Kate and Arthur Ruff spent some 60 hours combing census data, scouring school scores and searching the Internet from Massachusetts, keen to make sure their move to Toronto landed their family in the right neighbourhood.
In the end, their happy relocation to the Christie and Dupont area was prompted largely by an innovative new web tool called Neighbourhood Match, a sort of eHarmony for house hunters.
That and the coffee question; Do you prefer Tim
Toronto’s overheated real estate market is expected to cool through the fall and winter, which should ease bidding wars and lead to more moderate price increases into 2012, says a CMHC housing market outlook released Wednesday.
Average Toronto house prices are expected to hit $463,500 by the end of this year, up 7.2 per cent from last.
But most of those gains have already occurred, thanks to a surge of home sales in spring and early summer fuelled by low interest rates as well as first-time buyers who rushed their purchases to beat the introduction of tighter lending rules, said Shaun Hildebrand, the federal housing agency’s Toronto market analyst.
“Prices will be treading water for the next few quarters,” he noted.
“We’re seeing sales levels start to moderate, we’re seeing new listings start to catch up to demand, and that’s going to create more balanced market conditions fast cash online. Prices won’t be growing as quickly as they were.”
New housing starts will also “moderate” and resume their growth late next year, the report notes.
CMHC revised slightly upward its forecast for Ontario, citing a rosier job picture and a stronger housing market than originally expected during the first half of this year.
But affordability is becoming such a concern, especially in overheated markets like Toronto, that CMHC predicts higher demand for rental apartments and condos by first-time buyers who have now found themselves priced out of the market.
Russia’s first stealth fighter jet had to abort a takeoff at Moscow’s International Aviation and Space Show on Sunday because of what officials said was a malfunction in the right engine.
The T-50 did not leave the runway and was slowed by a brake parachute.
The twin-engined jet was traveling at 60 miles per hour (100 kph) when the pilot decided to abort takeoff because of a right engine malfunction, the RIA Novosti news agency reported, citing a representative of United Aircraft Building Corp., a state-controlled holding that incorporates top Russian aircraft-makers,
The T-50, which made its maiden flight in January 2010, had been kept out of the public eye before its debut at the air show on Wednesday during a visit by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.
The fighter is intended to match the U.S. F-22 Raptor, which entered service in 2005.
The T-50 still lacks new engines and state-of-the art equipment, and its serial production is only expected to begin in 2015 at the most optimistic forecast. Two T-50s are currently undergoing tests, and another pair is expected to join them later this year.
Russia has signed deals with India to cooperate on the aircraft’s development, and hopes that the Indian air force will become a major customer for the plane.
The six-day air show at the Zhukovsky air base outside of Moscow wrapped up on Sunday.
Royal Dutch Shell struggled to contain the worst North Sea oil spill in a decade as well as damage to its credibility Tuesday as a second leak was found in an oil line the company had said was “under control.”
Although the amount of oil involved in the Shell spill off the coast of Scotland is an order of magnitude smaller than BP’s 2010 Gulf of Mexico disaster _ around 1,300 barrels so far compared to an estimated 4.9 million in the Gulf _ the spill undercuts Shell’s earlier suggestions that it was a safer company than BP.
The Gannet Alpha oil rig, 112 miles (180 kilometers) east of the Scottish city of Aberdeen, is operated by Shell and co-owned by Shell and Esso, a subsidiary of the U.S. oil firm Exxon Mobil.
Shell shut down the main leak in a flow line at the rig by closing the well and isolating the reservoir, said Glen Cayley, technical director of Shell’s European exploration and production activities. However, he acknowledged a second, smaller leak has proved more elusive to control.
“The residual small leak is in an awkward position to get to,” he said. “This is complex sub-sea infrastructure, and really getting into it amongst quite dense marine growth is proving a challenge.”
“It’s taken our diving crews some time to establish exactly and precisely where that leak is coming from,”
The secondary spill is pumping about two barrels _ or 84 gallons _ into the cold water each day.
Saket Vemprala, an oil and gas analyst for Business Monitor International, said while any spill is problematic, the North Sea spill is much smaller than the Deepwater Horizon spill.
“The numbers are simply not comparable,” he said.
While the BP leak was from the well’s head, the Shell leak is from a flow line, so the company knows what to expect, he said. “There is a finite amount of oil in the flow,” Vemprala said.
Still, the shallow-water disaster is an embarrassment for Shell as the company seeks its first license for exploratory drilling off the coast of Alaska. Shell CEO Peter Voser has previously said the BP blowout could never have happened to Shell, due to Shell’s different well design.
“The risk management practices of some companies in the Gulf of Mexico do lag behind the standards set by other companies,” Voser told analysts on a conference call in February. “We at Shell have been applying the best of the North Sea standards to our worldwide operations for many years.”
Kenneth E. Arnold, a member of the U.S. National Academy of Engineering who served as an adviser to the U.S. Department of Interior during its probes into the Deepwater Horizon explosion, said the suggestion that any company is not vulnerable to a catastrophe is dubious.
“What we can measure are things that happen frequently enough that there is a trendline,” he said, citing injuries, time lost to accidents, minor spills and incidents where a company failed to comply with government rules. “Predicting major disasters _ that’s something we struggle with.”
On the eve of the Gulf disaster, BP had been tipped by some industry insiders as a potential winner of a safety award for its Gulf operations.
Arnold said he would classify a 1,300-barrel spill as “significant” but not catastrophic.
At its largest, the North Sea oil spill sheen covered an area 19 miles wide by 2.7 miles long (31 kilometers by 4.3 kilometers). Both Shell and the British government predict the oil will disperse naturally and not reach shore.
Cayley, in a statement, said the company “deeply regrets” the spill. He said the first leak was stopped Thursday but now “the oil found a second pathway to the sea.”
Shell said it believes the oil is now leaking from a relief valve close to the original leak, and once it is certain of the source, it will stop the spill.
The British government agrees that the leak is small compared with the BP disaster but says it is still substantial for the U.K.’s continental shelf. It has promised to investigate the spill, which is four times the amount leaked by all British rigs into the North Sea in 2009.
Vicky Wyatt of Greenpeace criticized Shell for not releasing information about the spill as quickly as it should have.
“The news that there’s now a second leak from the Shell platform will only heighten concerns over how this episode is being handled,” she said. “While oil has been flowing, timely information has not.”
Shell informed U.K. government agencies of the spill on Wednesday, but did not make the news public until Friday. On Saturday it declared that the leak had been contained.
Britain has already beefed up its inspections of the 24 drilling rigs and 280 oil and gas installations in its part of the North Sea in the wake of the 2010 Gulf spill.
The last major spill in the North Sea was in 1993, when oil tanker MV Braer ran aground in the Shetland Islands, spilling around 620,000 barrels of crude into the sea.
____
Sterling reported from Amsterdam. Danica Kirka also contributed to this story from London.
People in Bermuda installed storm shutters and hauled their boats onto beaches in preparation for Tropical Storm Gert, which slowly strengthened Sunday over the Atlantic as it approached the wealthy British archipelago.
A tropical storm warning was is in effect for Bermuda, though the National Hurricane Center in Miami said Gert’s center was still about 215 miles (345 kilometers) south-southeast from the isolated island chain.
Gert, the seventh tropical storm of this year’s Atlantic hurricane season, was moving north-northwest at 8 mph (13 kph) and had maximum sustained winds of 45 mph (75 kph). The storm, which formed Sunday afternoon, could get stronger as it makes its way toward Bermuda.
U.S. forecasters said Gert’s center was expected to pass near or just east of Bermuda by Monday afternoon. It is projected to remain well away from the U.S. East Coast.
“We’re gearing up for a windy night and perhaps some showers, but we should fare pretty well up here,” said Jeff Torgerson, a meteorologist with the Bermuda Weather Service.
Steven and Eileen Chapman, of the south London borough of Croydon, which was impacted by last week’s riots across England, said the tropical storm would not crimp their vacation to Bermuda with their two boys.
“It seems very peaceful in Bermuda in comparison to Croydon,” said Steven Chapman, who has visited Bermuda 14 times before. “We’re not concerned about the storm. The hotel has not advertised it as a major concern.”
Most residents of Bermuda, where basic storm preparations are a familiar routine, were also taking it in stride.
“Right now it’s a baby. We’re paying attention to it, but people here don’t get worked up about storms this size,” said Francis Mahoney of Bermuda Yacht Services, a provider of emergency marine services.
Bermuda requires newly built houses to withstand sustained winds of 110 mph (177 kph). It also has a sturdy infrastructure with many of its power and phone lines underground.
Below Gert, a trough of low pressure located some 425 miles (684 kilometer) north-northeast of the northern Leeward Islands is generating some showers and thunderstorms.
U.S. forecasters said Sunday afternoon that this system has about a 30 percent chance of becoming a tropical cyclone during the next two days. It was moving west-northwest at about 15 mph (24 kph), according to the Hurricane Center.
Pirate attacks off West Africa’s coast have increased to levels that rival those seen in Somalia, insurers say, prompting maritime agencies to focus on setting aside their rivalries and cooperate to fight the rising threat.
The International Maritime Bureau says Nigeria and Benin reported 18 pirate attacks in the first half of 2011. While smaller than figures attributed to Somali pirates, analysts say the number of attacks off Nigerian waters is underreported because some ships carry illegal oil cargo and others fear their insurance rates will rise.
“I believe we are nearly at a crisis here and if it’s a crisis, there has to be action,” said Rear Adm. Kenneth J. Norton, deputy chief of staff for strategy, resources and plans for U.S. Naval Forces Europe-Africa, headquartered in Naples, Italy.
Officials from Nigeria’s Navy, its maritime industry and other groups met this week with U.S. officials aboard the HSV 2 Swift off Nigeria’s coast to discuss maritime issues, including formulating anti-piracy strategies.
The U.S. and other Western nations have an anti-piracy armada patrolling the waters off East Africa, but there is no West African counterpart, leaving Nigeria and its neighbors to stop the growing swell of attacks on their own.
A big problem, those involved say, has been a lack of cooperation among the many Nigerian institutions that deal with maritime issues.
“Somebody must take charge and whenever the functions overlap, somebody has to cede” said Capt. D.O. Labinjo, who represents a Nigerian ship owners’ association. “Instead of interagency cooperation, what we have been getting is interagency rivalry.”
London-based Lloyd’s Market Association, an umbrella group of insurers, earlier this month listed Nigeria, neighboring Benin and nearby waters in the same risk category as Somalia, where two decades of war and anarchy have allowed piracy to flourish.
As a result, shippers may be subjected to more checks and higher premiums, said Neil Smith, head of underwriting at Lloyd’s Market Association. That could mean additional costs for oil-rich Nigeria’s shipping industry, which exports crude crucial to the U.S. market.
It also can affect commercial shipping coming into Lagos’ busy Apapa Port and the thriving used-car market based in Cotonou, the commercial capital of Benin.
Even as Nigerian agencies attempt to cooperate, the fast-changing patterns of pirates are testing their capabilities.
Piracy in the Gulf of Guinea has over the last eight months escalated from low-level armed robberies to hijackings, cargo thefts and large-scale robberies, according to the Denmark-based security firm Risk Intelligence.
West African pirates also have been more willing to use violence, beating crewmembers and shooting and stabbing those who get in the way. Analysts believe many of the pirates come from Nigeria, where corrupt law enforcement allows criminality to thrive.
Robbers appear to be targeting chemical and oil tankers sailing through the region.
WASHINGTON
A day after Standard & Poor’s took the unprecedented step of downgrading the creditworthiness of the United States government, the ratings agency offered a full-throated defence of its decision, calling the bitter standoff between President Barack Obama and Congress over raising the debt ceiling a
Asian stock markets tumbled Friday amid fears the U.S. may be heading back into recession and Europe’s debt crisis is worsening.
The sell-off in Asia on Friday follows the biggest one-day points decline on Wall Street since the 2008 financial crisis.
Oil prices extended sharp losses to near $86 a barrel in Asia amid expectations a slowing global economy will undermine demand for crude.
Japan’s Nikkei 225 stock average slid 3.4 percent to 9,328.74 points and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng dived 4.4 percent to 20,912.60. China’s Shanghai Composite Index lost 2.1 percent to 2,626.80.
Asian investors were rattled by the lack of agreement in Europe about debt and how to stabilize the euro, said Tom Kaan of Louis Capital Markets in Hong Kong. He said they also were watching to see whether the U.S. Federal Reserve launches a new stimulus effort.
“A lot of people will be trying to stay on the sidelines,” Kaan said. “It’s a general fear that is clouding the markets at the moment.”
Elsewhere in Asia, South Korea’s Kospi index shed 3.6 percent to 1,945 and Taiwan’s benchmark skidded 4.4 percent to 7,952.98. Australia’s benchmark dropped 4 percent to 4,103.10.
Investors fretted over the U.S. economic recovery ahead of Friday’s release of crucial non-farm payrolls for July, which often set the tone in markets for a week or two.
Investors, already fidgety after protracted U.S. debt deliberations, and worries that Italy and Spain are getting deeply embroiled in Europe’s debt crisis, searched for assets considered safer, such as gold.
“Stocks will continue to dive, especially in Euroland, where profits are disappointing analysts’ estimates,” said Carl B. Weinberg of High Frequency Economics in a report payday advance online.
In Europe, most markets shed more than 3 percent Thursday. France’s CAC-40 tumbled 3.9 percent, Germany’s DAX lost 3.4 percent and Britain’s FTSE 100 also shed 3.4 percent.
For the day, the Dow closed down 512.76 points, at 11,383.68. It was the steepest point decline since Dec. 1, 2008.
Thursday’s decline was the ninth-worst by points for the Dow. In percentage terms, the decline of 4.3 percent does not rank among the worst. On Black Monday in 1987, for example, the Dow fell 22 percent.
In currency markets, the dollar edged down to 78.64 yen from late Thursday’s 79.02 and the euro weakened slightly to $1.4100 from Thursday’s $1.413.
On Thursday, Japan’s government intervened in markets to weaken the yen against the dollar to support exporters. Finance Minister Yoshihiko Noda said authorities acted to protect the economic recovery following the March 11 earthquake and tsunami.
The dollar had fallen as low as 76.29 yen on Monday. It hit a record post-World War II low of 76.25 yen in the days following the March 11 earthquake and tsunami.
The intervention was coupled with monetary policy easing by the central bank’s board.
Japan’s moves came only a day after the Swiss National Bank intervened to slow a rise in the Swiss franc, another currency perceived as a save-haven at a time investors are fleeing risky assets such as shaky European government bonds.
Benchmark oil for September delivery was down 39 cents to $86.20 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Crude fell $5.30 to settle at $86.63 on Thursday.
The cell phone company controlled by Carlos Slim says it plans to buy the 40 percent of Telefonos de Mexico SAB, or Telmex, it doesn’t already own as part of a consolidation plan it began last year.
An America Movil statement says the company will offer 10.40 pesos (US$.90) in cash per Telmex share.
It said Monday that if the company gets sufficient shares it will delist Telmex from the markets where it trades.
America Movil said Monday that if the consolidation is completed it will be able to provide “more advanced telecommunication services to its customers in Mexico.”
America Movil is Latin America’s largest cell phone service provider with 236 million subscribers. Telmex controls more than 80 percent of Mexico’s land lines.
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