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pharoah88
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14-Sep-2010 20:59
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Garment workers see red over pay PHNOM PENH About 60,000 workers seeking higher wages joined the action at more than 40 factories, out of a total of about 470 across the country, said Mr Ath Thun, president of the Cambodian Labour Confederation. “We will continue the strike until there is an appropriate negotiation,” he told reporters. The strike follows a deal between the government and industry that set the minimum wage for garment and footwear staff at US$61 ($82) a month. Unions say the salary is not enough to cover food, housing and travel expenses, and want a base salary of US$93. They had hoped that more than 80,000 workers would join the walkout. Mr Ath Thun said threats by employers to fire strikers were partly to blame for the lower than expected participation. Manufacturers warned that the strike will result in a loss of production and a drop in orders from buyers, harming Cambodia’s standing among investors. “It will badly affect the reputation of the industry because the unions in question do not obey the law,” said Mr Ken Loo, secretary-general of the Garment Manufacturers’ Association in Cambodia. Cambodia’s garment industry — which produces items for renowned brands including Gap, Benetton, Adidas and Puma — is a key source of foreign income for the country and employs about 345,000 workers. — Tens of thousands of Cambodian garment workers began a week-long strike yesterday — the latest mass walkout by employees in Asia who are demanding a bigger share of the region’s economic success.AFP |
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pharoah88
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14-Sep-2010 08:07
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pharoah88
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13-Sep-2010 12:41
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2010 金虎赌年 云顶赌世界 云顶赌霸王 |
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pharoah88
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12-Sep-2010 16:00
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Sep 12, 20105th interest rate hike expectedNEW DELHI - INDIA is expected to hike interest rates this week for a fifth time in six months after a surge in industrial output strengthened the case for another dose of monetary tightening, economists say. Although India has been the most aggressive in the Asia-Pacific region in raising rates to check prices, the country's inflation remains among the highest of the leading Group of 20 economic powers, at nearly 10 per cent. Economists had expected the central bank might hit the pause button on rate increases when policymakers meet this Thursday, to allow time to assess the strength of India's recovery from the global financial crisis. But figures late last week showing a 13.8 percent leap in industrial output in July from a year earlier - nearly double the market forecast of 7.8 per cent - have dispelled that speculation, experts say. 'We judge that a Reserve Bank of India policy rate hike is a done deal,' said Kevin Grice, international economist at London-based Capital Economics. Production of capital goods such as machinery in Asia's third-largest economy soared a massive 63 per cent, while output of consumer durables such as washing machines climbed 22 per cent, the data released Friday showed. -- AFP |
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pharoah88
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12-Sep-2010 11:41
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Written by Andrew Vanburen (China Correspondent)
Friday, 10 September 2010 09:00
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pharoah88
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12-Sep-2010 11:33
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Currencies play an important role in the economic health of a country -- impacting the flow of trade and capital. For instance, a weak currency can be quite good for an economy in times of recession. It stimulates demand for a country's exports, which can drive growth in manufacturing, boost employment and give overall economic performance a nice jolt. And for foreign investors, a cheap currency makes a country's investments more attractive. On the other hand, a strong currency can be a benefit too. It can give consumers access to cheaper production and higher growth assets in foreign markets, which can improve their standard of living. Moreover, a country's currency plays a huge role in the perception of its global economic stability and safety. Indeed important. But there becomes a problem when a currency is too weak or too strong ... A currency that's too weak, or one that could weaken materially in the future, can drag down an economy. It can scare foreign investors away and can cause existing foreign investments to flee. Conversely, a currency that's too strong can depress a country's exports and ultimately cause deflation. And That's Precisely What We're Seeing in Switzerland and Japan Because Switzerland and Japan maintained relatively low interest rates when the global economy was booming -- before the financial crisis started -- the Swiss franc and the yen were popular funding currencies for the massive carry trade.
The unwinding of this trade, along with the fall in competitive global interest rates over recent years, has kept these currencies persistently strong, even in the face of deep recessions. Historically, countries dealing with recession tend to rely heavily on exports as a tool to return to sustainable growth -- a needed bridge in order to rebuild domestic demand. But with currencies that have strengthened more than 30 percent relative to their major trading competitors, Switzerland and Japan have been at a distinct disadvantage. Consider this ... Since the middle of 2007, when the subprime problem began to rear its head, the Swiss franc has appreciated 23 percent against the euro and nearly 40 percent against the British pound. That's made exporting to these two important markets considerably less competitive. This is why Switzerland has intervened numerous times in an attempt to stem the tide of currency appreciation against the falling euro and pound. But it hasn't worked. The sovereign debt risk in the euro zone and UK has been too overwhelmingly negative on their currencies.
As for Japan: Japan is a heavily export-dependent economy. And its main trade competitor in Asia is China. Given that China has kept its currency very closely aligned with the value of the U.S. dollar through the economic crisis, the yen has soared in value relative to the yuan -- to the tune of 24 percent. This exchange rate disadvantage is a key reason why Japanese officials have been "on watch" for intervention to weaken the yen. But What Is a Fair Value for the Franc and the Yen? For our guide, let's take a look at the market's estimate of the current "fair value" of currencies. We'll use an economic theory known as purchasing price parity (PPP), which adjusts the exchange rate so that an identical product in two different countries has the same price when expressed in the same currency. In the chart below, you can see some of the most overvalued currencies according to the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development's (OECD). The axis on the left shows how overvalued these currencies are based on PPP. OVER VALUED CURRENCIES AGAINST USD 2010 SEPTEMBER 12th SWISS FRANC 34% NORWEGIAN KRONE 31% DANISH KRONE 28% JAPANESE YEN 27% AUSTRALIAN DOLLAR 21% SWEDISH KRONE 17% CANADIAN DOLLAR 13% NEW ZEALAND DOLLAR 8%
According to this measure, the Swiss franc is the most overvalued currency in the world, relative to the U.S. dollar. Also sitting well in overvalued territory is the Japanese yen. Given the likelihood of another round of crisis in the euro zone, the Swiss aren't likely to see the tide of the Swiss franc change against the euro. But, if risks continue to elevate, the Swiss franc should weaken against the dollar, as it did during the first half of 2010 -- giving the Swiss some relief. As for the yen, it appears that nothing short of actual intervention will change the tide of the yen, to release the pressure valve on its exporters. And I expect that will happen, which represents an opportunity for currency investors. Regards, Bryan Rich Money and Markets This investment news is brought to you by Money and Markets. Money and Markets is a free daily investment newsletter from Martin D. Weiss and Weiss Research analysts offering the latest investing news and financial insights for the stock market, including tips and advice on investing in gold, energy and oil. Dr. Weiss is a leader in the fields of investing, interest rates, financial safety and economic forecasting. To view archives or subscribe, visit http://www.moneyandmarkets.com/.
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pharoah88
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12-Sep-2010 11:24
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OVER VALUED CURRENCIES AGAINST USD 2010 SEPTEMBER 12th SWISS FRANC 34% NORWEGIAN KRONE 31% DANISH KRONE 28% JAPANESE YEN 27% AUSTRALIAN DOLLAR 21% SWEDISH KRONE 17% CANADIAN DOLLAR 13% NEW ZEALAND DOLLAR 8% |
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pharoah88
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11-Sep-2010 20:23
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A bomb-ravaged car that illustrates life in Iraq is going on display at London’s Imperial War Museum. |
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pharoah88
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11-Sep-2010 18:23
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The great Carrefour bunfight Supermarket chain’s South-east Asian sell-off defies growth potential
When a dozen companies are scrambling to buy the supermarket, it probably means someone is selling an asset they ought to be holding onto. This is the message from an extraordinary corporate bunfight going on in Southeast Asia, where Carrefour, the world’s second-biggest retailer, has attracted a field of significantly more than 10 bidders for the sale of 61 supermarkets in Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore. The bidding frenzy raises a number of questions, not least why Mr Lars Olofsson, Carrefour’s relatively new chief executive, is so keen to bale out of a region in which the company invested US$150 million only three years ago. Mr Olofsson has said little, hinting only that he wants to concentrate on markets where Carrefour is either the market leader or a strong contender to become so. That would include China, where the group is a leading foreign presence, but not South-east Asia. Yet Carrefour is woefully under-represented in the world’s fastest growing region, with only 7.8 per cent of consolidated net sales in Asia compared with 79 per cent in Europe. The Asian proportion will decline further with the sale of the South-east Asian stores, which account for 15 per cent of regional sales. This seems an odd way to improve the company’s growth prospects — a point that Mr Olofsson recognised when he coupled the announcement of disappointing first half results with enthusiastic talk of opening stores in Russia and India. It is hard to see the logic of simultaneously pulling out of one part of Asia and starting from scratch in another, except as a way of defusing pressure for better short-term results from big shareholders such as Mr Bernard Arnault, chairman of LVMH, and Mr Thomas Barrack, chairman of Colony Capital, the private equity group in the United States. To that extent, the strategy might work. But Mr Olofsson’s critics might be less impressed if they considered the scale of the opportunity that Carrefour is handing to someone else. Like most of Asia excluding Japan, South-east Asia has returned to blistering economic growth after a short downturn. Thailand has reported year-on-year growth in gross domestic product of 9.1 per cent for the second quarter, following 8.9 per cent in Malaysia and 17.9 per cent in Singapore. The Asian Development Bank is forecasting 8.1 per cent for emerging east Asia as a whole this year and 7.2 per cent next year. The International Monetary Fund is projecting GDP growth in the advanced economies of only 2.6 per cent this year and 2.4 per cent the following year. But it is not just the background environment that contrasts so sharply with Carrefour’s European base. Beneath the headline figures, Asia’s renewed growth is being driven by two fundamental changes that point to above average prospects for retailers. The first is that the recovery largely reflects a big rise in domestic consumption, marking a significant departure from the traditional export-driven model. This shows up strongly in retail sales, currently rising at about 15 per cent year on year — double the pre-crisis rate, according to HSBC’s Asian Real Retail Index. The signs are everywhere — from the iPhone4 selling like hot cakes in Hanoi to the glossy television ads featuring Taiwanese supermodel Lin Chi-Ling that are helping Mercedes-Benz break sales records in China. Asia is already the biggest and the fastest growing market for products such as mobile communications devices and personal computers. But the long-term outlook is even more enticing. The United Nations is forecasting that 140,000 people a day — that’s right, a day — will flock to Asia’s cities over the next 40 years, creating large-scale retail demand in addition to the effects of rising incomes. Significantly, many of the bidders for Carrefour’s assets are Asian companies — supermarket operators such as Singapore’s Dairy Farm and private equity firms such as Malaysia’s Navis Capital — which are experiencing the consumption boom first hand. The big exception is Tesco, the world’s third-largest retailer by sales and the market leader in Thailand, which has clearly seen an opportunity to entrench its position. In the very short term, the bidding scramble is good for Carrefour. Its hopes for a price tag of US$800 million to US$1 billion, initially regarded as optimistic by European analysts, now look achievable. But the sale might come to be seen as a big strategic mistake. Carrefour will release a relatively small sum for investment elsewhere. Another company — probably Tesco — will lay the foundations for decades of profitable growth. Tesco says it is keen not to overpay. Carrefour can hardly ask enough. When a dozen customers are jostling at the till trying to buy the same packet of cornflakes it probably means the price is too low.(c) 2010 The Financial Times Limited KeviN Brown |
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pharoah88
Supreme |
11-Sep-2010 18:10
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China’s trade surplus falls to $27b Dollar-yuan central parity rate hits record low
BEIJING
The People’s Bank of China set the dollar yuan central parity rate at a record low of 6.8 on Friday, causing the yuan to hit a one month high against the greenback. Some observers said Beijing could be responding to both international pressure over the yuan’s exchange rate and concerns about inflationary pressure at home.
The move came as China unexpectedly booked a drop in its monthly trade surplus for last month to US$20 billion ($27 billion).
Imports jumped a larger-than-expected 35-per-cent on-year to US$119.27 billion — suggesting the slowdown in the Chinese economy is not as severe as some had feared — while export growth came in at 34 per cent on-year to total US$139.3 billion.
Analysts had predicted China’s trade surplus would widen to around US$30 billion last month, which would have been the highest since January last year; but it instead fell from US$28.7 billion in July.
The smaller trade surplus in official data released on Friday was seen as helping to strengthen Beijing’s resistance against international pressures for greater appreciation of its currency.
The figures also came as United States showed America’s trade deficit with China fell in July — which could erode arguments by US lawmakers that Beijing’s yuan exchange rate policy is giving Chinese exporters an unfair trade advantage.
But some analysts said that the narrowing trade surplus are not likely to ease Washington’s frustration over the slow pace of yuan appreciation. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner next week will face questions from a key US House committee on possible new steps to press China over its currency policy.
Stocks across Asia were mixed on news of the data, which dampened positive sentiment built up by positive US job data and an upward revision of Japan’s growth. In Shanghai, the benchmark index was down 0.63 per cent at midday.
China, meanwhile, is bringing forward the release of more data — including the consumer price index and industrial output — from Monday to Saturday. Observers are speculating the central bank could be preparing to raise interest rates before the financial markets open on Monday.
Royal Bank of Canada senior strategist Brian Jackson said the data “showed impressive resilience” despite sluggish growth in the US and financial woes in Europe. “This suggests that the slowdown in Chinese growth ... has not been caused by external factors but, instead, has been made in Beijing,” he said, referring to government efforts to curb property prices and bank lending.
Meanwhile, China’s “white paper” on the nation’s human resources, released on Friday, suggests that around 22 per cent of China’s one-billion strong labour force is without jobs. Only 780 million labourers are employed, the government said.
“China is facing huge employment pressures at present and for the foreseeable future,” Mr Yi Chengji, spokesman for the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security, told reporters. “As China’s urbanisation quickens, employment pressures from the many surplus rural labourers are getting bigger and bigger.” |
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pharoah88
Supreme |
11-Sep-2010 17:50
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SME lender is Japan’s first bank failure in 7 years TOKYO The Financial Services Agency (FSA) has told the bank it cannot do any business for at least three days and must make efforts to protect existing depositors, the agency said in a statement. Japanese media said the FSA is likely to let the bank go under and will only refund depositors a maximum of ¥10 million ($160,000). This would be the first time that a cap on deposit insurance had been used in Japan, since it was acted in 2002 after a slew of banks went bankrupt with the bursting of the economic bubble in the 1990s. The bank specialises in providing banking services for small and medium sized businesses. It may report a negative net worth of ¥150 billion, the Banking shares were mixed in Tokyo trade on Friday; the benchmark Nikkei Index was up 1.90 per cent. Also on Friday, Japan approved a US$11 billion ($15 billion) stimulus package aimed at helping the export driven economy tackle deflation and the impact of a surging yen. The previously announced plan, approved by the Cabinet of Prime Minister Naoto Kan, includes initiatives aimed at boosting consumption and creating employment for graduates. It is also intended to provide investment in green industries and offer support for small business. The fresh stimulus package of ¥915 billion will be financed by reserve funds and is expected to lift the country’s gross domestic product by about 0.3 per cent, creating around 200,000 jobs. The plan also specifies a strong yen as “a problem that cannot be unaddressed”, stating that the government “will take determined action, including intervention, when needed”. Revised data on Friday showed that Japan’s gross domestic product grew by an annualised 1.5 per cent in the April-June quarter, well above an initial estimate of 0.4 per cent. — The private Incubator Bank of Japan (IBJ) was reported on Friday to have been ordered to halt operations and will file for bankruptcy yesterday, in what would be Japan’s first bank failure in seven years, officials said.Nikkei Business Daily reported.AFP |
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pharoah88
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11-Sep-2010 16:52
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Aussie churches ban Sinatra’s My Way — Sports anthems and popular songs such as Frank Sinatra’s My Way have been banned from funerals at more than 200 Australian churches after new orders from Melbourne’s archbishop. MELBOURNE The edict follows a study that found the signature song for Australian Rules Football team Collingwood was one of the top requests at Melbourne funerals, along with My Way and the Bette Midler version of The Wind Beneath My Wings . Melbourne Archbishop Denis Hart said sports songs were not appropriate for a service which emphasises the solemn nature of death and is not designed as a celebration of the deceased’s life. “Secular items are never to be sung or played at a Catholic funeral, such as romantic ballads, pop or rock music, political songs, football club songs,” Archbishop Hart wrote in the new guidelines. “At the funerals of children ... nursery rhymes and sentimental secular songs are inappropriate because these may intensify grief.” The move in Melbourne has received a mixed reaction, a spokesman for the church said. One parish priest, Father Bob Maguire from South Melbourne, said the move would make it harder to balance the needs of mourners with those of the church. He told Melbourne’s Herald Sun newspaper he preferred to see funerals as “family affairs attended by clergy, not a clergymen’s affair attended by family”. AFP |
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pharoah88
Supreme |
11-Sep-2010 15:57
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Aussie ‘kingmaker’ MP declines ministerial post
SYDNEY Country lawmaker Rob Oakeshott, one of the three independents dubbed “kingmakers” after polls gave neither Ms Gillard or the opposition enough seats to govern, said he had turned down an offer to become Regional Affairs Minister. Mr Oakeshott said his decision to back Ms Gillard had angered some parliamentary colleagues and he knew this would make it difficult to deliver the US$9 billion ($12 billion) package for rural Australia the independents had negotiated with her. — An independent Australian politician whose support was crucial to keeping Prime Minister Julia Gillard in power on Friday knocked back an offer to become a minister in her minority government.AFP |
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pharoah88
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11-Sep-2010 15:49
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Growth in West will be ‘constrained’
COPENHAGEN
Making a speech in Copenhagen, Mr Shanmugaratnam said: “To create a new basis for growth we need low taxes, flexible labour markets and social safety nets that are fiscally sustainable,”
The Finance Minister added: “Fiscal entrenchment is a necessity across the Western world. Financial deleveraging has a long way to go.”
In an interview, he said Singapore aims to keep its manufacturing sector contributing between 20 and 25 per cent of gross domestic product in the long term.
“It means moving up the value curve towards more R&D and design-intensive activities,” Mr Shanmugaratnam said. While Singapore is close to the 25-per-cent level, he added that the target was “very ambitious”.
He added: “Singapore is a very good place for prototyping, particularly for companies aiming at Asian markets. Singapore provides the safety for intellectual property.” |
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pharoah88
Supreme |
11-Sep-2010 15:29
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City of joy The charisma of 300-year-old Kolkata never fails nOt to disappoint anyone who passes through
Sandip Hor travel@mediacorp.com.sg
KOLKATA, previously known as Calcutta, is a city of many incarnations. It evolved from a sleepy coastal village in the 17th century, to classy London on Hooghly — with stately buildings, wide boulevards, gothic cathedrals, colonial clubs and formal gardens — and remained honoured as City Of The Raj until India’s independence in 1947.
At present, the city, simultaneously noble and squalid, is unhurriedly sloughing off its old skin under a communist-led government. However, the blend of past and present, coexistence of old and new, sharing of antiquity with modernity, is a strength of the city, home to more than 15 million people.
The destination attracts a constant flow of visitors throughout the year, though the best time to make a trip is between October and March, when the weather is most pleasant.
Some visitors are drawn by the legacies of the Raj, others by the exuberant Bengali art and culture.
Many use the city as a stopover to visit treasure troves of eastern India — Darjeeling, Bodh Gaya or ancient temples of Orissa. Whatever it may be, the city lives with a reputation of not disappointing anyone.
Admirers of the Raj, which harks back to colonial times, can meander in the Esplanade, a bustling quarter surrounded by regal architecture; stroll along the riverside Strand; glimpse British-made red edifices such as the expansive Writers Building, now the head quarters of the West Bengal government; and relish art and history inside Victoria Memorial, a grandiose structure that looks like the Taj Mahal.
There is also the option of dropping by one of several grand old gentlemen’s clubs for a gin and tonic, backing horses at the race track or playing a soothing round of golf at Royal Calcutta Golf Club, India’s equivalent of Scotland’s St Andrews.
The culturally-minded would be lured by the glories of the local Bengali culture.
Kolkata is considered as the nation’s intellectual capital, and the ancestral home of Asia’s first Nobel Laureate, poet and novelist Rabindranath Tagore, at Jorasako in the city’s north is nothing short of Shakespeare’s home in Stratfordupon-Avon in terms of reverence.
When in the locale, one can also go through several crumbling mega mansions that flank the narrow alleyways.
A fascinating sight, they show the traces of the enormous wealth entrepreneurial Kolkatans made during the Raj heyday.
The one that still remains intact and open to visitors is the 175-year old Marble Palace, which provides a wonderful insight into the glorious Bengali households of yore.
The city’s artistic soul comes alive after sun down, when several venues like Rabindra Sadan, Academy Of Fine Arts, Nandan, Kala Mandir and Star Theatre showcase Bengali dance, music, cinema and theatre. Watching a Bengali play is an intriguing experience. You may not understand the language, but the stage craft, acting and body language will demonstrate its artistic powers.
A paradise for shopaholics, Kolkata can fill your suitcases with a variety of goods from designer label items to things exclusive to the city, such as cotton saris, intricately-designed gold jewellery, terracotta handicrafts and packets of Darjeeling tea.
There are many gleaming malls, arcades and boutique shops, but for visitors, the shopping chapter is incomplete without a visit to the legendary New Market, another colonial showstopper established in 1875 as an elite shopping complex exclusively for the English. If you cannot find what you are looking for here, they say, then it is yet to be created.
Though much of its grandeur has been lost, its appeal remains irresistible.
Just walk through the interconnecting corridors and browse the warren of shops selling almost everything: Clothes, handicraft, jewellery, home ware, pottery, cosmetics, electronics, luggage, spices, fruits, vegetables, fish, meat — you name it.
It’s an intriguing experience, as is tasting beguiling varieties of cakes and spicy meat-filled puff pastries from an old Jewish bakery called Nahoums.
While extreme richness and utter poverty side-by-side remains in-your face in Kolkata, it’s the daily festival of human existence that makes the city unique in character.
By watching something buoyant being ceaselessly played before your eyes, on the humming streets, at wayside food courts, inside teeming bazaars, around crowded temples and outside mosques, you will realise why the other name of Kolkata is City Of Joy. |
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pharoah88
Supreme |
11-Sep-2010 15:02
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Inconvenience of Otherness During difficult economic times, minorities are more vulnerable. france is expelling Gypsies, sending them back to Romania and Bulgaria. Roma in a camp in la Courneuve, outside Paris.
P The scapegoat — that indestructible anti-hero whose resilience defies time, trends and geography — haunts the political landscape today all over the globe as it has many times before. Governments, even democratically elected ones, that run out of momentum and imagination, tend to blame their failures on those whose origin, skin color, religion or lifestyle seem to endanger national cohesion.
From Paris to Tokyo by way of Arizona, otherness is extolled while the Other is regarded with distrust. Witness the expulsions of Roma to Romania or Bulgaria, the distressing serial offered this summer by France, the land of liberté, égalité and fraternité.
In the collective unconscious, the Roma embody the perfect pariah.
Even when sedentary, they remain wanderers with no land and no borders, doomed to drag myths and fantasies along in their wake.
As soon as a threesome of darkhaired, swarthy little girls clad in flowery dresses slips into a Paris subway to beg or rasp out an age old lament, the tension mounts in the car. I know: I feel the same tension sometimes. Women clutch their purses while men thrust their wallets and cellphones deeper into their pockets.
Back in the village where I grew up, Gypsies, who wore themselves out in largely fruitless attempts to sell mops door to door, aroused a mixture of fear and hostility. We dreaded the torrent of obscure prophecies their women — modern avatars of the witches of long ago — showered on those who turned them away too roughly.
Could it be that the France of President Nicolas Sarkozy, son of a Hungarian immigrant, is edging imperceptibly toward state racism?
If the international press is anything to go by, not to mention the condemnations from leftists, organized activists, prominent intellectuals and church leaders, the question is valid.
The use of the term “deportation” and the historical references, tend to revive the specter of the Holocaust orchestrated by Nazi Germany in the 1940s. It is an extreme, if inept, analogy that is nurtured by an indelible historical trauma.
For if Jews were the prime target of Hitler’s extermination policy, it also decimated Europe’s Gypsy communities.
It is absurd to ascribe fascistic intentions to the French executive, but it would be equally so to deny the impact of the populist — and therefore vote-attracting — drive illustrated by the government claimed clamp down, amply inspired by the model implemented in Italy by Silvio Berlusconi and his allies.
In substance, there is nothing really new. Every year between 7,800 and 10,000 Roma are escorted — to use the accepted euphemism — to the French border, and many of them promptly return. The form, however, has changed: whereas Paris used to sneak the Roma out, the evictions are now covered by the media, if not staged for their benefit.
To put it plainly, it is no longer a matter of carrying out shameful expulsions but of flattering the “true” France, the one that slaves away and suffers and is out of work, in contrast to parasites who have suddenly cropped up from elsewhere and outsiders who take advantage of the system.
Why them? Why now?
In the midst of a rotten summer ruined by the economic slump, on the eve of a fall fraught with turbulent social issues, Mr. Sarkozy attempted to create a security diversion. He also hopes to win back the fringe voters who find the simplistic slogans of an openly xenophobic far right appealing and to trap the socialist opposition, torn between its humanistic catechism and the need for firmness.
It would be unworldly to ignore the fact that gang leaders run the begging market like a criminal syndicate and confiscate most of the loot from minors duly trained in the techniques of picking pockets.
But the fact remains that most of the ten to twelve million Roma in the European Union — scarcely over 15,000 of whom are in France — wish only to find a decent site for their trailers, a job and a school for their children.
From Paris to Bucharest you hear the same refrain: “Those people don’t want to fit in.”
But what do we know?
What have we done to help them do so?
Disinclined to lend support to second-rate citizens, the Romanian authorities have invested only a tiny portion of the credits allocated for the purpose by the European Union.
Everyone agrees: the Roma issue can only be dealt with on a European scale with all 27 member countries working closely with the countries of origin. And the process should get under way as soon as possible: the anti-heroes too are tired. |
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lawcheemeng
Master |
11-Sep-2010 14:54
Yells: "fly me to the mooon" |
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now i know why singapore can grow fastest in the world....hehehe..........just found from other forum.....our minister are also higest paid in the world......I received the below via email from my remisier.
Clean sweep by tiny Singapore to be in the Guinness Book of Records! Top 30 highest paid politicians in the world and they are all from Singapore . (All amounts exclude bonuses.) 1. Elected President SR Nathan - S$3.9 million. 2. Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong - S$3.8 million. 3. Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew - S$3.5 million. 4. Senior Minister Goh Chok Thong - S$3.5 million. 5. Senior Minister Prof Jayakumar - S$3.2 million. 6. DPM & Home Affairs Minister Wong Kan Seng - S$2.9 million. 7. DPM & Defence Minister Teo Chee Hean - $2.9 million. 8. Foreign Affairs Minister George Yeo - S$2.8 million. 9. National De velopment Minister Mah Bow Tan - S$2.7 million. 10. PMO Minister Lim Boon Heng - S$2.7 million. 11. Trade and Industry Minister Lim Hng Kiang - S$2.7 million. 12. PMO Minister Lim Swee Say - S$2.6 million. 13. Environment Minister & Muslim Affairs Minister Dr Yaccob Ibrahim - S$2.6 million. 14. Health Minister Khaw Boon Wan - S$2.6 million. 15. Finance Minister S Tharman - S$2.6 million. 16. Education Minister & 2nd Minister for Defence Dr Ng Eng Hen - S$2.6 million. 17. Community Development Youth and Sports Minister - Dr Vivian Balakrishnan - S$2.5 million. 18. Transport Minister & 2nd Minister for Foreign Affairs Raymond Lim Siang Kiat - S$2.5 million. 19. Law Minister & 2nd Minister for Home Affairs K Shanmugam - S$2.4 million. 20. Manpower Minister Gan Kim Yong - S$2.2 million. 21. PMO Minister Lim Hwee Hwa - S$2.2 million. 22. Acting ICA Minister - Lui Tuck Yew - S$2.0 million. 23 to 30 = Senior Mi nisters of State and Ministers of State - each getting betwe! en S$1.8 million to S$1.5 million. Compared to other leaders: Donald Tsang Yum-Kuen - Hong Kong (S$716k) Barack Obama - United States (S$555k) Nicolas Sarkozy - France (S$441k) Angela Merkel - Germany (S$420k) Gordon Brown - UK (S$387k) Taro Aso - Japan (S$337k) Total of all 6: S$2,856,000 In other words, even our one DPM has higher salary than all of the above leaders combined !! Means our DPM s are more able than all the leaders from the 6 biggest world economies combined.
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pharoah88
Supreme |
11-Sep-2010 14:46
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In Japan, Anti-Foreign Protests Grow Louder
KYOTO, Japan — The group of about a dozen Japanese men gathered in front of the school gate, using bull horns to call the students cockroaches and Korean spies.
The December episode was the first in a series of demonstrations at the Kyoto No. 1 Korean Elementary
School that shocked conflict averse Japan, where even political protesters on the radical fringes are expected to avoid embroiling regular citizens, much less children.
Responding to public outrage, the police arrested four of the protesters last month.
More significantly, the protests signaled the emergence here of a new type of ultranationalist group, openly anti-foreign in their message, and unafraid to win attention by holding unruly street demonstrations.
Local news media have dubbed these groups the Net far right, because they are loosely organized via the Internet, and gather together only for demonstrations.
At other times, they are a virtual community that maintains its own Web sites. |
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pharoah88
Supreme |
11-Sep-2010 13:15
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Newly Thriving Indonesia Attracts Foreign Funds
By AUBREY BELFORD JAKARTA, Indonesia — After years of being known for corruption and instability, Indonesia is emerging from the global financial crisis with a new reputation — economic golden child.
Its economy, the largest in Southeast Asia, grew at an annual rate of 6.2 percent in the second quarter of this year. In 2009, gross domestic product expanded 4.5 percent.
The stock market hit a record high in late July and has been among the best-performing equities markets in Asia. The currency, the rupiah, has appreciated nearly 5 percent this year against the dollar, among the strongest showings in Asia.
“Foreign investors have been flowing to Indonesia from maybe around mid-2009,” said Lanang Trihardian, an analyst at Syailendra Capital, a fund management firm in Jakarta.
That investment, he said, “is mostly going to capital markets, to bonds, to stocks.’’
Foreign investment was held in check for years after the 1997 economic crisis in Asia. But in the second quarter of this year, the country had 33.3 trillion rupiah, or $3.7 billion, in foreign direct investment, a 51 percent rise from a year earlier, according to the government.
The largest share comes from within the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. Japan and South Korea, as well as European countries, make up much of the rest.
Some here are saying that the Muslim-majority democracy, one of the world’s most populous countries, could soon merit the kind of attention that investors now lavish on China and India.
More than a decade after the overthrow of the Suharto regime in 1998, the country has stabilized.
Its natural resources, like palm oil, copper and timberChina., are in great demand in
President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has reduced debt and achieved some success fighting graft, and power has devolved to local governments.
The country’s relatively young population of 240 million and government stimulus policies have kept consumption humming.
In Jakarta, worsening traffic and a proliferation of megamalls are seen as signs of the growing strength of the middle class.
Despite the progress, about 15 percent of the population lives below the country’s official poverty line of around $1 a day. Relatively sluggish growth in labor-intensive industries has meant slow progress in curbing unemployment, which is over 7 percent.
The government’s Investment Coordinating Board hopes to attract $30 billion to $40 billion in annual foreign investment by 2015, said Gita Wirjawan, head of the agency.
In an economy worth $650 billion a yearvery important for establishing Indonesia as a serious investment destination, Mr. Wirjawan said. The government recently eased investment rules and passed rules requiring foreign investors to keep their money in the country longer., that is not much. But it is “optically”
The government announced in August that China’s sovereign fund was hoping to invest $25 billion in infrastructure projects in Indonesia.
Posco, the South Korean steel giant, has signed a $6 billion deal to build a plant in Indonesia.
“We’re seeing an increasing relocation of factories by the Taiwanese, the Koreans and Japanese from Vietnam and China,” he said.
The Indonesian Footwear Association has said that major brands including Asics, Mizuno and New Balance shifted some production to Indonesia this year because of rising costs elsewhere.
Many feel that Indonesia’s time has come again.
“In Asia there is a feeling that after you invest in China and after you invest in India, where are you going to invest?” said Fauzi Ichsan, senior economist for Standard Chartered in Indonesia.
“It’ll have to be Indonesia. It’s a natural destination.” |
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pharoah88
Supreme |
11-Sep-2010 12:57
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O V E R H E A R D : nEw grOUp Of edUcatIOnal InstUtIOns ? ? ? ? stUdents gradUate bY ? ? ? ? desIgnIng Own repOrt bOOks ? ? ? ? share prIces fell bY 90% ? ? ? ? AGE OF STUPID ? ? ? ?
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