just being spent in some cases,” Thornberg said. “We don’t need jobs in three years. We need it now.”

State Assemblyman Bob Blumenfield, a Democrat from Van Nuys who is chairman of the Assembly Budget Committee, said the president’s job proposal focuses on the best methods to get the economy moving forward.

“There’s almost no better way to infuse the economy with both jobs and spending than a focus on infrastructure, and I think he’s very wise to do that,” Blumenfield said.

Republicans and some Democrats would not support the measure on a preliminary vote in which SB116 fell six votes short of the two-thirds majority it needs.

The Assembly had approved a similar bill, AB40X1, on Thursday with bipartisan support.

Sen. Sam Blakeslee, R-San Luis Obispo, said Republicans tried to work with Brown on comprehensive tax reforms six months ago, without success. He and other Republicans said the Legislature should not rush through the Democrat’s plan in the closing hours of the legislative session.

“Let’s call a special session and get it right,” Blakeslee said. Senate Minority Leader Bob Dutton, R-Rancho Cucamonga, had called on Brown to call such a session on California’s economy in a letter to the governor on Thursday.

Sen. Kevin de Leon, D-Los Angeles, urged lawmakers to pass his bill without further delay.

“The rush is we need to put these families back to work. We need to get them jobs sooner rather than later,” de Leon said.

Brown’s plan calls for closing a 2009 tax loophole that benefited large, multi-state corporations by allowing them to choose between two formulas and thus, lower their tax liability in the state. He wants those companies, many of them based out of state, to follow one formula by calculating it solely on the portion of sales they have in California, which would generate an estimated $1 billion in additional revenue for the state each year.

The governor proposes to use the proceeds on tax breaks for California manufacturers and small businesses by encouraging them to buy equipment and expand in the state. He also would use some of the money to increase the standard deduction on the state income tax, which would provide more cash to more than 4 million working Californians.

Individuals would be able to claim an additional $1,000 and couples $2,000. For 2011, the standard deduction for individuals is $3,769 and $7,538 for couples.

“It’s unbelievable that so many politicians in Sacramento would choose to protect cigarette makers and out-of-state corporations to the detriment of California jobs,” Brown said in a statement as the bill stalled late Friday.

Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, said Democrats had to put the measure into a new bill because Republicans would not agree to waive parliamentary deadlines so the Assembly-approved bill could be considered.

Any troubles in the world’s largest economy cast a long shadow over the markets, and a report Friday that the U.S. economy failed to add any new jobs in August caused European and Asian stock markets to sink sharply Monday.

But the news from Europe was also discouraging. Wall Street, which was closed Monday due to the Labor Day holiday, braced for losses Tuesday after the yields in so-called peripheral eurozone countries _ Greece, Italy and Spain _ rose sharply against those of Germany, whose bonds are widely considered a safe haven.

Although retail sales in the 17-nation eurozone rose unexpectedly in July, a survey of the services sector Monday showed a slowdown across the continent for the fifth consecutive month. The purchasing managers’ index for the eurozone showed the services sector was still growing _ unlike the manufacturing sector _ but only barely. That will add pressure on the European Central Bank to keep interest rates on hold when it meets this week.

“There’s so much uncertainty, so much fear, that investors don’t know what to do,” said David Kotok, chairman and chief investment officer at Cumberland Advisors. “I don’t remember the last time stocks were so cheap and nobody wanted them.”

Investors were also shaken by signs that the Italian government’s commitment to its austerity program is wavering. Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s government has backtracked on some deficit-cutting measures, prompting EU officials to urge Italy to stick to its promised plan.

The difference in interest rates between the Greek and benchmark German 10-year bonds, known as the spread, spiraled to new records on Monday, topping 17.3 percentage points. Yields on the Greek bonds were above 18 percent.

Mario Draghi, the incoming chief of the European Central Bank, told a conference in Paris that among the common currency’s problems was a lack of coordinated fiscal policies and that the solution was more integration.

He dismissed the idea of eurobonds _ debt issued jointly by the eurozone countries. Some have argued this would help weaker countries borrow more easily because they wouldn’t have to pay such high interest rates. But stable countries like Germany would likely see their rates rise.

Instead, Draghi suggested the eurozone should adopt rules that would require more budget discipline.

Renewed jitters over the eurozone debt crisis also contributed to the slump in financial stocks amid concerns the banks would need to raise new capital. Deutsche bank closed down 8.9 percent in Frankfurt, while Societe Generale in Paris shed 8.6 percent.

The U.S. unemployment crisis has prompted President Barack Obama to schedule a major speech Thursday night to propose steps to stimulate hiring. Until then, however, traders coming back from the U.S. holiday weekend will have little to hold onto.

The August jobs figure was far below economists’ already tepid expectations for 93,000 new U.S. jobs and renewed concerns that the U.S. recovery is not only slowing but actually unwinding. U.S. hiring figures for June and July were also revised lower, only adding to the gloom.

Many traders have already pulled out of any risky investments _ such as stocks, particularly financial ones, the euro and emerging market currencies _ and pile into safe havens: U.S. Treasuries, the dollar, the Japanese yen and gold.

With Wall Street closed, investors focused their selling in Asia and Europe, where the equity losses Monday were some of the heaviest this year.

“We’ve got some rough riding ahead,” said Jack Ablin, chief investment officer at Harris Private Bank in Chicago, adding he was “concerned that we could see a second wave of selling when most traders are back at their desks.”

Dow futures were down 1.8 percent at 11,010 points while the broader S&P 500 futures were 2.0 lower at 1,145.70.

After Asian indexes closed lower, with the Japan’s Nikkei 225 shedding 1.9 percent, European shares booked sharp losses. Britain’s FTSE 100 closed the day down 3.6 percent to 5,102.58. Germany’s DAX slumped a massive 5.3 percent to 5,246.18, and France’s CAC-40 tumbled 4.7 percent to 2,999.54.

The health of the U.S. economy is crucial for the wider world because consumer spending there accounts for a fifth of global economic activity. The U.S. imports huge amounts from Japan and China and is closely linked at all levels with the European market. The U.S. has seen a slump in consumer and business sentiments.

Traders were hoping for signs that the Federal Reserve might take action at its September meeting to support the economy _ perhaps a third round of bond purchases, dubbed quantitative easing III or QE3, analysts said.

“Right now the possibility has increased,” said Linus Yip, a strategist at First Shanghai Securities in Hong Kong. “I think they have to do something. The markets are expecting QE3.”

Banking stocks were among the hardest hit Monday, partly because the U.S. government on Friday sued 17 financial firms for selling Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac billions of dollars worth of mortgage-backed securities that turned toxic when the housing market collapsed.

Among those targeted by the lawsuits were Bank of America Corp., Citigroup Inc., JP Morgan Chase & Co., and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. Large European banks including The Royal Bank of Scotland, Barclays Bank and Credit Suisse were also sued.

In Asia, Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 followed the broaden trend to close down 2.4 percent and South Korea’s Kospi slid 4.4 percent. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng slid 3 percent. Benchmarks in Singapore, Taiwan, New Zealand and the Philippines also were down.

Shanghai’s benchmark Composite Index down 2 percent to 2,478.74, its lowest close in 13 months. The Shenzhen Composite Index lost 2.4 percent.

In currencies, the euro weakened to $1.4100 from $1.4187 in New York late Friday. The dollar was roughly flat at 76.87 yen. Last month, the dollar fell under 76 yen, which was a new post-World War II high for the Japanese currency.

Benchmark oil for October delivery was down $2.12 to $84.33 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Crude fell $2.48 to settle at $86.45 on Friday.

In London, Brent crude for October delivery was down $1.63 at $110.70 on the ICE Futures exchange.

HOLLYWOOD, CA (Aug 24, 2011)

A red carpet premiere, launch party, after party, and other promotional events are being planned for the movie the week of its highly anticipated opening.

Also starring Shelli Boone (Holla, Saints and Sinners, BET) and rising dancehall artitst Everton (E-Dee) Dennis, the film boasts appearances from other notable dancehall and reggae artists including Lady G, Mr. Lexx, Edley Shine from Born Jamericans, Ms Triniti, and Kashu Man.

The film tells the story of a youth Everton Dennis, faced with  tragedy in Jamaica, gets the opportunity to go to America and pursue his dream of making it big in the music business. Trials and tribulations ensue, yet Everton perseveres only to have it all threatened when the Don (Campbell) demands his dues. Described as a ‘believe in your dreams’ picture, the triumphant story is winning over audiences everywhere it is screened.

Delighted by strong performances from its cast, rave reviews for the picture continue to roll in.  KeeTV called Dennis’s breakout performance “mesmerizing.” Paul Campbell, best known for his disturbingly wicked roles in Shottas, Dancehall Queen, and Third World Cop, delivers a chilling and un-nerving portrayal of Mr. Graves aka Badz, the Don of LA. Karibbean Expression Magazine praised the “energetic performances” by the supporting cast. Reggae historian Roger Steffens called the film “…vivid and moving”.  Atlanta Daily World Newspaper wrote the movie appears to be “on its way to becoming a classic”. Jamaican audiences will soon have the chance to see the movie for themselves.

Driven by a pulsing soundtrack that includes music from Beenie Man, Jadakiss, Styles P, Busy Signal, Turbulance, and more, Carib Press said the musical numbers were a “highlight” of the film. The Village Brothers directed movie offers a their own twist on the rags to riches theme in a well rounded protrayal of the immigrant experience.

Far I Films, the company that produced the movie, originally hoped to open the movie in Jamaica early summer, but after meeting with

Palace Amusements, discovered that Jamaican theaters were booked solid all summer and that October would be the earliest opening available on the island. So they continued to play the movie in select markets in America building fans and followers as Jamaican film continues its rise to its rightful place in entertainment.

More international showings of the movie are being planned for London, Toronto, and other European markets in 2012. To see the film’s trailer and for more information visit www.outthegatemovie.com.

Contact: Far I Films, info@far-I-films.com 310.694-8032