Category: News Desk

A Japanese Tea Party Revolt?


 

When Takashi Kawamura won a landslide re-election victory as the mayor of Nayoya on February 6th – he put on a pair of black rubber boots while supporters poured buckets of cold water over his head.

Mr Kawamura then declared a “kind of tea party” had been born in Nagoya, one of Japan’s largest industrial cities.

Alongside political ally Hideki Omura who’d won governship of surrounding Aichi prefecture (home of Toyota) – Mr Omura declared “This is a citizen revolution”.

Leading US Web-Properties in 2010/11


 

Facebook leads the way, although there are no surprises there. Once dominating Yahoo has now slipped into 3rd place and the trend shows no sign, or reason to reverse.

At the bottom of the top five was AOL.

See the chart on Business Insider.

Twelve Mega-Booming Megacities of the Future


 

In 2008, urban populations out-numbered rural populations for the first time, and they’re still pouring into the cities. In the coming decades, there’ll be an even more pronounced difference between rural and urban populations – with the city winning the people’s vote over the countryside.

New York and Tokyo remain the largest cities in 2005 – but in terms of high growth in GDP, per capita GDP and population, the emerging markets and even London are leading the way.

Strategy of Egypt “Youth Revolt” Organizers


They were born roughly around the time that President Hosni Mubarak first came to power,

most earned degrees from their country’s top universities,

and all have spent their adult lives bridling at the restrictions of the Egyptian police state —

some undergoing repeated arrests and torture for the cause.

They are the young professionals, mostly doctors and lawyers, who touched off and then guided the revolt shaking Egypt,

members of the Facebook generation who have remained mostly faceless —

Global Stock Exchanges Taking “Too Big To Fail” Route


The New York Stock Exchange, a symbol of American capitalism for more than two centuries, may soon have new owners — in Europe.

The exchange, facing pressure from electronic upstarts that have taken business away from it, said on Wednesday that

it was in advanced talks on a merger with the operator of the Frankfurt Stock Exchange.

A deal would create the world’s largest financial market, with a presence in 14 European countries as well as the United States.

A merger would potentially let customers

Wikileak: Saudi Reserves Overstated, Peak Oil on Horizon


It’s getting more and more difficult to deny that an oil supply crunch is just a few years down the road,

especially now that WikiLeaks has released cables revealing that Saudi Arabia’s oil reserves may have been exaggerated by as much as 40%, or 300 billion barrels.

Saudi Arabia is the world’s largest oil exporter.

Peak oil, or the point when the maximum rate of global petroleum extraction has been reached, and is about to enter terminal decline,

is no longer the fringe theory it was just 10 years ago.

High-Level, Weeklong US Trade Mission to India


Nearly two years ago, President Obama rankled many people in India

when he said US tax law unfairly benefited companies that created jobs in Bangalore, while hurting those that hired in Buffalo.

This week, however, the president’s commerce secretary offered a friendlier message:

Let’s do business.

In his second stop during a weeklong tour of India, the secretary, Gary Locke, said he wanted to help American companies

World Food Price Hikes Driven by Speculation and Derivatives


 

Just under three years ago, people in the village of Gumbi in western Malawi went unexpectedly hungry.

Not like Europeans do if they miss a meal or two, but that deep, gnawing hunger that prevents sleep and dulls the senses when there has been no food for weeks.

Oddly, there had been no drought, the usual cause of malnutrition and hunger in southern Africa, and there was plenty of food in the markets.

For no obvious reason the price of staple foods such as maize and rice nearly doubled in a few months.

Inflation-Scared China Raises Interest Rates Slightly


 

China staged its third interest rate increase since October on Tuesday,

the latest sign of the authorities’ intensifying efforts to temper the blistering pace of economic growth

and prevent already worrisome inflation levels from escalating further.

The central bank in Beijing raised its benchmark one-year deposit rate by a quarter of a percentage point, to 3 percent, and its one-year lending rate by a similar amount, to 6.06 percent.

Google Mobile, Display Ad Revenues Way Up


 

Google’s strong fourth-quarter earnings proved that it is now firmly ensconced in e-commerce, and also showed that,

with its Android operating system and related apps, it is smoothly transitioning to the mobile world.

Google benefited from the best online holiday shopping season since 2006, as Web users increasingly began their shopping sprees at the search engine.

“Whenever e-commerce improves, we see more advertisers competing for the same keywords, and that means more revenue for Google,”