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Business News
Sep. 28, 2009
• Barack Obama used his first speech to the
United Nations General Assembly to call for a
“new era of engagement” based on “mutual
respect” and argued that solving the world’s
problems “cannot solely be America’s
endeavour”. Mr Obama spoke shortly before
leaders from the G20 countries gathered in
Pittsburgh for a summit.
• Dell took a long-awaited step towards
diversifying its business when it agreed to pay
$3.9 billion for Perot Systems, an IT services
company. The computer-maker obtains most of
its revenue from selling hardware and related
products to companies, which leaves it
vulnerable to business downturns. Perot
Systems, founded by Ross Perot, a former
presidential candidate, receives most of its
income from government and health-care
contracts, a more stable source of revenue
which will increase if the American government
digitises patients’ records as promised.
• Britain’s Lloyds Banking Group announced
that “in light of improving economic conditions”
it would seek to reduce the amount of toxic
assets to be ring-fenced in the government’s
asset-protection scheme. Royal Bank of
Scotland also wants to reduce its participation
in the scheme.
• China filed an appeal against a ruling by the
WTO that calls for the country to lift restrictions
against American books, films and music. Such
imports are channelled through state-run
distributors, which China argues is necessary to
protect public decency and culture.
• The price of tea hit another high because of
drought in Kenya, the largest exporter. In Sri
Lanka, tea workers are demanding a 75%
increase in their daily wage, to 500 Sri Lankan
rupees ($4). A survey in 2007 found a third of
plantation employees live in poverty.
• The UN held a big meeting on climate change
amid concerns that talks due in December in
Copenhagen to renegotiate the Kyoto protocol
are heading for failure. Rifts are emerging
between rich and poor nations and between
America and Europe over the burden of targets
for reducing industrial emissions. China
pledged for the first time to reduce its emissions
in proportion to GDP by a “notable margin”, but
gave no specifics.
• Researchers claimed a breakthrough in
preventing the spread of HIV, the virus that
causes AIDS, when the results of a study using
an experimental vaccine on 16,000 volunteers
in Thailand showed the risk of infection had
been cut by 31%.
• Officials in Taiwan made it clear that, this year,
their country will not ask its diplomatic partners
to propose its readmission to the UN, which
China always blocks. In a gesture seen as
conciliatory to China, it will confine itself to
seeking membership of two UN agencies
dealing with, respectively, climate change and
aviation safety.
• A huge storm along Australia’s east coast
cloaked Sydney in a fog of desert dust whipped
up from topsoil in the interior, which is suffering
drought.