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A Time to Remember
英國同學週年聚會
By admin, August 22, 2012 10:53 am
上週五是英國Chichester中學同學20週年聚會，當晚感慨萬千，能有一班好朋友相伴人生、已無憾!
想當年青澀的我，對人生充滿了夢想、對前路充滿了憧憬、對愛情充滿了期待、對一切都是那麼的好奇。
努力下夢想一一實現，雖然大家多年不見，但純潔的友情依然沒變，相信接下來的日子里大家會更加珍惜彼此間的友誼，共勉之!
You Fxcking Americans. Who are you to tell us?
By admin, August 9, 2012 3:45 pm
Wow…Standard Chartered really got the guts!!! 
By Tom Braithwaite, Kara Scannell and Sharlene Goff, Financial Times
August 7, 2012
This is a summer to forget for British banks in the US. One after another, Barclays, HSBC and now Standard Chartered have had excruciating internal emails and conversations revealed by US investigators.
StanChart is accused by New York state’s Department of Financial Services of concealing transactions on behalf of Iranian banks and breaching US sanctions on the country in the process.
The regulator’s 27-page report quotes from an email sent in 2006 from StanChart’s chief executive for the Americas to the group executive director for risk, warning of potentially “catastrophic reputational damage” and potential “serious criminal liability” for executives over work for Iranian clients.
The group director allegedly replied: “You f—ing Americans. Who are you to tell us, the rest of the world, that we’re not going to deal with Iranians?”
The order on Monday, which threatened to revoke StanChart’s banking licence, came as a bolt from the blue for the bank, according to people familiar with the matter, even though it has been in talks with US authorities over the issue for months.
Only last week, the bank, which makes almost 90 per cent of its pre-tax profit in Asia, the Middle East and Africa, distanced itself from the recent Libor rigging scandal that has engulfed many of its rivals and trumpeted the bank’s superior “culture”.
StanChart reiterated its earlier disclosure that it was conducting a review of its historical US sanctions compliance with US enforcement agencies and regulators. While it said it could not predict what the outcome would be, it said the breaches were not of the same scale as those facing rival HSBC, which was heavily criticised last month for failing to prevent money laundering by Mexican drug gangs.
StanChart said it was confident it had “very robust controls and processes” in place to deal with these kinds of issues.
It is not the first bank to run into trouble for allegedly “wire stripping” — removing codes that identify Iranian institutions for money passing through the US. Two years ago, Barclays agreed to pay $298m for transactions on behalf of customers from Cuba, Iran and Sudan that were under sanctions from the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control.
A spokeswoman for Cyrus Vance, the Manhattan district attorney, said his office “aggressively investigates, and has secured significant settlements against, banks that have intentionally evaded United States sanctions that are designed to interrupt terrorist financing”. Since 2009, four banks have paid more than $1.8bn based on state and federal investigations into their allegedly illegal conduct: ING, Barclays, Credit Suisse, and Lloyds TSB Bank, she said. “Beyond that, we do not comment on ongoing investigations.”
For much of the period in question the transactions themselves did not necessarily flout US law. Until 2008, so-called “U-turn” transfers, which involved Iranian clients but only passed through the US financial system, were permitted. But to make use of the exemption banks were required to comply with strenuous disclosure, which StanChart is alleged to have evaded.
Other banks have paid fines to settle similar allegations from US authorities, though StanChart is required to appear at a meeting next week and explain why it should be allowed to retain its New York banking licence.
The US is not a big centre of operations for StanChart, whose focus is Asia. But analysts at Bernstein warned that the loss of the banking licence could lead to “significant loss of earnings … as a bank like StanChart servicing clients in emerging markets could book trades in different jurisdictions that actually result from structuring transactions in the US”. The analysts also warned of the risk that the incident could spark “management change”.
天下之大、無奇不有!
六七十年代台灣的氣質美女
By admin, July 4, 2012 4:17 pm
相比起現在滿街的人工美女，台灣女明星張美瑤展示的是那個時代的獨特氣質。
美，美得一點兒也不造作，美得是那麼的自然和大方得體。
2012年07月04日
江青的專欄透露，台灣女明星張美瑤逝世。
張美瑤是民國台灣影壇的夏夢，美得 方正善良，擅演苦命女子，其實眉目之中有貴氣。但台灣六七十年代沒有什麼故事像柯德莉夏萍的「金枝玉葉」，不是養鴨人家的辛酸，就是蚵女下海的苦楚，不然 就是啞女情深，那時的台灣電影有田園的純樸，也有台北都市的繁華，張美瑤不像湯蘭花、王莫愁，她一襲旗袍，美目盼兮，天階若夢，良夜如水，她是那種轉身一 個背影就落下幾片花瓣的良人。
張美瑤的電影在香港不太賣座，殖民地時代的香港人見識闊廣一些，看過「北非諜影」裏的英格烈褒曼，以及「寶雲尼車 站」的史丹利格蘭加，半島咖啡座棲遲過也着一襲淺青旗袍的阿娃嘉娜，文華酒店門口是半臂白手套的珍茜蒙移步上房車赴港督府的午宴，張美瑤在香港不是讀法律 和英國文學的精英在睡房的牆上貼上照片的那種偶像。
張美瑤演「情人的眼淚」，她是歌女，遇上負心郎，男主角另有新歡在台下，她在歌台上含淚一曲寄 意。苦澀淒楚，欲語還休──中國電影從周璇的「天涯歌女」到林黛的「不了情」，都有此等場面──「為什麼要對你掉眼淚，你難道不明白是為了愛，要不是有情 郎跟我要分開，我眼淚不會掉下來，掉下來……」
張美瑤的舞台背景，永遠是台北中華路和延平北路，藍藍的天空，一排像戰後東京的大廈。那時候的台北 還有明星咖啡館、新加坡舞廳、郭良蕙的文藝小說，還有鄭愁予的海洋詩。陽光明媚，真個是白雲方展，好春常在。在春花正開時，張美瑤下嫁日本小生味濃的柯俊 雄，像皇妃戴安娜大婚般哄動了寶島。她像一季淡短的櫻花。後來老公有外遇，憤而離婚，「今生愛恨都是這個人」。張美瑤的故事陌異而遙遠，然而今日追看，在 樓房只七八層的那個時代，中國女明星只她的背影最纖麗動人，不說話，也在低訴着：我在深閨，望穿秋水，你不要忘了我情深、深如海……
陶傑
