economist经济学人杂志20080119.doc(5).doc

Politics this week
Apr 26th 2007
From The Economist print edition

AP

Boris Yeltsin, Russia's former president, died. His funeral in Moscow was attended by a bevy of world leaders past and present. Vladimir Putin paid tribute to his predecessor, though critics say he has curbed the freedoms Mr Yeltsin proclaimed. See article
Meanwhile, Mr Putin called for a moratorium on Russia's compliance with a treaty that regulates military deployments in Europe, complaining that other countries were flouting it. Robert Gates, America's defence secretary, visited Moscow in an attempt to persuade Russia to drop its opposition to the siting of American missile-defence systems in central Europe.
In the first round of France's presidential election, the two front-runners, Nicolas Sarkozy and Ségolène Royal, came top. They will face each other in a run-off on May 6th, in which Mr Sarkozy is favoured to win. See article
Ukraine's president, Viktor Yushchenko, delayed until June 24th the early parliamentary election he had called for May. The government is still opposed to the early poll.
Turkey's ruling AK Party said that the foreign minister, Abdullah Gul, would be its presidential candidate next month. Secularists have opposed the prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, taking the job. See article

Last-minute hitches
America expressed frustration at India's reluctance to sign a controversial nuclear-power deal, which would let India buy American nuclear fuel and reactors. India objects, among other things, to a clause halting co-operation if it decides to carry out another nuclear test. See article
South Korea resumed large-scale rice aid to North Korea. Both Koreas also agreed to let trains cross their border for the first time in 50 years.
Benazir Bhutto, a Pakistani opposition leader, said she would return from exile, strengthening suspicions that she has cut a deal with the president, General Pervez Musharraf, to shore up his ailing regime. Big protests continued against Mr Musharraf's attempt to sack the country's top judge.
The International Energy Agency said China might overtake the United States as the world's biggest emitter of greenhouse gases, possibly as soon as this year. See article
EPA

Bhutan staged a colourful mock election with dummy parties, as part of the former king's plan to introduce democracy to the tiny Himalayan realm. The Thunder Dragon Yellow party, bearing royal colours, won a landslide. See article

Baghdad's wall
In Iraq a row erupted over an American military plan to build a protective wall around the Sunni Arab enclave of Adhamiya, a district of Baghdad. Iraq's prime minister, Nuri al-Maliki, said it would divide the capital along sectarian lines. But some of his top soldiers seemed to endorse it. See article
Israel's finance minister, Avraham Hirchson, took voluntary leave pending a police inquiry into allegations that he embezzled union funds. Three days later the state comptroller said that Ehud Olmert, the prime minister, should suspend himself and be investigated too, for allegations of corruption while he was industry minister.
The Nigerian ruling party's candidate, Umaru Yar'Adua, was declared to have won the presidency in the first round, with 70% of votes cast. However, foreign observers reported rampant vote-rigging and the opposition called for the poll to be re-run. See article
Fighting intensified in Somalia's capital, Mogadishu, from which some 321,000 people have fled in the past few weeks, according to the UN. See article
Fighters of the Ogaden National Liberation Front, an ethnic-Somali group fighting for the autonomy of a region in eastern Ethiopia, attacked a Chinese oil-exploration facility in the desert there, killing some 65 Ethiopians and nine Chinese. Ethiopia's government blamed Eritrea for helping the attackers.

Headed for a showdown
The House approved a bill that would bring American troops home from Iraq by next spring; the Senate was set to follow. A presidential veto next week looks certain.
Students at Virginia Tech returned to their classes one week after Cho Seung-hui shot and killed 32 of their classmates before killing himself. Tim Kaine, Virginia's governor, raised the possibility of adding mental-health records to the database that gun shops in the state consult before selling a firearm to someone.
Michael Bloomberg unveiled a set of proposals to improve the environment of New York, including a congestion charge for parts of Manhattan. The mayor said that traffic jams were causing a lot of New York's health and economic problems. He also wants to reduce the city's greenhouse-gas emissions by 30% before 2030. See article
John McCain formally launched his already struggling presidential campaign in New Hampshire. The senator from Arizona is trailing his Republican rival, Rudy Giuliani, in opinion polls.
Alberto Gonzales said he would stay in the post of attorney-general “as long as I can continue to serve effectively”. Congress grilled Mr Gonzales last week on the motivations behind the sacking of eight federal prosecutors. Mr Bush has expressed his support, but no other Republicans echoed it.

Save your obituaries
Cuba's state media published photos of a fit-looking Fidel Castro meeting a visiting Chinese official, fuelling rumours that he might soon make his first public appearance since intestinal surgery that had appeared to leave him close to death. See article
AP

Mexico City's legislative assembly broke a Latin American taboo by approving a law allowing abortion on demand during the first 12 weeks of pregnancy. See article
Ecuador's conflict of powers continued. The Constitutional Tribunal reinstated 51 opposition legislators ousted by a lower court. But a rival version of the country's Congress, loyal to the leftist president, Rafael Correa, voted to dismiss the tribunal. Earlier this month, Mr Correa's plan to set up a constituent assembly won the backing of 82% of voters
In Canada, an opposition proposal to withdraw Canadian troops from Afghanistan in February 2009 was defeated in the House of Commons.
Business this week
Apr 26th 2007
From The Economist print edition

A consortium of banks led by Royal Bank of Scotland said it would bid for control of ABN AMRO, two days after the Dutch bank had agreed to a euro66 billion ($90 billion) takeover from Britain's Barclays. The RBS group said the deal it was interested in making was worth euro72 billion, but its offer is contingent on ABN keeping hold of LaSalle. ABN's agreement with Barclays involves selling LaSalle, based in Chicago, to Bank of America for $21 billion. See article
Rumours about another big banking combination were downplayed when Italy's UniCredit denied it was in merger talks with France's Société Générale. Observers noted that if there was such a politically sensitive deal to be made it was unlikely to be announced until after the French presidential elections.
In a long-running bank battle in Portugal, Millennium BCP raised its offer for Banco BPI by around a quarter, to euro5.3 billion ($7.2 billion). BCP first approached its smaller rival more than a year ago, but has met stiff opposition from BPI's largest shareholders, including Spain's La Caixa bank.

A new broom
Klaus Kleinfeld told the supervisory board of Siemens that he would step down from the post of chief executive in October. The German engineering group is reeling from allegations that it paid bribes to secure contracts. An investigation is also under way into whether the management at Siemens financed a rival to its main trade union. Heinrich von Pierer, the board's chairman, resigned last week. See article
AstraZeneca, an Anglo-Swedish drugs company, agreed to buy MedImmune, which specialises in biomedicines, and vaccines, for $15.6 billion. With increasing competition from generic drugs, companies are attracted to hard-to-copy biological medicines.
The battle for Alliance Boots seemed won when a consortium led by its deputy executive chairman and backed by Kohlberg Kravis Roberts upped its stake in the British drugs retailer, causing a rival consortium that included the Wellcome Trust, a medical charity, to drop its bid. Worth some £11.1 billion ($22.2 billion), KKR's offer for Boots is Europe's biggest-ever leveraged buy-out.

Life in the fast lane
Toyota sold more vehicles worldwide than General Motors in the first quarter, overtaking its Detroit rival for the first time. Toyota, which sold 2.35m cars and trucks compared with GM's 2.26m, is this year expected to become the world's biggest carmaker by annual sales. GM has retained the top spot since it passed Ford in 1931. See article
British Airways revealed that it was talking to “a number” of private-equity firms about how to use its 10% stake in Iberia, but ruled out making an independent bid for Spain's national carrier. Iberia, which operates several routes to Latin America in alliance with BA and others, was recently approached with a euro3.4 billion ($4.6 billion) offer by Texas Pacific Group, one of the firms rumoured to be talking to the British airline. See article
France's Carrefour said it was buying Atacadão, a Brazilian chain of discount stores, for $1.1 billion, to become Brazil's largest grocer.
Vonage's anaemic share price soared by 29% (it is still some 80% down from last year's public offering) after a court overturned a previous ruling that barred the company from signing up new customers to its internet phone service while it contests a patent dispute with Verizon.
Apple rallied around its boss, Steve Jobs, and said it wouldn't “enter into a public debate” with the company's former finance director, who alleged that Mr Jobs had misled him about past stock option practices at the firm. With its quarterly profit rising by 88%, investors expressed confidence in Apple by pushing its share price past $100.
Carl Icahn's American Real Estate Partners agreed to sell the landmark Stratosphere casino in Las Vegas and three other casinos for $1.3 billion to property funds affiliated with Goldman Sachs.
A survey by Alpha, a magazine, showed the founders of the three top hedge funds had each earned well over $1 billion for the first time last year. Their combined total of $4.4 billion is worth more than Haiti's 2005 GDP.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed above 13,000 for the first time on April 25th.

Through the floor

Spanish property groups had a terrible week, led by a fall of around 65% in the share price of Astroc, which is based in Valencia. Spain's property boom has lasted for ten years and construction is a mainstay of the economy, but concerns have been raised recently about the excess supply of housing and overvalued prices. See article
KAL's cartoon
Apr 26th 2007
From E

Kevin Kallaugher

The coming wireless revolution

When everything connects
Apr 26th 2007
From The Economist print edition

Information technology has nothing to lose but its cables

THE wireless was once a big, wood-panelled machine glowing faintly in the corner of the living-room. Today's wireless device is the sleek mobile phone nestling in your pocket. In coming years wireless will vanish entirely from view, as communications chips are embedded in a host of everyday objects. Such chips, and the networks that link them together, could yet prove to be the most potent wireless of them all.
Just as microprocessors have been built into everything in the past few decades, so wireless communications will become part of objects big and small. The possibilities are legion. Gizmos and gadgets will talk to other devices—and be serviced and upgraded from afar. Sensors on buildings and bridges will run them efficiently and ensure they are safe. Wireless systems on farmland will measure temperature and humidity and control irrigation systems. Tags will certify the origins and distribution of food and the authenticity of medicines. Tiny chips on or in people's bodies will send vital signs to clinics to help keep them healthy.

The end of the line
The computing revolution was about information—digitising documents, photographs and records so that they could more easily be manipulated. The wireless-communications revolution is about making digital information about anything available anywhere at almost no cost. No longer tied down by wires and cables, more information about more things will get to the place where it is most valuable.
For the moment, the mobile phone is stealing the show. It is evolving from a simple phone into a wallet, keychain, health monitor and navigation device. But as mobile-phone technology matures, even more innovation is taking place in areas of wireless that link things only metres or millimetres apart.
For that, thank the cross-breeding of Marconi's radio and the microprocessor. Etched into silicon, the radio is starting to benefit from the dramatic decreases in size and cost and the huge increase in performance that have recently propelled computing. Satellite-navigation chips today cost as little as a dollar apiece. Radio-frequency identification (RFID) tags can be made so tiny that they fit into the groove of a thumb-print. When power can be wirelessly routed to such devices, something that is not far off, all the pieces will be in place.
Wireless brings countless benefits, as our special report in this issue describes. Devices and objects can be monitored or controlled at a distance. Huge amounts of data that were once impossible or too expensive to collect will become the backbone of entirely new services. Wireless communications should boost productivity just as information technology has.
Imagine how wireless communications could change motoring. Carmakers are starting to monitor vehicles so that they know when to replace parts before they fail, based on changes in vibration or temperature. If there is a crash, wireless chips could tell the emergency services where to come, what has happened and if anyone is hurt. Traffic information can be instantaneous and perfectly accurate. They administer tolls based on precise routes. One American firm leases cars to people with bad credit who cannot get a loan, knowing that if payments are missed it can block the ignition and find the car to repossess it. British insurers offer policies with premiums based on precisely when and where a person drives.
Of course, plenty of work will be needed before wireless communications can realise their promise. The first obstacle is novelty. As is usual in the early days of a new industry, all kinds of proprietary systems abound, many of them built from scratch—rather as early computer hackers fiddled with their Altairs in the mid-1970s. Until common standards and protocols emerge for machine-to-machine and wireless sensor communications, costs will be a problem.
It is not yet clear who will bang