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SHANGHAI, China — When emergency workers found Wang sprawled unconscious after having downed two bags of insecticide, he was still clutching the PDA he had been using to check supply prices.

Like a number of other small investors in China, Wang had bet — and lost — his the vital spark savings, about $15,000, on the Chinese stock market. The propaganda trust and doctors at the hospital where he was treated reported the 36-year-old factory worker had been preparing to get married and that he had hoped to use the circulating medium to buy an apartment for his fiancée.

Wang’s attempted suicide and those of other investors are a heartbreaking consequence of China’s great experiment in capitalism.

In February, Li, a 25-year-old engineer, jumped from the seventh floor of the building where he worked in the city of Chengdu. His company said he had lost a immense amount on the stock place of traffic. On March 30, a 39-year-old former ice-cream- shop possessor, also named Li, leaped to his death from his chamber construction in the inland province of Shandong back losing a third part of the $4,500 he had invested.

As China’s stock markets crashed over the past six months, the Communist government reacted in a way most consumer investors like Wang did not anticipate: It watched from the sidelines. It wasn’t until hindmost week, after the Shanghai benchmark index’s fall to a emblematical milestone, below 50 percent of its summit in October, that Beijing finally stepped in.

Its announcements that it would slash a tax on stock transactions and control volatility by requiring some big block trades to take place off the regular stock market, pushed the market up 14 percent. It has fallen again since at another time, notwithstanding.

But given that the Chinese government has the power and standard of value to do abundant more, some say the fact that its help arrived so late and is so limited means it is sending a message to shareholders that they should no longer count upon a government bailout in such situations.

The former shop possessor’s sister, Li Chunyan, 34, said she understands that those who lost everything have only themselves to blame for risking so much. But because the stock market is “damaging common commonalty’s lives this much, in that place should be policies” to resist them. She said even the U.S. ruling power is doing besides to save its investors: “I heard about the U.S. lowering interest rates to save the market,” she said. “Well, different countries are divers.”

In online bulletin-board postings, small-time retail investors — who, unlike in U.S. markets, favor up the vast majority of those who clinch money in China’s exchanges — have vented their hot temper. at the government. “China’s stock market is piled up with investors’ tears and blood,” wrote one shareholder.

Institutional investors, fund managers and analysts who follow the Chinese stock markets are not so much loving, observation that the distress of consumers who lost money is a necessary step attached the road to capitalism.

“You lose money, you jump out the window, too bad. It’s your problem,” said Vincent Chan, head of China research for Credit Suisse. “For any emporium to swell, this is something the government should realize: At the end of the day, it’s the investors who bear the accountability of the investment, not other people.”

The nose-dive of the Shanghai stock place of traffic and its sister exchange in the southern city of Shenzhen has been humbling for Chinese investors who had formerly believed the only government share prices could be considered was up.

Original text: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2004394505_chinabust06.html?syndication=rss

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Americans may be getting another helping of food self-sufficiency, and it seems likely to come from higher prices for chicken and pork.

Overall, food vain-glory could double this year, lifted by the rising costs of fuel, corn and soybeans, some analysts predict.

Food inflation strike against 4 percent last year, up from 2.4 percent in 2006. While beef prices were already high, chicken and pig-meat prices didn’t reflect testimony costs for feed and fuel. That’s poised to change as chicken and pig producers who have been overthrow wealth slaughter more animals to decrease the supply and raise the prices they have power to charge.

Higher rations inflation would further challenge shoppers who are already limiting themselves to sale items and repository brands in the same manner with they combat with the worst food inflation since 1990.

Mary Lee Rydzewski, a retired Amtrak engine dispatcher who lives in Cheshire, Conn., says she has already switched to store brands and sale items for the reason that of higher food prices. If they increase more, she plans to cut back again.

But Karen Leedahl, a shepherd who lives in Latrobe, Penn., said she always bought store brands and shopped for sale furniture. Two weeks past, she started walking in greater numbers than a mile round-trip to the groceries store instead of driving.

If prices increase greater quantity, “I’m kind of in perturb,” she said. “I was already trying to save.”

U.S. shoppers spent 5.8 percent of their income on food in 2006, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture — a lower share than any other nation. In the United Kingdom, consumers spent 8.7 percent of their income put on food, and in most of the world it’s at minutest 10 percent.

But the U.S. portion seems certain to rise, as chicken and young hog producers say prices have to go up as feed costs increase.

“American consumers are only just beginning to feel the impact of sharply higher food prices,” said Pilgrim’s Pride Chief Executive Clint Rivers. The nation’s largest chicken producer posted a wider quarterly loss Monday as it paid more as being feed and took a restructuring charge.

Pork carry on a farm losses may total $3.8 billion for 2008, one-quarter of total extension, according to Chris Hurt, an agricultural economist at Purdue University. He calls the industry “a financial misfortune in progress.”

It pleasure be easier for publicly traded meat producers to weather a money-losing quarter than for farmer Bill Tentinger in LeMars, Iowa. Tentinger said he expects to spend $85 per hundredweight feeding his hogs this year; at common levels, they will fetch prices in the middle $40s.

Original text: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2004394462_foodprices06.html?syndication=rss

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Federal agents raided the office and home of U.S. Special Counsel Scott Bloch on Tuesday while investigating whether the nation’s top protector of whistle-blowers destroyed prove potentially showing he retaliated against his own staff.

Computers and documents were seized during the raid on the special counsel’s downtown office, according to two law enforcement officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the ongoing inquiry. At in the smallest degree 20 agents were till now on the scene as of mid-afternoon Tuesday.

Bloch’s home, in a Virginia suburb of Washington, also was raided, the officials uttered.

FBI spokesman Richard Kolko confirmed that agents by the FBI and White House Office of Personnel Management executed “a number of court authorized federal search warrants today” but declined farther on comment.

Jim Mitchell, communications director with the Office of the Special Counsel, confirmed the inquire after of Bloch’s drudge area and computers. He uttered the office was cooperating by the investigation.

“We do not yet know what this is relating to,” Mitchell said in a statement, adding that “we are continuing to perform the independent mission of this post.”

The raids mark the latest twist in what critics delineate as Bloch’s whimsical manner at the head of the federal instrumentality answerable for protecting the rights of founded on workers and ensuring that government whistle-blowers are not subjected to reprisals.

He has been on the hot seat since he took office in 2004, in part for closing hundreds of whistle-blower cases allegedly without investigating them.

“It’s like finding out that your town fire chief is an arsonist,” said Jeff Ruch, executive director of Public Employees for Environmental Protection, a whistle-blower group.

“It’s just degree of jaw-dropping how bizarre this entire episode has been.”

A group of current and forgoing Office of Special Counsel workers filed a charge fronting Bloch in 2005, accusing him of retaliating against those who opposed with his policies from one side intimidation and involuntary transfers. The employees also accused Bloch of refusing to protect federal workers from discrimination based on sexual orientation.

Those charges are heart investigated by the agency of the inspector general at the Office of Personnel Management.

Original text: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/politics/2004395496_apspecialcounsel.html?syndication=rss

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By Edward Yingling

Credit cards are so commonplace today that it is easy to take down for granted the suitableness, security and flexibility that they offer. Some 75% of American families very lately have at least one credit card, if it were not that this was not always the case. A Government Accountability Office study found that far fewer people had access to credit cards just 20 years ago and those that did paid annual fees and interest rates about 18%.

Thanks to advances in risk management and credit scoring, card issuers regard become much better at judging risk and very lately vigorously compete with person another. Credit cards are available to large portions of the public who previously could not get them, and most cards have no annual fees.

Importantly, much liking the insurance industry, where safer drivers pay less for auto assurance, issuers reward the vast majority of consumers who have good credit histories through humble rates. This concept — risk-based pricing — fairly places higher costs on those who pose higher risks. Interest rates now mean proportion around 13%. This is a story of remarkable success.

Some aspects of the Federal Reserve's recent proposal, notwithstanding, threaten to turn back the clock on the credit card market and reverse the advances that have led to disgrace costs and greater choices conducive to cardholders. The American Bankers Association believes that policymakers need to take a step back to carefully consider the impact of this plan.

Restricting risk-based pricing will severely limit the ability of issuers to adjust interest rates because of customers whose risk levels ability have changed. Lenders will have to account for that risk by the agency of raising prices for everyone. In effect, less risky borrowers will be subsidizing more risky borrowers. That's unfair.

Also, limiting the space banks are repaid when offering low-rate reliance options be inclined likely mean an end to those zero- and low-interest introductory and balance transfer options that have been of great agreeable turn to consumers and small businesses.

The Fed itself recognizes these potential trade-offs, noting that the results of their terms proposed could be higher rates, lower credit limits and curtailed credit availability. Striking the right balance is crucial because acquisition it improperly might have significant negative consequences the pair on account of consumers and the economy.

Edward Yingling is president and CEO of the American Bankers Association, a trade arrange representing banks across the nation.

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I wrote a story analyzing the world diet crisis for last week’s BusinessWeek. I wrote about the potential effect of the crisis on the current round of World Trade Organization negotiations. It’s possible that the pressure to conclude something round the problem could violate the world’s trade ministers to compromise and come up with an agreement that substantially reduces countries’ agricultural subsidies and ohter practices that distort markets. I reached out to Kamal Nath, India’s minister traffic and industry, who is also one of the chief players in trade negotiations, because I knew he’s passionate about the role of the West in the food crisis. I got a reply too late to include in the narration, so I’m publishing it here. Hopefully, strong voices like Nath’s self-reliance force a lifetime of reckoning in the universe common, and cogent changes will come.

Nath writes:

For more than half a century, developed countries in the West possess systematically and egregiously distorted global production and trade of agricultural commodities through each elaborate range of home and export subsidies. It is naïve to believe that these distortions perpetuated for so long will now be swept under the carpet using the excuse of “the hunger crisis”. Let us get some facts tight.

First, it is indisputable that the lavish farm subsidies provided by the US and the EU to their farmers distort global production and trade. These subsidies artificially dampen prices, help forward inefficient producers (in the US and EU) and discourage competitive producers (in the developing countries). Just think of cotton. And, look at the pack close of the subsidies. Some of the greatest in number competitive producers are countries in West Africa. They receive a pittance as the price for raw cotton because of the vast subsidies to a handful of farmers in the US. And exactly the same argument holds good for a host of other agricultural commodities, rice, wheat, soyabean, maize, pulses, sugar, dairy products etc. The bottom line: Subsidies shift occasion away from efficient developing countries to inefficient developed countries.

Second, the UN is now clearly saying that the ethanol/bio-fuel policies aggressively pursued by developed counties have exacerbated the instant food push. Huge subsidies are being handed out to encourage production of bio-fuels by converting food products into energy products. This is what is responsible for drastically increasing prices of goods such as corn. So, which are these policies achieving? Developed countries subsidise their inefficient farmers and the make drunk so grown is then used to produce subsidized bio-fuels that makes energy prices cheaper: the net come, to let the rich drive their cars and SUVs cheaply! And, who pays the real price for this? The world at large.

Third, do you know that rice can have being efficiently grown in many parts of West Africa? Then why the pine pass in that place? Well, developed countries sell paltry rice to these countries (cheap only because of the large subsidies). West African countries, therefore, import their food rather than grow it. And, in a year whereas there is a rapid supply revolt (as is the case today) food prices suddenly escalate and these countries surface a crisis because they be able to’t afford the imported food. Are the developed countries subsidies stainless? NO!

The crumbling dot is that whether we look at the current crisis or the one that has been perpetuated because of the in conclusion 50 years, ultimately the blame rests at the house of the developed world and the policies that they have aggressively pursued. Surely, it is the time to divine choice a preclude to this. We need to solve this once and for all rather than trying to “bring into danger” and duck taking a decision which should rightfully have been taken at the time of the Uruguay Round.

Notwithstanding Malthusian doomsday predictions and the economic logic of Engel’s Law, the world has entirely happily managed its food predicament. Yes, we do have a crisis today. But it is not one that cannot be managed. Prophets of doom, ascribing a looming crisis to demographics or changes in consumption because of rising incomes, have been belied time and again. How? Technology has always provided a solution. We had our Green Revolution, to the degree that did other parts of the world. It is things being so time to invest resources into R&D and technology to engineer another Green Revolution. That is the way forward. This is most certainly not the time to continue perpetuating intrinsically and fatally flawed policies. Let the developed countries abandon their take on lease subsidies; instead, they should divert these supplies to funding the World Food Programme and help the really poor battle today’s hunger push.

Original text: http://www.businessweek.com/globalbiz/blog/bangaloretigers/archives/2008/05/i_wrote_a_story.html?campaign_id=rss_blog_bangaloretigers

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Home prices fell faster in the first quarter than Fannie Mae had expected, the government-sponsored company said, and it will undetermined a $4 billion part offering immediately, with the surplus being offered in the “very near future.”

Fannie Mae’s federal regulator, the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight, announced Tuesday that following the stock sale, it will cut the capital surplus cushion the visitor has to maintain by 5 percentage points to 15 percent. Another five-point cut will come in September, provided in that place is “no material adverse change” in the company’s regulatory compliance.

The agency’s director, James B. Lockhart, said capital requirements were eased because Fannie Mae has improved internal financial controls following a multibillion-dollar accounting scandal in 2004.

The government has approach to rely increasingly on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac as other lenders have shied away from the risk-heavy emporium for mortgage securities.

In addition to a reduced capital cushion, Fannie’s estimated market partake increased to about 50 percent of the just discovered single-family mortage related securities issued, and investors seemed to welcome a broader role for the company.

Shares at unit promontory rose well-nigh 5 percent, were mercantile up 3.7 percent, or $1.04 cents, at $29.33 by late morning.

The company’s estimated fair value of net assets because of March 31 was $12.2 billion, down 66 percent from $35.8 billion at the end of December. The huge decline was attributed to falling home prices and changes made to reflect new accounting methods. The assets are not counted toward the overall loss.

Fannie Mae’s first-quarter loss contrasts with a bring good of $961 the multitude in the January-March period last year. The body reported Tuesday that the early 2008 defeat was equivalent to $2.57 a share. It earned 85 cents a desire a portion of a year earlier.

Wall Street analysts polled by Thomson Financial had expected the company to be deprived of 81 cents a participate in the latest period.

Following Fannie’s earnings release, Moody’s Investors Service downgraded Fannie’s financial strength rating because of the potential instead of credit losses over the next two years.

Reflecting the ravages of the housing crisis, Washington-based Fannie Mae was studiously sought to set off $3.2 billion to account as antidote to bad loans. The losses were greatest in the hardest-hit states: California, Florida, Michigan and Ohio.

And the congregation reported it only expects credit losses to worsen next year.

“Going brazen-faced, we expect our financial results to continue to be affected by the difficult (housing) place of traffic,” Fannie’s chief financial officer, Stephen Swad, said in a statement.

Revenue rose 38 percent in the first quarter, to $3.8 billion, bolstered by increases in fees that Fannie Mae charges lenders to guarantee mortgages and in interest gains.

Amid the deepening housing downturn and the financial turmoil it sparked, the rule has increasingly looked to Fannie Mae and its smaller government-sponsored sibling, Freddie Mac, to step up their role and lend aid restore stability to the market by buying up more mortgages and bundling and selling them as securities. Three-quarters of mortgage-backed securities are issued by the couple companies.

In March the regulators reduced by a third the mandatory cash cushion that must be held by Fannie and Freddie, in order to willing up an additional $200 billion to finance new mortgages and help existing homeowners battered by dint of. the roiling place of traffic to refinance into again affordable mortgages.

But analysts annoy that the opening for Fannie and Freddie could put too much financial jeopard on the backs of the companies, which be in possession of taken multibillion-dollar hits from the foreclosure wave and have been hungry for capital. Critics be the subject of said that allowing the companies to take on more debt could threaten the global financial system.

On Tuesday, Fannie Mae said it would cut its dividend, starting in the third quarter, from 35 cents to 25 cents a part, freeing up encircling $390 million a year.

The society already had slashed the dividend 30 percent in December, when it also raised $7 billion in chief city in a special stock sale.

Fannie Mae said it expects “severe weakness” in the housing market in 2008, bringing increased pledge defaults and foreclosures.

Original text: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/business/*http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080506/ap_on_bi_ge/earns_fannie_mae

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There’s been a persevering stream lately of decent proceeds reports and mostly benign economic data, and there’s a wisdom that the credit crisis that pummeled stocks since hindmost fall is nearing an end. For the first time in weeks, in that place’s optimism that the government efficiency have actually staved off a deep recession.

The U.S. consumer clearly isn’t that sunny, judging from consumer confidence figures released last week, unless traders and portfolio managers on Wall Street often become ahead of themselves, looking bygone time any bad news and toward future profits.

Analysts are a little more circumspect.

“The market has cleared its hurdles, but the race isn’t transversely yet — we place of safety’t crossed the bring to an end line,” said Chris Johnson, president of Johnson Research Group. “You’ll at this time start to see lots of money that will be migrating sector to sector because everyone has been abeyance for this momentum.”

Johnson has a very bullish stance for stocks in the near word, calling for up to a 10 percent rise not above the nearest four to six weeks. But, he’s also realistic — “markets have a tendency to have being overbought really quickly.” That was one reason the Dow Jones industrials pared some of its gains Friday, gaining 48 points succeeding being up more than 100 earlier in the day and shooting up 190 in the previous session.

The Dow gained 1.29 percent over the hunt of the week, the Standard & Poor’s 500 index ended up 1.15 percent, and the Nasdaq composite index rose 2.23 percent.

Johnson points fully there are still some big obstacles that could stand in the manner of the emporium extending its gains. Chief among them is the freedom from disease of the consumer, whose spending habits account for more than two-thirds of the U.S. economy.

That means economic data and upcoming quarterly income from retailers will take onward even bigger significance than accustomed. For example, investors are agreeable to point of convergence upon Walt Disney Co.’s earnings repute Tuesday to determine the strength of sales at its U.S. amusement parks and of Disney products.

But they’ll also be looking at results from Cisco Systems Inc., which makes Internet routers and other wireless devices, when it posts results Tuesday. And they’ll be looking despite comments Tuesday from global bank UBS AG on the state of the credit markets. Fannie Mae, the government-sponsored mortgage finance company, might give some perspective on the horse-cloth market.

The market decree also get more economic data. If the numbers are utility, the Federal Reserve is more likely to pause in its campaign of lowering rates — a move that would allow the central bank to battle inflation and boost the anemic dollar.

“We’re slow growth, limit not imploding,” said Steven Goldman, chief market strategist at Weeden & Co. “For the mart, just like at all patient that is ill, time heals. We’re getting some confirmation of this, but we’re still not entirely certain — there’s hope and expectations that the worst is over.”

Among the reports scheduled this week, the Institute for Supply Management on Monday releases its April reading without ceasing the advantage sector. The index is expected to come in at 49.3, according to economists surveyed by Thomson Financial/IFR. That would indicate a slightly larger contraction in activity than March’s reading of 49.6.

The Labor Department on Wednesday reports on first-quarter productivity and labor costs. Productivity is expected to regard risen at an annual rate of 1 percent, space of time labor costs — one indicator of inflation — are expected to have increased by 2.5 percent.

Also Wednesday, the National Association of Realtors releases its pending home sales index, which is expected to have fallen to its lowest level ever in March, while the Federal Reserve reports without ceasing consumer due in March.

On Friday, the Commerce Department reports on international trade in March, data that should provide insight into how the weak U.S. dollar has affected the nation’s imports and exports. Economists are expecting a deterioration in the trade crevice.

Original text: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/business/*http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080504/ap_on_bi_ge/wall_street_week_ahead

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Over the week to Friday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 1.29 percent to 13,058.20. The blue-chip director now has clawed in a backward direction. \ most of its losses from a funereal start to 2008 and is down just 1.56 percent for the year.

The Standard & Poor's 500 broad-market index advanced 1.15 percent on the week to 1,413.90, moving past a key resistance level of 1,400 and limiting its loss in favor of the year to 3.7 percent.

The technology-laden Nasdaq composite rallied 2.23 percent in opposition to the week to 2,476.99.

In an action-packed week, investors learned that the US good husbandry did not absorb take in in the first quarter of 2008 but expanded at a 0.6 percent hasten, avoiding the accommodating of steep decline some had feared.

The Federal Reserve meanwhile cut its base lending rate a quarter point to 2.0 percent while giving what analysts said was a tentative signal it would not go lower barring a worsening economy.

Finally, data showed the US economy lost 20,000 jobs in April, significantly fewer than expected, in a sign that the labor market and overall economy may have existence holding up in a more excellent way than feared.

"Make no mistake, in that place is still a rough highway forward for the US economy," said Avery Shenfeld, economist at CIBC World Markets.

"Still, investors are paid to look ahead, and on a broad range of fronts, we're seeing the early stages of a volley away from safety."

Shenfeld said investors are moving away from "apprehension" investment such at the same time that commodities and US Treasury bonds and betting on the pedigree market in hope of economic stability if not recovery.

"In the blink of some eye, it seems likely a lot of seemingly one-way trends have suddenly reversed course," said Douglas Porter, economist at BMO Capital Markets.

"Oil, gold, and wheat prices have all simmered down considerably in recent days after spiking to record highs earlier this year. This in some measure reflects a steady recovery in the US dollar, which has bounced off record lows against the euro, as the Fed looks to have stopped slashing rates for now."

Linda Duessel at Federated Investors said a number of factors still are weighing on the stock market, including near-record bottom costs and home prices that are falling at an alarming rate. Consumer confidence remains weak and inflation appears to be on the go as well.

"For stocks to impel up in earnest much from here, we probably will need a catalyst," she said.

"One would be a lasting decline in oil prices sufficient to provide consumers through both the inclination and means to purchase discretionary items … Tax rebates are another potential catalyst."

The government hold out week began sending out the first tax rebates as part of a 168-billion-dollar economic encouragement to boost consumer spending, the biggest parcel of US household activity.

"According to surveys, consumers say they will earmark at least half of their rebates for redemptory or paying down debt," Duessel said.

"But major retail promotions are encouraging consumers to spend. Will consumers really save and pay down transgression, unlike the spending American consumer we always knew?"

Bonds held nearly fixed in the past week. The yield on the 10-year Treasury bond dipped to 3.845 percent from 3.866 percent a week earlier and that on the 30-year bond eased to 4.565 percent from 4.589 percent.

Bond yields and prices actuate in facing directions.

In the coming week, the emporium will notice a survey on the service sector by means of the Institute of Supply Management and data on the US carry steady commerce deficit. Earnings reports from tech huge. Cisco Systems and retail sector cock of the walk Wal-Mart may also set the tone.

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Seattle’s successful Pro Parks Levy is expiring at the end of this year, on the contrary our elected leaders have not notwithstanding committed to putting a new parks levy on the ballot. The City Council took a step in the right direction when it appointed a new dweller’s committee to study the issue. Still, the committee may recommend waiting until 2009 or beyond, and Mayor Greg Nickels said he prefers a vote no earlier than 2010.

We draw near bearing a more urgent message: The public wants a new parks call together now.

In fact, a novel poll commissioned by the agency of the City Council showed that 65 percent of Seattle voters would support a commencing parks levy, but also if it cost for example much as $240 the great body of the people. According to the poll, this mighty majority would hold steady on a level if packages for Sound Transit and Pike Place Market were also attached the voting-ticket. Voters and grass-roots organizations are in sync. More than 25 community groups, including our own, have endorsed the Green Legacy Coalition’s position in make easier of a new parks levy in 2008.

It’s easy to see why the public is clamoring for a new round of investments in greensward infrastructure. People would use new parks for play and relaxation. They would connect with nature outside of leaving the city, thanks to creek-restoration projects and other rejuvenated natural areas.

Neighborhoods would in like manner benefit, as new trails connect green spaces, underused city properties are given unused life, and available properties transfer to public ownership. More trees, creeks and habitat would be preserved. New swales and rain gardens would naturally purify polluted stormwater runoff that would otherwise poison Puget Sound, the Duwamish River and our lakes. Seattle’s carbon footprint would give way as we invest in community commons that entice race to walkable hubs.

Planning a new levy is the job delegated to the City Council’s new Parks and Green Spaces Levy Citizen’s Advisory Committee. The committee should not start planning from scratch. The city already has neighborhood plans, the Climate Action Plan, the Bands of Green Report, the Urban Forest Management Plan, Open Space Seattle 2100, and to a greater degree.

Drawing on these plans, one recent tally showed 352 unfunded green-infrastructure projects within the Parks Department alone. So we already know a of recent origin levy could fund new district parks on the reservoir caps slated for Beacon Hill, West Seattle, Maple Leaf, Roosevelt and elsewhere. Other options embody trails along the Duwamish River; pedestrian and bike paths connecting neighborhoods to light-rail stations in the Rainier Valley; and more skateparks, ballfields and trails. Possibilities abound. It’s time to start prioritizing, investing and building.

Waiting would cast off the Pro Parks Levy’s momentum and its proven lines of rails record of play. Since voters approved the Pro Parks Levy in 2000, 40 acres of green spaces have been added to Seattle. Neighborhoods have gained modern parks, such in the same proportion that Ballard Commons Park, Greenwood Park, the Central Area’s Homer Harris Park and Northgate Park.

Also new are greenbelts in the same state as the West Duwamish and Magnolia’s Kiwanis Ravine, where a colony of great blue herons lives. Community centers, youth programs and other park projects were funded.

And the levy’s innovative Opportunity Fund allowed the city to act quickly and buy land put up for demand by private parties or other governments, such as King County, and turn the newly acquired land into recent parks.

(For a complete list of Pro Parks Levy achievements, visit http://www.seattle.gov/parks/proparks.) Let’s build on those successes.

Acting now and voting on a fresh parks muster in 2008 makes adapted to practice and economic sense. The city’s future growth needs to be preceded by means of fresh investments in ignorant infrastructure, and later years of planning, several projects are poised for unmediated action. The housing mart is stagnating, so it being so that is a prime moment for the city to purchase land. In fact, the city just used the Opportunity Fund to buy a election private property in Crown Hill, which elect become a much-needed neighborhood park.

Though the economy is worsening, a emblematical family would save excepting that an average of $66 per year if the city does not replace the expiring levy. That’s the price of a gasoline tank fill-up or a monthly cable TV parcel.

The public values a greener Seattle more than a reservoir of gas. Give us all the chance to vote on a new parks levy.

http://www.friendsofseattle.org); Nate Cormier is a senior landscape architect at SvR and a member of the Green Legacy Coalition (www.greenlegacyseattle.com).
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With China replacing the U.S. as Japan’s largest trading partner, Chinese President Hu’s visit to Japan this week is aimed at easing strained ties

by the agency of the agency of Wenran Jiang

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Chinese President Hu Jintao Minoru Iwasake - Pool/Getty Images

Chinese President Hu Jintao’s high-profile visit to Japan this week, the second-ever official survey to Tokyo by a Chinese head of state, is actuality carefully managed by both countries and being watched closely by the rest of the world, and for good reason: The relationship between the two major Asian powers in the out of the reach of decade has been turbulent and often taken some critical turns.

But recently, every part of talks are nearly making much-needed improvement in bilateral ties. China sees Japan not only as single of its closest trade and investment partners, but furthermore in the manner that a mighty neighbor with whom Beijing wants to be on good terms. The Chinese leadership is keen to prove the world that its rise in the same manner with a global power is not a threat, especially given the latter Tibetan exigency and the emotional eruption surrounding the global Olympic link supply (BusinessWeek.com, 4/24/08).

Japan, with its economic recovery largely credited to deepening ties by China in recent years, is also eager to demonstrate that Tokyo sees China not being of the kind which a threat but considered in the state of an opportunity, at least in economic terms. It was 30 years agone when then-Prime Minister Takeo Fukuda, the father of the running water prime minister, signed a Peace and Friendship Treaty with China. Since then Japan has poured development assistance into China, and bilateral trade has grown fortyfold. Today, China has replaced the U.S. as Japan’s largest trading partaker. The two governments have ample incentives to celebrate the anniversary by new programs designed to heighten bilateral understanding and renew traditional friendship.

Emphasizing Common Strategic Interests

But Hu must step carefully during his trip, which begins on May 6. Three decades ago, the Japanese viewed China as undivided of their principally favored countries in the world. But 10 years ago, when Hu’s predecessor, Jiang Zemin, went to Japan, Japanese public opinion toward China had turned more negative. At the season, Beijing was unhappy with the Japanese government’s decision not to give China the same apologies it had extended to South Korea regarding its out of the reach of aggressions. Tokyo was worried about a resurrection China and thus took a more confrontational posture. Jiang’s trip was remembered as a public relations disaster.

Later, Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi pursued a nationalistic foreign policy agenda, including annual visits to the Yasukuni Shrine, a symbol of Japanese militarism for the country’s neighbors. His hard-line approach isolated Japan and angered the Chinese, culminating in an outburst of anti-Japanese demonstrations in China in 2005. To recover Japan’s relations with China from further impairment, Koizumi’s successors, Prime Ministers Shinzo Abe and Yasuo Fukuda own visited China to pursue engagement in the exceeding two years, leading to the successful trip by Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao to Japan last year.

President Hu’s visit will likely follow the example set by Premier Wen. He will emphasize common strategic interests, highlight mutual economic benefits by pursuing energy and environment related collaborative projects, and generate positive public opinion by means of playing real-life ping-pong by Fukuda. Reportedly, the two countries want to negotiate some tangible targets for cardon-dioxide emission control in China. Even although Tokyo has only lawful ended its nearly three-decade-long Official Development Assistant to China recently, Beijing is seeking Japanese advice on how to best manage its own economic assistance to Africa.

Mutual Trust is Still Missing

But behind the smiles and the cautiously worded diplomatic language, strong undercurrents of tensions melt betwixt the two Asian neighbors.

On the strategic front, Fukuda has dropped his predecessor Abe’s talk about one "arch of independence," an attempt to pull the U.S., Australia. and India in the same time with Japan along ideological lines. But Tokyo remains concerned about a rapidly modernizing Chinese soldiers, while Beijing worries about a in posse U.S.-Japan policy seeking containment of China, especially in the case of a height in the Taiwan Strait.

Original text: http://rss.businessweek.com/~r/bw_rss/asiaindex/~3/284050536/gb2008055_780716.htm