MANAMA, Bahrain — Muslims have a lot of money to invest. But it is a constant struggle to reconcile faith and finance To see Islamic finance in action, visit the mutating coastline of the Gulf. Diggers claw sand out of the sea off Manama, Bahrain’s capital, for a series of waterfront developments that are part-funded by Islamic instruments. To the east, Nakheel, a developer that issued the world’s largest Islamic bond (or sukuk) in 2006, is using the money to reorganise the shoreline of Dubai into a mosaic of man-made islands. Finance is undertaking some Islamic construction of its own. Islamic banks are opening their doors across the Gulf and a new platform for sharia-compliant hedge funds has attracted names such as BlackRock. Western law firms and banks, always quick to sniff out new business, are beefing up their Islamic-finance teams. Governments are taking notice too. In July Indonesia, the most populous Muslim country, said it would issue the nation’s first sukuk. The British government, which covets a position as the West’s leading centre for Islamic finance, is also edging towards issuing a short-term sovereign sukuk. France has begun its own charm offensive aimed at Islamic investors. […]
WASILLA — Back in 1996, when she first became mayor, Sarah Palin asked the city librarian if she would be all right with censoring library books should she be asked to do so. According to news coverage at the time, the librarian said she would definitely not be all right with it. A few months later, the librarian, Mary Ellen Emmons, got a letter from Palin telling her she was going to be fired. The censorship issue was not mentioned as a reason for the firing. The letter just said the new mayor felt Emmons didn’t fully support her and had to go. Emmons had been city librarian for seven years and was well liked. After a wave of public support for her, Palin relented and let Emmons keep her job. It all happened 12 years ago and the controversy long ago disappeared into musty files. Until this week. Under intense national scrutiny, the issue has returned to dog her. It has been mentioned in news stories in Time Magazine and The New York Times and is spreading like a virus through the blogosphere. The stories are all suggestive, but facts are hard to come by. […]
LIVERPOOL — The most brilliant minds should be directed to solving Earth’s greatest challenges, such as climate change, says Sir David King. The former UK chief scientist will use his presidential address at the BA Science Festival to call for a gear-change among innovative thinkers. He will suggest that less time and money is spent on endeavours such as space exploration and particle physics. He says population growth and poverty in Africa also demand attention. ‘The challenges of the 21st Century are qualitatively different from anything that we’ve had to face up to before,’ he told reporters before the opening of the festival, which is being held this year in Liverpool. ‘This requires a re-think of priorities in science and technology and a redrawing of our society’s inner attitudes towards science and technology.’ Huge expense Sir David’s remarks will be controversial because they are being made just as the UK is about to celebrate its participation in the Large Hadron Collider, the world’s biggest physics experiment. The Collider, built at the Cern laboratory under the Swiss-French border, is starting full operations this Wednesday. What if Tim Berners Lee had been working in […]
Condoleezza Rice, the US secretary of state, has met Muammar Gaddafi, Libya’s leader, in what she described as ‘a new phase’ in relations between the two countries. Her visit marks a historic turnaround in relations between Washington and Tripoli, which have for decades viewed each other with suspicion. ‘The relationship has been moving in a good direction for a number of years now and I think tonight does mark a new phase,’ Rice said after meeting Gaddafi. ‘It is only a start, but I think, after many, many years, I think it’s a very good thing that the United States and Libya are establishing a way forward.’ Rice travelled to Tunisia’s capital, Tunis, on Saturday following the landmark meeting with Gaddafi. Military ties An AFP news agency correspondent said she arrived in Tunis on Saturday – her second stop on a North African tour that will also take her to Algeria and Morocco. The United States has key military ties with Tunisia and is also seeking to conclude a free trade accord with the Maghreb nation. Rice, the first US top diplomat to visit Tunis since Colin Powell in 2003, was […]
WASHINGTON — Driven by a sour economy and skittish consumers, U.S. business bankruptcies saw their sharpest quarterly rise in two years, jumping 17 percent in the second quarter of 2008, according to an analysis by McClatchy. Commercial filings for the first half of 2008 are up 45 percent from last year, as the national climate for commerce continues to deteriorate amid rising energy and food costs, mounting job losses, tighter credit and a reticence among consumers to part with discretionary income. From April through June, 15,471 U.S. businesses called it quits, according to data from Automated Access to Court Electronic Records, an Oklahoma City bankruptcy management and data company. States that saw the biggest increase in filings were Delaware, Montana, Oregon, Maryland and Connecticut, suggesting that the economic gloom is spreading beyond large population centers. It was the 10th straight quarter that business bankruptcy filings have increased. Nearly 29,000 companies filed in the first half of 2008. Another 60,000 to 90,000 others probably have closed, because roughly two to three businesses fold for every one that files for bankruptcy, said Jack Williams, resident scholar at the American Bankruptcy Institute. The vast majority of these […]
Remote Viewing the Year 2060
