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DETROIT (AP) — The government said Sunday it is investigating reports of engine fires in the Chevrolet Cruze small car and Jeep Wrangler SUV.

The fires haven’t caused any injuries but have destroyed at least six vehicles. NHTSA is investigating the 2011 model year Cruze and the 2010 model year Wrangler.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has received two reports of fires in the 2011 Cruze. In both cases, owners reported that the fires began while the cars were moving, and in both cases the cars were destroyed.

According to complaints filed on NHTSA’s Web site, a driver with a 2011 Cruze Eco was 30 miles into a 43-mile trip last month when smoke started coming out from under the hood. A

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TOKYO — Japan’s quarterly central bank survey shows no improvement in business confidence from the previous quarter. The worse-than-expected result reflects a deteriorating outlook among medium and smaller manufacturers despite easing worries over the crisis in Europe.

The Bank of Japan’s quarterly “tankan,” released Monday, showed the main index for big manufacturers was at minus 4 for the January-March quarter, unchanged from the last quarter of 2011. Many analysts had forecast an improvement to minus 1.

A negative reading indicates greater pessimism than optimism among those surveyed.

Data released last week showed weaker than expected factory production in February, underscoring the fragility of the economic recovery as growth in Asia slows.

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Morning Ireland: David Murphy reports on the latest figures relating to AIB’s annual losses Morning Ireland: Business News – 7.50am bulletin

AIB has reported an annual loss after tax of 2.3 billion for 2011, down from a loss of over 10 billion in 2010.

The bank set aside 7.9 billion to provide for expected losses on loans including 1.6 billion related to residential mortgages.

1.7 billion related to land and development, 2 billion to the property portfolio, 1.6 billion to SME loans and 0.5 billion for corporate other personal sector loans.

AIB chief executive David Duffy said the bank was still on track to meet its goal of returning to profit in 2014.

AIB CEO David Duffy said credit quality continued to worsen across all its divisions, especially in the property and residential mortgage sectors.

The results show that operating profits for the year – before provisions – fell to 68m from 658m the previous year.

It said this was due to lower levels of income – down 22% – and a 4% rise in costs .

Operating expenses of 1.7 billion were 4% higher, of which 2% were due to the inclusion of the 42m of EBS costs.

AIB said that deposits were stable from August due to increased consumer confidence after the recapitalisation of the bank in July.

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WASHINGTON — A technical problem affecting the Visa network barred some people around the United States from using their credit and debit cards for about 45 minutes on Sunday, the company said.

The outage was caused by a recent update Visa has made to its system, said Visa Inc. spokeswoman Sandra Chu. She said Visa had trouble processing some transactions as a result, but the system is operating normally now.

Chu said the problem Sunday was unrelated to the security breach potentially affecting Visa and MasterCard customers that was reported Friday by credit card processor Global Payments Inc.

The outage occurred from around 2:40 p.m. to 3:20 p.m. EDT, a person from a major bank said. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because bank employees were not authorized to speak publicly.

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The agency had opposed the stay application, but the companies claimed that a stay would help save jobs within the group and allow them to realise and maximise the value of assets for their own benefit and fro that of Nama.

Nama had brought proceedings seeking summary judgment for €137.6m against Maplewood Developments, €95.3m against Moritz Holdings and €74.6m against Rumbold Builders over unpaid loans advanced by AIB, Bank of Ireland and Anglo Irish Bank, now Irish Bank Resolution Corporation.

Nama acquired the loans on dates from October to December 2010.

The companies separately owe some €280m to Ulster Bank.

This week, Mr Justice Peter Charelton was told the companies were consenting to summary judgment for €70m in the case of Maplewood, €27.8m for Moritz Holdings and €74.6m for Rumbold.

Nama

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Management accounts are a vital tool for running any business, whatever its size or nature, and although they should be bespoke for the individual business, there are a number of basic principles you should follow to ensure that your company’s management accounts are fit for purpose.

Timescale

Get your management accounts finalised as soon as possible after each month-end. This requires some organisation across the business prior to and around the month-end, but usually there should not be a reason to go beyond three or four days into the new month.

Management accounts – what should they include?

At the very least you should include the following reports:

1. Profit & loss for the month and year to date (ytd)
2. Profit & loss (ytd) compared with the prior year and with this year’s budget or forecast
3. Gross profit analysis, ideally by product and by client
4. Balance sheet compared with the prior year
5. Aged debtors, including a list of the actions being taken to collect the older debts, say over 60 days
6. Cashflow model.

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