Free Republic

Foreign Investors Offering Advice, Not Money 25 March 2010 By Alex Anishyuk Foreign investors were abuzz Wednesday over a Kremlin-hatched plan to turn the Moscow region town of Skolkovo into a high-tech innovation hub, but kindly advice to the project's backers far outweighed open interest in participation. President Dmitry Medvedev said Tuesday that he selected billionaire Viktor Vekselberg, a prominent investor both at home and in Europe, to lead the development of Russia's answer to Silicon Valley — particularly by attracting investors and innovators. But representatives at the American Chamber of Commerce's 10th annual investment conference said Russia still needed...

NEW YORK -- Jane Jacobs, an author and community activist of singular influence whose classic "The Death and Life of Great American Cities" transformed ideas about urban planning died Tuesday, her publisher said. Jacobs, a longtime resident of Toronto, was 89. Jacobs died in her sleep Tuesday morning at a Toronto hospital, which she entered a few days ago, according to Random House publicist Sally Marvin. Jacob's son, James, was with her at the time. The author, who would have turned 90 on May 4, had been in poor health. A native of Scranton, Pa., Jacobs lived for many years...

Just when I think my admiration for the nation's number one retailer couldn't grow any more, Wal-Mart recently announced that it plans to build more than 50 stores in plighted urban neighborhoods over the next two years. All told, the expansion will create 15,000 to 25,000 jobs in these areas. Not surprisingly, the anti-Wal-Mart sites - wakeupwalmart.com, walmart-blows.com, walmartmovie.com, etc. - aren't mentioning the story. Am I surprised? Not at all. The fact is that in the mind of socialists, there is nothing good about Wal-Mart… or with what it represents. Theoretically, these militant haters should go to the office...

TORONTO — Unchecked population growth and a badly flawed planning system are endangering Ontario’s wildlife, forests and water and posing a threat to living standards, the province’s environmental czar said Tuesday. In his annual report, Environmental Commissioner Gord Miller questioned the wisdom of what he considers Ontario’s unbridled expansion. “To what degree can certain regions in Ontario, especially southern Ontario, sustain and assimilate this relatively unchecked growth?” Miller said. The provincial Finance Ministry projects up to six million more people will call Ontario home over the next 25 years, most in the Toronto area. That’s a 50 per cent increase...

In this era of urban sprawl, Kane County farms don't last long on the market. The buyers typically outnumber the sellers - unless the buyer is the Kane County board and the sellers are history-conscious family farmers looking to permanently save their land from a future filled with garages, driveways and strip malls. For the last two years, the county has pushed a popular conservation program set up to buy development rights of landowners guaranteeing that farms remain agricultural and not residential or commercial. So far, about $11 million has been spent to buy development rights, and this week, for...

Filed at 2:50 p.m. ET NEW YORK (AP) -- Sixty- to 70-story office buildings, stores, cultural centers and a memorial to the dead are included in six alternative proposals for the World Trade Center site that will be released on Tuesday. Officials familiar with the proposals said that all six would replace the 11 million square feet of office and retail space lost in the Sept. 11 attack with a cluster of buildings much shorter than the 110-story twin towers. The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, also said that each version includes a substantial memorial to the victims....