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2010/01/28

President Sarkozy calls for a “new Bretton Woods”

Adrian Monck, Head of Communications and Media, Tel.: +41 (0)22 869 1210 E-mail: adrian.monck@weforum.org

• French President Sarkozy calls for “a new Bretton Woods” and a re-examination of the fairness of globalization and capitalism
• The world must move from rhetoric to reality and take concrete action to address priorities such as the economic crisis and climate change, said President Doris Leuthard of the Swiss Confederation
• If long-term global problems are ignored, the economic crisis could lead to a social crisis
• For all information about the Annual Meeting, visit www.weforum.org/annualmeeting

Davos-Klosters, Switzerland, 27 January 2010 − In his opening address at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting, President Nicolas Sarkozy of France said that it will not be possible to emerge from the global economic crisis and protect against future crises if the economic imbalances that are at the root of the problem are not addressed. “Countries with trade surpluses must consume more and improve the living standards and social protection of their citizens,” he remarked. “Countries with deficits must make an effort to consume a little less and repay their debts.” The world’s currency regime is central to the issue, Sarkozy argued. Exchange rate instability and the under-valuation of certain currencies lead to unfair trade and competition, he said. “The prosperity of the post-war era owed a great deal to Bretton Woods, to its rules and its institutions. That is exactly what we need today; we need a new Bretton Woods.” Sarkozy said that France would place the reform of the international monetary system on the agenda when it chairs the G8 and G20 next year.

In his address, Sarkozy also called for an examination of the nature of globalization and capitalism. “This is not a crisis in globalization; this is a crisis of globalization,” he said. “Finance, free trade and competition are only means and not ends in themselves.” Sarkozy added that banks should stick to analysing credit risk, assessing the capacity of borrowers to repay loans and finance economic growth. “The role of the bank is not to speculate.” He also questioned the rewarding of high compensation and bonuses for CEOs whose companies lose money. Capitalism should not be replaced but it has to be changed, the French president declared. “We will only save capitalism by reforming it, by making it more moral.”

Speaking before Sarkozy, Doris Leuthard, President of the Swiss Confederation and Federal Councillor of Economic Affairs, told participants that the international community has to bridge the gap between rhetoric and reality as it tackles major challenges such as the global economic crisis, climate change and the Doha Round of multilateral trade negotiations. “We must all sit down together in a responsible manner, bring our part of the solution to the table and allow a conclusion to be reached that benefits us all.” While “rhetoric and reality all too often diverge by large margins,” Leuthard said, the bottom line is that “people need jobs and a salary.” She concluded: “We have talked enough. It is now time to get moving.”

Earlier, World Economic Forum Founder and Executive Chairman Klaus Schwab warned of the consequences if countries are too preoccupied by domestic problems and ignore long-term challenges such as global warming. “We hope that governments don’t become overwhelmed by internal issues and constraints to the detriment of exercising the necessary global stewardship.” Added Schwab: “We run the risk that 2010 becomes the year of the social crisis following the financial crisis of 2008 and the economic crisis of 2009.” He noted that one of the top priorities for this Annual Meeting is to encourage entrepreneurship and job creation.

Notes to Editors
More information about the Annual Meeting 2010 at http://www.weforum.org/annualmeeting
Programme of the Annual Meeting at http://www.weforum.org/annualmeeting/programme
Connect with the Forum on other social networks http://www.weforum.org/socialmedia
Press Releases at http://www.weforum.org/pressreleases
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2009/12/25

Call for Participation: OMG's Real-time, Embedded and Enterprise-Scale Time-Critical

Event will be part of OMG Standards for Mission Critical Systems Workshop; May 24-26, 2010, Washington, D.C., USA
NEEDHAM, Mass., Dec. 22 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- OMG(TM) today issued a Call for Participation for the Eleventh Annual Real-time, Embedded and Enterprise-Scale Time-Critical Systems Workshop, to be held on May 24-26, 2010 in Arlington, VA, USA. The Workshop is part of the OMG Standards for Mission Critical Systems Workshop, alongside parallel events on Complex Event Processing and Cyber Security, which Real-time and Embedded Workshop participants are also invited to attend. For more information or to respond to the Call for Participation, please visit http://www.omg.org/rt2010. The submission deadline is February 1, 2010.

For more click the link below:

Call for Participation: OMG's Real-time, Embedded and Enterprise-Scale Time-Critical

2009/12/17

THE GREAT STABILISATION

Dec 17th 2009


The recession was less calamitous than many feared. Its aftermath will
be more dangerous than many expect

IT HAS become known as the "Great Recession", the year in which the
global economy suffered its deepest slump since the second world war.
But an equally apt name would be the "Great Stabilisation". For 2009
was extraordinary not just for how output fell, but for how a
catastrophe was averted.

Twelve months ago, the panic sown by the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers
had pushed financial markets close to collapse. Global economic
activity, from industrial production to foreign trade, was falling
faster than in the early 1930s. This time, though, the decline was
stemmed within months. Big emerging economies accelerated first and
fastest. China's output, which stalled but never fell, was growing by
an annualised rate of some 17% in the second quarter. By mid-year the
world's big, rich economies (with the exception of Britain and Spain)
had started to expand again. Only a few laggards, such as Latvia and
Ireland, are now likely still to be in recession.

There has been a lot of collateral damage. Average unemployment across
the OECD is almost 9%. In America, where the recession began much
earlier, the jobless rate has doubled to 10%. In some places years of
progress in poverty reduction have been undone as the poorest have been
hit by the double whammy of weak economies and still-high food prices.
But thanks to the resilience of big, populous economies such as China,
India and Indonesia, the emerging world overall fared no worse in this
downturn than in the 1991 recession. For many people on the planet, the
Great Recession was not all that great.

That outcome was not inevitable. It was the result of the biggest,
broadest and fastest government response in history. Teetering banks
were wrapped in a multi-trillion-dollar cocoon of public cash and
guarantees. Central banks slashed interest rates; the big ones
dramatically expanded their balance-sheets. Governments worldwide
embraced fiscal stimulus with gusto. This extraordinary activism helped
to stem panic, prop up the financial system and counter the collapse in
private demand. Despite claims to the contrary, the Great Recession
could have been a Depression without it.

STABLE BUT FRAIL
So much for the good news. The bad news is that today's stability,
however welcome, is worryingly fragile, both because global demand is
still dependent on government support and because public largesse has
papered over old problems while creating new sources of volatility.
Property prices are still falling in more places than they are rising,
and, as this week's nationalisation of Austria's Hypo Group shows,
banking stresses still persist. Apparent signs of success, such as
American megabanks repaying public capital early (see article[1]), make
it easy to forget that the recovery still depends on government
support. Strip out the temporary effects of firms' restocking, and much
of the rebound in global demand is thanks to the public purse, from the
officially induced investment surge in China to stimulus-prompted
spending in America. That is revving recovery in big emerging
economies, while only staving off a relapse into recession in much of
the rich world.

This divergence will persist. Demand in the rich world will remain
weak, especially in countries with over-indebted households and broken
banking systems. For all the talk of deleveraging, American households'
debt, relative to their income, is only slightly below its peak and
some 30% above its level a decade ago. British and Spanish households
have adjusted even less, so the odds of prolonged weakness in private
spending are even greater. And as their public-debt burden rises,
rich-world governments will find it increasingly difficult to borrow
still more to compensate. The contrast with better-run emerging
economies will sharpen. Investors are already worried about Greece
defaulting (see article[2]), but other members of the euro zone are
also at risk. Even Britain and America could face sharply higher
borrowing costs.

Big emerging economies face the opposite problem: the spectre of asset
bubbles and other distortions as governments choose, or are forced, to
keep financial conditions too loose for too long. China is a worry,
thanks to the scale and composition of its stimulus. Liquidity is
alarmingly abundant and the government's refusal to allow the yuan to
appreciate is hampering the economy's shift towards consumption (see
article[3]). But loose monetary policy in the rich world makes it hard
for emerging economies to tighten even if they want to, since that
would suck in even more speculative foreign capital.

WALKING A FINE LINE
Whether the world economy moves smoothly from the Great Stabilisation
to a sustainable recovery depends on how well these divergent
challenges are met. Some of the remedies are obvious. A stronger yuan
would accelerate the rebalancing of China's economy while reducing the
pressure on other emerging markets. Credible plans for medium-term
fiscal cuts would reduce the risk of rising long-term interest rates in
the rich world. But there are genuine trade-offs. Fiscal tightening now
could kill the rich world's recovery. And the monetary stance that
makes sense for America's domestic economy will add to the problems
facing the emerging world.

That is why policymakers face huge technical difficulties in getting
the exit strategies right. Worse, they must do so against a darkening
political backdrop. As Britain's tax on bank bonuses shows, fiscal
policy in the rich world risks being driven by rising public fury at
bankers and bail-outs. In America the independence of the Federal
Reserve is under threat from Congress. And the politics of high
unemployment means trade spats are becoming a bigger risk, especially
with China.

Add all this up, and what do you get? Pessimists expect all kinds of
shocks in 2010, from sovereign-debt crises (a Greek default?) to
reckless protectionism (American tariffs against China's "unfair"
currency, say). More likely is a plethora of lesser problems, from
sudden surges in bond yields (Britain before the election), to
short-sighted fiscal decisions (a financial-transactions tax) to
strikes over pay cuts (British Airways is a portent, see article[4]).
Small beer compared with the cataclysm of a year ago--but enough to
temper the holiday cheer.

-----
[1] http://www.economist.com/displayStory.cfm?story_ID=15127534
[2] http://www.economist.com/displayStory.cfm?story_ID=15127235
[3] http://www.economist.com/displayStory.cfm?story_ID=15127500
[4] http://www.economist.com/displayStory.cfm?story_ID=15130582



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Apple iPhone could reboot education

Brian X. Chen (wired.com) reports that Abilene Christian University has just finished the first year of a pilot program in which 1,000 freshman students each received a free iPhone or iPod touch to explore how the always-connected devices ”might revolutionize the classroom experience with a dash of digital interactivity.” Says Bill Rankin, a professor who helped plan the initiative: “I think this is the next platform for education.”
Read more…
http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2009/12/iphone-university-abilene/

2009/12/10

IDC plans to create sustainability index for IT

IDC - Press Release


IDC Plans ICT Sustainability Index to Guide Nations Towards Their CO2 Emissions Targets

05 Aug 2009
FRAMINGHAM, Mass., August 5, 2009 – IDC today announced plans to create an index that scores a country's ability to use information and communications technologies (ICT) to effectively reduce its CO2 emissions. Results of the first IDC ICT Sustainability IndexTM will be released prior to the United Nations Climate Change Conference to be held December 7-18, 2009 in Copenhagen, Denmark.

The ICT Sustainability Index utilizes a variety of inputs to determine a country's ability to use ICT to reduce its CO2 emissions. In addition to population and GDP data, the Index correlates a country's current energy profile with its ICT investment and spending patterns to help make climate change targets attainable. By using additional ICT-related input factors to this base line, the Index score also effectively measures a country's readiness to leverage ICT to lower its carbon emissions. The Index scores will allow IDC to rank nations fairly and transparently as they tackle the long-term challenge of environmental and economic sustainability. The Index will be accompanied by a special study offering qualitative recommendations to policy makers on where ICT investments can contribute to achieving climate change goals.

German association ZVEI presented forecast: Microelectronics-trends till 2013

Vorweihnachtszeit ist Rückschauzeit. Ob Gottschalk, Jauch oder Kerner, alle blicken zurück auf das Jahr 2009. Da ist der ZVEI innovativer: Er schielt nach vorn und zwar mit der »Mikroelektronik - Trendanalyse bis 2013«, die einem ausgewählten Journalistenkreis diese Woche vorgestellt wurde. Durchforstet man die gut 50-seitige Studie, fällt auf, wie schnell sich die Mikroelektronikindustrie von der Krise erholt hat. Fast so schnell wie die großen Banken - von einigen Landesbanken mal abgesehen. Nach 2001 hatte es gut drei Jahre gedauert, bis man wieder auf dem alten Umsatzniveau war. Dieses Mal scheint der Spuk bereits nach etwas mehr als einem Jahr vorbei zu sein. Das sind doch gute Aussichten! Und noch etwas: Nicht nur wir werden älter, sondern auch die Mikroelektronik. Laut Trendanalyse hat sie sich von einer reifenden zu einer reifen Industrie gewandelt. Bis zur Rente dürfte es allerdings noch sehr lange dauern - wie im richtigen Leben.

2009/12/08

Increasing lead times: Here are The Facts From ACAL

In November ACAL Technology (partner to IMU Group Swiss) surveyed nearly 400 contacts from its franchised supply base of over 300 worldwide suppliers. The responses to the survey have been analysed and summarized for the benefit of our customers.


• 75% of responders are currently experiencing fluctuating lead-times

• 38% already have product allocation issues for areas of their portfolio

• In the next 6 months 43% expect lead-times to continue to extend by a minimum of 8 weeks

Due to the current global economy many component manufacturers are slower in increasing production capacity due to continued uncertainty in the market. These factors are expected to force prices to climb and further lead-time extensions.

Over the last three months global pricing has increased in some product areas of the components market by nearly 24%. During the last quarter average prices have increased by 1.6% as shown in New Electronics November issue of ‘Marketwatch’ which showed 82% of the products tracked had experienced price increases when compared to prior month.

ACAL Technology continues it’s commitment to inventory and will continue to invest, in addition ACAL is also working with many of its partners to provide services reducing lead-times in the inventory cycle.

With all of the conditions that we are currently prevailing ACAL is recomending it's customers to secure inventory to ensure production is not affected by changes in the market.

For further information on how ACAL can support you in the current market
please complete the form below.