Amazon Kindle Fire HD 8.9 is Good, But No iPad Killer [REVIEW]

Unboxing the Kindle Fire HD 8.9

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Amazon expands its tablet sights with the bigger, more powerful Kindle Fire HD 8.9. Can it compete against Apple‘s iPad?

If there’s one company that deserves credit for reigniting the iPad competitor market, it’s Amazon. Despite some bugs and an overall blah design, its 7-inch Kindle Fire was the first Android tablet that made sense to consumers who gobbled it up to help the Fire grab 50% of the Android tablet market in just 6 months.

[More from Mashable: 9 Black Friday Deals For iPhone Owners]

That tablet essentially opened the flood gates for a new set of ever-more-powerful 7-inchers from, notably, Barnes & Noble and Google. All three companies have already updated their 7-inch offerings to more powerful components and higher-resolutions screens. They’re all still running Android, though Amazon and Barnes & Noble choose to hide the Google OS behind smarter and much more consumer-friendly interfaces.

All this led Apple to finally enter the mid-sized tablet space with the iPad Mini. It’s easily the best-looking tablet of the bunch, but also $ 120 more expensive than its nearest competitor.

The more interesting development, though, is Amazon‘s (and Barnes & Noble‘s) decision to go toe-to-toe with Apple’s full-size iPad and launch the Amazon Kindle Fire HD 8.9 (in 4G LTE and WiFi-only). The move is akin to a middle weight boxer putting on the pounds to take on the Heavyweight world champion. Amazon’s Kindle Fire HD is slightly smaller (the iPad is 9.7-inches), lighter (567g vs. 625g), cheaper ($ 369 for 32 GB model vs. $ 599 for the iPad 4th Gen — Amazon subsidizes with sleep-state ads, that I do not mind) and overall somewhat less powerful. In order to win the battle, the 8.9-inch Kindle Fire HD better be pretty nimble on its feet, while able to throw that all important knockout punch.

Short version of this story: the Kindle Fire HD 8.9 does some serious damage, but the iPad 4th Gen gets the decision and retains the tablet leader title.

The Kindle Fire HD 8.9 is by no means a failure. In many ways, it’s as good as the smaller Kindle Fire HD, but throughout my tests I noticed odd bugs and glitches (which should all be fixable by software) and a somewhat disturbing lack of power that’s especially obvious when you put the Fire HD 8.9 next to the iPad 4th Gen

What It Is

If you’ve never seen an iPad and someone handed you the Kindle Fire HD .9, you’d likely say its jet-black, soft-to-the-touch plastic body felt good in your hands and was more than effective at all the core tasks (reading, game playing, e-mail, web browsing).

Design-wise, the 8.9 device looks exactly like the 7-inch model, complete with the too-hard to find volume and power buttons. There are no other physical buttons on this device, but Amazon chooses to hide the few it has by making them the exact same color as the chassis and flush with the body. Every time I use the tablet I do the “where’s the damn button” dance, rotating the Kindle Fire HD round and round until I feel the buttons (since I can barely see them).

I have applauded Barnes & Noble for putting the physical “N” home button right on the face of their Nook HD. Bravo for having the guts to do this. Amazon apparently looks at Apple’s iPad home button and thinks to have anything similar would be seen as “copying” the Cupertino hardware giant, when instead they should realize that it works, consumers like it and tablets without it are at a distinct disadvantage.

Amazon’s interface has you make do with a virtual, slide-out home button that is always available. Problem is, I found times when it wasn’t available. When I played Spider-Man and Asphalt 7, the tiny little left-had bar would disappear and I couldn’t exit the game unless I hit the sleep/power button.

The rest of the Kindle Fire HD 8.9′s body is solid and unremarkable (if you read my Kindle fire HD 7 review, then you know exactly what to expect.). Like the iPad 4th Gen, the Kindle Fire HD 8.9 has a front-facing 720p-capable camera. It’s useful for capturing video, snapping 1 Megapixel images and, probably most important, Skype video chats. Skype has built a fairly sharp-looing Kindle Fire app, though the design doesn’t fully fit the larger 8.9-inch screen. Skype just updated its Android app for better tablet viewing and hopefully, we’ll see this update hit the Kindle Fire HD 8.9 as well.

The iPad also has an HD rear-facing camera. The Kindle fire HD 8.9 does not (Barnes & Noble leave out cameras altogether)

Not Packing a Punch

As a large-screen high-resolution tablet (though iPad’s 2048×1536 retina display beats it), the Kindle Fire HD 8.9 offers plenty of attractive screen real estate for web browsing, book and magazine reading and games. But the results can be mixed. Silk, Amazon‘s custom web browser, was occasionally less than responsive and games, though, they ran well, never looked half as good as they do on the considerably more expensive iPad 4.

Granted, you can’t always find the same high-quality immersive action games on both Android and iOS, but Asphalt 7 Heat is a notable exception and it throws the performance differences between the two tablets into stark contrast. Game play is equally responsive on both platforms: the Kindle Fire HD 8.9’s accelerometer reads my moves just as well as the iPad.

The graphics on the Kindle Fire HD, however, are reduced to blobs and blocks (palm trees without distinct leaves, buildings without discernible windows) . The iPad’s quad-core graphics simply overmatch the Kindle Fire. I have never, for example, seen an iPad draw the game as I was playing, as I did when I tried out The Amazing Spider-Man.

Additionally, I experienced more than my share of crashes with games and even magazine apps like Vanity Fair.

The Good

Not everyone, however, will compare the Kindle Fire HD 8.9 to the iPad. Some will see the $ 299 entry-level price point (for the 16 GB model) and appreciate the power, flexibility and utility of this device. Like all Fire’s before it, the Kindle Fire HD 8.9 makes it easy to consume mass quantities of content. Nearly every menu option: Games, Apps, Books, Music, Videos, Newsstand, puts you just one click away from shopping for fresh content. If you have an Amazon account (and who doesn’t) your desired book, music or movie is just a click away. Plus, you can still easily store any of it locally, and worry about running out of storage space, or in the cloud, and never worry about space or accessibility—you can get to that purchased Kindle content from any Kindle app or registered Amazon device.

Watching movies on the tablet is a pleasure. I streamed a couple through Amazon Prime; they looked good on the 1920 x 1200 screen and the Dolby Stereo speakers produced sharp, loud, almost room-filling sound—an impressive feat not even the iPad can match.

The Kindle Fire HD 8.9 also includes a mini-HDMI-out port, which prompted me to connect the tablet to my 47-inch LED HDTV so we could watch Disney’s Brave. Yes, I had to get up and tap on the Kindle screen each time I wanted to pause and restart the move, but otherwise, I was pretty impressed with how the Kindle handled the task.

Obviously I yearn for an Apple Airplay-like feature on Android tablets (rumor has it one is coming), but this is the next, best thing.

There isn’t a lot to say about the Kindle Fire HD 8.9-inch interface that I did not say in the Kindle Fire HD 7 review. I will note, however, that the increased real estate makes the trademark task carousel seem almost too big. Icons for everything from your recently played Spider-Man game to magazine apps, books and Web sites all sit side-by-side-by side. Some, like book covers, look gorgeous.

Others like a broken web-page link look stupid. Worse yet, none of them have labels, which can occasionally make it hard to identify which app or task you’re looking at. I’m just not sure this interface metaphor is sustainable.

Personally I prefer either the clean consistent look of iOS, or the uber-user friendly, family-oriented Nook HD profile-based one. Amazon may want to take a hard look at those and start over.

Staying Connected

The Kindle Fire HD 8.9 is also Amazon’s first cellular-based tablet. That fact puts it even more squarely in competition with the iPad (which obviously has always had 3G models and now offers blazing fast 4G LTE ones as well on all major carriers).

Amazon’s mobile broadband plans are a little more conservative, with just the AT&T 4G LTE option (the 32 GB 4G model that I tested lists for $ 499, which is still $ 224 less than a comparable iPad 4th Gen).

In my experience, the connectivity is superfast and fairly ubiquitous. Amazon‘s $ 49 (a year) flat fee plan is attractive, but with a cap of 250MB per month of data, it’s unlikely it will satisfy the most data-hungry users. If you do need more data, users can also get 3GB and 5GB data plans directly from AT&T on the device.

At press time, Amazon had not enabled streaming video over LTE. Having it sounds nice, but even with the most generous data plans, streaming video would eat it up faster than you can say, “I’m streaming Back to the Future in HD over 4G LTE on my Kindle fire HD!”

The reality for most users is that WiFi is plentiful and you’ll be hard pressed to find a spot where you can’t connect for free or a small one-off fee. It’s the reason Barnes & Noble’s line of HD Nooks do not include a cellular option.

Review continues after FreeTime Gallery

FreeTime

Kindle HD FreeTime Start

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Perhaps the best new addition to the Kindle Fire family is not a piece of hardware or new component, but the new FreeTime app. Amazon put a lot of loving care into this parental control interface, but almost mucks the whole thing up by hiding the tool under an app that you have to scroll down to (or search) to find. By contrast profiles and age and content controls are baked into the Barnes & Noble Nook HD in a way that makes them impossible to ignore.

Even so, once you do access FreeTime, I think you’ll be pleased with the level of control it gives you. I added test profiles for my two children and then hand-picked every app and piece of content they could access. I was also able to block broadband mobile and even set time limits for access to content and overall screen viewing time (on a per profile basis). The set-up is a bit wonky and it bizarrely switches between landscape and profile screens, but I still applaud the effort. It would make sense for Amazon to move FreeTime into a device set-up screen. If the user has no additional family members or kids using the device, they can easily skip it.

To Buy or Not to Buy

Amazon’s expansive content and shopping ecosystem has always been a strong draw and it’s just as good in this large screen tablet as it was in the very first Kindle Fire. Still, you have to compare it with the equally strong iOS ecosystem, which is no slouch in the content shopping department. Apple doesn’t connect you as seamlessly to physical products, but there’s nothing difficult about shopping on Amazon.com via your iPad. It’s also notable that tablet competitor Barnes & Noble has added movie and TV viewing, rental and purchase.

Ultimately, all of these tablets are offering more and more of the same content options, apps, and features. The decision will likely come down to price, app selection, interface and overall ease of use. The Amazon Kindle fire HD 8.9 scores well on all of these, but does not always lead.

For the price, it’s a great value, but I want Amazon to focus on hardware and interface design for the next big update. Then, they may get my full endorsement.

This story originally published on Mashable here.

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McCartney, Houston, Dylan lead Grammy Hall of Fame inductees

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Music by Paul McCartney, Bob Dylan, Elton John and late singers Whitney Houston and James Brown will be inducted into the 2013 Grammy Hall of Fame, The Recording Academy said on Wednesday.

Paul McCartney & Wings‘ 1973 album “Band on the Run,” long credited with reigniting McCartney’s career following the Beatles’ split in 1970, was one of the 27 new inductees into the Grammy Hall of Fame, on display at the Grammy Museum in downtown Los Angeles.

Houston‘s self-titled 1985 debut album was also named an inductee, following the singer’s sudden death aged 48 in February this year. Australian hard-rock band AC/DC’s top-selling 1980 “Back in Black” album was also named a new entry.

The Recording Academy, which also runs the Grammy awards, picks songs and albums from all genres that are at least 25 years old, with either “qualitative or historical significance” to be considered annually for the Grammy Hall of Fame by a committee.

“Memorable for being both culturally and historically significant, we are proud to add (the 2013 inductees) to our growing catalog of outstanding recordings that have become part of our musical, social and cultural history,” The Recording Academy President and CEO Neil Portnow said in a statement.

As well as albums, the Grammy Hall of Fame also includes songs of historic and cultural significance and the inductees for 2013 see a range of classic American songs.

Iconic Dylan song “The Times They Are A-Changing” from 1964, R&B singer Ray Charles’ 1961 tune “Hit the Road Jack,” Rat Pack star Frank Sinatra’s 1980 “Theme from ‘New York, New York’”, and ‘Godfather of soul’ James Brown‘s 1965 classic “I Got You (I Feel Good)” were all honored.

Other 2013 inductees include Elton John‘s 1970 self-titled second album and American debut, Billy Joel’s 1973 hit “The Piano Man” and Willie Mae “Big Mama” Thornton’s 1953 R&B classic “Hound Dog,” later covered by Elvis Presley.

(Reporting By Eric Kelsey; Editing by Piya Sinha-Roy and Andrew Hay)

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Longer waits for breast cancer patients on Medicare

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – Women with a new diagnosis of breast cancer who are covered by Medicare are waiting longer and longer to get treatment, according to a new nationwide study.

Researchers found that between 1992 and 2005, the average waiting time between being diagnosed and having surgery rose from 21 days to 32 days. The delay was especially long for black and Hispanic women, and for those living in large cities.

Still, the study team noted, it’s unclear how big a difference the extra week or two would make in women’s long-term health.

“I don’t believe the delays we’re seeing here are problematic, (but) we’re clearly going to need to keep any eye on it because if those delays keep increasing, they may become problematic,” said the study’s lead author, Dr. Richard Bleicher.

Bleicher, from Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia, and his colleagues analyzed cancer registry data and Medicare claims for 72,586 older adults diagnosed with breast cancer between 1992 and 2005, 99 percent of whom were women.

Over that period, both the time between a patient’s first breast cancer-related visit and her first biopsy increased, as did the time between biopsies and surgery, according to findings published this week in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.

When the researchers accounted for patient characteristics such as tumor stage, as well as number and type of pre-surgery visits and screenings, the relative delay shrank from 11 days to five days.

Whether the extra waiting in more recent years is “clinically meaningful” remains to be seen, according to Bleicher‘s team.

Another report published in the same journal found that for women with advanced cancer, waiting 60 days or more for treatment was tied to a greater likelihood of dying in the five years after diagnosis.

Shorter delays, however, weren’t associated with worse outcomes.

Among 1,786 North Carolina women on Medicaid, the average time between diagnosis and treatment – usually surgery – was 22 days between 2000 and 2002, Dr. Electra Paskett from The Ohio State University in Columbus and her team found.

The length of that interval didn’t seem to affect a woman’s chance of surviving early-stage breast cancer. But for those with late-stage cancer, women who waited 60 days or more between diagnosis and treatment were 66 percent more likely to die of any cause over the next five years and 85 percent more likely to die of breast cancer, in particular.

In Paskett’s study, one in 10 women waited at least 60 days for treatment.

She pointed out that people on Medicaid, like those in her study, may have more problems getting timely treatment compared to people with private insurance.

“It could be that they had problems finding a doctor who would accept them, because they’re low income, or (there were) scheduling problems with the clinic,” Paskett told Reuters Health.

She recommended health systems look into having “patient navigators” to guide low-income people and others who may need help through the treatment process.

Bleicher said doctors and health systems can start using the new data to figure out how to consolidate the biopsies, second opinions and other visits that often happen between diagnosis and treatment.

But for now, he told Reuters Health that women with breast cancer shouldn’t panic if it takes them a few weeks to coordinate their surgery.

“Getting to the operating room for treatment is not something that’s an emergency, even though it feels like one,” Bleicher said.

Up to 60 days, Paskett said, should be “plenty of time to get second opinions, plenty of time to get consults and things like that.”

SOURCE: http://bit.ly/10tpzc9 and http://bit.ly/10tpIMu Journal of Clinical Oncology, online November 19, 2012.

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Deere has downbeat 2013 outlook, and shares fall

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Tractor maker Deere & Co. is taking a cautious view of 2013, as drought and economic uncertainty hold back spending in some of the world’s biggest farm economies.

Also, its most recent quarterly profit missed analysts’ expectations. Deere shares fell $ 3.16, or 3.7 percent, to close at $ 82.83 Wednesday.

Deere is the world’s largest maker of agricultural equipment, like the bright green tractors and combines that prowl farm fields during planting and harvest seasons. Its fortunes rise and fall with those of farmers.

In recent years, that’s been a booming business as strong crop prices have put money in farmers’ pockets. But there were signs of a slowdown in farm spending in Deere’s outlook for the fiscal year that began this month.

And with the so-called “fiscal cliff” of potential tax increases and spending cuts looming in the U.S., Deere is cautious about big spending projects.

Deere expects agriculture sales in the U.S. and Canada to be flat for the year, as farmers continue to recover from a major drought in 2012. It predicted farmers will have $ 402.5 billion in cash receipts for 2013 — down by $ 2.5 billion from Deere’s August prediction — but still higher than in 2012 or 2011.

It also predicted that European sales would be flat to down 5 percent, and little changed in Asia. It expects 10 percent growth in South America. Overall Deere predicted that worldwide equipment sales will rise 5 percent for the year.

Labor expenses are rising, too. Deere hired 5,000 more people this year to support its growth. And it will have spent $ 480 million shoring up its pension plans in fiscal 2012 — $ 5 million more than it had expected — and will spend some $ 550 million in the current fiscal year.

Still, it predicted a fiscal 2013 profit of $ 3.2 billion, slightly above the expectations of analysts polled by FactSet. It said prices for its equipment will rise 3 percent for the year, on top of a 4 percent gain in the fourth quarter.

In the quarter that ended Oct. 31, Deere’s net income rose 2.7 percent to $ 687.6 million, or $ 1.75 per share. Revenue rose 14 percent to $ 9.79 billion. Analysts surveyed by FactSet expected earnings of $ 1.88 per share. A year ago Deere’s net income was $ 669.6 million, or $ 1.62 per share.

Equipment sales rose to $ 9.05 billion, topping analysts’ forecasts of $ 8.93 billion. Sales were strong in the U.S. and Canada, rising 26 percent for the quarter. Elsewhere, sales fell 2 percent. Sales of agriculture and turf equipment rose 16 percent, while construction and forestry equipment sales rose 7 percent.

In addition to farm equipment, Deere makes construction and forestry equipment such as backhoes, excavators, riding mowers and leaf blowers, making the company sensitive to movements in the global economy.

Deere is holding off on big spending projects as much as possible until January because of economic uncertainty, said Chief Financial Officer Rajesh Kalathur on a conference call.

“As the economics now become clearer, we may modify our plans. We will pull levers and cut down on investments if the scenario worsens, and we may accelerate our plans” if economies turn more positive, he said.

For the full fiscal year, Deere earned $ 3.07 billion, or $ 7.63 per share, up from $ 2.8 billion, or $ 6.63 per share, during the prior year. Revenue rose 13 percent to $ 36.16 billion for the year.

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Ivory Coast: New prime minister named

ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast (AP) — President Alassane Ouattara has tapped Foreign Minister Daniel Kablan Duncan to serve as prime minister in a new government one week after the surprise dissolution of cabinet.

The appointment of Duncan, a member of the PDCI party of former President Henri Konan Bedie, was announced at a press conference Wednesday by Amadou Gon Coulibaly, general secretary of the presidency.

Ouattara dissolved the cabinet last week over a feud between his political party and the PDCI over proposed changes to the country’s marriage law.

The PDCI supported Ouattara in the November 2010 runoff election in exchange for the prime minister’s post, helping him defeat incumbent President Laurent Gbagbo. Gbagbo’s refusal to cede office led to five months of violence that claimed at least 3,000 lives before Ouattara’s forces won.

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6 actually useful smartphone apps to get you through Black Friday

Gracefully navigate the shopping madness by doing a little prep work on your iPhone or Android before you leave the house

Ah, the holidays! Big-box stores compete with online behemoths for customers, while customers compete with each other to get the best Black Friday savings. And, in a new digital twist, Black-Friday-focused apps are competing with one another for downloads. Developers are creating all sorts of helpful ways for customers to sniff out bargains, track spending, and manage their nephew’s wish list. Now that The Week has advised you on Black Friday “deals” to avoid, here’s a rundown of some of the more helpful apps out there: 

Black Friday by BradsDeals
The folks behind BradsDeals.com, a site known for tracking down coupons and discounts, put together this helpful Black Friday app that shows you all the leaked ads and discounted items from 100 major retailers like Sears, Kohls, and Macy’s. Who needs a newspaper? (iPhone-only)

Black Friday Deal Finder by Fat Wallet
Search for deals using variables like free shipping, doorbusters, online availability, rebates, and more. Useful for planning but also recommended for any quick-witted shopper who wants to do in-store product comparisons. (iPhone-only)

Black Friday app from DealNews
Both PC World and PC Magazine voted DealNews tops in its category thanks to its exhaustive, well-organized catalog. Like the other apps, this one lets you browse “leaked” and “confirmed” ads from major retailers so you can plot out your plan of attack beforehand. (iPhone, Android)

ShopSavvy Barcode Scanner
Use your phone’s camera to scan products for instant price comparisons — no need to painstakingly input your search queries while angry shoppers slam you with their carts. If there’s a better deal around you or online, this app will let you know. (iPhone, Android)

Wunderlist
Was it your nephew Charlie who wanted the new Call of Duty game? Or was that your boss’ son Jimmy? Instead of checking your list twice, try WunderList, a super-simple task management tool that syncs lists on your desktop, iPhone, and more. (iPhone, Android) 

Mint.com Personal Finance
The whirlwind holiday shopping season can make it difficult to keep your finances in check. One solution: Mint, a virtual-money manager that automatically keeps tabs on your bank and credit card accounts to help you master your budget with a friendly, easy-to-use interface. Best of all, it’s useful well after January rolls around; no wonder TIME Magazine named it one of the 50 best iPhone apps out there. (iPhone, Android)

SEE ALSO: Get rich quick: 6 people who accidentally found a fortune

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Camembert to clocks: Dali’s genius on show in Paris

PARIS (Reuters) – The broadest-ever retrospective of Salvador Dali, opening in Paris this week, seeks to move beyond the shameless self-promotion that the 20th century Surrealist was often derided for and stress his indelible influence on artists today.

Once dubbed “Avida Dollars” for his love of money, Dali is regarded by some as little more than a marketing product, his Spanish home an obligatory tourist stop, his trademark melting watches the inspiration for money-spinning souvenirs.

But a new show at the Pompidou Centre lays bare the extent of his creative genius, exploring how his experiments with painting, cinema, advertising and installations influenced movements from Pop Art to today’s performance art.

The show, which runs from November 21 to March 25, is set to be a blockbuster of the Parisian art calendar. The last Dali retrospective at the Pompidou in 1979 remains the most visited exhibition in the museum’s history.

“There’s this vision we have of there being a good Dali, the Surrealist, and then the one who came after, who made money,” said exhibition curator Jean-Michel Bouhours.

“We needed to go beyond this distinction between the good and the bad and show how the experimental Dali was extraordinarily important in the history of art and the artistic models that developed in the 60s and 70s.”

The exhibition features some 200 works by the Spanish master, including the famous 1931 “The Persistence of Memory” with melting pocket watches, which Dali said was inspired by watching camembert cheese liquefying in the sun.

Also on show are dozens of works on paper, projects for stage and screen, photographs and films such as the 1929 “Un Chien Andalou“, written with Spanish director Luis Bunuel.

His designs for ballet, decorative arts and even a pavilion for the 1939 New York World Fair earned him the derision of fellow Surrealists such as Andre Breton.

But Dali saw mass media as a more efficient way than painting of getting across his “paranoid critique” of the world.

His 1935 installation, “Mae West’s Face Which May be Used As An Apartment” with its lip-shaped sofa showed an obsession with celebrity that would later influence the Pop Art of Andy Warhol.

Born Salvador Domingo Felipe Jacinto Dali in 1904 in the Catalan town of Figueres, Spain, Dali remains a controversial artist, loved for his creative genius but dismissed by some as a madman and hated for his at times grotesque artistic vision.

Although an anarchist in his youth and deeply attached to his native Catalonia, he was criticized for later declaring himself a monarchist, turning to religion and moving closer to the post-war authoritarian regime of Francisco Franco.

His love of show business and manic declarations such as “Surrealism is me”, alienated many. But he is cited as an influence for many artists such as Damien Hirst and Jeff Koons.

Dali died of heart failure in Figueres in 1989, seven years after the death of his wife and muse Gala.

(Reporting By Vicky Buffery, editing by Paul Casciato)

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FDA approves first-of-a-kind seasonal flu vaccine

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Food and Drug Administration says it has approved the first seasonal flu vaccine made using animal cell technology, rather than the half-century egg method.

The FDA approved Novartis‘ Flucelvax to prevent influenza in people 18 years and older.

The new method has been promoted by U.S. health officials because it is faster than egg-based production and could speed up manufacturing in the event of a pandemic.

In the older method, virus samples are injected into specialized chicken eggs and incubated. The egg fluids are later harvested, concentrated and purified into the vaccine.

With cell technology, small amounts of virus are put in fermenting tanks with nutrients and cells derived from mammals. The virus is then inactivated, purified and put into vaccine vials.

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Payday loan firms warned by OFT

20 November 2012 Last updated at 06:43 ET

David Fisher, Office of Fair Trading: “The industry as a whole certainly needs to raise its game”

The payday loan industry has been warned to improve the way it lends money and collects debts, or face fines or closures.

The Office of Fair Trading (OFT), in an interim report, says most of the 50 big firms it has been inspecting do not operate fully by its rules.

The OFT says it is worried by reckless lending and aggressive debt collection.

It has now begun formal investigations into several payday lenders over aggressive debt collection practices.

The OFT will publish its full report in the new year, when it has ended an investigation which it started in February 2012.

But David Fisher, the OFT’s director of consumer credit, said all 240 payday lenders have been put on notice to improve.

“What we are discovering is that right across the sector problems exist and the industry as a whole certainly needs to raise its game,” he told BBC News.

He added that recent estimates suggested that the industry was now lending £1.8bn a year, double the amount of a couple of years ago.

Updated rules

The OFT is worried about the “poor practices” which its enquiries have been uncovering, and which chime closely with many of the criticisms that consumer groups have been making of payday lenders.

Among the OFT’s concerns are that:

• lenders do not check properly if their borrowers can afford to repay the money they have borrowed


• too many loans are not repaid on time


• the loans are then extended too often


• lenders are too aggressive when borrowers fail to repay promptly

The regulator has become especially worried about the way payday loan firms use a type of repayment agreement called a continuous payment authority (CPA), using a credit or debit card to ensure they are repaid automatically.

The OFT has updated its rules for the industry to make it clear that if borrowers sign up for a CPA, it must be with their explicit agreement.

Borrowers must be told how a CPA works and how they can bring one to an end.

Lenders must not keep on trying to drain cash from their borrowers’ accounts if there is not enough money available to meet the debt.

Meggan Tile owes seven thousand pounds in payday loan debt and describes how the stress used to keep her awake at night

“Our report shows that a large number of payday loans are not repaid on time,” said Mr Fisher.

“Our revised guidance makes it absolutely clear to lenders what we expect from them when using continuous payment authority to recover debts and that we will not accept its misuse.”

The UK’s most high profile payday lender, Wonga, said it welcomed the OFT report and its recommendations, which add to a new industry code of practice that was announced in the summer and which comes into effect next week.

“Regarding continuous payment authority, which is also used by a broad range of businesses outside of consumer credit, we believe it is an important method of collection and we share the OFT’s concerns that it must not be misused,” said a Wonga spokeswoman.

‘Bad situation worse’

Joanna Elson, chief executive of the Money Advice Trust, welcomed the OFT’s interim report.

She said the experience of clients coming to the Trust for advice was that “payday loans have a habit of making a bad situation worse”.

“We have a lengthy list of concerns about the practices of many companies in the sector and we hope the OFT review will kickstart a more serious consideration of the problems payday loans create,” she said.

“Many thousands of people have come to us for help after having seen their debt problem made far more serious by taking out one or more payday loans,” she added.

The Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) has found a small but increasing number of people complaining to it about payday loan firms.

A spokesman said the main reason for people complaining was that the loan had been unaffordable and should never have been granted in the first place.

“In the first half of this financial year – April to September 2012 – we received 271 new complaints; this compares to the 296 complaints brought to our service during the whole of last year (2011-12) – and we are currently upholding eight out of 10 cases in favour of the consumer,” said an FOS spokesman.

BBC News – Business

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AP Exclusive: Syrian rebels seize base, arms trove

BASE OF THE 46TH REGIMENT, Syria (AP) — After a nearly two-month siege, Syrian rebels overwhelmed a large military base in the north of the country and made off with tanks, armored vehicles and truckloads of munitions that rebel leaders say will give them a boost in the fight against President Bashar Assad‘s army.

The rebel capture of the base of the Syrian army’s 46th Regiment is a sharp blow to the government’s efforts to roll back rebels gains and shows a rising level of organization among opposition forces.

More important than the base’s fall, however, are the weapons the rebels found inside.

At a rebel base where the much of the haul was taken after the weekend victory, rebel fighters unloaded half a dozen large trucks piled high with green boxes full of mortars, artillery shells, rockets and rifles taken from the base. Parked nearby were five tanks, two armored vehicles, two rocket launchers and two heavy-caliber artillery cannons.

Around 20 Syrian soldiers captured in the battle were put to work carrying munitions boxes, barefoot and stripped to the waist. Rebels refused to let reporters talk to them or see where they were being held.

“There has never been a battle before with this much booty,” said Gen. Ahmad al-Faj of the rebels Joint Command, a grouping of rebel brigades that was involved in the siege. Speaking on Monday at the rebel base, set up in a former customs office at Syria’s Bab al-Hawa border crossing with Turkey, he said the haul would be distributed among the brigades.

For months, Syria’s rebels have gradually been destroying government checkpoints and taking over towns in the northern provinces of Idlib and Aleppo along the Turkish border.

Rebel fighters say that weapons seized in such battles have been essential to their transformation from ragtag brigades into forces capable of challenging Assad’s professional army. Cross-border arms smuggling from Turkey and Iraq has also played a role, although the most common complaint among rebel fighters is that they lack ammunition and heavy weapons, munitions and anti-aircraft weapons to fight Assad’s air force.

It is unclear how many government bases the rebels have overrun during the 20-month conflict, mostly because they rarely try to hold captured facilities. Staying in the captured bases would make them sitting ducks for regime airstrikes.

“Their strategy is to hit and run,” said Elias Hanna, a retired Lebanese army general and Beirut-based strategic analyst. “They’re trying to hurt the regime where it hurts by bisecting and compartmentalizing Syria in order to dilute the regime’s power.”

The 46th Regiment was a major pillar of the government’s force near the northern city of Aleppo, Syria’s economic hub, and its fall cuts a major supply line to the regime’s army, Hanna said. Government forces have been battling rebels for months over control of Aleppo.

“It’s a tactical turning point that may lead to a strategic shift,” he said.

At the 46th Regiment’s base, about 25 kilometers (15 miles) west of Aleppo, the main three-story command building showed signs of the battle — its walls punctured apparently from rebel rocket attacks. The smaller barracks buildings scattered around the compound, about 2.6 square kilometers (1 square mile) in size, had been looted, with mattresses overturned. A number of buildings had been torched.

Reporters from The Associated Press who visited the base late Monday saw no trace of the government troops who had been defending it — other than the dead bodies of seven soldiers.

Two of them, in camouflage uniforms, lay outside the command building. One of them was missing his head, apparently blown off in an explosion.

The rest were in a nearby clinic. Four dead soldiers were on stretchers set on the floor, one with a large gash in his arm, another with what appeared to be a large shrapnel hole in the back of his head. The last lay on a gurney in another room, his arms and legs bandaged, a bullet hole in his cheek and a splatter of blood on the wall and ceiling behind him as if he had been shot where he lay.

It could not be determined how or when the soldiers had been killed.

The final assault that took the base came after more than 50 days of siege that left the soldiers inside demoralized, according to fighters who took part.

Working together and communicating by radio, a number of different rebels groups divided up the area surrounding the base and each cut the regime’s supply lines, said Abdullah Qadi, a rebel field commander. Over the course of the siege, dozens of soldiers defected, some telling the rebels that those inside were short of food, Qadi said.

The rebels decided to attack Saturday afternoon when they felt the soldiers inside were weak and the rebels had enough ammunition to finish the battle, Qadi said. The battle was over by nightfall on Sunday. Seven rebel fighters were killed in the battle, said al-Faj of the rebels’ Joint Command. Other rebel leaders gave similar numbers.

It remains unclear how many soldiers remained in the base when the rebels launched their attack and what happened to them.

Al-Faj said all soldiers inside were either killed or captured. He said he didn’t know how many were killed, but that the rebels had taken about 50 prisoners, all of whom would be tried in a rebel court. Aside from the 20 prisoners seen at the rebel’s Bab al-Hawa base, the AP was unable to see any other captured soldiers.

The Syrian government does not respond to requests for comment on military affairs and said nothing about the base’s capture. It says the rebels are terrorists backed by foreign powers that seek to destroy the country.

Disorganization has plagued the Syrian opposition since the start of the anti-Assad uprising in March 2011, with exile groups pleading for international help even when they have no control over those fighting inside of Syria.

A newly formed Syrian opposition coalition received a boost Tuesday, when Britain officially recognized it as the sole representative of the Syrian people.

The National Coalition of the Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces was formed in the Gulf nation of Qatar on Oct. 11 under pressure from the United States for a stronger, more united opposition body to serve as a counterweight to more extremist forces.

British Foreign Secretary William Hague said Tuesday the body’s members gave assurances to be a “moderate political force committed to democracy” and that the West must “support them and deny space to extremist groups.”

The United States and the European Union have both spoken well of the body but stopped short of offering it full recognition.

Key to the body’s success will be its ability to build ties with the disparate rebel groups fighting inside Syria. Many rebel leaders say they don’t recognize the new body, and a group of extremist Islamist factions on Monday rejected it, announcing that they had formed an “Islamic state” in Aleppo.

Anti-regime activists say nearly 40,000 people have been killed since Syria’s crisis started 20 months ago.

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Associated Press write Elizabeth Kennedy contributed reporting from Beirut, Lebanon.

Middle East News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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