BEIJING — China is to diversify the use of its swelling foreign exchange reserves, a policy change that is likely to mean a rise in investment in overseas securities and more purchasing of foreign technology and raw materials. Wen Jiabao, the premier, said after a top-level meeting on finance reform at the weekend that Beijing should improve the management of its foreign reserves and explore ways to diversify their use. The policy switch opens the way for China, which has been largely passive in managing its money, to establish an agency – akin to Singapore’s Government Investment Corporation and other state investment agencies – to handle a portion of its reserves, already the world’s biggest. China’s foreign reserves surpassed Japan’s last year to become the world’s largest and reached $1,066bn by the beginning of 2007. They could double within four years if the country’s trade surplus continues to expand and Beijing’s currency policy stays the same. The government announced on Sunday that it had injected $4bn from the reserves into China Reinsurance (Group) last year to recapitalise it before a possible market listing. Mr Wen said there were still many problems in the financial sector, […]
RALEIGH, N.C. — Private security contractor Blackwater USA is seeking $10 million from the attorney representing the estates of four employees killed and mutilated in Iraq, arguing their families breached the security guards’ contracts by suing the company for wrongful death. Blackwater has also asked a federal court to move the dispute into arbitration, having failed so far in its ongoing efforts to have the lawsuit dismissed. Arbitration is necessary ‘in order to safeguard both (Blackwater’s) own confidential information as well as sensitive information implicating the interest of the United States at war,’ attorneys for Blackwater Security Consulting, a unit of Moyock-based Blackwater USA, wrote in a petition filed December 20. Dan Callahan, a California-based attorney representing the families, called the claim ‘appalling.’ ‘This is a shock-and-awe tactic,’ Callahan said Friday. Blackwater’s attorneys declined to comment. The four families, represented by estates administrator Richard Nordan, filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Blackwater in January 2005 in state court. Family members argue Blackwater broke contractual obligations and used cost-saving measures that ultimately led to the deaths of the four men. Blackwater’s counterclaim for $10 million specifically names Nordan and not the estates or the men’s […]
The world’s libraries are heading for the internet, says Bryan Appleyard. If this means we lose touch with real books and treat their content as ‘information’, civilisation is the loser ‘The majority of information,’ said Jens Redmer, director of Google Book Search in Europe, ‘lies outside the internet.’ Redmer was speaking last week at Unbound, an invitation-only conference at the New York Public Library (NYPL). It was a groovy, bleeding-edge-of-the-internet kind of affair. There was Chris Anderson, editor of Wired magazine and author of The Long Tail, a book about the new business economics of the net. There was Arianna Huffington, grand panjandrum of both the blogosphere and smart East Coast society. But this wasn’t just another jolly. There were also publishers and Google execs, two groups of people who might one day soon be fighting for their professional lives before the Supreme Court. For Unbound was another move in a strange, complex and frequently obscure war that is being fought over the digitisation of the great libraries of the world. The details of this war may seem baffling, but there is nothing baffling about what is at stake. Intellectual property – intangibles like ideas, knowledge […]
Why is the United States poised to try Jose Padilla as a dangerous terrorist, long after it has become perfectly clear that he was just the wrong Muslim in the wrong airport on the wrong day? Why is the United States still holding hundreds of detainees at Guantanamo Bay, long after years of interrogation and abuse have established that few, if any, of them are the deadly terrorists they have been held out to be? And why is President Bush still issuing grandiose and provocative signing statements, the latest of which claims that the executive branch holds the power to open mail as it sees fit? Willing to give the benefit of the doubt, I once believed the common thread here was presidential blindness-an extreme executive-branch myopia that leads the president to believe that these futile little measures are somehow integral to combating terrorism. That this is some piece of self-delusion that precludes Bush and his advisers from recognizing that Padilla is just a chump and Guantanamo merely a holding pen for a jumble of innocent and half-guilty wretches. But it has finally become clear that the goal of these foolish efforts isn’t really to win […]
Although it is common knowledge that Oprah Winfrey was among the richest women in entertainment, Forbes made a list of their own, with Oprah atop of course. Known as the queen of talk shows, ‘The Oprah Winfrey Show’ host topped the Top 20 Richest Women in Entertainment list compiled by Forbes magazine, with an estimated fortune of $1.5 billion, placing J.K Rowling, the ‘Harry Potter’ author on the second spot with just $1 billion. However, the 37-year-old writer is the wealthiest woman in her own country, which sounds reasonable enough. Martha Stewart landed on the third position with $638 million, followed by Madonna’s $325 million fortune and singer Celine Dion’s $250 million. The following spots were taken by Mariah Carey and Janet Jackson with fortunes ranging between $225 million and $150 million, leaving Julia Roberts who used to be Hollywood’s highest paid actress in the past, on the 7th place with $140 million. Currently the most expensive actress in Hollywood, Nicole Kidman barely made it in the top with $60 million. These women got their fortunes by diversifying, like Winfrey with her magazine and production business, and Britney Spears, who has endorsement income and […]
Remote Viewing the Year 2060
