Every Wednesday you will find links and top-line summaries to current events around the globe.
Cameron leads Britain into new coalition era [Reuters]
- Britain’s first coalition government since 1945 started to sketch out its main policy goals on Wednesday with a core task being to tackle the country’s record budget deficit. New Prime Minister David Cameron’s Conservatives and the smaller Liberal Democrats struck a coalition agreement early on Wednesday in a deal between two usually ideologically opposed parties that critics say will lead to future instability
- The agreement, reached five days after an inconclusive election, ended 13 years of rule by the center-left Labour Party under Tony Blair and his successor Gordon Brown. The partnership will have to tackle a record budget deficit running at more than 11% of GDP. The coalition is expected to implement Conservative plans to cut six billion pounds of spending this financial year, earlier than the Liberal Democrats, had campaigned for
- Cameron, a 43-year-old former public relations executive, took over as prime minister on Thursday evening after Brown admitted defeat in efforts to broker a deal with the Lib Dems. He is Britain’s youngest prime minister in almost 200 years. The Conservatives are parliament’s largest party after last week’s election but fell 20 seats short of an outright majority. With the Lib Dems, they will have a majority of 76 seats
Revamped Microsoft Office Will Be Free on the Web [New York Times]
- For the first time, Microsoft will provide a free online version of Office that lets people store their documents on the Web rather than on their personal computers. If all goes according to Microsoft’s plan, this technology, along with a host of other features, will persuade businesses and consumers to upgrade their Office software once again
- Over the last three years, Microsoft’s share of the office software market has remained static at 94%, according to the research firm Gartner. Adobe ranks second in office software revenue with almost 4% of the market, leaving scraps for about eight other companies. Microsoft’s business software group brought in $19 billion last year
- Many large companies skipped over previous versions of Microsoft’s Windows operating system software and continue to rely on four- to five-year-old computers. Analysts expect that these customers will finally upgrade their machines and software, particularly after Windows 7, released last year, received favorable reviews
EU ministers offer 750bn-euro plan to support currency [BBC]
- Emergency measures worth 750bn euros ($975bn) have been agreed to prevent the Greek debt crisis from affecting other eurozone countries. The 16 members of the single currency bloc will have access to 440bn euros of loan guarantees and 60bn euros of emergency European Commission funding. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) will also contribute up to 250bn euros
- There had been fears that without the measures, the euro might have come under pressure on markets as investors grew concerned about financially-troubled states such as Portugal and Spain. The euro strengthened in early trading, surging above $1.30, after hitting a 14-month low against the dollar last week
- The risk premium on some eurozone government bonds fell sharply, as did the price of insuring them against default. The rate on two-year Greek bonds fell immediately, from 18.1% to 4.9%. On Friday, eurozone leaders approved an 110bn-euro loan package to Greece, which will be backed by the EU and IMF
Thai authorities turn up heat on Bangkok protest [Reuters]
- Thai authorities plan to cut water, electricity and food supplies to thousands of protesters occupying Bangkok’s main shopping district for nearly six weeks and said they might resort to force if they fail to disperse
- The threats follow the unraveling of a peace plan proposed last week by Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva to end a political crisis that has killed 29 people, paralyzed parts of Bangkok and slowed growth in Southeast Asia’s second-biggest economy
- Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva offered an election on November 14 — just over a year before one is due — to try to end rallies that began in mid-March with a demand for an immediate poll. The red-shirted protesters, mostly supporters of former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra who was ousted in a coup in 2006, have accepted the election date but are pushing other demands
Eight killed in China school rampage [Reuters]
- Seven children and a teacher were hacked to death in an attack on a kindergarten in northwest China on Wednesday, the latest in a string of assaults on schools that has stoked public alarm about the government’s grip on order. Eleven children and an adult were wounded in the attack that happened at about 8 a.m., soon after the school day started, in Nanzheng county, a rural corner of Shaanxi province
- A 48-year-old man, Wu Huanmin, used a kitchen cleaver to kill five boys, two girls and their teacher, Xinhua said. Wu then returned home and committed suicide, Xinhua said, citing a statement from the province emergency office. “His motive for the attack was not immediately known.”
- In five school attacks since March, 17 people died — all but two of them children — and over 80 were injured. China bans nearly all citizens from owning handguns, and all the attacks involved knives and cleavers. President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao demanded action, the top law-and-order official, Zhou Yongkang, told officials to beef up school security and police have vowed to identify people who could pose a threat to children
Philippines’ Aquino steps out of parents’ shadows [Reuters]
- Benigno Aquino III has picked up the mantle his mother wrested from a dictator and his father fought and died for, winning the Philippine presidency on a promise to fight endemic corruption and improving governance
- From nowhere, the 50-year-old bachelor known as Noynoy swept to victory after his late entry into the presidential race, relying heavily on his revered family name and its reputation for probity in the poor Southeast Asian nation
- Those who didn’t vote Aquino for president were often turned off by his easy-going demeanor — he often wore loose shirts and baggy pants, which he usually had to pull up while addressing a crowd, and made no effort to hide his balding head or a lack of polished public speaking skills. Instead, his platform of anti-corruption and greater transparency in government quickly won him the support of most Filipinos tired of corruption associated with the government of President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, the most unpopular leader since Marcos
At Front Lines, AIDS War Is Falling Apart [New York Times]
- The last decade has been what some doctors call a “golden window” for treatment. Drugs that once cost $12,000 a year fell to less than $100, and the world was willing to pay. In Uganda, where fewer than 10,000 were on drugs a decade ago, nearly 200,000 now are, largely as a result of American generosity. But the golden window is closing
- The collapse was set off by the global recession’s effect on donors, and by a growing sense that more lives would be saved by fighting other, cheaper diseases. Even as the number of people infected by AIDS grows by a million a year, money for treatment has stopped growing
- For every 100 people put on treatment, 250 are newly infected, according to the United Nations’ AIDS-fighting agency, Unaids. Worldwide, even though two million people with the disease die each year, the total keeps growing because nearly three million adults and children become infected. Even now, the fight is falling short. Of the 33 million people infected, 14 million are immuno-compromised enough to need drugs now, under the latest World Health Organization guidelines
SEC still probing market plunge, but reforms coming [Reuters]
- Although Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Mary Schapiro gave greater weight to theories that a confluence of events were responsible, no regulator or exchange has provided a full account of events or concluded what caused a lightning-fast 700-point drop in the Dow Jones Industrial Average that rattled investors worldwide
- Schapiro and Gensler both said that computer-driven high frequency trading (HFT) strategies may have exacerbated the sell-off when some of those firms stopped making markets in stocks and futures contracts.
But the regulators were unclear about how much of the 10-minute market plunge could be attributed to HFT firms temporarily turning off their machines
- Regulators were sifting through more than 17 million trades in listed equities in the hour beginning at 2 p.m. EDT on May 6, said Schapiro. She cited the growth of trading in multiple markets over the past few years for the complexity of the probe. But in some preliminary observations, Schapiro sounded skeptical that a large erroneous trade, the so called “fat finger” scenario, had triggered the brief stock rout.
- Imagine YouTube for Traders [New York Times]
- Libya plane crash kills 103, Dutch child survives [Reuters]
- As Cricket Grew in India, Corruption Followed [New York Times]
- Russian mine death toll rises to 52 [Reuters]
- Qatar Holding Buys Harrods Department Store [New York Times]
- You’d Never Know David Gelbaum is a Sun King [New York Times]
Photograph by AP Photo/Mark Humphrey
A flooded neighborhood in Nashville, Tennessee, is seen Monday, May 3, 2010. (AP Photo/Mark Humphrey)
via The Big Picture: Flooding in Tennessee
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