★征战AW，不忘阅读★Times or Economist系列精读★

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改格式好麻烦。。。原谅俺用个链接。。

The odd couple    from economist

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[size=0.8em]Kraft's bid for Cadbury
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[size=0.7em]Nov 9th 2009
From Economist.com
Kraft goes hostile with its bid for Cadbury, a British confectioner

[size=0.74em]AFP

[size=0.8em]CHOCOLATES are universally recognised as a potent means of winning over hearts. And usually a suitor who presents a bigger box of treats is thought to have a better chance of success than one who brandishes a smaller one. So the decision of Kraft Foods to launch a hostile bid for Cadbury on Monday November 9th that fails to match up to its original offer of a couple of months ago is unlikely to result in a happy union. The American company’s hand was forced by a ruling from Britain’s Takeover Panel that it must make a full bid (which it has now done, in effect restating the original offer) or walk away for at least six months.

[size=0.8em]The hostile bid, like the offer that the American food giant made at the beginning of September, offers £3 ($5) and around one Kraft share for every four shares of the British maker of Crunchies and Creme Eggs. The potential burden of Kraft’s purchase of Cadbury and some lacklustre results have depressed the American firm’s share price (while Cadbury unveiled quarterly numbers that were better than expected). The current offer values the deal at £9.8 billion compared with £10.2 billion when Kraft made its initial approach.
[size=0.8em]
[size=0.8em]Cadbury also reiterated that it was unwilling to be consumed by a “low-growth conglomerate” insisting that its fortunes would be far better served by remaining independent. But if Kraft is a low-growth company it is also a huge and profitable one. Its bid for Cadbury is designed to give a sugar-rush to its confectionery business, the fifth biggest in the world. In combination with Cadbury, the world’s second-largest sweetmaker, it would challenge Mars-Wrigley for top spot and add strong businesses in rich countries such as Britain and Australia as well as faster-growing developing countries like India, Brazil and Mexico. Together the two firms would have revenues of $50 billion and Kraft estimates that a deal would allow it to lop $625m off its costs each year.If the price has changed a little, the response of Cadbury’s board has not altered one jot. Cadbury originally said that Kraft’s offer “significantly undervalued” the company and was “unappealing”, just as an American’s idea of chocolate is to the British palate. This time round Cadbury’s appetite for a deal is no greater. It “emphatically rejected” Kraft’s direct offer to its shareholders, adding, just for good measure, that it was “derisory”.

[size=0.8em]Kraft is as keen to get hold of Cadbury as the British chocolate-maker is to resist. But some analysts suggest that its shareholders may start to take an interest if Kraft comes back with an improved offer that values the firm at over £8 a share (rather than around £7.17, which is currently on the table). Others suggest that it might take something closer to £9 to attract Cadbury’s investors. That may be too rich for Kraft’s boss, Irene Rosenfeld, who has said that she is determined not to overpay for Cadbury.

[size=0.8em]A drawn-out game is now about to start. British takeover rules give Kraft 28 days to send its formal offer to Cadbury ’s shareholders. After that a 60-day offer-period begins during which Kraft may revise the terms of its bid to garner enough support from shareholders for a deal and Cadbury can argue against the offer. Kraft will undoubtedly raise its offer once it has gauged reaction to its formal bid.

[size=0.8em]The timetable could be upset if a rival bidder were to emerge. Unilever, another global food giant that had been touted as a possible bidder, ruled itself out recently. And Switzerland’s Nestlé, mooted as another possible suitor with America’s Hershey, seems unlikely to step in after recently announcing that it would splash out on a $3 billion share buyback. Even if no rival bid is forthcoming, Kraft, dazzled by the attractions of its quarry, may be tempted to spend too much on Cadbury.

[size=0.8em]from http://www.economist.com/businessfinance/displayStory.cfm?story_id=14838497&source=features_box1. All rights reserved by economist.com.

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[size=0.8em]Banyan
Having it both ways  [size=0.7em]Nov 5th 2009
From
The Economist
print edition
Despite protestations to the contrary, China needs NATO to fight in Afghanistan
[size=0.74em]Illustration by M. Morgenstern

[size=0.8em]ONE day early this summer, when it was still possible to claim progress in Afghanistan, Robert Gates, America’s defence secretary, was at an Asian security gathering, reeling off the names of countries who had contributed to it. The list—Canada, Mongolia, Poland—went on and on, while the harrumphing of a Chinese general in the third row grew ever louder. Eventually, he held back no longer. “Why no China?” he demanded. “Where is China on this list?”

[size=0.8em]Where indeed? The question seemed odd. Unlike the other countries on Mr Gates’s list, China has no military presence in Afghanistan. Though China has peacekeepers as far afield as Haiti and Sudan, it is allergic to sending them to neighbouring countries. Perhaps, this columnist later inquired of the general, he meant the modest intelligence that China shares with the United States on jihadists with connections in Xinjiang, China’s restive, preponderantly Muslim, western region? No, he replied testily. “I mean the mine. Our copper mine.”

[size=0.8em]Since then, the mine, at Aynak, a former al-Qaeda stronghold in Logar province just south of Kabul, has shot to prominence. It is the second-biggest untapped source of copper in the world, no less, and China’s $3.5 billion investment, signed in late 2007, is easily Afghanistan’s biggest. Several miles of sandbags and chain-link fence now surround the mine. Row upon row of neat prefabricated dormitories house several hundred Chinese. When production starts, from 2011, the Chinese owners get half the output and a multi-billion-dollar return on their investment.

[size=0.8em]And here the controversy begins. For the mine’s security, in a land that epitomises insecurity, is paid for by others. Some 1,500 Afghan police guard the site, subsidised by the Japanese. The American army’s Tenth Mountain Division patrols the area. As America wobbles over its Afghanistan commitments, Robert Kaplan, an American journalist, puts it thus in the
New York Times: “The problem is that while America is sacrificing its blood and treasure, the Chinese will reap the benefits. The whole direction of America’s military and diplomatic effort is toward an exit strategy, whereas the Chinese hope to stay and profit.”

[size=0.8em]Mr Kaplan acknowledges that exploiting mineral reserves creates Afghan jobs and fills the state exchequer. He says China is not ordained to be America’s adversary. So America’s vision of a moderately stable Afghanistan that no longer harbours extremists is not at odds with China’s vision of a secure conduit for natural resources dug out in Afghanistan or brought up from ports on the Indian Ocean. Still, Mr Kaplan’s opinion, and a more critical strain, which argues that a murky bid process gave China the Aynak mine and that anyway such Chinese projects do not bring local prosperity, has touched a nerve in China. Even calling China “resource-hungry” is inflammatory, says one commentary. It all adds a “precarious element” to Sino-American relations.

[size=0.8em]If that is so, China is partly to blame. A growing chorus in its official press calls for America to admit its blunders and pull its troops out of Afghanistan. And though Hillary Clinton, the secretary of state, recently assured Pakistan it had American support in the face of Taliban terror, China points out that it will be in Pakistan long after the Americans are gone. China prides itself on being Pakistan’s “all-weather” friend, regardless of the prevailing government—civilian and democratic, or military and repressive.

[size=0.8em]For Indian hawks, China’s growing presence in Afghanistan and deep entrenchment in Pakistan, including big infrastructure projects in disputed Kashmir, is all too much. Giving themselves further frights, they point to a letter the China-dominated Shanghai Co-operation Organisation (SCO, which includes Russia and Central Asian members) recently received from the Taliban. It asked for SCO help in driving the American infidels out of Afghanistan. To the hawks, ever sensitive about historical mischief from the north-west, this is another Great Game. So India, too is investing heavily in Afghanistan.

[size=0.8em]Yet for all China’s sneering at America’s military efforts in Afghanistan, China offers no alternative. For now, both countries’ interests are not far apart. China is as concerned as is the United States—and India, for that matter—about the prospect of a return to pre-war days. The arrival in Palau this week of six Uighurs, originally from Xinjiang, and recently freed from prison in Guantánamo, is a reminder. Under the Taliban, Afghanistan had given them shelter. China still shivers at the idea of disaffected Uighurs fleeing to the wilds of Afghanistan or Pakistan to consort with jihadists. American military power so close to China is not welcome in Beijing; Taliban-backed militant havens even less so.

The Pakistani connection
[size=0.8em]Admittedly, for all China’s self-serving efforts to portray Xinjiang as victim of extremist violence by militants linked to al-Qaeda, evidence for this is slim. Chinese concerns about a jihadist movement spreading across its borders from Afghanistan or Pakistan have until now been overblown. A home-grown reaction to Chinese oppression is reason enough to explain Uighur unrest. Yet even Pakistanis have at times been surprised by the vehemence of China’s concerns. When Pakistan’s then military ruler, Pervez Musharraf, visited Beijing in 2003 to sign an extradition treaty between the two countries, he was taken aback by the ferocity of Chinese remonstrances about Uighur militants on Pakistani soil.

[size=0.8em]So China’s signals that it wants limits on the spread of American power in Central Asia should be taken with a pinch of salt. The rhetoric is like that over America’s presence in East Asia: China grumbles about it publicly, but values America for its restraint on Japan. In Afghanistan China grumbles but lets America guard its economic interests. There’s little unusual in that: rising powers have always hitched a ride on the back of declining ones.

[size=0.8em]For more information, please visit http://www.economist.com/world/asia/displayStory.cfm?story_id=14794723 and http://www.yeeyan.com/articles/view/37076/67241, all rights reserved by economist.com and yeeyan.com.

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[size=0.8em]Reserve currencies
Cross my palm with euros? [size=0.7em]Nov 11th 2009
From Economist.com
The dollar’s days as the world’s reserve currency are far from over

[size=0.74em]Shutterstock

[size=0.8em]WORRIES about the dollar’s dominance of the global monetary system are not new. But debate about replacing the beleaguered dollar, whose trade-weighted value has dropped by 11.5% since its peak in March 2009, has resurfaced in the wake of a global financial and economic crisis that began in America. China and Russia, which have huge reserves that are mainly dollar denominated, have talked about shifting away from the greenback. India changed the composition of its reserves by buying 200 tonnes of gold from the IMF.

[size=0.8em]None of this threatens the dominance of the dollar yet, particularly as a dramatic shift out of the currency would be damaging to the countries (such as China) that hold a huge amount of dollar-denominated assets. But a new paper by economists at the IMF, released on Wednesday November 11th, acknowledges that the global crisis has reignited the debate about anchoring the world’s monetary system on one country’s currency.

[size=0.8em]Some say that America’s role as the principal issuer of the global reserve currency gives it an unfair advantage. America has a unique ability to borrow from foreigners in its own currency, and wins when the dollar depreciates, since its assets are mainly in foreign currency and its liabilities in dollars. By one estimate America enjoyed a net capital gain of around $1 trillion from the gradual depreciation of the dollar in the years before the crisis.

[size=0.8em]In a sense the world is hostage to America’s ability to maintain the value of the dollar. But as the IMF points out, the currency’s primacy arises at least partly because China and other emerging countries have chosen to accumulate dollar reserves. The depth of America’s financial markets and the country’s open capital account have made the dollar attractive. So some of the advantage has been earned.

[size=0.8em]But large and persistent surpluses in countries like China mean continued demand for American assets, reducing the need for fiscal adjustment by either country. This, in turn, has contributed to the build-up of the macroeconomic imbalances that many blame for the financial crisis.

[size=0.8em]Dealing with these imbalances could begin by finding ways to reduce reserve accumulation in emerging countries. The IMF reckons that about two-thirds of current reserves (about $4 trillion-$4.5 trillion) are held by countries as insurance against shocks, including sudden reversals of capital flows, banking crises and so on. In theory, groups of countries could pool reserves, so that a smaller amount would suffice than if countries each maintain their own buffers. Other alternatives include precautionary lines of credit(信用额度), such as the American Federal Reserve’s with the central banks of Brazil and Mexico, or the IMF’s flexible credit line.

[size=0.8em]But what are the alternatives to relying on the dollar? One possibility is a system with several competing reserve currencies. Over time, the euro and China’s yuan (if it became convertible) could emerge as competitors. This would require a great deal of policy co-ordination among issuing countries. But by having several reserve currencies the “privilege” that America now enjoys would be available more widely, providing an incentive to compete to attract users to different currencies.

[size=0.8em]Another alternative is a greater reliance on SDRs, the IMF’s quasi-currency, which operates as a claim on a basket of currencies: the dollar, euro, sterling and yen. Because the SDR’s value depends on several currencies, it shares many of the benefits of a multiple-currency system. But even the IMF says that using SDRs seems “doubtful unless the system…fails in a major way”.

[size=0.8em]The most radical solution of all is a new global currency that could be used in international transactions and would float alongside domestic currencies. The fund argues that this would have to be issued by a new international monetary institution “disconnected from the economic problems of any individual country”. This currency could serve as a risk-free global asset.

[size=0.8em]Radical as this may sound, it is not a new idea. John Maynard Keynes had something similar in mind when he proposed an International Clearing Union. This global bank would issue its own currency, called the bancor, in which all trade accounts would be settled. In the absence of such a bank the world will have to make do with the current system. So worries about the dollar’s value aside, its global dominance is secure for now.

[size=0.8em]For more information, please visit http://www.economist.com/businessfinance/displayStory.cfm?story_id=14842922&source=features_box_main and http://www.yeeyan.com/articles/view/sailorpj/68117.

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[size=0.8em]China's currency
A yuan-sided argument
[size=0.7em]Nov 18th 2009 | HONG KONG
From
The Economist
print edition
Why China resists foreign demands to revalue its currency

[size=0.74em]Shutterstock

[size=0.8em]PRESIDENT Barack Obama, on his first visit to China this week, urged the government to allow its currency to rise. President Hu Jintao politely chose to ignore him. In recent weeks Jean-Claude Trichet, the president of the European Central Bank, and Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the managing director of the International Monetary Fund, have also called for a stronger yuan. But China will adjust its currency only when it sees fit, not in response to foreign pressure.

[size=0.8em]China allowed the yuan to rise by 21% against the dollar in the three years to July 2008, but since then it has more or less kept the rate fixed. As a result, the yuan’s trade-weighted value has been dragged down this year by the sickly dollar, while many other currencies have soared. Since March the Brazilian real and the South Korean won have gained 42% and 36% respectively against the yuan, seriously eroding those countries’ competitiveness.

[size=0.8em]Speculation about a change in China’s currency policy increased in the week before Mr Obama’s visit, after the People’s Bank of China tweaked the usual wording in its quarterly monetary-policy report. It dropped a phrase about keeping the yuan “basically stable” and added that foreign-exchange policy will take into account “international capital flows and changes in major currencies”. But exchange-rate policy is decided by the State Council, not the central bank. And many policymakers, notably in the Ministry of Commerce, do not favour a revaluation right now.

[size=0.8em]Indeed, Chinese officials have become bolder in standing up to Washington. “We don’t think that it’s good for the world economic recovery, and it is also unfair, that you ask others to appreciate while you depreciate your own currency,” said a spokesman for the Ministry of Commerce on November 16th. The previous day Liu Mingkang, China’s chief banking regulator, blasted Washington for its low interest rates and for the falling dollar, which, he claimed, was encouraging a dollar carry trade and global asset-price bubbles. He strangely ignored the fact that China’s own overly lax monetary policy, partly the result of its fixed exchange rate, is fuelling bubbles in shares and property.

[size=0.8em]Foreigners argue that a stronger yuan would not only help reduce global imbalances, such as America’s trade deficit, but would also benefit China. It would help China regain control of its monetary policy. By pegging to the dollar, it is, in effect, importing America’s monetary policy, which is too loose for China’s fast growing economy. A stronger yuan would also help rebalance China’s economy, making it less dependent on exports, putting future growth on a more sustainable path.

[size=0.8em]If a stronger exchange rate is in China’s own interest, why does it resist? Beijing rejects the accusation that its exchange-rate policy has given it an unfair advantage. It is true that other emerging-market currencies have risen sharply this year, but this ignores the full picture. Last year China held its currency steady against the dollar throughout the global financial crisis, while others tumbled. Since the start of 2008, the yuan has actually risen against every currency except the yen.

[size=0.8em]Beijing also argues that it has done a lot to help global rebalancing. Thanks to its monetary and fiscal stimulus, domestic demand has contributed an incredible 12 percentage points to GDP growth this year, while net exports subtracted almost four percentage points. Its current-account surplus has almost halved to around 6% of GDP from 11% in 2007. Chinese policymakers accept that the yuan needs to appreciate over the longer term, but say now is the wrong time, because exports are still falling, by 14% over the past 12 months.

[size=0.8em]Another reason for hesitation is that the theory that revaluing the yuan will allow Beijing to tighten its monetary policy is too simplistic. China’s experience since 2005 shows that a gradual rise encourages investors to bet on further appreciation; hot-money inflows then swell domestic liquidity. A large one-off increase might work, as it would stem expectations of a further rise. But the sort of increase required—perhaps 25%—is politically unacceptable because it would put many exporters out of business overnight.

[size=0.8em]Some Chinese economists warn that the benefits to America from yuan revaluation are much exaggerated. In particular, a stronger yuan would not significantly reduce America’s trade deficit. There is little overlap between American and Chinese production, so American goods cannot replace Chinese imports. Instead, consumers would simply end up paying more for imports either from China or other producers, such as Vietnam. This would be like imposing a tax on American consumers.

[size=0.8em]These arguments help explain why China is dragging its feet. Nevertheless, in the long run, a stronger yuan would benefit China’s economy—and the world’s—by helping shift growth from investment and exports towards consumption. It would boost consumers’ purchasing power and squeeze corporate profits, which have accounted for most of the increase in China’s excessive domestic saving in recent years. China will probably allow the yuan to start rising again early next year. This will not be the result of foreign lobbying—indeed, China is more likely to change its policy if foreign policymakers shut up. But by early next year China’s exports should be growing again, its year-on-year GDP growth could be close to 10%, and its inflation rate will have turned positive. The arguments in favour of revaluation will then loom much larger.

[size=0.8em]For more information, please visit http://www.economist.com/businessfinance/displayStory.cfm?story_id=14901104&source=most_commented and http://www.yeeyan.com/articles/view/sailorpj/69882.

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问个问题~~
And here the controversy begins.For the mine’s security, in a land that epitomizes insecurity, is paid for by others.
For是做因为讲么,可以这么用的么，是不是应该向下面这么用呢？
And here ...
adammaksim 发表于 2009-12-10 23:49

我觉得原文可以吧，我不太精通语法。。不过我是这么想的，And here the controversy begins.是上一段的一个总结，对于本段来说，后面的内容都是来解释这句话的，所以这句话可以算是独立的，用句号应该并无不可吧，LS很细心。。。赞一个。。不过我觉得不用过分抠语法。。

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[size=0.8em]The Copenhagen climate talks
Filthy lucre fouls the air   [size=0.7em]Dec 10th 2009 | COPENHAGEN
From
The Economist
print edition
Arguments over money dampened the euphoria at the start of the Copenhagen climate talks

[size=0.8em]DESPITE the gloomy talk that preceded the UN climate conference, the opening was upbeat. Most big countries had vowed to cut or limit emissions during the previous few weeks. As delegates arrived, America’s Environmental Protection Agency announced that carbon-dioxide emissions were an “endangerment” to health. This allows Barack Obama to regulate them, whatever Congress does.

[size=0.8em]The happiness did not last. On December 8th a draft agreement which had been discussed some weeks ago was leaked to the Guardian, a British newspaper. It caused a furore. The “Danish text” had been circulated by the hosts, but not to all parties; and it seems to confirm the futility of moves towards the legally binding treaty that many still want.

[size=0.8em]It also seems to link any rich-to-poor transfers of money to specific actions taken by developing countries to curb emissions. Embarrassed Danes said the text was one of several unofficial papers that had been floated, not a basis for real bargaining. The lead negotiator for the “G77 plus China” group of developing countries, Lumumba Di-Aping, was unsoothed. “This text…is a major violation that threatens the success of the Copenhagen negotiations,” he fumed, saying two years’ work had been swept aside.

[size=0.8em]Can there still be a deal? The main obstacle may not be emissions cuts, which will not change much, but the closely linked issues of the shape of a deal and how much money it involves.

[size=0.8em]Everyone agrees that poorer countries, including India and China, need cash for climate “mitigation”—adopting green technology and new approaches to land use and forest conservation—and for “adaptation”: coping with the anticipated effects of climate change, some of which (like a degree of sea level rise) look unavoidable. America has joined the list of countries accepting such transfers, saying it will pay its “fair share”. Rich countries have talked of a “quick start” fund. The leaked Danish text has it starting in 2010-12 at a value to be determined; the UN has suggested $10 billion. To poor countries, this sounds paltry: responses range from “bribery” to “it will not even pay for the coffins”. Instead, the G77 has asked for 0.5% to 1% of the rich countries’ GDPs. That implies hundreds of billions of dollars on top of existing development aid. The idea that rich countries will hand over 1.2% to 1.7% of their wealth in perpetuity is not going to fly.

[size=0.8em]Some transfers occur already. Rich states meet emissions targets by paying poor countries to do the cutting, under Kyoto’s Clean Development Mechanism. This system is under fire in Copenhagen for being too choosy or too arbitrary in the projects it backs. It is also too small: it abates only 330m tonnes of carbon dioxide per year, and billions of tonnes must be cut.

[size=0.8em]On Thursday, George Soros, a philanthropist, proposed turning on a much bigger tap: he wants a new use of Special Drawing Rights, effectively the IMF’s in-house gold-backed “currency”, mainly held by the rich countries. The IMF extended an extra $153 billion to rich countries last year to help them with the financial crisis. Most of it was unused. Mr Soros wants rich countries to lend $100 billion-worth to poor ones, creating a “green fund” to jump-start mitigation. The IMF’s gold reserves could pay the (small) interest amounts that poor countries would otherwise owe.

[size=0.8em]Other proposals abound. The REDD initiative on forestry should move lots of money to countries which avoid felling trees. If emissions from ships and aircraft are cut, using a tax or an emissions market, that could provide cash. Less promisingly, France wants a levy on financial transactions. And the European Climate Foundation, a think-tank, says more could be taken from existing carbon markets: cash could be winkled from traders who arbitrage the price difference between green projects in poor places and the “allocation” paid by rich-world emitters.

[size=0.8em]The question of who gets paid what, and how, feeds back into the main issue in these and inevitable future talks: to what extent will obligations under the Kyoto protocol be extended beyond the developed countries to developing ones? Rich countries account for most of the past emissions that now fill the air, but less than half the world’s current emissions.

[size=0.8em]Settling this question will mean some differentiation between developing countries, a term that includes both industrial giants and hapless victims, whose interests are very different. Some people think this was the reason for the leaking of the Danish text. Those most offended by it are the smallest, weakest countries, which are vulnerable and emit very little. They are more interested in strong action than in who pays for it or who has to make the cuts. The calculus is different for the larger, more industrialised emerging markets, at least four of which—Brazil, India, South Africa and China—saw the text before it was leaked. They have more to gain from keeping the onus of action and payment on the developed world alone.

[size=0.8em]These countries have produced their own draft document, which would absorb any new agreement into the existing Kyoto framework. If the leak serves to firm up resistance to a deal that spreads the duties of reduction wider, China and other large developing states may be the gainers