MY twins were nearing their first birthday last summer when a friend called. Did I want a part-time job as communications director at a not-for-profit organization?
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Weekend Business
This week: The current upturn in the market; the financial affairs of the British royal family and the dangers of magnets in toys from China.
Founded in 1991 by the lawyer and journalist Steven Brill, Courtroom Television Network introduced the genre of gavel-to-gavel coverage of live courtroom trials, punctuated by sober legal analysis of the proceedings. It caught its wave in 1995 during the O. J. Simpson murder trial.
Today, Court TV still broadcasts trials, but tilts more toward juicy tabloid fare. A new show, Video Justice, had a segment last week about a fight in a Nevada casino between Hells Angels and Mongols.
Knives flash. Gunshots ring out, a voice-over said, breathlessly describing the footage caught by security cameras in the casino. Two minutes of bloody mayhem, and then, its over.
Reflecting its new emphasis on reality shows, the cable network is taking on a new name as of Jan. 1: truTV.
LONDON, July 9 Groupe Danone, the worlds largest yogurt products company, said Monday that it planned to buy Royal Numico, a Dutch-based maker of baby food, for 12.3 billion euros ($16.8 billion) as part of a focus on nutrition.
Danone offered 55 euros in cash for each Numico share, 44 percent more than Numicos average closing share price over the last three months, the companies said.
Speculation about a merger of Danone and Numico was renewed last week by Danones announcement that it would sell its cookie division to Read the rest of this entry »
MONTREAL, July 12 The mining company Rio Tinto made a sizable and friendly $38.1 billion offer for Alcan, the Canadian aluminum producer, on Thursday, easily pushing aside an earlier $27.5 billion hostile bid from Alcoa.
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Christinne Muschi/Reuters
From left, Richard Evans, Alcan’s chief; Thomas Albanese, chief of Rio Tinto; Yves Fortier, chairman of Alcan; Paul Skinner, chairman of Rio Tinto.
It is unfortunate that economists have to debate whether natural resources are a blessing or a curse for a developing nation. Minerals, diamonds or oil may appear to represent automatic wealth but resource-rich countries usually become mired in corruption. High oil revenues, for instance, allow a government to maintain power and reward political supporters without doing much for its people. The government of Nigeria has taken in billions from high oil prices, yet the average person was probably better off 40 years ago. The easy-to-reach wealth of a resource also encourages coups, and thus political stability is problematic.
The solution is to make these governments more accountable in spending their money, but how can that be done? Paul Collier, an economics professor at Read the rest of this entry »
GOING to a spa was once a luxury reserved for special occasions or for people with deep pockets. But as the spa and wellness industry has grown in recent years, getting a massage or a facial has become nearly as routine as picking up a nonfat decaf latte.
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Weekend Business
This week: The current upturn in the market; the financial affairs of the British royal family and the dangers of magnets in toys from China.
SEOUL, South Korea At 6:20 p.m., a line pops up on the screen of Hur Raks palm-size digital wireless device with his first order of the evening: a shoe dealer has had too much to drink and wants to be driven home in his own car.
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Seokyong Lee for The International Herald Tribune
Mr. Hur drove a customer’s car. Drivers, who work fast to do as many jobs as they can in a night, are often stranded far from public transit.
Mr. Hur rushes off into the subway and then finds his customer and the car, a red subcompact in less than 15 minutes.
TO begin, I am lying in a lavish sleeper bed in first class on a wonderful British Airways Boeing 777, heading from Heathrow to Dulles. I am the only person in first class who isnt asleep. Even my night owl wife-for-life is fast asleep on the bed next to me.
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Investors overcame earnings warnings from Home Depotand Sears Holdingsand dismissed concerns about the subprime mortgage market, sending the Dow Jones industrial average and the Standard & Poors 500-stock index to record highs last week.
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TORONTO Frank Stronach, the chairman of the auto parts maker Magna International, stood before shareholders at the companys annual meeting in May and, instead of discussing an offer he had put on the table for Chrysler, entered a debate in jest about who was more alluring to women, himself or his longtime aide, Manfred Gingl.
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Adrian Wyld/Canadian Press, via Associated Press
Frank Stronach, the chairman of the auto parts maker Magna International, this year made a bid for Chrysler and pitched a plan to sell partial control of Magna to a company controlled by a Russian billionaire.