NAIROBI, Kenya - President Mwai Kibaki took the oath of office Sunday minutes after being declared the winner of a vote marred by allegations of rigging, as black smoke billowed from the impoverished slum home to thousands of rioting opposition supporters.

Elections chief Samuel Kivuitu, who read the results on live television after other media were expelled from the main vote headquarters, said Kibaki beat Raila Odinga by 231,728 votes in the closest race in Kenya’s history.

“This means Honorable Mwai Kibakiis the winner,” Kivuitu said.

Within minutes, black smoke rose above Nairobi’s sprawling Kibera slum, where thousands of people have been on the streets for the past two days shouting “Kibaki must go!” and claiming the vote was rigged. Violence around the country has killed at least 15 people since Saturday, authorities said.

“These are our guns,” said 24-year-old Cliff Owino, holding up a handful of rocks in Mathare, a Nairobi slum where young men were setting up roadblocks and building bonfires. “But a voting card is our atomic weapon.”

Others were waving machetes in the air as buses and shops burned.

Kibaki was sworn in shortly at State House shortly after the results were announced.

“We have done our nation proud and set a good example for the rest of the continent,” he said.

Earlier Sunday, Odinga called on Kibaki to concede and demanded a recount, saying the electoral commission “cannot possibly address the multiple levels of fraud administered by this administration.”

But Kibaki’s camp urged patience for the official results, and accused Odinga’s Orange Democratic Movement of being behind the violence. “ODM is responsible for all the incitement that is taking place right now,” said Danson Mungatana, an official with Kibaki’s Party of National Unity.

The disputed campaign comes in one of the most developed countries in Africa, with a booming tourism industry and one of the continent’s highest growth rates. Many observers saw the campaign as perhaps the greatest test yet of this young, multiparty democracy and raised grave concerns as the process descended into violence.

Alexander Graf Lambsdorff, chief European Union election monitor, said the Electoral Commission of Kenya “has not succeeded in establishing the credibility of the tallying process to the satisfaction of all parties and candidates.”

Kivuitu, the electoral commission chairman, acknowledged problems, including a constituency where voter turnout added up to 115 percent and another where a candidate ran away with ballot papers.

Supporters of 76-year-old Kibaki say he has turned Kenya’s moribund economy into an east African powerhouse, with an average growth rate of 5 percent.

He won by a landslide in 2002, ending 24 years in power by the notoriously corrupt Daniel arap Moi, who was constitutionally barred from extending his term.

But Kibaki’s anti-graft campaign has largely been seen as a failure, and the country still struggles with tribalism and poverty. After the opposition took most of the parliamentary seats, he may find it difficult to rule even if he wins.

Odinga, a fiery 62-year-old former political prisoner, promised change and help for the poor. His main constituency is Kibera, home to at least 700,000 people who live in extreme poverty and the scene of many of Saturday’s riots.

In recent months he has made it a priority to reach out to the country’s middle class and businessmen, many of whom belong to Kibaki’s tribe, the Kikuyu. Odinga belongs to the Luo tribe.

Posted by admin | No Comments »

NAUDERO, Pakistan - Benazir Bhutto’s 19-year-old son was chosen Sunday to succeed her as chairman of her opposition party, extending Pakistan’s most famous political dynasty but leaving the real power to her husband, who will serve as co-chairman.

Both major opposition parties also decided to run in parliamentary elections scheduled for Jan. 8, apparently ending the threat of a wholesale boycott as Pakistan struggles to move to full democracy after years of military rule.

But earlier, a spokesman for the country’s ruling party said the vote may be delayed up to four months, claiming the parliamentary elections would lose credibility if held as scheduled. He expected a formal announcement within 24 hours.

“How long the postponement will be for will up to the Election Commission,” Tariq Azim, information secretary of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Q, told The Associated Press. “I think we are looking at a delay of a few weeks … of up to three or four months.”

Bhutto’s Pakistan Peoples Party central executive committee met privately to choose her successor three days after the two-time prime minister was assassinated in a suicide attack that thrust the volatile Islamic nation deeper into crisis.

Her son, Bilawal Zardari, a student with no experience in politics, said he would remain at Oxford University, leaving his father, Asif Ali Zardari, who was officially designated co-chairman, as the effective leader of the country’s largest political party.

“The party’s long struggle for democracy will continue with renewed vigor,” Bilawal told a news conference. “My mother always said democracy is the best revenge.”

Supporters chanted “Benazir, princess of heaven” and “Bilawal, move ahead. We are with you.”

Bhutto’s grandfather was a senior figure in the Pakistan Muslim League, the party that helped Pakistan split from India and lead it to independence in 1947. Her father — Pakistan’s first elected prime minister — founded the party in 1967 and its electoral success since then has largely depended on the Bhutto name.

Bilawal said that Zardari would “take care” of the party while he continued his studies. Zardari then told reporters to direct questions to him, saying his son was at a “tender age.”

Zardari, who spent eight years under detention on corruption charges in Pakistan before his release in late 2004, is a party powerbroker who served as environment minister in Bhutto’s second government. He has denied the charges of large-scale graft during his wife’s rule.

He immediately announced the group’s participation in the elections but said another party leader, Makhdoom Amin Fahim, would likely be their candidate for prime minister if they won.

Zardari appealed to the party of former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to drop plans to boycott the polls. Sharif’s party later agreed to the appeal and said it would take part in the elections.

Some people have called for a delay in the elections given the turmoil in the country following Bhutto’s killing, but a senator from her party said it was demanding that they take place on time.

“We want elections on Jan. 8 and we will not let the government run away from the elections,” said Sen. Safdar Abbasi.

The government has blamed an al-Qaida-linked militant for the murder of Bhutto but her party disputes that and claims elements in the Pakistan Muslim League-Q — the ruling party that supports President Pervez Musharraf — could have been behind the slaying.

Zardari repeatedly called the ruling party the “killer league.”
He also rejected as “lies” the government’s account of how his wife died, amid a dispute over whether she sustained fatal gunshot wounds or was killed by the force of the suicide blast that struck her vehicle as she left a campaign rally on Thursday.

Bhutto was buried without an autopsy and the debate over her cause of death has undermined confidence in the government and further angered her followers.

Zardari appealed to the United Nations and British government to help investigate the crime. He said the party wanted a U.N. investigation like the one probing the 2005 assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. The government has already said international involvement in the investigation is not necessary.

The killing triggered violence throughout Pakistan but there was no fresh rioting reported Sunday.

Since Thursday, unrest has killed at least 44 people and caused tens of millions of dollars of damage. Rioters have destroyed 176 banks, 34 gas stations, 72 train cars, 18 rail stations, and hundreds of cars and shops, the government says.

They have also wrecked nine election offices — along with the voter rolls and ballot boxes inside — hampered the printing of ballot slips and the training of poll workers, the election commission said. The commission has called an emergency meeting for Monday.

Zardari urged supporters to show restraint.
“We will avenge the murder of Bhutto through the democratic process after winning the elections,” he said.

“God willing, when it is the Peoples Party’s reign, when the Peoples Party government is formed, then we would have taken revenge for Bibi’s blood and that blood would not have gone waste,” Zardari said, referring to his late wife by her nickname.

In fresh militant violence, two men blew themselves up Sunday near the residence in eastern Pakistan of Ijazul Haq, the former religious affairs minister and senior leader of the ruling party, said district police chief Zafar Abbas Bukhari. Both men died, but there were no other casualties.

Posted by admin | No Comments »

Answer: PayPal is the world’s most popular “middleman service” for online purchasing. Where moneygrams and wire transfers were the standard in the 20th century, today over 99 million Internet users prefer to use PayPal to send money to each other via email. PayPal has become such a convenient and trusted way to transfer money online, 95% of eBay’s purchases go through PayPal.

How PayPal Works.

As an online financial transaction broker, PayPal lets people send money to each other’s email addresses. At no time will either party see the other’s credit card or bank information.

Similar to an escrow service, PayPal acts as the middleman holder of money. Through its policies, practices, and business integrity, PayPal has earned the trust of both parties. With multiple guarantees in place, buyers and sellers entrust PayPal with their credit card and bank information. PayPal keeps that private customer information secret. Then, while “blinded” from the other party’s confidential information, strangers safely send money to each other through PayPal and email.

PayPal Requirements

You need no special technology nor a business license to send/receive money through Paypal. The only requirements are:

a valid email address.
a valid credit card or bank account.

“How does PayPal make money?”
Answer: as a middleman financial broker, PayPal makes its profit by charging a percentage of the money it transfers for you.

PayPal is Free for Buyers. Once a buyer sets up a Paypal account, then it costs nothing to send money to other PayPal users. The funds are withdrawn from the user’s credit card or bank account, or both. PayPal does not charge buyers to send money.

PayPal Charges Sellers 1.9% to 2.9%. PayPal will only charge you to receive funds. Using a special surcharge formula, PayPal will bill you whenever you receive a payment from a buyer.

Paypal Fee Table:
For receiving transfers under $3000 USD: the fee is 2.9% + $0.30 USD.
For receiving transfers $3000.01 to $10,000: the fee is 2.5% + $0.30 USD.
For receiving transfers $10,000.01 to $100,000: the fee is 2.2% + $0.30 USD.
Receiving transfers over $100,000: Paypal charges 1.9% + $0.30 USD.

Posted by admin | No Comments »

Manny Pacquiao will have his hands full against Juan Manuel Marquez that his promoter, Bob Arum, has refused to look farther ahead of the March 15 rematch in Las Vegas.

“Marquez alone is already too much to handle,” said the Top Rank president when asked about his plans for the 29-year-old Filipino superstar for the coming year.

“Manny Pacquiao wants to fight three times next year. But we really can’t look too far ahead,” said Arum who wants an all-out promotional campaign for the Marquez fight.

Arum was just delighted that Pacquiao has agreed to train in the US, at the Wild Card Gym in Los Angeles, for the whole eight to 10 weeks heading to the anticipated title showdown.

This way, Arum said, he can do all the promoting he wants for the fight, and this includes special appearances by Pacquiao in television shows like that of Jay Leno’s.

“We can do that while he’s in training. And we can only do that if he’s in the US. It wasn’t that difficult to convince Manny to train in the US,” said Arum, who was in Manila recently.

Pacquiao was scheduled to fly to the US yesterday with his wife Jinkee and their three kids. They plan to spend a few days in Las Vegas, after a weeklong Christmas treat in Boracay.

It’s not clear whether Pacquiao will fly back to Manila with his family after the short vacation, or if he’d stay in Los Angeles until he begins training for the Marquez bout.

Arum confirmed that early plans include a possible fight with WBC lightweight king David Diaz in Macau in July, and a possible date with Ricky Hatton or someone else in Dubai in November

“But I want to focus on the Marquez fight first. I have a fight to sell on March 15,” said Arum, also open to a dream match between Pacquiao and Oscar dela Hoya late next year.

But again, he doesn’t want to get too far ahead.

Posted by admin | No Comments »

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Archeologists have discovered the ruins of an 800-year-old Aztec pyramid in the heart of the Mexican capital that could show the ancient city is at least a century older than previously thought.

Mexican archeologists found the ruins, which are about 36 feet high, in the central Tlatelolco area, once a major religious and political centre for the Aztec elite.

Since the discovery of another pyramid at the site 15 years ago, historians have thought Tlatelolco was founded by the Aztecs in 1325, the same year as the twin city of Tenochtitlan nearby, the capital of the Aztec empire, which the Spanish razed in 1521 to found Mexico City, conquering the Aztecs.

The pyramid, found last month as part of an investigation begun in August, could have been built in 1100 or 1200, signaling the Aztecs began to develop their civilization in the mountains of central Mexico earlier than believed.

“We have found the stairs of this, much older pyramid. The (Aztec) timeline is going to need to be revised,” archaeologist Patricia Ledesma said at the site on Thursday. Tlatelolco, visited by thousands of tourists for its pre-Hispanic ruins and colonial-era Spanish church and convent, is also infamous for the 1968 massacre of leftist students by state security forces there, days before Mexico hosted the Olympic Games.

Ledesma and the archaeological group’s coordinator, Salvador Guilliem, said they will continue to dig and study the area next year to get a better idea of the pyramid’s size and age.

The archeologists also have detected a sculpture that could be of the Aztec rain god Tlaloc, or of the god of the sky and earth Tezcatlipoca.

In addition, the dig has turned up five skulls and a series of rooms near the pyramid that could date from 1431.

“What we hope to find soon should tell us much more about the society of Tlatelolco,” said Ledesma.

Mexico City is littered with pre-Hispanic ruins. In August, archeologists in the city’s crime-ridden Iztapalapa district unearthed what they believe may be the main pyramid of Tenochtitlan.

The Aztecs, a warlike and religious people who built monumental works and are credited with inventing chocolate, ruled an empire stretching from the Gulf of Mexico to the Pacific Ocean and encompassing much of modern-day central Mexico.

Posted by admin | 1 Comment »

Pen spinning is being elevated to an art form in Japan.

Posted by admin | No Comments »

Creating a sustainable income online did not come instantly for me when I first started out a few years ago. You often hear lots of people touting their success stories of how they made thousands of dollars in just one month.Whether some of these are true or not I don’t know – but it certainly didn’t happen for me.However, I could have made my life a whole lot easier by avoiding these mistakes.1. Too Many Ideas.
The internet is full of opportunities to take a bite at, and my eyes were too big for my belly and I bit off more than I could chew.

I always found myself writing down ideas, researching them, and deciding how to implement the idea, but then never actually implementing the idea because I was already too busy.

Now I just make a very quick note in my ideas folder and leave it at that. When it is time to expand or start a new project – I just open up the ideas folder for inspiration.

2. Needed to Focus on One Thing and Get it Right.
Running several or even two projects at once when I started out was really stupid. Each website or project will have a learning curve and take time to master.

It might take you 6 weeks to master and begin to start making money if you worked on one technique full time.

If you do 3 other projects at the same time that will also take 6 weeks to learn and start making money then it will take you 6 months (4×6weeks) for these 6 projects to actually come together and start to pay off.

Chances are because it takes so long you’ll end up giving up on some anyway and get distracted by something else.

Doing so many things at once slowed down my progress and stopped me from generating a solid income quickly.

Once I picked one thing, stuck to it, and gave it 100% for a few months my income really started to take off. Then all I needed to do was look to outsource certain parts of running the business to free me up for new projects.

3. Save Your Money To Start With!
Before I started venturing into earning money online I had managed to save about $14,000 of my student loan after leaving university.

I thought I had a great idea and went ahead and spent the $14,000 very quickly. My idea was great, it still is great and I’ve continued to develop it beyond what I ever first intended.

However, I didn’t use the initial $14,000 effectively, and although it got a brilliant new site started, I made so many mistakes that the money was practically wasted.

If I had sat on the money for 6-12 months while I secured an income online, built the idea as much as I could without any money, and got a better understanding of the whole industry I could have spent the money a lot more effectively and made a lot more money more quickly as a result.

In the end I started making an income not from the money I spent, but from my own hard work. I actually needed very little money to get off the ground once I began to focus. 

Throwing money at something you don’t have experience with won’t make you learn any quicker and probably won’t make you earn make money anymore quickly either.

If you have some cash sit on it while you work hard and learn the ropes. In 6-12 months time you should be 100% certain how to use the money and know (and I mean really know) that your investment will pay off.

4. I Ignored Info-Products
When I started out online I was hugely skeptical of anyone selling any information that would help you become successful online.

While I quite happily wasted $14,000 testing out a new idea, I was not prepared to pay any so called expert for any information that might help me.

I thought all the information I needed was out there for free and I didn’t need to pay for someone to tell me something I could find fore free.

There are three reasons that this mentality significantly slowed down my progress:

Reason #1: Finding information for free costs time, and time costs money. I spent long hours scouring forums for useful information.

While this is can be good practice, spending $50 on an eBook covering the information you are looking for will save you a lot of time.

Reason #2: There is so much misinformation on blogs and forums because so much is just personal opinion or people trying to sound clever when they don’t know what they are talking about.

You end up with the blind leading the blind and the information you get can be extremely misleading causing you to make costly mistakes with your business.

Reason #3: People won’t give away quality information for free. No matter how hard you look in forums there are just some tricks that you won’t find publicly, at most there will just be hints.

The gurus sell information, membership clubs, and guides because they have true value, and if you act on them they will make you money.

There are plenty of bad apples out there to watch out for so check out what you buy.

Also you definitely don’t want to be the type of person that buys tons of info-products you don’t need or use.

Analyze an area you are having trouble with, or something you would like to learn more about, and find a product that meets your needs.

Go through one product at a time and put the teachings into action.

5. I Didn’t Start in a Niche I Enjoyed
When I first started out online I quickly went for a niche that I thought I could make the most money in quickly.

It took me some time but I did finally start to earn good money from this niche, but as soon as I did I realized how much I hated it and certainly did not want to carry on working in this niche any longer.

I ended up selling the sites I created to a friend and started working in a niche that I was truly passionate about. Because I was more passionate about the niche I was able to build higher quality sites and make an impact more quickly.

I should have just done that from the beginning.

Posted by admin | No Comments »

It is a time-honored tradition to make resolutions at this time of year. If your resolution is to lose weight - and keep it off, then keep reading! Here are six simple tips that will have you losing weight in a balanced and healthy way. 

1. Lose weight with water.
Water is essential for everybody - it is also the key to losing weight. If you haven’t been drinking enough water, your body has developed a pattern of storing water. This water retention equals extra unwanted weight.

By drinking more water, you are not only flushing out toxins, you are also teaching your body that it no longer needs to store water. Drink at least 60 ounces of water (about 8 glasses) a day. Boil water and sliced lemons, and drink this throughout the day to help with fluid retention. If you are still not sold on the merits of water, try this on for size: water is a natural appetite suppressant.

2. Soup up your weight loss program.
A simple dietary change will have you shedding pounds: eat a bowl of soup at least once a day. Nutritious, low-salt soups will nourish you as they flush waste from your body. People who eat a serving of soup daily lose more weight than those who eat the same amount of calories but don’t eat soup. Go for homemade soup whenever possible, as canned soups are loaded with salt and chemicals.

3. Eat early to keep weight off.
The human body follows a circadian rhythm, which means that the same foods eaten at breakfast and lunch are processed differently than when eaten at dinner. Studies show that when you eat your daily protein and fat at breakfast you tend to lose weight and have more energy; however, eating the same things at dinner tend to increase tendencies toward weight gain. I suggest that you eat your last meal of the day by 7 p.m. 

4. Eat smaller meals, more frequently.
Follow an eating schedule with five little meals every day. Eating steadily through the day keeps you from becoming famished and overeating at your next meal. Make a low-fat trail mix from raw almonds, pumpkin seeds, dried plum, and apples and have it available at all times to avoid the tempting lure of high-calorie snacks. 

5. Adopt a balanced approach to your diet.
Most of the fad diet programs out there nowadays are extreme in a few recommended foods, or else deprive the body of food altogether. This works in opposition to our metabolism and the results usually don’t last, producing a yoyo effect that depresses your metabolic function - not to mention your self-esteem. We are natural beings that need a balance of nutrition from all sources. 

Your diet should consist of a balance of organic sources of lean protein, complex carbohydrates, whole grains, legumes, nuts, fruits, and vegetables. Instead of white rice and pasta, opt for brown rice, bulgur, millet, or buckwheat.

Eat more green, chlorophyll-rich foods such as broccoli, kale, spinach, and asparagus. Eliminate candy, sugar, soda, and all simple sugars from your diet. Excess sugar ends up being stored as fat in your body, which results in weight gain. Also, keep dairy to a minimum because most dairy products are high in saturated fat. Avoid fatty foods, processed or fried foods.

6. Walk off the weight.
The No. 1 cause of weight gain is inactivity. Physical activity is the key to speeding up your metabolism and burning excess calories. The best way to be physically active is to use your legs! Walk as often and as long as you can. Always take the stairs instead of the elevator.

Step outside during your break at work and take a walk around your building. Consider joining a local hiking club. Try taking a walk 30 minutes in the morning or 30 minutes in the early evening.

I hope this article helps you shed some pounds and add on the years! I invite you to visit often and share your own personal health and longevity tips with me. 

May you live long, live strong, and live happy!

-Dr. Mao

Posted by admin | No Comments »

Are you considering the life of an Internet business business owner? Well before your eyes gloss over with dreams of endless free time and images of sitting on your couch with your laptop clicking away earning you thousands let me show you the reality of the situation.
A certain image has been promoted of the Internet business owner. It’s often glorified as the great dream, leaving your old job, with the long hours and annoying boss in exchange for a flexible lifestyle that you are in control of.

Well let me tell you - it’s all true!

Well sort of. It’s not by any means easy to do and you lose many things you might have not realised you valued in your old secure job. Let me point out the things you lose that you might want to think about before quitting your job.

1. Say good bye to a reliable and predictable income.

No job is 100% secure and there is a good argument that being in control of your income via your own small business is more secure than a job (you’re not at the risk of downsizing etc) however it doesn’t feel like that, especially when you start out. Even the oldest most established business cannot be certain sales will keep coming. From week to week you go up and down and are never sure when or where your next sale will come from. You can have great months and bad months and the only constant is unpredictability. A steady pay cheque feels a lot more secure than the ups and downs of your own business.

2. Your business is your life.

When you leave work you leave work. Most small business owners live and breath their business so they don’t ever really leave work. Now I’ve got it pretty good at the moment because I love what I do and I don’t *have* to work much though I choose to work online a lot. That being said I am trapped to checking my email day in and day out, 24 hours a day, which is not ideal. Chances are when you start your business you won’t be working 9-5 or even 8-6. Early on you will most likely carry the show and until you can justify hiring others your hours will be long and you won’t have a weekend. However if you are smart, set realistic expectations and remember life is a balance, then running your own business can definitely be less work than a normal job, if you choose it to be.

3. You may never make real money until you sell your business.

An unfortunate situation in many small businesses is that the owner often doesn’t make much more than an average salary, sometimes less. Now if you are evaluating starting a small business based purely on financial rewards then you might want to change your assessment criteria. Many small business owners don’t make a big windfall until they sell their business and often by the time they are making the sale they will be using the money for retirement. Although it is also true that the only way to become really, really wealthy, besides inheritance and lotto, is by starting your own business.

The reality is that only a small percentage of businesses make their owner really wealthy, the rest stumble along earning an average wage. Of course many of those business owners earning an average wage love their lifestyle and only work as hard as they want to. Running your own business has the greatest potential to make you rich and may never make you rich, but here is the important part, your own business is very likely to make you a happier person if you keep your goals simple and aim for lifestyle over riches. Anyone can get rich but the contented people are rich without material wealth.

4. There is no superannuation, paid leave or sick leave.

You may not think about superannuation very much but it’s nice to know that when you have a job your employer is planning for your future by contributing to your superannuation. As a business owner your employer is you and besides looking after your employee superannuation you are also in charge of your own retirement. This is an added worry that you don’t have when you are working for another business.

Having time off is a concept not familiar to many business owners. Being paid when you have time off is like a dream for a business owner. There are some common myths about business owners working 7 days a week even when sick. If you do things right your business should still function without you when you need time off because of illness or even if you dare to take a holiday. However that being said most business owners find themselves as the most critical wheel in the business system and if you remove that wheel things fall apart. The important skill to learn is that the business owner should work on the business, not in it, but that’s easier said than done and especially early on when funds are tight it’s very like you will be working in the business. Don’t expect a paid holiday.

5. Workmates

There are no work mates for the solopreneur. You can hire employees that may hopefully become friends but the dynamic is always you the boss and them the employees. If you have been used to working in a busy, lively, talkative office full of peers that share the same perspective as you, with Friday afternoon drinks, group functions and shared time complaining about the boss — you can kiss all this goodbye.

Okay, that’s not entirely true.

Things are definitely different from working in someone else’s business but I’ve seen many small businesses that have great working environments. The difference is as the boss you have to create your own socialisation. You can do this by creating an amazing business culture where all employees are mates and the office is like a party that happens to get work done too. Of if you do not require employees then it’s your job to make sure you don’t turn into a lonely home based business bum. This means flexing your socialising muscles and organising events with other business people (if that’s whom you like to associate with), making sure you stay actively involved in groups and clubs and that you leave the home office now and then to interact with real live people. Much like everything else with running your own business, you are in charge of your social life too.

by Yaro Starak
http://www.entrepreneurs-journey.com/192/small-business-realities/

Posted by admin | No Comments »

NEW YORK (AP) — Just weeks ago, the holiday shopping season seemed headed for disaster. But in the waning hours before Christmas, the nation’s retailers got their wish — a last-minute surge of shopping that helped meet their modest sales goals, according to data released late Monday by research firm ShopperTrak RCT Corp.

And with post-Christmas shopping to come, some malls and stores were downright optimistic.While consumers jammed stores at the start of the season in search of discounts and hot items such as Nintendo Co.’s Wii game console, a challenging economy prompted them to hold out until the end for bigger discounts.

An extra full weekend before Christmas also caused shoppers to procrastinate. In fact, Christmas Eve is expected to be a bigger shopping day than in past years because many employers gave workers the day off, with the holiday falling on Tuesday.

“I’m trying to get some deals, seeing what they got out. The sales are better later on. And the stores aren’t so packed right now,” said Tina Fields, who was at the Circle Centre Mall in Indianapolis early on Monday morning. Her best bargain was a shirt from Aeropostale Inc. she bought for $5. Others like Alex Allen of Boston had postponed shopping because of lack of time.

“I’ve been working a lot,” said Allen, who took advantage of the 7 a.m. opening at a local Target Corp. store to get toys for his three grandchildren before the largest crowds came later in the day.

The spree defied fears that a deepening housing slump, escalating credit crisis and higher gas and food prices would turn shoppers into Grinches — even in the end. Meanwhile, with the season plagued by a slew of Chinese-made toy recalls that began in the summer, there were concerns that shoppers would boycott those products. That didn’t happen either.

Still, financial concerns clearly affected how consumers behaved throughout the season, forcing more to trade down to discounters such as Wal-Mart Stores Inc., according to Fred Crawford, managing director at restructuring firm AlixPartners. That trend hurt midprice apparel department stores such as Macy’s Inc. and J.C. Penney Co., which have been aggressive with discounts and other come-ons. Ultra luxury stores are expected to fare well, Crawford said.

Toy sales are expected, at best, to match business from a year ago.

“This year, all I’m shopping for are the kids — no adults,” said Chevy Edwards of Raleigh, N.C., who was picking through discounted children’s clothing at a local J.C. Penney store. “I just need to cut down on bills.”

Those stores that didn’t meet their pre-Christmas goals are now even more dependent on the post-holiday season, which is becoming more important with the increasing popularity of gift cards. Card sales are expected to hit $26.3 billion in the November-December period, up 42 percent from two years ago, according to the National Retail Federation.

According to ShopperTrak RCT Corp., which tracks total sales at more than 50,000 retail outlets, the week ended Dec. 31 now accounts for about 16 percent of holiday sales. Stores don’t record the card sales until shoppers redeem them.

ShopperTrak said late Monday that total sales on Saturday reached $9.36 billion, up a robust 7.6 percent from $8.7 billion on the same day a year ago. That surge will put stores on track to at least meet its forecast of a 3.6 percent sales gain for the season, according to ShopperTrak.

For the Friday through Sunday period, total retail sales soared 18.7 percent from the year-earlier period, though the increase was inflated because Christmas Eve fell on a Sunday a year ago, according to ShopperTrak. Dollar figures were not available for this past weekend.

Scott Krugman, a spokesman at NRF, noted that the season is turning out as expected: The final days before Christmas and the week after Christmas “determine the holiday season.”

He expects total holiday sales will meet NRF’s growth forecast of 4 percent. That’s still below the 4.6 percent growth last year and the 4.8 percent average over the last decade.

The figure excludes business at auto dealers, gas stations and restaurants. The results also exclude online sales, which according to research firm comScore Inc. were up 19 percent for the season overall. That’s in line with its 20 percent forecast.

“Overall, we will pull off a pretty decent performance,” said Michael P. Niemira, chief economist, who is sticking with his December forecast for a slim 1.5 percent gain in same-store sales, or sales at stores opened at least a year. That would mean same-stores sales in the November-December period would be up 2.5 percent from a year ago, though still below the 2.9 percent gain seen in 2006.

A clearer picture of how the holiday season fared won’t be known until as late as Jan. 10, when the nation’s retailers report their final December same-store sales figures.

Meanwhile, Karen MacDonald, spokeswoman at Taubman Centers Inc., which operates 24 malls in 11 states, said the “entire weekend” was strong and the malls on Monday were busy from the time they opened. Based on a spot check of malls, stores are recording low-single digit sales increases this holiday season, she said, but they’re also looking to the week ahead when gift cards are redeemed.

Jerry Storch, chairman and chief executive at Toys “R” Us Inc., said the weekend was very strong.

“We were very pleased,” he said, noting that business was “erratic but picked up at the end” of the season.

Shoppers who waited were rewarded with great deals.

Mark Pitney, 62, of Raleigh, who snapped up a red-and-white Christmas sweater discounted 60 percent at a local J.C. Penney’s on Monday, said “without a doubt, there are a lot more markdowns this year.”

Meanwhile, Susan Pirri, of Cranston, R.I., while shopping at the Providence Place Mall, stumbled on a pre-Christmas sale at clothing chain New York & Company that was offering 50 percent to 70 percent discounts. At that price, she couldn’t help but purchase a belt, scarf and gloves for herself.

“I wasn’t going to purchase things for myself,” she said. “But at that price, it’s hard to walk away.”

Posted by admin | No Comments »