Tom Brady and Gisele Bundchen soak up sun in Mexico
While the Pittsburgh Steelers and Arizona Cardinals geared up for Super Bowl Sunday, New England Patriots [ QB/QT Tom Brady spent a carefree weekend canoodling poolside with his supermodel GF in sunny Puerto Vallarta, Mexico.
Tommy and his bikini-clad glamazon, Gisele Bundchen, smooched, relaxed and fed each other like babies as they lounged by the pool at a romantic five-star resort in the Mexican vacation hot spot. Gisele, who was fresh off a week in her native Brazil, where she walked the runway for Sao Paulo Fashion Week, obviously needed a rest, the poor thing.
And Tom, well, he’s been pretty much resting since he got knocked out of the season’s first game with a knee catastrophe!
Anyway, the ever-popular paparazzi snapped the happy pair as they oiled up and did a little sunbathing. Later, the celeb couple dozed in their comfy lounge chairs, then ordered some lunch and fed one another. Which is a little gagful if you ask us . . . .
No word on whether No. 12 plans to attend the festivities in Tampa, Fla., later this week with teammates Matt Cassel, Matt Light and others. But do stay tuned . . .
Biggest cheesecake-world record set by Mexico Chefs
MEXICO CITY, Mexico -- A giant cheesecake, with 2.5 meters
in diameter, 55 centimeters in height and 2 tons in weight,
was made by 55 chefs and 5 student chefs, costed 800
kilograms of cheese and sets the world record for the
Biggest cheesecake.
The monster cake used nearly a ton of cream cheese, the
same amount of yogurt, 350 kilograms (772 pounds) of pastry,
250 kilograms (551 pounds) of sugar and 150 kilograms (331
pounds) of butter./AP photo- Eduardo Verdugo
Chef Miguel Angel Quezada says 55 cooks spent 60 hours
making the world's biggest cheesecake - a 2-ton calorie bomb
topped with strawberries.
The event was sponsored by Kraft Foods, maker of
Philadelphia cream cheese. Organizers gave out 20,000 slices
around Mexico City.
El Jimador Tequila Unveils the Spirit of Real Tequila
New Marketing Campaign Touts "100% Agave, 100% Real"
LOUISVILLE, Ky., Jan. 26 /PRNewswire/ -- Brown-Forman Corp. announced today that its el Jimador Tequila brand is introducing a 100% blue agave tequila product in the U.S. el Jimador Tequila is also rolling out a striking new package and will be accompanied by a nationwide integrated marketing campaign, 100% Agave, 100% Real.
"Produced and bottled at Casa Herradura and currently the number-one selling tequila in Mexico, el Jimador is quickly becoming the tequila of choice for U.S. consumers looking for a high quality, authentic tequila at an accessible price," said John Hayes, Senior Vice President, Managing Director, Tequilas. "Made from 100% agave using traditional tequila-making process at Casa Herradura, el Jimador has a smooth and balanced taste that is easy-to-drink."
el Jimador's signature cocktail, the Authentic Jimador Paloma, is the most popular tequila cocktail in Mexico and is rapidly growing as the tequila consumption choice for US consumers seeking an authentic tequila cocktail. The Paloma cocktail, a mix of tequila and Fresca(R) or Squirt(R), leverages the growing trend of grapefruit popularity in the US and adds a refreshing spin to tequila cocktails.
"Consumers seeking refreshment and authenticity will be pleased with our high-quality and smooth tasting 100% agave tequila," said Jesus Ostos, U.S. Brand Manager for el Jimador. "The price for el Jimador will also remain the same so that consumers can continue to enjoy premium tequila at an accessible price."
The new packaging of el Jimador moves the brand presentation to a tall, angular bottle, while retaining the brand's core signature icon - the Jimador himself. el Jimador is named after the proud men that harvest the finest agave plants used for making the tequila. The premium packaging beautifully showcases the range of product color; the crystal clear blanco, the golden hue of the reposado and the rich, amber anejo.
Created by AOR Draftfcb Chicago, in conjunction with the Draftfcb Mexico City, the 100% Agave, 100% Real campaign delivers a primary brand message; in a world where everyone associates tequila with celebration, el Jimador is the most authentic tequila celebration. This authenticity is brought to life through a visual of a Mexican wood carving (created by an artist, Claudio Limon, in Guadalajara, the region of Mexico where el Jimador is made). The wood carving illustrates the brand story and is a tapestry of icons and symbols that relate to el Jimador's history, production process and tequila celebration. The bilingual campaign will include television, print, out-of-home, POS and interactive.
Casa Herradura was named "2007 Best Distiller of the Year" by Wine Enthusiast magazine. Since 2000, el Jimador has received numerous accolades from industry insiders, including the Adams Beverage Media Growth Brand Award in the Fast Track Category for 2005 and 2006.
Mexican rides to rescue of America's greatest paper
Last week billionaire Carlos Slim pumped $250m into the New York Times, but can the loan save the 'Grey Lady', asks James Doran in New York
Carlos Slim's multi-million-dollar investment in the New York Times is being closely watched by Rupert Murdoch. Photograph: Marcelo Salinas/AP
Carlos Slim may have built his $60bn fortune in telecommunications, property and retail, but the Mexican billionaire has ink in his veins.
His mother, Linda Helú, would tell him stories when he was a boy in Mexico City of how her father, José, brought the first Arabic printing press to South America and published Mexico's first Arabic magazine. The publication set the family of Lebanese immigrants on the road to prosperity and influence. You could even say it was the foundation of their fortune.
Today, more than a century after the first copies of that magazine rattled off the hand-driven presses, Slim is returning to his roots. Last week, the billionaire extended a $250m loan to the New York Times through two companies he controls to help it to cover debt repayments. Less than six months ago, he spent millions more building a 6.9% stake in America's most-prized newspaper company. His repeated multi-million-dollar injections of cash, which have made him the second-biggest shareholder in the New York Times after the founding Sulzberger family, have set tongues wagging in the newsroom that there soon may be a new owner in town.
Rupert Murdoch, a few blocks north of the New York Times in the News Corporation building, is watching Slim's growing stake in the newspaper with interest. The last thing Murdoch needs is a stronger New York Times, more able to do battle with his recently purchased and newly invigorated Wall Street Journal
Although struggling financially and under pressure from institutional shareholders, the Times already has a nationwide distribution network and is considered the only truly nationally available quality daily paper in America. USA Today is available nationwide but lacks the influence and gravitas of the "Grey Lady", as the Times is known. The Wall Street Journal is available in many markets - and with more than 2m daily sales has a much larger circulation than the New York Times, with 1.6m - but is a long way from its goal of being a real national with broad appeal.
The New York Times's troubles are many. The company has more than $1.1bn of debt, advertising revenues are falling fast, circulation is in decline, and angry shareholders seem constantly to be at the gate demanding management take drastic action.
Who can blame them? New York Times shares have lost more than 60% of their value in the past year alone, and more than 80% of their value since 2004. But what can management do? The dual threats of the internet and a declining interest in reading are nothing new. The Times has built one of the most impressive web presences of all global newspapers and has the data to show it is one of the most popular in the world. But its online success has done little to improve the company's financial performance.
With the advertising outlook unlikely to improve any time soon, the Times needs someone with deep pockets to step in to save the day - and it has found that saviour in Slim.
He is a man who rarely talks about his investments, and he has not indicated whether he has ambitions any greater than his current minority stake. The loan, for example, could be said to be a prime example of his opportunism and nothing more. The $250m line of credit - extended by Slim's finance house Banco Inbursa and his property company Inmobiliaria Carso - is a savvy deal that stands to reap him more than $35m a year in interest payments plus more shares in the Times by way of some handily crafted warrants. The deal is so good that Slim is certainly earning enough from the Times's debt to make up for the millions he is losing on his equity investment in the company.
Slim, 67, made his first fortune in 1990 when he bought the state telephone operator Teléfonos de México (Telmex) in a privatisation. He also owns América Móvil, the biggest mobile phone operator in South America. América Móvil's reach is vast, especially since it signed a joint venture with Yahoo to provide mobile internet to 16 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean. He also owns interests in restaurant and retail chains in Mexico alongside an industrial conglomerate and a budget airline.
He has one of the largest collections of art in the world, housed in Mexico City's Museo Soumaya, which is named after his late wife. But, despite owning the largest collection of Rodin sculptures on Earth, Slim shuns extravagance. Much Like Warren Buffett, he has lived in the same modest house for 30 years, insists that his six children work for a living, does not own a jet or a yacht and has driven the same beaten-up car for as long as anyone can remember.
He does have his detractors, though, who claim he is a monopolist, pointing to Telmex's 90 per cent control of the domestic telephone market and América Móvil's continental ubiquity. Critics also point out that his $60bn was amassed on the backs of a workforce earning an average per capita income of $6,800 a year.
Indeed, his fortune equals 7% of Mexico's annual economic output. If Buffett's wealth was in the same proportion to the United States' gross domestic product, he would be worth $874bn rather than $62bn.
Slim's interests south of the border are so far-reaching that it is said you cannot get through a day in Mexico City without paying at least one peso to him.
But there are signs that Slim, who has as much power and influence as it is possible to amass in Mexico, is increasingly turning his attention to the United States - and his targets appear to be some of the icons of Wall Street and Main Street.
The crash in the markets and the economic downturn have provided him with greater and more diverse opportunities. In recent months he has invested $150m in Citigroup shares and amassed an 18.3% holding in luxury department store Saks Fifth Avenue - a stake so big that it forced the board to trigger its "poison pill" defence against a takeover.
But the New York Times is said to be his true prize. A majority stake in the newspaper publisher, coupled with his Mexican telecoms and internet interests, would give him a formidable launch pad in US media.
If he is prepared to stick by the Sulzbergers, help them weather the current storm and get to the next stage in news media modernisation, the paper might just stand a chance of beating Murdoch on the national stage and stopping the Wall Street Journal's advances.
Without him - or someone else with equally deep pockets and grand ambitions - the old Grey Lady doesn't have a hope.
Pemex looking away from US deepwater following reform
MEXICO CITY: Mexican state oil company Pemex does not need to consider E&P operations on the U.S. side of the Gulf of Mexico maritime border for the time being, company CEO Jesús Reyes Heroles told correspondents in response to a BNamericas question.
Pemex in the past was invited to participate in joint ventures in US waters but was waiting to see what changes last year's energy reform would bring.
The reform will allow the firm greater autonomy in managing its own finances and projects, which Pemex executives and government officials have often said will increase "execution capacity." Congress also approved a modified tax regime for deepwater operations, with deductions increased to US$16.50 a barrel from US$6.50 a barrel to facilitate E&P.
As a result, Pemex first should work to develop its own deepwater prospects before looking at U.S. areas such as the Perdido fold belt on the western side of the border or areas offshore Florida, he said.
"There are opportunities as attractive or more attractive than Perdido in the deepwater Gulf of Mexico. If there are equal or better opportunities, we should attend to them first," Reyes said.
"If there hadn't been a reform, we would be very active [in the U.S.]. But as there were reforms, what we need to do is see how to take advantage of them to be able to produce the deepwater Gulf of Mexico. We know there are very important prospects and very profitable opportunities from an economic perspective due to production costs and other factors," the executive added.
Pemex still is very interested in cross-border fields which straddle the U.S.-Mexico maritime border. However, the Mexican and U.S. governments need to reach an agreement on how such fields should be produced before development on both sides of the border can begin.
Energy minister Georgina Kessel recently announced the Mexican government had sent the U.S. state department a proposal for development of cross-border fields. Mexico hopes to begin talks soon with new U.S. President Barack Obama.
"We already had approached the previous administration. Now we will approach the new administration to try to reach an understanding faster," Reyes Heroles said.
Mexico and the U.S. have one treaty concerning cross-border fields that prohibits development of the area known as the western gap. The treaty expires in 2011. Fear of the so-called straw effect that could cause cross-border reserves to migrate toward U.S. well bores is widespread in Mexico.
Pemex E&P subsidiary PEP has secured five drilling rigs that can operate in water depths of 3,280 to 10,000 feet (1,000 to 3,048 m), two of which have already begun their contracts.
Noble Max Smith semisubmersible contracted from U.S. driller Noble (NYSE: NE) is drilling the firm's ninth deepwater well, Catamat-1, having completed the Tamha-1 well 250 km (155 miles) from Ciudad de Carmen in 2008.
Catamat is offshore Tecolutla, Veracruz state, in water depths of 1,229 m (4,032 ft). Noble began drilling the well on Dec. 28 last year, a Pemex spokesperson said.
Meanwhile, the Ocean Voyager semisubmersible contracted from U.S. driller Diamond Offshore was drilling the Tamil-1 deepwater well within the southwest marine region's Holok-Temoa asset as of mid-2008.
Pemex also has contracted the Larsen Oil & Gas semisubmersible PetroRig III, SeaDragon Offshore semisubmersible Oban B and IPC semisubmersible La Muralla III to begin operations in 2010. The former two can drill in depths of up to 7,000 feet (2,133 m), while the latter can drill in depths of 10,000 feet (3,048 m).
Pemex aims to have roughly 20 deepwater rigs operating in the near term, Reyes said.
Even 15 operational rigs would be a "great step forward" in determining how much oil lies below the Gulf's subsurface, the CEO said.
As traditional fields reach maturity and drag down national production, Pemex is attempting to enter the deepwater arena, where roughly half prospective hydrocarbons resources, or 29.5 billion BOE, are located.
But the company lacks the experience and finances to carry out extensive exploration.
Pemex plans to drill and complete 27 exploratory wells in the deepwater Gulf of Mexico basin through 2012.
Assuming reserves are discovered before 2010, Pemex estimates it will begin producing oil from its deepwater Golfo de México B project in 2015 with 13,000 b/d, with output increasing to 92,000 b/d by 2017.
No country for old men?
Fulfilling a longheld ambition, Ed Vulliamy drives the 2,000-mile length of the US-Mexico border and discovers a land of beauty, poverty and paradox
Of all the enthralling landscapes in America - and there are a few of them - none is more beguiling and awe-inspiring than that seen from the balcony outside room 258 on the upper floor of the La Quinta motel on Geronimo Avenue in El Paso, Texas, with a six-pack of beers, a lime, hot salsa and big bag of tortilla chips for company. In the mid-distance runs the border between the United States and Mexico, in two forms: a harsh wall decorated with barbed wire, and the trickle of the Rio Grande. And beyond the boundary lies the factory smoke, the sea of lights, the lure and menace of the most charismatic, libidinous, dangerous and daunting city I know: Ciudad Juárez. The scene is especially cogent at dusk, when fleets of cast-off American school buses have done their rounds dumping off workers from the duty-free maquiladora sweatshop factories, so that a layer of grey, gossamer-thin dust wraps the lanes like snow, only the desert breeze is as warm as a hair-dryer.
This is the midway point of a journey I had always promised myself I would make from the Pacific to the Gulf, along the busiest border in the world, but a borderland that is a country in its own right, which belongs to both the US and Mexico, yet neither. I call this terrain - 2,000 miles long and about 100 miles wide - "Amexica".
Amexica is a place of paradox - of love and violence, opportunity and poverty, sex and cruelty, beauty and fear - and even the frontier itself is simultaneously porous and harsh. While the wall, patrols, customs and sniffer dogs endeavour to control drugs and migrants crossing the border, El Paso, like the other 13 twin cities of the US that face their Mexican neighbours across the frontier, is almost as essentially Hispanic as its counterpart. It is a border which 800,000 people cross every day. Families live astride - and workers commute across - the frontier; it takes 10 minutes to walk from downtown El Paso to main street Juárez, from what is supposed to be the First World into what looks like the Third, yet is not. The borderland has its own music, norteño, and its own Anglo-Spanish lexicon, spoken by both sides and written on the doors of bars: "Menores and Personas Armadas Strictly No Entrada".
Apocalypse in 2012? Date spawns theories, film
Just as "Y2K" and its batch of predictions about the year
2000 have become a distant memory, here comes
"Twenty-twelve."
Fueled by a crop of books, Web sites with countdown clocks, and claims about ancient timekeepers, interest is growing in what some see as the dawn of a new era, and others as an expiration date for Earth: December 21, 2012.
The date marks the end of a 5,126-year cycle on the Long Count calendar developed by the Maya, the ancient civilization known for its advanced understanding of astronomy and for the great cities it left behind in Mexico and Central America.
(Some scholars believe the cycle ends a bit later -- on December 23, 2012.)
Speculation in some circles about whether the Maya chose this particular time because they thought something ominous would happen has sparked a number of doomsday theories.
The hype also has mainstream Maya scholars shaking their heads.
"There's going to be a whole generation of people who, when they think of the Maya, think of 2012, and to me that's just criminal," said David Stuart, director of the Mesoamerica Center at the University of Texas at Austin.
"There is no serious scholar who puts any stock in the idea that the Maya said anything meaningful about 2012."
But take the fact that December 21, 2012, coincides with the winter solstice, add claims the Maya picked the time period because it also marks an alignment of the sun with the center of the Milky Way galaxy, and you have the makings of an online sensation.
Long Count 101
• The Long Count calendar was one of several created by the
ancient Maya.
• It consists of the following units of time:
kin = one day
uinal = 20 days
tun = 360 days (18 uinal)
katun = 7,200 days (20 tun)
baktun = 144,000 days (20 katun)
• The calendar shows the number of days elapsed since the
beginning date: August 13, 3114 B.C. (some scholars think
the date is actually August 11, 3114 B.C.)
• The dates are written as numbers separated by periods in
the following order:
(baktun).(katun).(tun).(uinal).(kin)
• July 20, 1969 -- the date of the first moon landing --
would be written as: 12.17.15.17.0
• December 21, 2012, would be written as 13.0.0.0.0 and the
day after that as 0.0.0.0.1
Type "2012" into an Internet search engine and you'll find survival guides, survival schools, predictions and "official stuff" to wear, including T-shirts with slogans such as "2012 The End" and "Doomsday 2012."
Theories about what might happen range from solar storms triggering volcano eruptions to a polar reversal that will make the Earth spin in the opposite direction.
If you think all of this would make a great sci-fi disaster movie, Hollywood is already one step ahead.
"2012," a special-effects flick starring John Cusack and directed by Roland Emmerich, of "The Day After Tomorrow" fame, is scheduled to be released this fall. The trailer shows a monk running to a bell tower on a mountaintop to sound the alarm as a huge wall of water washes over what appear to be the peaks of the Himalayas.
'Promoting a hoax'
One barometer of the interest in 2012 may be the "Ask an Astrobiologist" section of NASA's Web site, where senior scientist David Morrison answers questions from the public. On a recent visit, more than half of the inquiries on the most popular list were related to 2012.
"The purveyors of doom are promoting a hoax," Morrison wrote earlier this month in response to a question from a person who expressed fear about the date.
A scholar who has studied the Maya for 35 years said there is nothing ominous about 2012, despite the hype surrounding claims to the contrary.
"I think that the popular books... about what the Maya say is going to happen are really fabricated on the basis of very little evidence," said Anthony Aveni, a professor of astronomy, anthropology and Native American studies at Colgate University.
Aveni and Stuart are both writing their own books explaining the Mayan calendar and 2012, but Stuart said he's pessimistic that people will be interested in the real story when so many other books are making sensational claims.
Dozens of titles about 2012 have been published and more are scheduled to go on sale in the coming months. Current offerings include "Apocalypse 2012," in which author Lawrence Joseph outlines "terrible possibilities," such as the potential for natural disaster.
But Joseph admits he doesn't think the world is going to end.
"I do, however, believe that 2012 will prove to be... a very dramatic and probably transformative year," Joseph said.
The author acknowledged he's worried his book's title might scare people, but said he wanted to alert the public about possible dangers ahead.
He added that his publisher controls the book's title, though he had no issue with the final choice.
"If it had been called 'Serious Threats 2012' or 'Profound Considerations for 2012,' it would have never gotten published," Joseph said.
Growing interest
Another author said the doom and gloom approach is a great misunderstanding of 2012.
"The trendy doomsday people... should be treated for what they are: under-informed opportunists and alarmists who will move onto other things in 2013," said John Major Jenkins, whose books include "Galactic Alignment" and who describes himself as a self-taught independent Maya scholar.
Jenkins said that cycle endings were all about transformation and renewal -- not catastrophe -- for the Maya. He also makes the case that the period they chose coincides with an alignment of the December solstice sun with the center of the Milky Way, as viewed from Earth.
"Two thousand years ago the Maya believed that the world would be going through a great transformation when this alignment happened," Jenkins said.
But Aveni said there is no evidence that the Maya cared about this concept of the Milky Way, adding that the galactic center was not defined until the 1950s.
"What you have here is a modern age influence [and] modern concepts trying to garb the ancient Maya in modern clothing, and it just doesn't wash for me," Aveni said.
Meanwhile, he and other scholars are bracing for growing interest as the date approaches.
"The whole year leading up to it is going to be just crazy, I'm sorry to say," Stuart said.
"I just think it's sad, it really just frustrates me. People are really misunderstanding this really cool culture by focusing on this 2012 thing. It means more about us than it does about the Maya."