Free Republic

BEIJING (AFP) - China on Tuesday launched its first environmental exchange in Beijing, aiming to eventually provide a platform for emission quota trading, the parent company and state media said. The Beijing Environmental Exchange will be a trading platform for environmental protection technology as well as sulfur dioxide and chemical oxygen demand emission permits, the China Beijing Equity Exchange said in a statement on its website. --snip-- It is the first environmental equity trading institution in China and will initially focus on environmental technology business, with an aim to finally incorporating carbon emission trading, said Tuesday's Beijing Evening News. It...

State Department diplomats are taking full advantage of their new rules prohibiting the use of “jihad,” “jihadist,” and “mujahedeen” to describe Islamic extremists and terrorists, which they apparently have taken to mean that there are no jihadists in light of the exchange programs they have recently sponsored for the International Institute for Islamic Thought (IIIT) — an organization currently under active federal grand jury investigation for terrorist support activities. [HT: Global MB Daily Report] The IIIT exchange programs have been conducted under the State Department’s International Visitor’s Program. According to reports published on IIIT’s website, the State Department sponsored a...

British Council to send pupils on Afghanistan exchange By Damien McElroy, Foreign Affairs Correspondent British children are to make exchange visits to war-ravaged Afghanistan and Iraq under a classroom twinning scheme. The plan is the latest step in a dramatic change in outlook for the British Council as it prepares to mark its 75th anniversary next year. Promoting ties with Muslim countries has emerged as a top priority and is closely linked to the Government's efforts to fight terrorism. Swapping the Playstations and duvets of modern Britain for the dirt floors and brick beds of Afghanistan will depend on security...

Zimbabwe abandons fixed official exchange rate By Byron Dziva In Harare Last Updated: 1:52am BST 07/09/2007 Zimbabwe injected a partial element of reality into its chaotic economy yesterday, abandoning its fixed official exchange rate of 250 Zimbabwean dollars to the US currency. It fixed the new rate at Z$30,000 to the US dollar, an official devaluation of more than 99 per cent, but still well above its true value — on the black market US$1 fetches around Z$260,000. The official rate is used for government transactions, but is also a hugely lucrative opportunity for senior officials in Robert Mugabe's regime,...

SALT LAKE CITY - Connecticut Sen. Chris Dodd on Saturday criticized rivals John Edwards and Hillary Rodham Clinton, who were overheard discussing among themselves their hope of limiting the number of Democrats in presidential debates. The private exchange was picked up by several broadcasters on an open microphone after an NAACP forum in Detroit on Thursday. All the Democratic contenders took part in the program, including Barack Obama, Bill Richardson, Joe Biden, Mike Gravel and Dennis Kucinich. "I'd remind them that the mike is always on," Dodd told reporters on Saturday after addressing a state convention of Utah Democrats. "Celebrity...

HOT SPRINGS, Ark.- A woman in Hot Springs has been arrested after she allegedly exchanged blasts of pepper spray with two police officers. Police said Lawanda Diane Clay, 38, produced a can of pepper spray when two officers were investigating a disturbance complaint Sunday. Clay refused to drop the can, and Cpl. Carl Holland used his own pepper spray on her, police said. Clay responded by allegedly spraying Holland and then the other officer, Patrick Langley, police said. Holland hit Clay twice in the leg with his night stick and she dropped the spray and was handcuffed.

Reuters is reporting an Iranian statement promising the release of the British hostages as a "gift to Britain." See: http://neveryetmelted.com/?p=2392 also

WASHINGTON — The battle to be the 2008 Democratic candidate for president went negative Wednesday, as leading contenders Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama got into a virtual shouting match. With more than a year and a half remaining before the next presidential election, the campaigns exchanged heated words after Clinton suggested Obama return funds to Hollywood bigwig David Geffen, who insulted Clinton in a newspaper article. "We aren’t going to get in the middle of a disagreement between the Clintons and someone who was once one of their biggest supporters. It is ironic that the Clintons had no problem with...

“Within recent years the dollar’s prestige has dipped below its exchange rate”, affirm sociologists from the Public Opinion Fund. 1500 people living in 100 settlements of 44 regions of the country participated in the poll; the survey showed that the native ruble is 12.5 times more preferable than the American currency. As long ago as 2002 every third respondent believed in the strong position the greenback occupied, but the number of dollar-worshippers reduced 7 times by December 2006. The ruble, at the same time, took the opposite path and doubled its admirers’ number: from 37 to 63%. This tendency is...

Before November 1, 1990, the dollar cost 63 kopecks, but there was no opportunity to buy it at such a rate. November 1 of the year 1990 established a commercial rate of 1.8 rubles per dollar. The first trading session was opened on April 9, 1991, in one of the premises of the USSR State Bank, where a blackboard had providently been brought in order to record deals. Following the only concluded transaction (for 50 thousand cashless dollars) the ruble was for the first time ever rated commercially. The real exchange rate of the US dollar against the ruble made...

Israel, Palestinians to swap prisoners within 48 hours: report Israel will release 1,400 Palestinian prisoners in exchange for its soldier taken hostage in Gaza since late June, the Qatar-based al-Sharq daily reported on Monday. According to a deal, which will take effect within 48 hours, Israel will release Hamas ministers and lawmakers and reopen crossing points into Gaza, the report said. Israel will also stop assassinations and return tax revenues owned to the Palestinian National Authority, it added. In addition to the release of Corporal Gilad Shalit, who was seized by Palestinian militant groups on June 25, the Palestinians are...

See for example this thread first. To the folks at Montana State-- Those kids are a little bit late From Egypt, you say? And they've "lost their way" ? Let's call them "From Al-Qaeda, with Hate"

SEOUL, South Korea - Soldiers from North and South Korea exchanged fire along their border late Monday but no one is hurt, South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff said. The clash happened just before sunset when North Korean soldiers fired two bullets toward South Korean guard post in the eastern part of the Demilitarized Zone and South Korean soldiers immediately fired back six rounds, the top commanders said.

LONDON -- When Spanish stock-exchange operator Bolsas & Mercados Espanoles lists shares on its own market today, opening itself to investors for the first time in its 170-year history, it will do so under one condition: You must ask permission to buy more than 1%. The Spanish government put the requirement in during May as BME, based in Madrid, was gearing up for its market debut. Under the rule, no investor can build up a direct or indirect stake of more than 1% in BME without consent from the country's market regulator, the Comision Nacional del Mercado de Valores, or...

Treasury Secretary John Snow is getting pounded in the U.S. for his refusal last week to brand China a "currency manipulator." We'd say it may have been his finest hour... Congressmen on the protectionist left and right, Big Labor and Big Business all gave Mr. Snow the business... New York Senator Chuck Schumer bellowed that the Administration "put geopolitical concerns ahead of economic concerns." Uh, no, Senator. The Administration was doing precisely the opposite and putting economic concerns ahead of narrow domestic politics. By far the easier short-term course would have been to declare China a "manipulator" in an election...

LONDON: Crude oil traded above US$74 (US$1 = RM3.61) a barrel before a United Nations hearing on Iran's nuclear programme, amid concern oil supplies will be disrupted from the country. The US, UK and France will ask for the United Nations to demand that Iran halt its uranium enrichment programme. Iran is the world's fourth-largest oil supplier. Iranian authorities "would have their own embargo; they wouldn't send their oil to certain countries," said Deborah White, an analyst with Societe Generale SA. "To cut oil exports will certainly not be their first choice. They need the money." Crude oil for June...

SINGAPORE, May 3 (Reuters) - Oil rose to almost $75 a barrel on Wednesday, near record highs as mounting tension over Iran's nuclear plan compounded worries of global supply disruptions amid forecast of falling fuel stocks in the United States. U.S. light, sweet crude traded up 34 cents at $74.95 a barrel by 0331 GMT, extending a rally for a fourth successive day after a jump of 91 cents on Tuesday. Prices were within striking distance of their all-time peak of $75.35 a barrel on April 24. IPE Brent crude matched Tuesday's record of $74.97 a barrel, but was later...

FAIRCHILD AIR FORCE BASE, Wash., April 3, 2006 – Foreign exchange pilots from Australia assigned here are helping their U.S. counterparts carry out global air refueling, airlift and humanitarian assignments. The exchange program selects the best pilots in the Royal Australian Air Force with a minimum of 1,500 flying hours. Although instructional experience is not essential, it is a highly desirable factor to be selected for the three-year program, officials said. "They are sending us their best qualified pilots," said Air Force Maj. Dennis Bernier, 93rd Air Refueling Squadron assistant director of operations. "They are all outstanding pilots and huge...

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Saddam Hussein testified Wednesday for the first time at his trial, and the judge closed the court after the ex-dictator's speech calling for Iraqis to end sectarian violence and fight U.S. troops instead. Even as the judge repeatedly yelled at Saddam to stop making what he called political speeches, the deposed leader read from a prepared text, insisting he was still Iraq's president. "Let the (Iraqi) people unite and resist the invaders and their backers. Don't fight among yourselves," he said, praising the insurgency. "In my eyes, you are the resistance to the American invasion." Finally, Chief...

Motley Fool A Dubious Sign of the Times Tuesday March 7, 3:17 pm ET By Tim Beyers I've long wanted to own stock in New York Times (NYSE: NYT - News) for several reasons. I love the paper. I'm a big fan of About.com. And then there's sentimental angle: I'm a New York native. But there's one big reason why I'm not buying the stock. A check of the proxy statement filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Friday reveals that chairman Arthur Sulzberger Jr. and CEO Janet Robinson both received hefty bonuses despite meeting less than 60%...

BAGHDAD, Iraq – The U.S. military released five Iraqi women detainees today, a move demanded by the kidnappers of an American reporter to spare her life, but an official said the release was coincidental. The women were freed from U.S. custody and delivered to the home of a senior Sunni Arab politician in Baghdad, where they were returned to their families, according to an Associated Press photographer at the scene. They were later driven away in taxis. Armed men who abducted Jill Carroll on Jan. 7 in Baghdad have threatened to kill the freelance reporter for the Christian Science Monitor...

Drew DeCorsey (middle) poses with some friends she made while in China. Chinese Immersion: DeCorseys take trip to OrientWednesday, August 24, 2005By Brandon Otte,Staff WriterA month-long trip to China was all it took to make Jordan Elementary School Principal Stacy DeCorsey appreciate her school a little more.DeCorsey and her family went to Linyi, a city in one of the most populous country in the world, as part of a group of teachers working with Chinese children on their English language skills."There were people everywhere," she said.The group taught English emergence. They worked with the students on their English conversational...

VOLKEL AIR BASE, Netherlands -- Training young pilots to push the F-16 Fighting Falcon to its operational limits is a job Lt. Col. David Stine loves as much as flying. Even better is doing both those things with the Royal Netherlands Air Force, he said. That is just what he has done for three years as an exchange pilot at this busy fighter base. The colonel is a training instructor pilot with the Dutch air force’s 306th Tactical Fighter Training Squadron. He said the job is satisfying and has an important purpose. “From the start, I try to instill in...

Verkhovna Rada speaker Vladimir Lytvin during his meeting with representatives of Kherson shipbuilding yard on Aug 12 made a harsh declaration that the real level of consumer inflation exceeds 2-fold data of state statistics committee (SSC). According to Lytvin, inflation makes up 15% ytd whereas SSC in the beginning of August put it at just 6.7% y/y in Jan-Jul. Such a declaration by the speaker may be regarded as a political move, taking into consideration the informal start of March 2006 parliament election campaign. But there is one thing that gives extra credence to Lytvin's words. Speaking actual real inflation,...

A woman in Morag threatens to employ violence against herself and her children -and Noga Cohen of Kfar Darom, three of whose children lost their legs in a terrorist attack, attempted to mollify her. The woman, named Ofrah, a 17-year veteran of Morag in southern Gush Katif, screamed at an army officer who arrived to deliver the expulsion notices: "By what right do you come and throw me out of my house? Did I hurt anyone? Did I do something? You're coming in the name of the law, in the name of the government - I'd like to see Ariel...

LONDON (AFP) - The euro gained further ground against the dollar in late European trade in spite of support for the US currency from macroeconomic data earlier in the day that pointed to continuing growth in the US economy. ADVERTISEMENT The euro rose to 1.2206 dollar from 1.2177 late on Monday in New York. The dollar was trading at 111.37 yen, against 112.21 on Monday. The dollar traded briefly higher following data on factory goods and personal spending data, but was unable to sustain the rally. Official figures showed US-made factory goods increased by 1.0 percent in June, in line...

China launches currency shake-up China has revalued its currency, the yuan, for the first time in a decade - a move welcomed by the US, a long-time critic of its exchange-rate policy. The reform is being seen as the first step towards the liberalisation of China's tightly controlled currency. The yuan will no longer be pegged to the dollar, but will float against a basket of currencies. It will also appreciate against the dollar, mollifying critics who say a cheap yuan has helped Chinese exports. "I welcome China's announcement today that it is adopting a more flexible exchange rate regime,"...

FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) -- The euro dropped to its lowest level against the U.S. dollar since last August on Wednesday as markets awaited economic data from the United States. The 12-nation euro bought as little as $1.2018 -- the lowest level since Aug. 27, when it bought $1.2005. By midday it was back up to $1.2035, still below the $1.2047 it bought in New York late Tuesday. The British pound rose to $1.8077 from to $1.8075. The dollar was up slightly against the Japanese yen, rising to 109.37 yen from 109.32 yen. Markets were looking ahead to U.S. reports on...

...the U.S. has turned up the volume ...to get China to stop fixing the exchange rate ... But many think that China will not want to be seen as buckling under U.S. pressure: Public demands...will only make the Chinese take longer... U.S. officials know this. So why are they pushing? ... Over time, the move to a flexible yuan will be good for the U.S... At first, however, the U.S. will feel a sting from a stronger yuan. If China's currency is undervalued by 27%, ...U.S. consumers have been getting a 27% discount on everything made in China, while the...

Tax time is behind us now, and most American citizens would be happy not to have to think about the taxman’s hand in their pockets for another year. The IRS today is out of control. There are over 30,000 pages of tax code, and it takes an accountant or a tax service to file your taxes. Wouldn't it be nice if we could simplify the tax code and eliminate the IRS? Good news! The United Nations wants to do that for us. However, this creates another problem. The UN wants to create it’s own global IRS. Yes, you read that...

College exchange students often visit other countries to learn of other cultures, appreciate the past, or gain valuable insight into other regions. Few go to be indoctrinated consciously for the purposes of political -- and literal -- warfare. However, the International Solidarity Movement and the Bethlehem Bible College have put together a program that does just that. The ISM has long sent American students to the Middle East, where they undergo training by the ISM-ally, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a known terrorist group, and then physically obstruct Israeli forces trying to nab Palestinian terrorists. Front Page...

RIYADH (AFP) - Delegates from the United States and archfoe Iran engaged in a "heated" exchange at a counter-terrorism conference in Saudi Arabia, the local media reported but a US official insisted the encounter was "professional." "The exchange that took place in the first general assembly was a professional one reflecting differences in views between the US and Iranian delegations," a US embassy spokesperson in Riyadh told AFP. But the English-daily Saudi Gazette said the Iranian and US delegations at the closed-door conference were reportedly "locked in a heated exchange... when the issue of what constitutes terrorism arose." Diplomatic sources...

Up to a point, a falling currency is a blessing. After that, it's a curse. The dollar has fallen 16% against a basket of its trading partners' currencies over the past three years. In theory, that should, with time, make U.S.-made goods more competitive with those made abroad, boosting U.S. growth and employment. But a growing chorus warns that the U.S.'s gaping budget and trade deficits will lead to a crisis in which the dollar falls much more sharply, driving up interest rates and squeezing the economy. There are plenty of troubling precedents...

NEW YORK (Dow Jones)--Emerging market shares trading in New York were struggling to get a clear direction early Thursday afternoon in thinly traded volumes ahead of the holidays. Most Latin American stocks were heading south except for some Brazilian ones, and among Asian shares, Indonesia and Taiwan were making moderate gains. Traders said stocks here were generally tracking their domestic counterparts. Meanwhile, Russia's biggest shares were posting substantial gains, with the country's largest mobile operator Mobile Telesystems (MBT), or MTS, rising 4.1% to $123.91 after Germany's Deutsche Telekom (DT) said it would sell a 12% stake in the company. The...

Has anyone on this site ever offered a Free Book Exchange????? I just received "Unfit For Command". When I am finished with this book, I would love to send it to someone else who I know would enjoy it. I have an number of other books, both liberal and conservative, that I would love to pass on to others. Has anyone ever done this on the FR site??? Is there an interest??????

It looked like Google’s stockmarket flotation might be derailed at the last minute by an interview in Playboy magazine that seemed to contravene listing rules. However, the Securities and Exchange Commission has reportedly given it the go-ahead, and the search-engine company could be valued at as much as $36 billion when its shares start trading later this week. Is it worth anything like that? GOOGLE’S founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, have always had an air of niceness about them: after all, Google was the first company to promise “not to be evil” in the prospectus for its initial public...

Ken Lay of Enron Indicted and Arrested By Andrew L. Jaffee, July 8, 2004 Home   Search   Forum   Terms Enron’s ex-Chairman of the Board has been indicted and arrested on charges connected with his former company’s implosion in 2001. Corporate executives at Enron engaged in all sorts of financial manipulations to pump up the company’s stock price. They created complex “partnerships” to hide company debt from shareholders. In 1998, Enron’s share price was at about $20. By 2000, it hit $90. By 2001, the company’s stock was worthless. Enron’s collapse wiped out billions in shareholder value and employee pensions. Democratic Presidential hopeful John...

<p>NEW YORK (AP) - A convicted money smuggler was a key fund-raiser for an Islamic charity he knew financed terrorism, and once used an airport bathroom to secretly deliver $10,000 to the group, prosecutors allege.</p> <p>Alaa Al-Saadawi later "defied logic" by telling investigators he gave the $10,000 to a member of the Global Relief Foundation in a bathroom stall at Chicago's O'Hare Airport because he was "scared of gangsters," according to papers filed in federal court in Brooklyn.</p>

Administrators of e-mail systems based on Microsoft's Exchange might have spammers using their servers to send unsolicited bulk e-mail under their noses, a consultant warned this week. Aaron Greenspan, a Harvard University junior and president of consulting company Think Computer, published a white paper Thursday detailing the problem, discovered when a client's server was found to be sending spam. Greenspan's research concluded that Exchange 5.5 and 2000 can be used by spammers to send anonymous e-mail. He says even though software Microsoft provides on its site certifies that the server is secure, it's not. "If the guest account is enabled...

By a slim majority of only one vote, and after a full-day discussion, the Cabinet approved the exchange of prisoners with Hizbullah this afternoon. Terrorists who murdered civilians will not be released. "You all know what the main issue of today's meeting is, so there's no need to add words on the importance of the decision." So said Prime Minister Ariel Sharon at the start of this morning's Cabinet session, which dealt exclusively with the prisoner exchange agreement with Hizbullah. The stakes are high: the return of Elchanan Tenenbaum and the proper burial of three IDF soldiers, and on the...

<p>FAIRBANKS, Alaska (AP) — Ken Leary and Jane LeBlond got their marriage off to a running start. The couple took a break during the Equinox Marathon to exchange vows, then crossed the finish line together. "We wanted something that meant something to both of us," Leary said of the decision to marry during the race Saturday.</p>

First it was French wines. Then French fries. Now it's French exchange students who are getting the cold shoulder from American families still smarting over France's opposition to the war in Iraq. "I start talking about exchange programs and they say, `Great.' And when I say they're all from France, end of conversation." She finally became so exasperated that she drafted an open letter to prospective hosts that was more cri de coeur than letters from the lovelorn. "Are we so self-serving that we've lost touch with the true meaning of America?" it went on. "Are our lives so busy...

After years of urging others to reform economies, Washington changes tactics LONDON The Bush administration, unable to jawbone Europe and Japan into helping it stimulate a sluggish global economy, has decided to let its money do the talking. . That, analysts say, is the underlying message in the move by the U.S. Treasury to drop the ‘‘strong dollar’’ mantra that had been a hallmark of U.S. economic policy since the mid-1990s. . Since the mid-90s, the United States has accounted for about two-thirds of global economic growth, estimates Stephen Roach, chief economist at Morgan Stanley, as a strong dollar helped...

Iran exchanged the bodies of 83 Iraqi soldiers for 45 of its own troops killed during its 1980-1988 war with Iraq, in the first such transaction since before the US-led war on Baghdad, the official IRNA news agency reported. The remains were exchanged by the International Committee of the Red Cross at Shalamsheh border post, 10 kilometers (six miles) east of Iraq's southern port of Basra, the head of the search committee for missing soldiers, Mir-Feysal Baqerzadeh, told IRNA. Press reports said Tehran recently refused a British offer to return the remains of dozens of Iranians found in southern Iraq,...

At the heart of the road map is a good idea - place Israel and the Palestinians in a tunnel and let them gradually, cautiously, and firmly work their way toward the unavoidable division of the country. Two states for two nations. However, when it came to translating this correct concept into specific steps, something not so good happened to the road map. It got severed from the outlines of the land within which it is supposed to be carried out. The map lost any connection to what has been learned here about the local topography in the past three...

Having slogged her way through Mene Mene Tekel Upharsin, or maybe just some of it, a correspondent asked me if I really believed that the consent-and-exchange society I advocate could possibly work in a Third World country. I answered, yes, of course, and I told her it would work just fine, quickly deliver the goods, peace and prosperity. Indeed, I said, you could see the merits of a free and peaceful economy much more clearly in some benighted backwater of the world than anywhere in the developed world. Mere assertion isn't persuasive, so I started considering how I could dramatize...

Having slogged her way through Mene Mene Tekel Upharsin, or maybe just some of it, a correspondent asked me if I really believed that the consent-and-exchange society I advocate could possibly work in a Third World country. I answered, yes, of course, and I told her it would work just fine, quickly deliver the goods, peace and prosperity. Indeed, I said, you could see the merits of a free and peaceful economy much more clearly in some benighted backwater of the world than anywhere in the developed world. Mere assertion isn't persuasive, so I started considering how I could dramatize...

July 25, 2002 New York exchange seeks second site From James Bone in New York THE New York Stock Exchange, considered a prime target for terrorists, revealed yesterday that it has been scouting sites for a second trading floor away from its famous headquarters on Wall Street. The NYSE was forced to shut down for six days — the longest break since in trading since a bank holiday in 1933 — by the attack on the World Trade Centre, just a few blocks away. The disruption of phone and power service in the area continued to hamper trading even when...

The chief of Lebanon's Hizbullah denied reports that German mediators had proposed an exchange of an Israeli held by his movement for 100 Lebanese and Palestinian prisoners. "I only heard of the exchange ... through the media, although I have been following the case from the start," Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah told Al-Manar, Hizbullah's television station. "This offer has never been put to us in the negotiations. It is something new which we have read about in the newspapers, and the German delegation has not conveyed any such offer to us," he said. Nasrallah aired "these rumors aim to give the...

Friday, 3 May, 2002, 13:21 GMT 14:21 UK Air Miles 'threaten dollar's dominance'Air Miles currently in circulation are said to be worth $500 billion - making them the second biggest "currency" after the dollar.  Air Miles facts American Airlines set up first airline reward scheme 21 years ago, called the "Advantage Travel Programme" "Air Miles" originates from the UK 13 years ago Name now franchised to third parties, including British Airways who has owned the UK Air Miles operation since 1994 Source: Air Miles UK At its current rate of growth the stock of miles could overtake the dollar within...