Shortsighted to oppose bank tax, IMF warns

(Reuters) - Countries that weathered the global economic crisis with their financial systems relatively unscathed are being shortsighted by opposing a global bank levy, the IMF's chief said on Saturday.

International Monetary Fund Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn suggested a bank tax would be helpful in preparing for crises that could strike anywhere and indirectly criticized countries that might think they would never feel the brunt of a downturn.

"The countries ... which are likely to implement (a bank tax) are the ones having had problems in the banking sector," Strauss-Kahn said. "The others say, 'We didn't have a problem so we're immune.'"

"Maybe it's a bit shortsighted," he added, without naming any countries. Canada has taken a lead role in rallying opposition to a tax on banks, and anti-poverty organization Oxfam zeroed in on it for that stance.

"It would be shameful if Canada blocks a tax that could provide hundreds of billions of dollars for countries that have been devastated by the economic meltdown," Oxfam said in a statement distributed at IMF headquarters, where its semi-annual meetings were held.

"If the IMF can be on the side of the angels, why can't Canada?" Oxfam asked.

The possibility of setting some kind of levy on banks split Group of 20 finance ministers at a meeting on Friday and carried on into the subsequent IMF gathering, where Strauss-Kahn faced questions about it from reporters.

He said that before the crisis it was likely that the United States, Britain and some European countries thought they could manage their way through safely, which proved to be incorrect because they were forced to fund massive bank bailouts.

"So I'm not sure that this kind of instrument -- it's true also for strong regulation -- shouldn't be applied everywhere," Strauss-Kahn said in best diplomatic fashion.

Canadian Finance Minister Jim Flaherty said on Friday that not only was he steadfastly opposed to a tax but also that he had persuaded some colleagues from other Group of 20 rich and emerging countries to join him.

There are other voices, notably in the banking industry, that want to stop the idea of a bank tax in its tracks.

The Institute of International Finance, which represents 390 firms worldwide, wrote to G20 finance ministers after Friday's meeting to lay out their case against a tax.

"The IIF sees no merit in the idea that any levy on the financial sector should be paid into general revenue. Neither do we believe that an ex-ante levy on the banking system should be used to finance the bailing out or recapitalization of failing institutions," IIF Managing Director Charles Dallara said in the letter made public on Saturday.

Dallara suggested such a tax designed to fund future bailouts would only encourage excessive risk-taking, since it meant there would be cash on hand to rescue them in any case.

"That would contribute to the persistence of moral hazard and weaken market discipline," he said.

Dallara said the IIF will propose measures for managing failures by winding up firms and suggested that would be a more useful approach than considering new taxes.

"We can no longer contemplate a world in which public or private sector funds are used to bail out or recapitalize failing firms."

The IIF is to offer a paper on a proposed resolution arrangement to the Financial Stability Board, which is made up of G20 central bankers and regulators and coordinates financial reforms.

(Reporting by Louise Egan, Francesca Landini and Glenn Somerville; Editing by Padraic Cassidy)

U.S. senators postpone climate bill unveiling

(Reuters) - One of President Barack Obama's top priorities -- tackling global warming -- suffered a severe setback on Saturday when a fight over immigration derailed plans to unveil a compromise climate change bill.

Barack Obama | COP15

A bipartisan group of senators led by Democrat John Kerry had been aiming to outline details of their climate change bill on Monday.

That plan was canceled after Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, a member of the working group, threatened to pull out if Democrats pushed for a debate on an overhaul of immigration before doing the huge environmental and energy legislation.

Without Graham on board, efforts to pass climate control legislation could be doomed, as he was expected to work to win more Republican support for the bill.

Kerry later announced that "regrettably, external issues have arisen that force us to postpone" advancing the climate control bill, which also would have expanded U.S. nuclear power generation and offshore oil drilling.

The Massachusetts Democrat indicated the three senators had agreed on the details of a bill before Graham sent his letter.

Kerry added that he and independent Senator Joseph Lieberman would continue working to advance the legislation "and are hopeful that Lindsey will rejoin us once the politics of immigration are resolved."

The Senate climate legislation, under close international scrutiny, would have reduced U.S. emissions of carbon dioxide pollution, which is blamed for causing global warming and results from burning fossil fuels, such as coal and oil, to generate electricity, power factories and operate cars and trucks.

That legislation also would was expected to introduce a new trading system for pollution permits, similar to programs in the European Union and among 10 northeastern U.S. states, to cut pollution.

A Democratic Party aide suggested that key figures were scrambling late on Saturday to find a way to put back on track what may be a last-ditch effort this year for climate-change legislation.

"There's huge movement to find an accommodation between (Senate Majority Leader Harry) Reid, Graham, and the White House," the aide told Reuters.

"The environmental community is sounding the alarm that they need the majority leader to put the pieces back together or they'll hold him accountable," the aide added.

REID UNDER PRESSURE

The flare-up over immigration came a day after Arizona Governor Janice Brewer, a Republican running for reelection, signed into law a tough immigration measure that Obama called "misguided."

Reid, like many Democrats in Congress, is in a tough race for reelection in November and is facing pressure in his state to pass immigration reform, while others want a climate control bill. There is little time left in the legislative calendar.

Democrats, who have a majority in Congress, have signaled they want to pass the climate bill as well as legislation to provide a path for some 11 million people in the United States illegally -- many of them Hispanics -- to gain citizenship.

Hispanics, a key voting bloc who tend to favor Democrats, and other groups have pushed for the legislation, which would also increase border security and reform rules for temporary workers in the United States, which is important to the business community.

The effort to pass the two major bills this year has angered Republicans, many of whom oppose both measures. Graham is seen as a key player on both the climate and immigration issues.

The fate of both bills depends on the ability of Reid and Obama to forge an agreement with Republicans, who have resisted cooperating for the past two years on most major Democratic initiatives.

Carol Browner, the White House's top energy and climate advisor, said on Saturday, "We have an historic opportunity to finally enact measures that will break our dependence on foreign oil, help create clean energy jobs and reduce carbon pollution."

She urged the three senators to continue their efforts.

Reid said Graham was under "tremendous pressure" from his party "not to work with us on either measure."

"I appreciate the work of Senator Graham on both of these issues," Reid said, adding that Americans "expect us to do both and they will not accept the notion that trying to act on one is an excuse for not acting on the other."

Graham has been chafing all week over reports that Democratic leaders were signaling that immigration changes could be the next big legislative push in the Senate after it finishes a bill to overhaul financial regulations.

"Moving forward on immigration -- in this hurried, panicked manner -- is nothing more than a cynical political ploy," Graham said in a letter on Saturday to Kerry and Lieberman.

Graham said debate on the controversial immigration changes was not ripe and should occur next year, after the November congressional elections.

The climate bill, however, already faced an uphill battle in the Senate before it became enmeshed in the battle over immigration.

If Congress fails to approve climate legislation this year, it could try again in 2011. If all efforts collapse in Congress, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has said it would begin regulating greenhouse gases for the first time, an outcome business and environmental groups wish to avoid. They prefer legislation tailored to their needs.

(Additional reporting by Steve Holland in Asheville, North Carolina; Editing by Paul Simao)

Tornado kills 10 in Mississippi: officials

(Reuters) - A tornado nearly a mile wide ripped through central Mississippi on Saturday, killing 10 people, including three children, and injuring dozens of others, state authorities said.

U.S.

The tornado struck at least 13 counties, destroying scores of homes and trapping people inside, damaging businesses, blocking highways and knocking out power to thousands, said the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency.

Five people died in Choctaw County, four in Yazoo County and one in Holmes County, said Greg Flynn, spokesman at the agency.

Governor Haley Barbour declared a state of emergency after the first major U.S. tornado of the year.

"It has done huge damage around Yazoo City," Barbour, who grew up in the city, told CBS television.

"We have fatalities, a number of people that we're still trying to rescue who are trapped in buildings. But it is a major, significant tornado ... and it did some huge damage and perhaps some fatalities north of here," Barbour said.

"The Hinds County Sheriff's Department is sending two dozen deputies and 100 inmates to assist with the response in Yazoo County and clear debris," the emergency agency said.

The storm system has moved to Tennessee, Alabama and Kentucky, said Greg Carbin, spokesman for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

(Reporting by Peggy Gargis; Writing by Matthew Bigg; Editing by Peter Cooney)

history of reuters news

Paul Julius Reuter noticed that, with the electric telegraph, news no longer required days or weeks to travel long distances. In 1850, the 34-year-old Reuter was based in Aachen—then in the Kingdom of Prussia, now in Germany—close to the borders with the Netherlands and Belgium, and he began using the newly opened Berlin–Aachen telegraph line to send news to Berlin. However, there was a 76-mile (122 km) gap in the line between Aachen and Brussels, the Belgian capital city and the financial center of that country. Reuter saw there was an opportunity to speed up news service between Brussels and Berlin by using homing pigeons to bridge that gap in the telegraph lines.

In 1851, Reuter moved to London. After failures in 1847 and 1850, attempts by the Submarine Telegraph Company to lay an undersea telegraph cable across the English Channel, from Dover to Calais, appeared to promise success. Reuter set up his "Submarine Telegraph" office in October 1851 just before the opening of that undersea cable in November, and he negotiated a contract with the London Stock Exchange to provide stock prices from exchanges in continental Europe in return for access to the London prices, which he then supplied to stockbrokers in Paris.

In 1865, Reuter's private firm was restructured, and it became a limited company (a corporation) called the Reuter's Telegram Company. Reuter had been naturalised as a British subject in 1857.

Reuter's agency built a reputation in Europe for being the first to report news scoops from abroad, like the news of Abraham Lincoln’s assassination. After many decades of progress, almost every major news outlet in the world subscribes to the Reuters company's services. It operates in at least 200 cities in 94 countries, supplying news text in about 20 languages.

Reuters was financed as a public company in 1984 on the London Stock Exchange and on the NASDAQ in the United States. However, there were concerns that the company's tradition for objective reporting might be jeopardised if control of the company later fell into the hands of a single shareholder. To counter that possibility, the constitution of the company at the time of the stock offering included a rule that no individual was allowed to own more than 15% of the company. If this limit is exceeded, the directors can order the shareholder to reduce the holding to less than 15%. That rule was applied in the late 1980s when Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation, which already held around 15% of Reuters, bought an Australian news company that also owned stock in Reuters. The acquisition meant that Murdoch then held more than 15%, and then he was compelled to reduce the holding to less than 15% to stay in line with the rules.

Further protecting Reuters from owner actions that might threaten its independence is Reuters Founders Share Company Limited, formed in 1984 as part of the share float. This is a company whose sole task is to protect the integrity of the company's news output. It holds one "Founders Share" which can outvote all other shares in the event that an attempt is made to alter any of the rules relating to the Reuters Trust Principles. These principles set out the company's aim to preserve its independence, integrity, and freedom from bias in its news reporting.[2] Subsequent to the forming of Thomson Reuters the trust principles continue to live on, with the RFSC now holding a Founders Share in each of Thomson Reuters Corporation and Thomson Reuters PLC.[3]

Reuters began to grow rapidly in the 1980s, widening the range of its business products and expanding its global reporting network for media, financial and economic services. Recent key product launches include Equities 2000 (1987), Dealing 2000-2 (1992), Business Briefing (1994), Reuters Television for the financial markets (1994), 3000 Series (1996) and the Reuters 3000 Xtra service (1999).

In the mid-1990s, the Reuters company engaged in a brief foray in the radio sector — with London Radio's two radio stations, London News 97.3 FM and London News Talk 1152 AM. A Reuters Radio News service was also set up to compete with the Independent Radio News.

In 1995, Reuters established its "Greenhouse Fund" to take minority investments in a range of start-up technology companies, initially in the USA, only.

On 15 May 2007, Canada's The Thomson Corporation reached an agreement with Reuters to combine the two companies, in a deal valued at US $17.2 billion. Thomson now controls about 53% of the new company, named Thomson Reuters. The new chief of Thomson Reuters is Tom Glocer, the former head of Reuters. The earlier rule of 15% ownership (see above) was waived; the reason as given by Pehr Gyllenhammar, the chairman of the Reuters Founders Share Company, was "The future of Reuters takes precedence over the principles. If Reuters were not strong enough to continue on its own, the principles would have no meaning."[4] citing the recent bad financial performance of the company. On 26 March 2008, shareholders of both organisations agreed to the merger. The acquisition was closed on 17 April 2008.

In October 2007, Reuters Market Light, a division of Reuters, launched a mobile phone service for Indian farmers to provide local and customised commodity pricing information, news, and weather updates.

The last surviving member of the original Reuters family, Marguerite, Baroness de Reuter, died aged 96 on 25 January 2009 after having suffered a series of strokes in late 2008.[5]

Should be parent be responsible if their children behave badly?

Should be parent be responsible if their children behave badly? The most adolescent want to be adult.But sometime ,they do not have responsible to decide many problem in their life.by themselves. They might make damage and problem to social. Such as , crime, escapade.
They have many reason for support should not be parent responsible.Firstly,teenager to day are want freedom in life.they think, they can dicision by themselve,they want to learn anything by themselves.and then adolescent feel they become adult. The do not need attention from parent . they feel attacned with friend more their parent.last parent should relax more because they might tried from working hard.adolecent children should responsible their’s problem by themselves,athought teenage can responsible their life but for their decide true,perent should responsible them for many reason .
First of all,childen are too younger they don’t have exparience in decide problem.they might walk in mistake way.parent should give advice to them.second,adolescent want moral from parent whent childen have problem.they want attention form parent.third,it were duty of parent to responsible their children .if parent don’t responsible children they might make crime and social problem.
However,I think for that be should take care adolescent to be more for reduce the crimes and social problem are clause by children .expecially ,parent should give morale,advide and attention to teenage children.

Suggestions on How to Reform the Political System in Thailand
In Khun Yoon's blog dated July 20, 208 "Samak Launchs 'Talk Back" on Channel 11 toCounter ASTV" I wrote the following in response t a comment by Khun Plaadip. I would like to repeat them here so others will have a chance to read what I wrote.


I am not an expert in government affairs nor am I a past or present government official of any country, but I would like to offer my ideas as something to think about and to comment and expand upon by all the blog participants here. At one point or another we have all probably aired our complaints about how bad and ho corrupt Thai government officials are. Perhaps it is time for us to put our head together and proposed something here for the powers that be to consider. If we can put together a good proposal maybe The Nation can publish it in their printed version of the newspaper so as to gain a larger audience and attraction.

In my response to Mr. Plaadip I said “please do not feel offended or get mad. We all have good intentions here. Sometimes we say things half jokingly to spice up life a little, but there is meaning in our words. Remember the saying, ‘All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.’ " I continued my comments as follows:






QUOTE

In my humble opinion, no one among all the political parties right now is truly qualified to be PM. What I mean by that is no one that I can think of has the leadership ability and the charisma to ensure that a clean, honest and hard-working government can be formed to tackle the many problems facing the country today.

We should blame this situation to the political system that exists in the country today. The way political parties are organized and financed today and the existing civil service practices force politicians and government servants to be corrupt. Politics and government service have become magnets for the crooked and cunning individuals who see having a position in government as a ticket to accumulate vast wealth through illegal means. There are many well-educated, good and hard-working individuals in the private sector who will not touch politics with a 10-foot pole.

In order to start tackling the corruption problem in the country one should really take a good look at the civil service commission and truly reform the system. One should look at the political system and stop the proliferation of multiple small political parties who really have no objectives other than to become parasites of bigger parties once elections are conducted. In a relatively small country like Thailand, two to three major political parties with clear intentions, objectives and mottos should be the maximum allowable.

Financing of political parties should not come from a few wealthy individuals but instead should come from open and transparent private and/or public donations with no strings attached, and/or reasonable budget allocations by the government itself.

To ensure that corruption is suppressed at all levels, look to Hong Kong and Singapore for role models. Both of these "city states," if you can call them that, have also gone through periods of rampant corruptions in the civil service under British rule, but they have overcome those difficult periods and are now the two most open and least corrupt territories in Asia today. Thais must swallow their pride and start emulating the good practices that others have evolved. There is no need and no time to re-invent the wheel

While the country is going through these transitions, what it needs is a good and honest provisional government set up by a non-elected, professional, well-recognized individual known for his experience, honestly, integrity, and good judgments who must be vetted and royally appointed to a term of no less than 4 to 6 years, maybe longer. He must be given a free hand to form a government comprising of people like him who are professional, well-experienced, honest and hard working and who are determined to get things done quickly, completely, on-time and within budgets that are not bloated with bribes and corruption, They must have the will and power to instill honesty at all levels of the civil service. The law must be on their side to effectively punish any individuals, regardless of background and family ties, if they are found to be dishonest and corrupt, both in the public and private sectors.






We are not talking about stifling democracy here. We are not talking about back-tracking on the road to democracy here. After all, the country is not really ready for full democracy, so we might as well learn how to be a democratic society step-by-step, not through a giant leap forward only to fall flat on our face. We are talking about being realistic and pragmatic. We are talking about not giving the crooks and charlatans the opportunity to twist and abuse the system in the name of democracy so as to achieve their own selfish objectives.






It is very important that government servants must be rewarded with attractive remuneration packages that are commensurate with their responsibility and performance and that will deter them from even thinking of being corrupt. Government service should be thought of as an honorable and attractive career by young, bright, educated and smart citizens who possess the necessary education, qualifications and experience to ensure that they are able to meet the challenges of the jobs and contribute to the welfare of the people and development of the country. People who think that they can buy their way into becoming government officials so that they can profit from their positions and reap their “just rewards” should be screened out of the system through severe penalties with long imprisonment for convicted individuals.

Of course, these are not the only things that need to be done. There are a myriad of challenges that need to be overcome in the education and manpower development, public health and healthcare, economic and industrial development, agricultural and agro-industrial development, infrastructure, defense and other areas. I am not going to deal with these for now.






All of these ideas may seem like pipe dream today. But if the powers that be truly love this country and want it to change for the better, they better wake up now and do something about it. I am not joking here. Thailand today is regressing while most of its neighbors are progressing fast and furious. This country is being left behind and may soon "turn to dust" if it does not do something to save itself from disintegrating into pieces. Somebody said in this blog "One must be BLIND not to see the truth." How true it is when applied in this context.

UNQUOTE






I would really appreciate any feedback from all of our intelligent bloggers who cares for the country and the people of Thailand.

Minister of Science and Technology presides over the Opening Ceremony of Thailand Pavilion at BIO 20
Friday, 27 June 2008
17 June 2008, Mr.Wutipong Chaisang, Minister of Science and Technology presides over the Opening Ceremony of Thailand Pavilion at BIO 2008 San Diego The National Science and Technology Development Agency (NSTDA), Board of Investment (BOI), Thailand Center of Excellence for Life Sciences (TCELS), Ministry of Public Health (MOPH), Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) jointly organized Thailand Pavilion at BIO 2008 San Diego, 17-20 June 2008. This year the theme of the Thailand Pavilion is “Thailand Medical Hub of the World”. BIOTEC and eight private biotechnology companies were part of the exhibitors in the Pavilion. Thailand’s participation is aimed to entice investment and collaboration in bio-business sector. BIO 2008 were participated by more than 2,200 biotechnology companies, academic institutions, state biotechnology centers and related organizations from 70 countries and about 20,000 people attending, including high-level executives from the genetic engineering and biotechnology field all over the world.
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