The.Economist.2007-02-10 (966424), страница 2
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Sceptics wondered how this could betwinned with Mr Bush's request to extend his tax cuts. See articleRudy Giuliani confirmed he was entering the presidential race. Although he did not make a formaldeclaration, the former mayor of New York filed the usual campaign papers and told a TV interviewer that“I'm in this to win”. See articleThe Senate was embroiled in debate on Mr Bush's policy on Iraq. Several resolutions ranging fromsupport to outright condemnation of Mr Bush's plans have been produced and the parties are negotiatingover which can proceed. See articleDangerous digsAn explosion killed 32 miners at a rudimentary coal mine in north-eastern Colombia.
Days later, asecond blast at another mine in the centre of the country killed eight.In Bolivia, more than 20,000 miners marched through the capital, La Paz, inprotest at plans by Evo Morales, the country's socialist president, for a sharprise in taxes on mining. The government backtracked, saying the tax rise wouldapply to large privately owned mines and not to small mining co-operatives.AFPOpponents accused Argentina's government of fiddling the country's inflationfigure after a senior statistician was sacked and her replacement changed themethodology of the consumer-price index. The government said inflation inJanuary was 1.1%; economists said it was 1.5-2%.
See articleMore than a dozen gunmen attacked two state law-enforcement offices in theMexican resort of Acapulco, killing seven people while videotaping the assaults.President Felipe Calderón sent some 8,000 troops to the area last month to crack down on drugtrafficking and organised crime.A new mission to accomplishThe killing in Iraq continued unabated, with at least 130 people, mostly Shias, dying in a single suicidebombing in a Baghdad market. A “surge” of extra American troops into Baghdad was set to begin in aneffort to quell the sectarian violence.The Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, head of the Fatah party, and his Islamist rivals fromHamas, represented by their leader-in-exile Khaled Meshal, started talks in Mecca to end weeks offactional fighting in the Palestinian territories.Egypt's president, Hosni Mubarak, ordered a band of Muslim Brothers, including the group's numberthree, to be tried in a military court.
Lawyers said that 165 members of the Brotherhood, the country'smost popular opposition group, have been detained since December.In Mogadishu, the capital of Somalia, sporadic night-time mortars and rockets were launched at thepresidential palace, hotels and the port, presumably by remnants of the Islamist fighters, most of whomwere routed a month ago by Ethiopian troops. An African Union peacekeeping force has yet to beassembled.
See articleAt the end of an eight-country tour of Africa, China's president, Hu Jintao, saidhe would try to cut his country's $3 billion trade surplus with the continent.ReutersCopyright © 2007 The Economist Newspaper and The Economist Group. All rights reserved.About sponsorshipBusiness this weekFeb 8th 2007From The Economist print editionVornado Realty Trust withdrew its bid for Equity Office Properties, leaving the way clear forshareholders in America's largest real-estate investment trust to accept Blackstone Group's offer of$38.9 billion. The transaction sets a new record for a leveraged buy-out, underscoring the relentlesstakeover of public companies by private-equity firms.
See articleBlackstone Group was one of four private-equity firms making up a consortium that expressed a keeninterest in acquiring J. Sainsbury. The British supermarket chain has a market value of around £9 billion($18 billion); if successful, the leveraged buy-out would be Europe's biggest. See articleLondon's latest landmark, the Gherkin, was sold for £600m ($1.2 billion), a record for the capital'sbooming commercial-property market. The seller, Swiss Re, will remain in the building as its main tenantuntil at least 2031.Steve Jobs called for an end to digital-rights management technology that protects music sold over theinternet.
DRM was insisted upon by big record labels, but Mr Jobs thinks it is inhibiting the growth of theonline-music market. Some observers reckoned that Apple's chief executive was trying to deflect criticismaimed at iTunes' own FairPlay system from regulators in Europe. See articleThe long and winding roadMeanwhile, a settlement was reached in a trademark dispute between Apple and Apple Corps, theBeatles' music company. The agreement gives Apple ownership of all the “Apple” logo trademarks, but thecomputer-maker will license some trademarks back to Apple Corps. The two sides have been arguingsince the early 1980s; fans now hope they can come together and make the Beatles' songs available oniTunes.There was more bother for YouTube over copyright infringement.
Viacom, the owner of MTV, asked thatall of its content be removed from YouTube's website after the two sides failed to reach a distribution deal.Meanwhile, Jeff Zucker chose his first day as boss of NBC Universal to chastise YouTube for failing toaddress media copyright on video clips.Eastman Kodak unveiled its line of desktop printers and low-cost ink cartridges. Troubled Kodak ishoping its new products will encroach on Hewlett-Packard and others by addressing consumers' gripesabout the cost of replacement cartridges for their printers (by weight, the ink within them costs more thancaviar).A case to answer?A three-man panel of a federal appeals court in San Francisco ruled that the biggest sex-discriminationcase in American history could proceed against Wal-Mart as a class-action lawsuit.
The suit was broughton behalf of past and present female employees, who claim the retailer is biased towards men in pay andpromotion. An estimated 2m women could join it. Wal-Mart fulminated against the legal basis of the caseand said it would fight all the way to the Supreme Court if it had to.The long-running takeover battle for Endesa moved closer towards completion when the board of theSpanish energy company recommended E.ON's latest €41 billion ($53 billion) offer to shareholders.HSBC said that high rates of bankruptcy in America's subprime mortgage market meant it would take amuch higher charge than expected (estimated to be around $10.5 billion) on bad debts for 2006.With the threat of huge lawsuits against cigarette-makers seemingly receding in the United States,Britain's Imperial Tobacco decided to enter the market, agreeing to buy America's CommonwealthBrands for $1.9 billion.Chung Mong-koo, the chairman of Hyundai Motor, received a three-year prison sentence for embezzlingcompany funds.
The jail term surprised those used to the comparatively light sentences handed down inSouth Korean corporate cases. However, the court decided not to send the head of the country's biggestcarmaker to his cell straightaway, citing the need to protect the national economy during his appeal.Investors have been pushing for more transparency in the country's chaebol.Still full of eastern promiseThe Shanghai stockmarket recovered somewhat after losing 11% of thevalue of its domestically traded shares in five days.
The index surged lastyear, as improved earnings at Chinese companies spurred investorconfidence. With one senior Chinese politician now warning that the marketwas overheated (and that most of the index's companies should be delisted),some pondered if this was the inevitable end to a Chinese bubble. Coolerheads said it was just a market correction. See articleCopyright © 2007 The Economist Newspaper and The Economist Group. All rights reserved.About sponsorshipAmerica and IranNext stop Iran?Feb 8th 2007From The Economist print editionWhy George Bush should resist a Wagnerian exit from the White HouseU.S. Air ForceGet article background“WE ARE not planning for a war with Iran.” So said Robert Gates, America's new defence secretary, onFebruary 2nd. You cannot be much clearer than that.
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