Britain’ s opposition leader said yesterday he had not lost hope of winning this week’ s election, despite predictions of a ruling Labor landslide, because Judo had taught him that "to the last second you can win. "Latest opinion polls made grim reading for William Hague’s conservatives, with forecasts that Prime Minister Tony Blair’ s Labor Party could win Thursday’ s general election by between 12 and 23 percentage points.The third major party, the Liberal Democrats, ranged between 15 and 17 per cent.Seven of the country’ s nine Sunday newspapers said they endorsed Blair, with only the traditionally conservative Mail and Telegraph remaining loyal to Hague. The general election will be held on ().
A. Friday
B. Wednesday
C. Thursday
D. Monday
ABUNDANT ASTA RESOURCESDay in and day out, ASTA helps its members with everything from debit memos to bankruptcy claims on against suppliers to applying for Small34 Business Administration loans. Whatever business problem is facing with you35 chances are someone at ASTA headquarters can offer the advice or a helping36 hand. A few months ago, ASTA introduced that the Member Care Center as37 an improved method of serving its members. The Member Care Center serves38 as the single source for member record changes, for meeting registrations39 and information requests. We have begun intensive customer service training40 of our Member Care team to ensure that they are fully equipped with to41 answer your questions as more efficiently as possible. Our Member Care team42 meets early every morning for a briefing report on the ASTA and travel43 industry news of the day so they are prepared for the various calls that may44 come in. If the answer or solution lies in other another ASTA department,45 ASTA has a highly trained staff of professionals are ready to assist you.Here’s just a sample of how ASTA departments service oar members on a daily basis. 43()
Once the exclusive domain of executives with expense accounts, mobile phones are set to become one of the central technologies of the 21st century. (46) Within a few years, the mobile phone will evolve from a voice-only device to a multi-functional communicator capable of transmitting and receiving not only sound, but video, still images, data and text. A whole new era of personal communication is on the way.Thanks in part to the growth of wireless networks, the telephone is converging with the personal computer and the television. (47) Soon light-weight phones outfitted with high resolution screens--which can be embedded in everything from wristwatches to palm-held units will be connected to series of low orbit satellites enabling people to talk, send and receive E-mail, or take part in video conferences anytime, anywhere. These phones might also absorb many of the key functions of the desktop computer. Mobile devices are expected to be ideal for some of the new personalized services that are becoming available via the Internet.The communications revolution is already taking shape around the globe. In Europe, mall-scale trials are under way using mobile phones for electronic commerce. For example, most phones contain a subscriber identification module (SIM) card that serves primarily to identify a user to the phone network. Some manufacturers plan to upgrade the SIM card to an all-in-one personal identification and credit card. Another approach is to add a slot to mobile phones for a second smart card designed specifically for mobile ecommerce. (48) These cards could be used to make payments over the Internet or removed from the phone for use in point of-sale terminals to pay for things like public transportation, movie tickets or a round of drinks at the bar. In France, Motorola is currently testing a dual slot phone, the Star TACD, in a trial with France Telecom while in Finland Nokia is testing a phone that uses a special plug in reader for a tiny smart card. Siemens is pursuing a different approach. (49) Since it is not very clear whether it’s best to do everything with a single device, Siemens is developing dual slot phones and Einstein, a device equipped with a smart card reader and keypad that can be linked to the phone via infrared wireless technology. (50) For those who want to, though, it will be possible to receive almost all forms of electronic communication through a single device, most likely a three-in-one phone that serves as a cordless at home, a cell phone on the road and an intercom at work. "The mobile phone will become increasingly multifunctional," says Burghardt Schallenberger, vice president for technology and innovation at Siemens Information and Consumer Products. Since it is not very clear whether it’s best to do everything with a single device, Siemens is developing dual slot phones and Einstein, a device equipped with a smart card reader and keypad that can be linked to the phone via infrared wireless technology.
In May 1995, Andrew Lloyd Webber, creator of a string of international hit musicals and a very wealthy man, spent U.S. $ 29.2 million on Picasso’s "Portrait of Angel Fernanders de Soto". It was the highest price paid at auction for a painting since the art market crashed in 1990.Lloyd Webber has a theory that Picasso’s Blue Period paintings were influenced by Burne-Jones, the British Pre-Raphaelite master whose international reputation stood high at the turn of the century. The theory is not shared by many art historians, but that doesn’t matter to the composer. He had been looking for a Blue Period Picasso for some time.It is now extremely hard to come by Blue Period Picassos- figurative works that are drenched in melancholy, expressed by a dominant use of blue. Blue Period subjects par excellence are mothers and children or harlequins; Lloyd Webber’s purchase is not the most attractive of them. He paid roughly double what the picture was worth. He seems to have got carried away when the bidding started to climb.The Picasso was one of the two highest prices of the 1994-1995 auction season, and help illustrate what has been happening in this curious market. The very rich have got their confidence back, which has meant that buyers can be found for works of really outstanding quality and, very occasionally, bidding battles have driven prices back to their 1989-1990 levels.The 1980s boom collapsed in 1990. After several false dawns there are now signs that serious recovery has begun. More than an expansion of the market, however, it reflects the relative weakness of the American dollar, the currency in which most art deals are transacted. Collectors from countries with stronger currencies have been finding dollar prices cheap.The middle market is still fairly weak. It is not unusual for up to half the lots on offer at a Christie’s or Sotheby’s sale to be left unsold. Dealers, as opposed to auctioneers, are still finding it hard to make a living and seldom buy for stock. The auctioneers have tried to replace them by encouraging private people to buy directly at auction and more of them are doing this. But private buying is unpredictable and cannot underpin the market in the way dealer buying used to. Private individuals buy what they want; they don’t bid on everything that is going cheap.Overall, the nature of the market is changing. In the 1980s art was bought as a speculation: buy in April, sell for double the price in September. This mentality vanished with the 1990 collapse, but the very rich and their financial advisors still take the view that it is sensible to keep a percentage of your investment portfolio in art. It is this kind of money that creates the fancy prices at the top end of the market.Geographically, the present recovery has been led by North America. Normally a major recession, such as was experienced in the United States, results in a shift of taste. But the Americans liked Impressionist and classic modern pictures best before the market collapse and that is what they have been coming back to. It is currently the strongest sector of the picture market. Contemporary and Old Master markets are still struggling and there are few buyers for Victorian pictures, apart from Lloyd Webber.Besides Europe and America, however, there is now a growing market in the East. Indeed, the East has become the great hope of hard-pressed dealers over the last three years —they have been aiming to find new buyers in Japan, Korea, Singapore, Taiwan, Hong Kong and China.There are more rich connoisseurs in Japan than anywhere else but they have not been in a buying mood. Japanese speculators lost huge amounts of money in the 1990s crash and there are few collectors who dare to buy any works of art today. The market in Chinese ceramics, works of art, jade jewelry and old and modern brush paintings is now dominated worldwide by wealthy collectors from Hong Kong, Taiwan and Singapore. The huge volume of excavated art that is smuggled out of China has dramatically weakened the archaeological end of this market but rarities, especially the late imperial porcelains, are selling well. There have even been two or three successful auctions inside China since 1994. The local millionaires are beginning to put their money into art. () has the most potential art buyers.
America
B. Hong Kong
C. Japan
D. India