A survey for the BBC, ABC News and NHK of more than 2,000 people across Iraq shows that about 70% of Iraqis believe security has deteriorated in the area covered by the US military “surge” of the past six months. The relative optimism registered in November 2005 has deteriorated to the gloom of this year’s …
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Should you invest in the company or its management … ?
A 2004 study, recently updated, adds to the debate about whether management or the company is the important focus of investment screening. The study, written by Steve Kaplan of the University of Chicago, Berk Sensoy of USC and Per Stromberg of SIFR, found that over 90% of successful VC-backed companies have the same business model …
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Children’s play is critical to development
In the UK a group of experts wrote an open letter to the Daily Telegraph warning that overprotection of children is injurious to their health. Signatures to the letter were gathered by Sue Palmer, author of the book Toxic Childhood, and Dr Richard House, a senior lecturer in psychotherapy at Roehampton University. 300 signatories include …
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Life on earth is disappearing fast
The IUCN Red List for 2007 was published in early September with the leader: Extinction Crisis Escalates. There are now 41,415 species on the IUCN Red List and 16,306 of them are threatened with extinction, up from 16,118 last year. The total number of extinct species has reached 785 and a further 65 are only …
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Baghdad dividing wall counters peace
Construction of another dividing wall in Baghdad between Shula and Ghazaliya districts causes more division than unity. It is another sign of the primitive knee-jerk thinking of an administration resorting to primitive policy. The wall is an attempt to separate Sunni and Shia districts. But of course it also separates families, neighbours and communities, it …
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US August data modest
Retail sales and industrial output both slowed in the US in August. Shop sales grew 0.3% in August, below market expectations of a 0.5% rise and below July’s 0.5% increase, but excluding car sales, which are at their strongest in two years, retail spending actually declined 0.4% in August. Industrial output rose 0.2%, the slowest …
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China also turning away from the death penalty
China’s Supreme Court has ordered judges to be more sparing in the imposition of the death penalty, ordering that execution should be reserved for “an extremely small number of serious offenders”. The Supreme Court said murders triggered by family disputes should not always result in the death penalty and the death penalty should be withheld …
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10 most polluted cities
The Blacksmith Institute, a US-based independent environmental group, published its 2007 world’s most polluted places. It reports an estimated 12 million people affected by the severe pollution, which is mainly caused by chemical, metal and mining industries. Chronic illness and premature deaths are side-effects. The annual review, which debuted in 2006, is listed alphabetically, and …
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Carbon footprint your notebook
Those people that run large IT departments can obtain energy estimates and carbon calculations for their infrastructure and potential purchases reasonably easily: they’ve got the budget and the customer power. For those of us running one or two machines, we might not even think of the carbon footprint. But browsing a couple of sites (How …
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US changing policy; will reduce troops in Iraq
Over the past month there has been a definite change in the US administration policy of troop levels in Iraq. The surge is over and political pragmatism underpins troop reductions. On September 13 Bush said that about 30,000 troops might return home by summer 2008 (pre-surge level), starting with 5,700 by Christmas. Then on 14 …
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