A desktop business card holder gives out an important statement about your own business and your level of professionalism. It plays a very important role in building your professional image in front of those people who come visiting you, thereby getting a business card from you. If you are such a business professional who does not venture out much, but do have a lot of visitors dropping in from time to time, then you need to keep a desktop business card holder in your office chamber, so that you can distribute your business cards from it to your visitors.

When your clients come visiting you in your chamber, out of the many things that they would notice would be your business card holder. Therefore, to make a good first impression on your clients, it is of utmost importance that you know how to present your business cards properly in front of your clients. Another important role that desktop business card holders would play is in making or breaking your relationship with your clients. First impression is the last impression. Therefore, if you give out the right kind of impression to your clients, then your business prospect enhances. Else, there would be a huge difference in terms of your expectations and your client’s expectations. Therefore, business card holders must be chosen very judiciously.

While choosing desktop business card holders, you need to keep in mind that your professional and personal life should always be separate. Therefore, you should choose such a desktop card holder which reflects your business style, rather than reflecting your personality. If you are looking at enhancing or upgrading your corporate look, then you should go in for a silver or golden desktop card holder. This sort of a card holder would be much liked and appreciated by your clients, as it gives an air of class and success. You can afford to spend your money generously in buying a desktop card holder, as it would increase your possibilities of gaining more clients. By spending generously on artistic office accessories, you stand yourself in an advantageous position of gaining more business.

If you need a social component to be added to your business networking, and you belong to the entertainment or sports section of business, then you can go in for some fun and unique desktop card holders. In order to give your business that extra classy edge, you might also want to get your desktop card holder imported and hand crafted. These card holders are exclusively made for professionals, and the world’s leading manufacturer of these kinds of card holders would be El Casco. They come up with some of the finest luxury desktop card holders. A high quality gold or silver desktop card holder can also be a mode of striking a conversation with your visitor. A visitor who walks in to your cabin, and likes the gold or silver desktop card holder that you have put up, might get started by asking you where you got the card holder from, and you can take the conversation forward from there, eventually linking it up to business.

About Author
John Rowbotham is a leading supplier of business card holder in the UK. He also deals in wide range of Desktop Business card holders with its stylish looks.
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# Leather Business Card Holder Leaving a Mark of Elegance

Washington, DC, United States (AHN) – President Barack Obama on Friday warned Republicans against any short-term proposals to raise the federal government’s limit on the money it can borrow.

Late Friday afternoon, the House narrowly approved, 219-210, a bill championed by Speaker John Boehner that would allow the government to borrow money for another six months before more legislation would be needed to raise the nation’s debt ceiling.

Senate Democratic leaders have already declared the bill DOA in that chamber.

A short-term increase over the current $14.3 trillion debt ceiling “does not solve the problem, and it has no chance of becoming law,” Obama said earlier in the day.

Unless they approve a debt ceiling increase by Tuesday, payments for Social Security and other programs will cease. Financial institutions are warning the stock market could fall by 30 percent, interest rates would rise and the nation would be plunged into another recession.

Throughout the day Friday, House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) tried to convince congressmen to vote for his revamped bill that would require a vote on a balanced budget amendment within six months.

Obama did not respond directly to the new proposal but did say, “We agree on a process where the next step is a debate in the coming months on tax reform and entitlement reform and I’m ready and willing to have that debate. And if we need to put in place some kind of enforcement mechanism to hold us all accountable for making these reforms, I’ll support that too if it’s done in a smart and balanced way.”

A vote on the Republican bill was scheduled for Thursday evening but postponed amid last-minute bickering.

Republicans say proposals by Obama and other Democrats will increase the record $14.3 trillion deficit too much, thereby taking money from the budget to pay off interest on the debt.

Democrats say deficit reduction plans of Republicans are too drastic, potentially leaving millions of Americans without benefits and forcing hundreds of thousands of government employees to be laid off.

The biggest difference in the Republican and Democratic proposals is the size of the debt limit increase.

Democrats want authorization to increase the debt limit by $2.7 trillion. The Republican proposal would increase it by only $917 billion, ensuring it is only a short-term solution.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) said, “No Democrat will vote for a short-term Band-Aid that would put our economy at risk and put the nation back in this untenable situation a few short months from now.”

Senate Democrats sent a letter to House Republicans Wednesday night saying their plan had no chance of winning the required second round approval in the Senate.

All 51 Senate Democrats and two independents planned to vote against the Republican bill, the letter said. Even some Republicans complained about uncertainties of Boehner’s bill.

“I can’t vote for a bill that cuts only $1 trillion,” said Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX).

Boehner said at a press conference that his proposal was “a sincere, honest effort to end this crisis in a bipartisan way.”

He acknowledged tough opposition to it by saying, “This bill’s not perfect.”

Other differences in the two parties’ proposals include a Republican plan to cap new spending at $1.043 trillion in 2012, or $7 billion less than 2011 levels.

Democrats instead want to eliminate $1 trillion in war funding and save another trillion through reduced interest payments.

Republicans want a balanced budget amendment and a program to eradicate abuses of Social Security.

Democrats want to raise about $13 billion by auctioning airwave spectrum for cell phone service.

Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) urged Congress to resolve their differences as “disdain” grows among Americans.

“They want us to sit down and agree to something,” McCain said.

He also held out hope that the financial crisis would be resolved soon.

“I do believe this country is not going to go into default for the first time in history,” McCain said.

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There are many challenges to establishing a new business. Often marketing is the last thing on the list while establishing an office or storefront, hiring employees and handling the legal demands of setting up a new corporation or limited company. Rather than think of marketing as an after fact however, you will be more successful if you take your first steps to marketing a new business at the same time as the other ‘first steps’. A primary key to success in today’s business climate is a solid brand image and a clear public impression of that brand. So how should you approach new business marketing?

Marketing a new business will be successful if you follow a few basic steps all designed to help you look established and reliable. Customers can be leery of start up businesses which is why it is crucial that your marketing material is polished and professional and gives the impression of stability. The center element of this is your logo. A corporate logo appears on business cards, stationary, on the signature line of emails, on employee uniforms and on promotional materials. The logo needs to adequately portray your business and your personality. Once you have a good logo design, print business cards and hand them out like candy. This is the cheapest form of advertising and also happens to be one of the most effective.

Another of the first steps to marketing a new business is choosing a domain name and getting a website up and running. Even if you are not quite ready to create a webpage securing the right domain is critical. Use a professional to help you pick a domain that is searchable and will keep your business at the top of the search lists. Put up a coming soon page so that anyone you have given a business card to does not get lost. Then look to having a professional web company create your site and customize a SEO (search engine optimization) program to ensure customers can find you.

Finally, you can turn your attention to other types of new business marketing including direct mail-outs, print advertising, promotional ‘give-away’ items and brochures. Concentrate on keeping all the separate strands of marketing materials thematically linked to your logo and your crafted business image. The key to becoming a ‘household brand’ is in a consistency of presentation across all marketing platforms. Never put all of your advertising eggs into just one basket.

About Author
JH Studios is a Tampa based marketing company that helps businesses of all sizes build their brand and focus their marketing efforts for optimum Return on Investment (ROI).

United States (KaiserHealth) – Hospitals, nursing homes, doctors and state health programs could survive a brief pinch if the Washington debt ceiling deadlock leads the government to stop paying Medicare and Medicaid bills. But if an impasse were to drag on for more than a few weeks, health care providers could be unable to pay their staffs or even face insolvency, according to health care experts and former government officials.

Even as the Tuesday deadline for a deal between President Barack Obama and Congress approaches, much of the implications of a worst-case scenario remains speculative. The Treasury Department hasn’t signaled how it would prioritize which government bills to pay. Few health care providers have made any doomsday plans, but the uncertainty is making many edgy.

“It’s not a matter of planning right now because there’s too much unknown,” says Cheryl Phillips, senior vice president for advocacy for LeadingAge, an association of 5,600 not-for-profit home health agencies, nursing homes and other organizations that work with seniors. She says that many of their members have very limited operating margins, so a stop in payment could quickly be destructive.

There’s no precedent for this kind of fiscal crisis, although Medicare providers have experienced short-term delays in the past when Congress made last-minute changes to Medicare reimbursement rates, says Gail Wilensky, who ran Medicare, the federal health program for the elderly and disabled, under President George H.W. Bush.

“I’m sure it irritated the providers, but it didn’t affect the beneficiaries,” Wilensky says, noting that despite delays that sometimes stretched for several weeks, business continued as usual. “In the short term, there should be little to no effect.”

Others believe financial pain could come rapidly. John Reiss, a Philadelphia lawyer who advises hospitals, doctors and medical device makers for the firm Saul Ewing, says his clients are “dumbfounded” by the ongoing deadlock but still assume that there’ll be a deal before it’s too late.

If not, he says some facilities have enough cash on hand to last for several months, but “there are some hospitals surviving on six or seven days cash on hand and those places are going to be in trouble.”

Stan Rosenstein, a health care consultant and the former director of California’s Medicaid program, known as Medi-Cal, says a prolonged impasse could be “devastating.” Nursing homes in particular rely on Medicare and Medicaid, the joint state-federal program for the poor, for most of their payments and could rapidly be unable to finance their daily operations, he says.

“California has had a lot of experience in this with its late budgets and it only takes a couple or three weeks for it have a major impact,” says Rosenstein, referring to when the state legislature deadlocked over budgets and the state stopped paying its bills, including for Medi-Cal.

But the worst case scenario here would be more apocalyptic, he says. That’s because health care providers would lose revenues from Medicare and Medicaid at the same time. Plus, a debt default could also unnerve the capital markets, making it difficult or impossible for providers to borrow money to stay afloat. And states are having so many financial problems that they’re not in a position to fill in the gaps.

Matt Salo, executive director of the National Association of Medicaid Directors, says that in the “worst-case scenario, Aug. 2 comes around with no deal, Medicaid is not going to shut down.” But if the bond markets melt down, states could face higher interest rates on money they’ve already borrowed from investors, making it even harder for states to pay their share of Medicaid, which is generally about half, he says. The federal government on average pays about 56 percent of Medicaid costs.

How quickly states feel the pain depends on the schedule Medicaid pays them. Rhode Island receives payments every two weeks, and it was just paid yesterday, says Fred Sneesby, a spokesman for the state’s Department of Human Services. The next scheduled payday is Aug. 12. California, though, is paid every week, Rosenstein says.

“I don’t think there’s any state that has the wherewithal to advance the money,” says Rosenstein, who advises states, insurers and providers for the consulting firm Health Management Associates.

Thomas Scully, who was the administrator for Medicare under President George W. Bush, says if there is a default, the Obama administration’s political decisions will determine how quickly health care payments are shut off. “They’re either going to shut down Medicare and Social Security first or last,” he says. “If they want to provoke a crisis they would quit paying hospitals and doctors and quit sending out Social Security checks.”

Donna Shalala, who was health and human services secretary under President Bill Clinton, says Medicare pays its claims within two weeks, which is faster than many private insurers. “The health care system is very dependent on Medicare payments, because they come very quickly,” she says. “If they’re not reimbursing, that would create problems for the entire industry – hospitals, doctors, everyone. It is not a happy scene.”

Doug Myers, chief financial officer for Children’s National Medical Center in Washington, D.C., says 55 percent of the hospital’s patients are on Medicaid. He said the hospital would “start feeling the impact” within 30 days of a halt in federal funding.

“Whatever happens to Medicaid, happens to Children’s National,” he says.

Martha Roherty, executive director of the National Association of States United for Aging and Disabilities, says she’s been advising state agencies that advocate for services for the elderly to immediately claim any money they’re entitled to from federal grants. Usually, she says, they do it just once a month or quarterly.

“We have been telling them” to “take it now,” she says. Roherty added that basic services that rely on federal money, such as senior centers and nutrition meals that are delivered to people’s homes, could quickly shutter if the federal government stops paying those bills.

Paul Ginsburg, president of the Center for Studying Health System Change, a Washington think tank, says the health care system is actually in a better position to handle a halt in government payments than many other sectors of the economy. “Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries are going to be able to get care for a while, while if a store is selling something and people don’t have money to buy it, that will hit immediately,” he says.

Salo agrees that by the time health providers are in serious trouble, everyone else will be too. “If we go into default for a really long time,” he says, “I’m guessing cash flow in Medicaid is not going to be the biggest of our concerns.”

Kaiser Health News staff writers Julie Appleby, Mary Agnes Carey, Juan E. Gastelum, Peggy Girshman, Shefali S. Kulkarni and Bara Vaida contributed to this story.

– Provided by Kaiser Health News.

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Washington, DC, United States (KaiserHealth) – The federal health law, which will expand coverage to 30 million currently uninsured Americans, will have little effect on the nation’s rising health spending in the next decade, a government report said today.

The report by the Medicare Office of the Actuary estimated that health spending will grow by an average of 5.8 percent a year through 2020, compared to 5.7 percent without the health overhaul. With that growth, the nation is expected to spend $4.6 trillion on health care in 2020, nearly double the $2.6 trillion spent last year.

Health law critics said the report confirmed their concerns. “Most of us understood the health reform law was about expanding coverage not cutting costs,” said Joseph Antos, a health policy expert at the conservative-leaning American Enterprise Institute.

But White House Deputy Chief of Staff Nancy-Ann DeParle said the report showed Americans were getting a good deal. “The bottom line from the report is clear: more Americans will get coverage and save money and health expenditure growth will remain virtually the same,” she said on the White House blog.

DeParle, who helped lead the White House efforts on the overhaul, said several delivery system reforms being tested under the health law will work to lower spending. “We know these new provisions will save money for the health care system, even if today’s report doesn’t credit these strategies with reducing costs,” she said. She pointed to new programs that administration officials have said they hope to implement changing the way Medicare and Medicaid pay doctors and hospitals.

National health spending in 2010 grew at its slowest rate ever recorded – 3.9 percent – as a result of more Americans forgoing treatment because they had lost their jobs and their health coverage, said the report, which is being published online today by the journal Health Affairs. In 2009, health spending grew by 4 percent.

The report estimates that spending on health will accelerate this year because the economy is expected to improve and people would have more disposable income to spend on medical care.

In 2014, when the major coverage expansions of the health law begin to take effect, national health spending is expected to grow 8.3 percent, according to the new analysis. But spending growth should return to its 6 percent historical average from 2015 to 2020 as some employers drop coverage and the so called “Cadillac tax” on high-cost insurance plans takes effect in 2018. “The effect is likely to be a slowdown in the growth of health services, health insurance premiums and health spending overall,” the study said.

Meredith Rosenthal, a health economist at Harvard School of Public Health, said it is difficult to predict what impact the health law will have on slowing national health spending. “Many of the components of the law that are intended to control costs are still in draft form,” she said citing experiments such as accountable care organizations and bundled payments that change how Medicare pays providers.

The number of Americans with employer-sponsored insurance will grow from 163 million last year to 170 million in 2014, the report estimated. But by 2020 that number is expected to drop to 168 million as a result of two factors: Baby Boomers joining Medicare and employers dropping health coverage for workers. Most of those workers would turn to new state insurance exchanges – or marketplaces -or Medicaid, the federal-state health program for low-income and disabled people.

The issue over how many employers would stop offering coverage has been a political flash point since the health law was approved in March 2010. Democrats maintain most employers would continue to provide coverage, but Republicans and other critics predict many companies would drop it because their workers will be able to go to new health exchanges. Starting in 2014, the health law requires all employers with 50 or more workers to provide coverage or pay a fine.

The Congressional Budget Office – the neutral scorekeeper – estimates that, by the end of the decade, 3 million fewer people will get health insurance from their employer. That’s slightly more than the Office of Actuary prediction.

The study authors stressed their projections could vary depending on many factors, including the overall state of the economy and how quickly people sign up for new coverage.

“These projections are definitely uncertain and that increases as we move along in the projection period,” said Sean Keehan, a study author and an economist in the Office of the Actuary.

The Medicare actuaries acknowledged that they were off on one of their estimates last year. At that time, they predicted that national spending in 2009 would grow by 5.8 percent, instead of the 4 percent growth that the report said actually occurred. Keehan said one of the factors helping push that prediction off the mark was that fewer people than expected joined COBRA plans after losing their jobs and that resulted in fewer people with health coverage and less spending.

The office also predicted last year about 375,000 people would sign up for new Pre-existing Condition Insurance Plans by 2013. But since the plans began a year ago under the health law, only about 20,000 people have signed up.

CMS Chief Actuary Rick Foster attributed the lack of public awareness of the new insurance pools for the less-than-anticipated participation. He said his office took into account the low participation rates in making estimates for enrollment in Medicaid and insurance exchanges starting in 2014.

The report estimated about 13.9 million people would enroll in new state-based insurance exchanges in 2014 and the number of uninsured would drop by nearly 20 million in that year. Given how many millions of eligible people don’t sign up today for Medicaid, that prediction is highly speculative, said Steven Findlay, an analyst at Consumers Union.

– Provided by Kaiser Health News.

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Tampa, FL, United States (AHN) – The United States Postal service announced on Tuesday it is considering closing thousands of post office locations across the city.

The decision to shutter locations comes as the financially embattled agency said it will review 3,653 local offices, branches and stations for as it is trying to deal with a growing deficit.

Many of the stations that are slated for closing will be replaced by village post offices, where postal services are offered in stores, libraries or government offices.

“It’s no secret that the Postal Service is looking to change the way we do a lot of things,” Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe said Tuesday. “We do feel that we are still relevant to the American public and the economy, but we have to make some tough choices.”

The Postal Service is also considering other cost-cutting measures including eliminating Saturday delivery.

The USPS currently operates 31,871 outlets across the country; however that figure is down from 38,000 a decade ago. Business has declined dramatically for the agency with the widespread use of e-mail and the recession caused a decline in advertising mail.

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Jerusalem, Israel David Rosenberg – Three Turkish soldiers were killed in the southeastern province of Mardin over the weekend in an ambush laid to Kurdish nationalists, while in Istanbul police detained some 70 people following days of inter-communal violence, amid growing signs that the uneasy peace between the two sides is unraveling.

More worryingly, analysts warned, the disturbances in Istanbul could signal a new chapter in the Turkish government’s decades-long fight with Kurdish nationalists as the conflict moves to the cities. They also point to opinion polls that show a growing polarization between Turks and Kurds.

“We had two years when we had extremely positive developments — up to the elections,” said Hugh Pope, project director for Turkey and Cyprus at the International Crisis Group. “The elections supplied an amazingly positive-looking parliament in that there were 36 people from Kurdish nationalist party elected. Now, we’re seeing a setback.”

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, fresh from a third-term election victory last month, has sought to press forward with democratic reforms to the constitution and ensure the economy stays on its growth trajectory. But some analysts worry that the recent violence risks spinning into the carnage of the 1984-2007 period when fighting between Turkish forces and the PKK claimed some 40,000 lives.

The three Turkish soldiers killed over the weekend brought the total number of casualties attributed to the outlawed Kurdish Workers Party (PKK) to 21 since election day. Thirteen of them were killed in a July 14 ambush. In response, Erdogan vowed that Kurdish rebels would pay a “heavy price.” But, in fact, the killings had the immediate effect of sparking inter-communal tensions.

In Istanbul’s Zeytinburnu district, nightly clashes erupted, spurred by social media and what police say were rumors of killings and arson designed to encourage tensions. At an Istanbul jazz concert shortly after the killings, Aynur Dogan was booed by audience members for singing in the Kurdish language.

“That night we again saw the real reason behind the insolvability of Kurdish problem,” wrote Cem Erciyes, a journalist for the newspaper Radikal.

Fadi Hakura, a Turkey specialist at the British research institution Chatham House, said the fighting, once principally confined to the Kurdish southeast, may spread to the cities with what he called a “mass popular mobilization.”

Kurds make up about 20 percent of Turkey’s population, but they are concentrated in the southeast, adjacent to Kurdish areas in Syria, Iraq and Iran. However, they have flooded into the cities as the army’s crackdown on Kurds’ traditional strongholds made many homeless and economic growth has created urban job opportunities.

“If the stagnation and confrontations escalate between the Turks and Kurdish nationalists, this is likely to put further strain in inter-communal ties. Already there are hints that the strings have begun to fray,” Hakura told The Media Line.

The stagnation relates to the political and cultural opening that Erdogan promised in 2009, which included easing restrictions on the use of the Kurdish language and more access to government assistance. But after some initial progress, the drive bogged because Erdogan, like many Turks, see Kurdish aspirations as a challenge to Turkish unity.

“Although the AKP has adopted more relaxed attitude towards Kurds compared to previous governments it’s still a nationalist party that doesn’t agree with many of the demands put forth by the Kurdish nationalists,” said Hakura, referring to Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP.)

The PKK ended its six-month-old unilateral ceasefire with the government in February and adopted what it calls an “active defense,” whereby its fighters defend themselves if threatened. Meanwhile, Kurds pressing for change using ordinary political channels ran up against strong opposition.

Hundreds of people belonging to the Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (BDP), including lawmakers, are being prosecuted under what Human Rights Watch calls draconian anti-terror laws. Shortly before elections, Turkey’s High Elections Board barred some Kurdish candidates from running, prompting widespread violence and a quick retreat from the ruling.

Nevertheless, Erdogan’s AKP captured 30 seats in Kurdish areas while the BDP won 36 in the June elections. Pope, of the International Crisis Group, said the two sides should have seen the split vote as a sign of their respective strengths and moved to negotiate.

Instead, six of the BDP lawmakers remain in jail and the rest have refused to take the oath of office until they are released. Two week ago, an umbrella organization of the Kurdish figures and groups, the Democratic Society Congress, or DTK, announced a declaration of democratic autonomy for Kurds, provoking a sharp criticism from many Turks.

“There is a problem in the media coverage. There is very little understanding in mainstream Turkish public opinion about what the Kurds want,” he said. “You have an ingrained habit of violence. The democratic opening we had over last two years went some way to counter that, and now we’re seeing a reversion.”

Analysts disagree about how big a role the upheavals of the Arab Spring are playing either as an inspiration for popular unrest or because turmoil has created a security vacuum in neighboring countries, making it easier for PKK fighters to move across the border into Turkey.

Hakura and Pope are doubtful, saying the Kurds are mainly influenced by domestic issues. But Mehmet Kalyoncus, an independent political analyst writing in Today’s Zaman, a newspaper close to the AKP, warned that Syria, Iraq and Iran could all serve as staging ground for PKK operations inside Turkey even after the Arab Spring turmoil subsides.

“Syria will also be paralyzed by an internal conflict and instability in a way that would prevent Damascus from functioning as an effective regional partner for Ankara in the foreseeable future,” he wrote in a commentary on Monday. “Iran is [also] highly likely to experience popular unrest in the coming years.”

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Los Angeles, CA, United States (AHN Sports) – With the next NBA season remains uncertain, the Los Angeles Lakers made a drastic cost-cutting measure by dumping the expiring contract of assistant GM Ronnie Lester and 19 other staffers, a source close to situation reported Saturday.

The Orange County Register reported Saturday the Lakers have decided not to renew the expiring contracts of 20 employees, including some of its long-time staffers.

According to the publication, the Lakers are expected to cut ties with performance coordinator Alex McKechnie, video coordinator Patrick O’Keefe, Director of athletic performance and player development Chip Schaefer, Equipment manager Rudy Garciduenas, video coordinator Chris Bodaken, and Lester.

Lester, the man behind the selection of Lakers center Andrew Bynum in the 2005 NBA Draft, had been a part of the franchise for 24 years but the lagging economy forced him out of the purple-and-gold.

Meanwhile, McKechnie found it easy to move on after landing a job with the Toronto Raptors.

One of the most respectable trainers in the NBA, McKechnie has been credited for his core strengthening work with Pau Gasol and Shaquille O’Neal.

The moves could signal the onset of a new era under the tutelage of Lakers owner Jim Buss.

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2009 and 2010 was a bad time for business. The entire world economy went through a bad phase. Companies shut shops globally, people lost their jobs and consumer started fearing purchases. One thing was noticeable though. Companies that could afford went on advertising. They simply could not let go of their advertisement spending. Yes, advertisement budgets were cut, the frequency of advertisements diminished but the advertisements were there for all to see. This gives us the picture that even when business is down, companies need to be visible in the minds of the consumers. For Vancouver businesses, visibility is similarly important and can be attained through the services of any Vancouver logo designer and Vancouver business card designer. For any company, a logo is a must. People forget the names of companies but they remember the logos. That is why, every year, millions are spent researching the most popular logos and this popularity is directly proportional to the most popular companies.

In a city like Vancouver, where competition for every product is intense, a professionally designed company logo is a must for any business to thrive. No company can afford to run its shop without a logo. From multinationals to small coffee shops – every one has a logo of their own. And they hire a Vancouver logo designer to do this job. There are many Vancouver logo designer companies in the city and some of them really do a good job of it. Logo designing requires people to have an aesthetic sense. They get to the core of the customer need and transform those needs to design logos that are eye catching for the company as well as for its customers. A well designed logo is so powerful that by simply looking at it, people can tell you which company it represents. The Mercedes Benz logo is so famous that they don’t even put their names on any of their automobiles. While a logo is for the general public to see, a business card is also a powerful tool when it comes to specific clients. Smart and professional business cards exude the culture of the company and represent it even when put in the business card folder of the client. The mere visibility of the logo ensures that clients remember the company and its products and services. Any professional Vancouver business card designer can use the modern technology and create a fantastic and smart looking business card for your business and you.

When you meet someone and present that business card of yours, you are opening up new avenues to do further business. As an entrepreneur, it is almost a cardinal sin not to carry your business cards with you. This rule applies to company executives too. A business card is the face of the individual and the company he or she represents. Get a reliable and professionally managed Vancouver business card designer to create that special business card for you and reap the benefits. Research, find and negotiate – this is the mantra for finding a good Vancouver logo designer and a Vancouver business card designer. A professional Vancouver logo designer and a Vancouver business card designer will enable your business to earn its brand in the market.

Abidjan, Ivory Coast (IRIN) – National and international truth, reconciliation and justice mechanisms being set up in Côte d’Ivoire must be impartial and independent to have any credibility, say analysts and rights groups. But most importantly, grassroots reconciliation efforts must guard social cohesion as their central goal. IRIN spoke to analysts to explore justice options.

Post-election violence in late 2010 killed at least 3,000 people, displaced some 500,000, and left hundreds of thousands dependent on humanitarian assistance, according to the UN.

A preliminary investigation by the International Criminal Court (ICC) is under way in Côte d’Ivoire, focusing on allegations of atrocities committed between 2002 and 2005.

A separate ICC investigation, if it goes ahead, would also look into “the most serious crimes” committed since December 2010.

Côte d’Ivoire is not a signatory of the Rome Statute which allows the ICC to have jurisdiction over a country. However, on 28 June 2011 Ivoirian Justice Minister Jeannot Ahoussou Kouadio signed a cooperation agreement with the court, confirming the government would recognize the final results of any investigations the ICC launches – which could target both sides of the post-election battle. This acceptance of ICC jurisdiction is critical.

The ICC prosecutor has concluded there is a “reasonable basis” to open an investigation.

Opportunities, challenges

“You have to admire the current government’s endeavor to put an end to impunity,” Charles Sanga, editor of pro-government paper Le Patriote, told IRIN. “Impunity had practically become the rule in Côte d’Ivoire… One thousand and one crimes were committed under Gbagbo’s regime, but there was never any trial. Today, within two months of being in power, [President Allasane] Ouattara has invited the ICC, and they have already completed a preliminary investigation [visit].”

The ICC will work only if it remains independent of politics; does not undermine traditional criminal proceedings; if the timing works well with grassroots reconciliation efforts; and if those collecting evidence are well-trained and professional, human rights representatives told IRIN.

Selective justice, and official amnesia are the biggest challenges, said Patrick N’Gouan, who heads the main civil rights group collective in Côte d’Ivoire, Convention for Civil Society.

To be fair the ICC must also take into account crimes committed over the past decade. “Only if there is equality and fairness can we have reconciliation… Whatever the organization in question, an investigation must go back to at least 2002 because the Ivoirian crisis has its roots before 2010.”

The crimes committed in late 2010 were similar to those witnessed before, he said. “Perhaps not on the same scale… but… our expectations haven’t really been fulfilled, either by the public powers or by the international jurisdictions.”

Other challenges include accurately targeting the perpetrators of violence, since the degree of control that Ouattara and Prime Minister Guillaume Soro had over their troops is unclear.

Indeed, it is still unclear who exactly makes up Ouattarra’s Republicaine Forces of Côte d’Ivoire (FRCI), as many of his supporters, and opportunists, pass themselves off as force members, residents of the commercial capital Abidjan told IRIN.

Any investigation will need to bear in mind regional dynamics, said N’Gouan. High-level Gbagbo allies implicated in abuses have been variously sighted in Ghana, Senegal and Benin, according to local press reports. Liberian mercenaries are also believed to have been implicated in killings and violence n the west. Gbagbo has denied recruiting such mercenaries, according to independent Ivoirian daily L’Inter.

Truth and reconciliation commission

A Dialogue, Truth and Reconciliation Commission is currently being set up headed by former Prime Minister Charles Konan Banny. The “truth” part of the commission opened on 20 July.

The commission is to be modeled on a mixture of South Africa’s post-apartheid commission, which operated on a national scale, and Rwanda’s national unity and reconciliation commissions, with their focus on reconciliation at the grass-roots level.

Following a presidential decree, the committee running it will be composed of imams and members of the Episcopalian church, as well as civil society members. “Our role is to move away from instrumentalized reconciliation. Every Ivoirian from every group must be on board for this to work,” committee spokesperson Franck Kouassi Sran told IRIN.

The commission faces the enormous task of cementing a nation that was bitterly divided along ethnic lines even before the 2002 civil uprising led to two separate administrations.

Thus far, some 150 meetings have taken place between the committee and local chiefs, NGOs, armed forces and the press, among others, Sran added.

Concrete action, not just talk

Rights groups and observers in the local media have been quick to warn against reconciliation becoming a catchphrase that hides a lack of concrete action. The Commission must not distract the government from addressing underlying issues of unemployment, crumbling basic services , and land reform , civil society representatives told IRIN.

Any work done by the committee must be impartial, they stress. “The Commission was composed by Ouattara, and the head was appointed by Ouattara. But as civil society observers, we believe that all actions towards reconciliation by the committee must be fair, consensual and transparent,” said N’Gouan.

Many who have fled the country are deeply skeptical that such a Commission could be impartial. “You’re going to go to talk to a Commission, tell them how your family was killed and you want to forgive, then what?” Barakissa Ouédraogo, one of more than 100,000 Burkinabé who fled Côte d’Ivoire for Burkina Faso, told IRIN. “You return to the street because your home is flattened.”

National prosecutions

As the Commission gets set up, national criminal proceedings are going ahead. Newly-appointed Public Prosecutor Simplice Kouadio Koffi has replaced the former prosecutor, Raymond Tchimou, who left the country on 31 March 2011 and has not yet returned. Tchimou was known as a Gbagbo ally, who handled contentious cases including the Trafigura scandal and the jailing of prominent cocoa barons.

This year some 15 pro-Gbagbo associates have been charged; seven international arrest warrants have been issued; and 15 senior staff from the previous regime are under house detention without charge.

No FRCI members have been arrested or detained, despite extensive reports of their involvement in war crimes and potential crimes against humanity by the Commission of Inquiry, the UN Operations in Côte d’Ivoire, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and the International Federation for Human Rights.

Indeed, some have been elevated to senior positions within the new regime. The UN Human Rights Commission handling the investigation said: “At present, it has not been informed of credible judicial procedures against FRCI elements accused of human rights violations.”

Laurent Gbagbo, his wife Simone Gbagbo, and 13 other high-level officials from the former regime are under house arrest in the north of the country. None have yet been charged by the public prosecutor.

Among them are former minister Alcide Djedje, and Philippe Henri Dacoury-Tabley, head of the central bank. They were accused of money laundering, forming armed groups and undermining state authority. Trials have yet to take place. On 9 July, all were transferred to Boundiali prison, 600 kilometers north of Abidjan.

International arrest warrants

International arrest warrants have also been issued for other members of Gbagbo’s cabinet who have since fled. The potential defendants include former Young Patriots militia leader Charles Blé Goudé; former national treasurer Djedje Mama; former presidential spokesperson Ahoua Don Mello; former minister Philippe Attey; and the ex-envoy to Israel Raymond Koudou Kessie.

The prosecutor said Charles Blé Goudé was accused of inciting ethnic violence and xenophobia. Goudé has peddled a potent xenophobic rhetoric which allegedly contributed to street riots and the evacuation of thousands of foreigners in 2004, and mobilized a mass recruitment of young men to the army as the crisis came to a head. He has been under UN sanctions since 2006.

Prosecuting those accused of atrocities could help close a painful chapter for many people across the country, some Abidjan residents told IRIN. University student Alexis, 25, who did not wish to share his surname, is one of thousands who celebrated the news of Gbagbo’s arrest. His father, a taxi driver, was kidnapped by pro-Gbagbo soldiers in December along with three other neighbors.

“To this day we don’t know why he was taken – no-one in my family cares at all for politics… My mother and five siblings still hope we’ll find him alive. The only peace I can get is to at least see some justice for him.”

A UN Commission of Inquiry report presented to the UN Human Rights Council on 15 June urged impartial and transparent trials of those responsible for “grave crimes”. The Commission has a list of suspects most responsible for post-election crimes, but has chosen to keep it from the public.

The prolonged silence on the future of both Gbagbo and his wife, a key party member, is starting to attract criticism. A 1963 law aimed at preventing public unrest allows them and 13 other senior officials to be held indefinitely, but President Ouattara is under pressure to make a decision.

Gbagbo’s Paris-based lawyers say they have been denied entry to see their client and question his continued detention without trial. Lawyers for those being held in Boundiali have said their client’s transfer is “illegal” and could “considerably compromise” their rights as detainees.

Tit-for-tat justice

There appears to be a growing divide between the Ouattara government’s pledges of impartial justice for all and a selective application of that justice, according to critics.

Reconciliation in this context is “incompatible” with justice, according to Eugene Djue, a member of the National Congress of Resistance and Democracy which regroups pro-Gbagbo partisans. “If we pursue a tit-for-tat justice, there’s a risk of creating new problems. At the moment it’s as if we’re moving on from armed warfare to a cold war against Mr Gbagbo’s supporters. If we continue this way, it will be a justice of cold revenge.”

There has also been mounting anger in some circles that presidential pardons have not been issued, as Gbagbo did when he came to power in 2000. “It’s understandable when people say there must be justice, but this crisis dates from 2002. The [former rebels, now national army] New Forces have never been brought to trial; even those who authored the 1999 coup weren’t imprisoned. That’s not to say those who are currently imprisoned or in exile are innocent, but in the spirit of reconciliation, they should be pardoned,” Djue explains.

Before any cases can be heard, establishing a reasonably independent state security and judiciary apparatus, whose cores disintegrated under the weight of the conflict, will be needed.

Security reform

Security sector reform looks to be a long way off, said a UN official who preferred anonymity. Mutual suspicion remains amid two armed forces now forced to operate as one.

A clearer political vision is needed to outline what the future Ivoirian military should look like, she continued. “What type of defense forces does Côte d’Ivoire need? What role must it fulfill, and what size should it be?”

Security sector reform should entail disarming and demobilizing a significant proportion of the FRCI, and training and professionalizing others. Thousands of fighters who were once with the rebel forces are untrained, and many were implicated in unlawful killings during the violence. Youths who took up arms in late 2010 will also need to be demobilized and reintegrated into society.

The vast majority of them were poor and out of work, according to Carlos Geha, deputy head of office at the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Abidjan. “There is a fundamental link between the crisis and the economy. It’s a vicious circle… If we don’t resolve this problem of unemployment, we risk finding ourselves back at square one in the next five or 10 years.”

Côte d’Ivoire experienced a severe economic crisis from the mid-1980s until the end of the 1990s, which encouraged the birth of a multiparty state, some of whose political parties thrived on economic sluggishness, according to Western diplomats. During this period youth became more impoverished and jobs harder to find, which made it easier for both sides of the political divide to compel them to take up arms, particularly in the rebel-held north.

“It is too early to say Côte d’Ivoire is no longer in crisis… There are more than 200,000 people who have fled the country and are yet to return. More than half a million are displaced. More than 200,000 depend on humanitarian assistance and will continue to depend on it until the end of the year. All the farmers and market gardeners will need continuing humanitarian assistance. The ravaged hospitals, the destroyed schools, they all need to be rebuilt,” he said.

Côte d’Ivoire will be dependent on international aid for at least another six months, Geha estimates. According to Souleymane Ouattara, an economist with the French embassy, the economy will require the support of serious financial partners, including the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the African Development Bank to rebuild.

Only within this framework of shoring up the country’s infrastructure and economic stability, can grassroots or high-level justice mechanisms work, analysts agree. But a deeper process of social reconciliation is also needed if justice outcomes are not to be violently rejected.

“The most important factor is social unity, and social unity, by definition, isn’t built up in a few months,” Jacques Seurt, editor of pro-government newspaper Le Patriote, told IRIN. “It takes time because it’s about changing perceptions and the fears and the hate that have accumulated over the past few years in the minds of each Ivoirian, so that each person can learn to live with his neighbors again, no matter their differences.”

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Major incidents for investigation

Kidnappings and killings: Rights groups documented reports of political kidnappings, disappearances and executions in Abidjan from December 2010 onwards. Most of the victims were Ouattara supporters. On 3 March 2011, the army fired onto a crowd of female demonstrators in the Abidjan suburb of Abobo. The UN also reported dozens of deaths in the Ouattara stronghold, sometimes on a daily basis, as army tanks and rocket-propelled grenades were used against civilians.

Mass graves: The UN Office in Cote d’Ivoire (UNOCI) was repeatedly blocked from investigating three alleged sites of mass graves during the five-month conflict. In an April 2011 press conference, UNOCI director of Human Rights Guillaume Nguefa said none of the sites were found to be mass graves, but conceded they may have been tampered with by the time UNOCI gained access. Ten mass graves have been unearthed in Abidjan, including one containing some 50 bodies in Youpougon. The victims were alleged to have been killed by Gbagbo supporters.

Racketeering and smuggling: On 18 March, Ouattara legitimized the former rebel movement Les Forces Nouvelles, recognizing them as the official army, known as the Republican Army of Cote d’Ivoire (FRCI). Many of these forces were reportedly warlords who had grown rich from racketeering and smuggling. Guillaume Soro, the former head of the rebel movement, has come under fierce criticism from rights-groups for retaining his position as prime minister despite being accused of involvement in war crimes during the previous conflict. Ouattara’s appointment of the former rebel military chief, Soumaïlia Bakayoko, as head of the army in June provoked intense anger among his detractors.

Duékoué deaths: The western districts of Moyen Cavally and Dix-Huit Montagnes saw fierce fighting as pro-Ouattara fighters launched an offensive in March. Around one third of the 3,000 deaths – the UN estimate of the minimum toll – occurred in the western town of Duékoué alone. The volatile region has long remained out of government control. On 2 April, the International Red Cross and Catholic NGO Caritas said the bodies of up to 1,000 victims were found in mass graves. The victims were primarily from the Guéré ethnic group allied to Gbagbo’s Bété tribe, but also included significant members of northern tribes who form the base of Ouattara’s support group.

Gbagbo’s alleged economic crimes: As well as overseeing a period of lawlessness that generated looting and break-ins which devastated the economy, Gbagbo is accused of specific economic crimes. These include breaking into the Abidjan-based central bank to steal reserves stored there, and the illegal removal of state funds from the headquarters of the central bank in Dakar.

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– Provided by Integrated Regional Information Networks.

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