Tuesday, September 9, 2008

Big pay claim fuels German inflation fear

Big pay claim fuels German inflation fear

By Chris Bryant in Berlin and Ralph Atkins in Frankfurt

Published: September 8 2008 20:09 | Last updated: September 8 2008 20:09

Germany’s largest trade union demanded an inflation-busting pay rise for its 2.3m members on Monday, threatening higher labour costs as companies struggle with the slowing economy.

IG Metall, the engineering workers’ union, is calling for a 7 to 8 per cent increase, its biggest demand for 16 years, defying a warning from the European Central Bank that wage rises could add to inflationary pressure.

Berthold Huber, the president, said the bid “took into account the macroeconomic situation and the expectations of workers”. The union recognised the economy was slowing, but there was “no reason to doubt the vitality of the Germany economy”.

Employers struggling with high raw material costs and the strong euro reacted with dismay. German industrial orders fell in July for an eighth consecutive month, and production has dropped in recent months.

Gesamtmetall, the employers’ association for the metal and electrical industry, warned that such a big pay jump was misguided given the economic outlook. “To make the biggest demand in 16 years right now is unreasonable and puts the acceptance of our system of wage agreement in danger,” Martin Kannegiesser, president, said.

The IG Metall wage negotiation round has traditionally been a bellwether for European wage setting and workers are in no mood to share employers’ pain this year.

German unions have this year shaken off years of wage restraint to force above-inflation increases. They have been aided by a favourable political climate, which has seen the SPD track left to fend off the Left party, a newly formed alliance of former East German communists and western trade unionists.

In February, steelworkers won a 5.2 per cent pay increase, while the previous month train drivers secured an 11 per cent rise.

During the last wage round, IG Metall sought a 6.5 per cent increase for its members and reached a two-stage settlement of an initial 4.1 per cent rise, followed by another 1.7 per cent, spread over 19 months.

The final wage demand will be agreed later this month at a special meeting after further discussions at a regional level.

The ECB fears high inflation caused by oil prices is in greater danger of becoming entrenched in the eurozone than in the US, and has been alarmed by a recent sharp pick-up in eurozone unit labour costs.

Jean-Claude Trichet, ECB president, gave warning on Monday that the world faced “a very, very significant increase” in inflation. Speaking after a meeting of central bankers in Basel, Switzerland, he said: “We all agree that a solid anchoring of inflation expectations is of the essence for all of us in the present environment.”

Last week Mr Trichet shot a warning across the bows of IG Metall, expressing “very strong concern that the emergence of broad-based second-round effects in price and wage-setting behaviour could add significantly to inflationary pressures”.

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Black Sea coastline heads upmarket

By Kerin Hope and Theodor Troev in Sofia

Published: September 8 2008 17:54 | Last updated: September 8 2008 17:54

Bulgaria’s Black Sea shoreline once marked the country’s eastern border. Under communism, the coastal waters were effectively barred to all but licensed fishermen and small boats from officially approved clubs.

“Effectively the beach was the frontier and the sea was closely patrolled,” says Petar Kaloianov, a veteran yacht skipper. Twenty years on, the secluded coastline is acquiring a special allure for the global super-rich hoping to escape the sometimes unwelcome attention they attract elsewhere on Europe’s crowded beaches.

Kavarna, the northernmost town along Bulgaria’s 380km stretch of Black Sea coastline, is one place where they have found a welcome retreat, says Tsonko Tsonev, mayor.

“Some legendary rock groups play our summer festival, then stay on for a quiet holiday,” Mr Tsonev says. “The yacht business is at an early stage of development and we don’t get crowds of pleasure boats up here.”

Rock star Alice Cooper and members of Manowar, the heavy metal band, were seen in Kavarna recovering from marathon gigs at the Kaliakra rock festival in July.

Members of the Bulgarian ex-royal family, the Saxe-Coburgs and friends, are regular visitors and so is Yuri Luzhkov, the mayor of Moscow, who owns a seaside resort in Bulgaria.

Bulgaria is keen to encourage this trend and exploit the coastline’s potential for high-end tourism, overcoming the country’s image as a provider of cheap apartments for beach and ski holidays.

Only a handful of foreigners have berths in Bulgarian marinas so far, but several hundred foreign yachts called in at Black Sea ports this summer – though numbers fell in the wake of the Georgian crisis.

”We get people cruising in from the Aegean for a few days to take a look,” Mr Kaloianov said.

They are following in the wake of Bulgaria’s new rich, who are moving their sailing boats and motor-yachts out of the Aegean to cruise in home waters.

Boyko Aleksandrov, an interior designer from Sofia, says he used to keep his 13-metre sailing boat at Kavalla in northern Greece because of the lack of modern facilities in Bulgaria. But this summer he found a berth at a new luxury coastal resort.

“My business partner convinced me I should make the move,” Mr Aleksandrov says. “I was surprised to find a small but growing number of Bulgarians and foreigners chartering boats for a Black Sea cruise.”

After several years of economic growth – above 6 per cent yearly – a new class of entrepreneurs can afford a motor or sailing yacht, says Petko Bachiyski, co-founder of Yachting, a company that imports yachts and provides crews and maintenance for owners.

Bulgaria’s European Union accession in 2007 has also helped open the market. The value of new yachts sold in Bulgaria doubled last year to about €70m ($99m, £56m). Most were small power-boats built in Italy, Mr Bachiyski says. “People buy off the shelf because they don’t want to wait a year or more for a new boat to be built,” he says. “There was so much demand this year that we chartered a small commercial freighter, filled it with new boats and sold them direct from our warehouse.”

Bulgaria has only one private marina with capacity for about 350 yachts in a bay south of Varna, a large commercial port. But another half-dozen private marinas are set for construction, mostly near small fishing ports.

Meanwhile, summer anchorages are available in secluded bays or off traditional fishing ports such as Balchik, Nessebar and Sozopol. It takes about a day to sail south to Turkey and navigate the crowded Bosphorus to reach Istanbul.

Skilled sailors go north from Kavarna, past the Danube delta, rich in wildlife, to Odessa in Ukraine, beating against the prevailing northerly winds.

Yet the Black Sea is unlikely to attract a host of yachts in the near future.

“It’s a rougher sea and a shorter season than in the Mediterranean. But as the supply of yachts for chartering increases, we expect more people to try sailing here,” says Georgi Mihov of Venid Yachts, an importer and charterer.

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Bush to withdraw 4,000 Iraq troops

By Demetri Sevastopulo in Washington

Published: September 9 2008 00:24 | Last updated: September 9 2008 00:24

George W. Bush plans to withdraw 4,000 troops from Iraq before the end of his presidency as the Pentagon starts to shift its focus to Afghanistan, the White House said on Monday.

The US will withdraw 3,400 combat support troops in addition to a battalion of marines over the next few months, according to an advance transcript of a speech Mr Bush gives on Tuesday to the National Defence University. Under the plan, the Pentagon will also not replace an army combat brigade – about 3,500 soldiers – that is expected to return from Iraq in February.

While he held out the possibility of further cuts next year, that decision will fall to his successor, who assumes office in January.

“If the progress in Iraq continues to hold, General Petraeus [the US commander in Iraq] and our military leaders believe additional reductions will be possible in the first half of 2009,” said Mr Bush.

In a recent interview with the Financial Times, Gen Petraeus said it was feasible that US combat troops could leave Baghdad by next July. That would coincide with a long-term security agreement being negotiated between Washington and Baghdad, which is expected to call for US combat forces to pull back from Iraqi cities by next summer.

The latest reduction in US forces comes as Iraq continues to see a significant decline in violence.

The number of US and Iraqi casualties has dropped dramatically since early 2007 when Mr Bush announced he was sending a “surge” of 30,000 additional forces to Iraq to help tackle the escalating sectarian violence.

“While the progress in Iraq is still fragile and reversible . . . there now appears to be a degree of durability to the gains we have made,” Mr Bush was expected to tell the National Defence University audience.

While announcing reductions in Iraq, Mr Bush said the Pentagon planned to send additional forces to Afghanistan.

The move would be part of a “quiet surge” to deal with the increased attacks from Taliban and al-Qaeda militants.

US commanders in Afghanistan have requested an additional 10,000 troops to help quell the insurgency, but sending additional forces has been contingent on pulling soldiers and marines out of Iraq.

The US is also launching an initiative to double the size of the Afghan national army over the next five years.

While Mr Bush made no mention of funding in his remarks, the US hopes Nato allies can help pay some of the cost of training and equipping these additional forces.

Mr Bush added that Pakistan also had a responsibility to clamp down on extremists operating inside its borders with Afghanistan.

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Russia agrees to Georgia pullback

By Charles Clover in Moscow and Tony Barber in Brussels

Published: September 8 2008 18:28 | Last updated: September 8 2008 22:04

Dmitry Medvedev, Russia’s president, agreed on Monday to dismantle Russian checkpoints in Georgia and replace its troops with 200 European Union monitors by October 1, a breakthrough in peace negotiations that had been at stalemate for the past several weeks.

On a visit to Moscow, Nicolas Sarkozy, the president of France, said: “Within a week the checkpoints will have been dismantled and, within a month, the Russian troops will have been withdrawn from Georgian territory with the exception of South Ossetia and ­Abkhazia.”

Mr Medvedev said Moscow had agreed to “complete withdrawal of Russian troops from areas adjacent to the line that preceded the beginning of military action”. This would be implemented within 10 days of the “deployment of international mechanisms”, including 200 EU observers, no later than October 1 2008.

Mr Sarkozy said that, if Russia kept the promises that Mr Medvedev made on Monday, the EU would resume talks next month on a long-term partnership agreement to replace a 10-year accord that had been signed in 1997.

The EU decided at an emergency summit last week to postpone the next round of talks, due to be held next Monday, unless Russia pulled back its forces to positions occupied before fighting erupted in Georgia.

Mr Medvedev said Russian troops would pull out of areas around the Black Sea port of Poti in the next seven days but only if the Georgians pledged not to use force against Abkhazia.

Mr Medvedev accused Tbilisi of not honouring its commitment to keep its forces in positions agreed in a ceasefire reached on August 12, and accused Washington of rearming Georgian forces. “Russia is completing it [the earlier ceasefire] to the full, but at the same time I could not claim the same about the Georgian party, which is trying to restore its military potential, and some of our partners, the United States, are actively helping them,” he said.

The US has denied it is supplying arms to Georgia.

Mr Medvedev and Mr Sarkozy have been embarrassed by Russia’s apparent failure to abide by the agreement signed on August 12. Russian forces continued to push forwards towards Tbilisi, the Georgian capital, several days after Mr Medvedev had ordered a ceasefire.

Analysts blamed poor communications with the military and even disagreement between Mr Medvedev and Vladimir Putin, the powerful prime minister and former president.

Dmitri Trenin of the Carnegie Moscow Institute said Mr Medvedev might not be in control. “We realise that we have a form of government that people refer to as a tandem,” he said. “Medvedev is part of that, but not the whole of that. . . . There does not seem to be much daylight between the two right now.”

Most of the EU’s 27 member states had no appetite for tougher measures against Russia, let alone economic sanctions, in view of the EU’s heavy reliance on oil and gas supplies from Russia.

Germany and Italy, in particular, stressed the need to communicate with Moscow and took the view that Mikheil Saakashvili, the Georgian president, bore some responsibility for the outbreak of hostilities.

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Cheney warns on Russia’s energy grip

By Guy Dinmore in Rome

Published: September 8 2008 13:10 | Last updated: September 8 2008 13:10

Dick Cheney, the US vice president who is on a four-country mission to counter Russia’s projection of power following its invasion of Georgia, reiterated his warning to Italy on Monday that Moscow should not be allowed to dominate energy supplies to Europe.

Mr Cheney met Giorgio Napolitano, Italy’s left-wing and largely ceremonial president, at his Quirinale palace in Rome before some scheduled sight-seeing in the ancient Etruscan town of Orvieto. He was due to meet Silvio Berlusconi, centre-right prime minister, on Tuesday.

Visiting Azerbaijan, Georgia, Ukraine and Italy, Mr Cheney’s message to Russia has been to withdraw its troops from Georgia and behave in line with international norms or risk derailing its economic development. In parallel, Mr Cheney is telling Europe to lessen its dependence on Russian gas.

A senior US official travelling with Mr Cheney told reporters: “Russia has worked hard to try to corner the (energy) market, so to speak, and is working to foreclose options to transit for those energy products across Russia.”

“They want everything to come out through Russia and a lot of us think it’s more important that there be diverse means of gaining access to those resources,” he said, quoted by Reuters and speaking on condition of anonymity. “No one country ought to be able to totally dominate those deliveries.”

Italy is in a particularly sensitive position, heavily reliant on energy imports and trying to diversify its sources. Eni, the part state-owned energy company, has entered into the South Stream project with Russia’s Gazprom to build a new pipeline that would take Russian gas under the Black Sea to eastern Europe and beyond to the Balkans and Italy.

Glen Howard, president of the Jamestown Foundation, a Washington security think-tank, believes Mr Cheney wants “to drive a stake through the heart of South Stream”.

The US is throwing its weight behind the Nabucco project which would take gas from Azerbaijan and possibly Turkmenistan to Europe, bypassing Russia. The Bush administration is concerned, however, that Azeri gas will be sold to Russia instead.

European energy executives argue that the two proposed pipelines should not be seen as rivals as projected demand for gas will easily absorb both. In meetings with Mr Cheney over the past week, they have also expressed concern that Russia’s invasion of Georgia last month risked interrupting oil supplies through the Baku-Ceyhan pipeline that transits Georgia, and might jeopardise Nabucco in future.

The Jamestown Foundation noted that Russia’s energy ministry has doubled the estimated cost of South Stream to $20bn, making the project less interesting for investors compared with Nabucco.

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The Short View: Fannie and Freddie

By John Authers, Investment Editor

Published: September 8 2008 18:23 | Last updated: September 8 2008 18:23

Hank Paulson is the financial world’s bicycle repairman-in-chief. The weekend’s news that the US was taking over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac was the most drastic attempt yet by the US government to stem the leaks in the inner tubes of the world’s financial system.

Hold an inner tube under water and often new leaks appear in new places. Fix one and a leak starts elsewhere.

Stoppering up the risk of failure by Fannie and Freddie provoked a global investor rush to take more risk on Monday. Stocks rose while extra spreads on mortgages dropped, as did spreads on corporate credit. Equity volatility fell.

But after every other rescue in this crisis, bubbles soon appeared from leaks elsewhere in the system.

One candidate for a leak is the credit default swaps market. How will it handle default by such massive issuers?

Another is the holders of Fannie and Freddie’s preferred stock. These include many US regional banks.

Then there could be perverse trading effects. Many hedge funds have been betting on oil prices to rise while financial stocks fall. But since mid-July, when the US announced its first package to bolster Fannie and Freddie, the opposite bet, on bank stocks to beat energy prices, has doubled. Any hedge funds still betting against Uncle Sam will now be nursing big losses, particularly if they used borrowed money.

And there are risks to market infrastructure. The London Stock Exchange suffered a heavy outage on Monday; was this related to the surge in trading?

If none of these pressure points springs a leak, then markets must try to understand bigger macro effects. Has the dollar strengthened too fast? Is optimism overdone when the intervention was only necessary because of appalling problems for the US housing market? But first, we need to check for leaks.

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Manufacturing: a survival strategy

Published: September 8 2008 22:16 | Last updated: September 8 2008 22:16

Like Gordon Brown’s decision to hold his first cabinet meeting after parliament’s summer break in Birmingham, the prime minister’s strategy to revive British manufacturing is short on substance. The value of 64 pages of upbeat-sounding blurb from the Department for Business is questionable. Indeed, UK exporters will be more relieved by the steep fall in the pound and a correction in oil prices than the £150m the government has set aside to help their expansion. But what Monday’s blueprint does show is that ministers are listening to their concerns. That is a useful first step.

After a decade of restructuring and the loss of about 1m jobs, much of what is described as British manufacturing is no longer cars, traditional metal-bashing and mass production of low-margin, price sensitive components. High volume production has shifted to lower cost Asian centres. As a result, manufacturing’s share of overall economic output has fallen from 19 per cent in 1995 to 14 per cent today.

Yet the survivors of the UK’s once broad industrial base are in strong shape. Sustained cost-cutting has increased productivity, making exporters more resilient to swings in demand. Strongly branded producers focused on technology and overseas markets are succeeding. More companies are involved in high value-added research and development, design and marketing. A product may say “Made in China” on the box, but the chances are its high-tech components have been made elsewhere.

This shift has informed the government’s thinking. It plans a new technology centre in Coventry, 1,500 manufacturing apprenticeships, a supportive public procurement strategy and Whitehall offices to help companies cash in on probable investment in nuclear and renewable power. All this is welcome. A campaign to promote industry in schools should improve manufacturing’s image as a poor career choice.

The main problem with the strategy is that it promises more than it can deliver. Mr Brown’s forecast of up to 1m new “green” jobs in 20 years overstates the impact of spending on low-carbon technology.

His expectation that UK companies will play a big role in nuclear’s renaissance also invites scepticism. French firms – Electricité de France and Areva – have considerably more expertise and deeper pockets. One can question, too, the sense of pinning policy to statistical classifications. A profitable car designer provides a valued “service” if the car is made by someone else. Defining that as manufacturing may lead to the wrong set of policy conclusions.

For all the UK’s excellence in financial services, the consumer and banking-led downturn is a reminder that it cannot thrive as a “post-industrial” society powered by services alone. If competitive goods exports are to spur a recovery from the effects of the credit crunch, it will be essential to foster manufacturing’s new-found resilience.

A sustained fall in the exchange rate would help achieve that. So would a guarantee not to raise business tax rates. In the absence of the latter, Mr Brown is merely oiling the wheels.

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Computer breakdown disrupts LSE trading

Bloomberg
Published: September 08, 2008, 23:50

London: London Stock Exchange Group Plc, operator of the world's fourth-largest market, broke down on the biggest session for European equities in nine months, hurting clients who trade an average $17.5 billion a day.

Trading resumed at 4pm after an earlier computer failure left clients unable to buy or sell shares for about seven hours, according to the LSE's website.

About 352 million shares, worth about $2.5 billion, changed hands in the first hour of trading before the halt, more than twice the amount in the same period a week ago, sending the FTSE-100 index up as much as 3.8 per cent.

The breakdown left traders in Europe's financial capital in limbo as equities around the world rallied on the US government's takeover of mortgage lenders Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

The LSE, Europe's oldest independent exchange, said attempts to fix its biggest computer failure in more than eight years was "taking longer than expected.''

"The LSE will come out of this very, very badly,'' said Omer Bhatti, head sales trader at WorldSpreads Group Plc in London. "People will begin to think seriously about having alternatives.''

LSE faces competition from as many as seven new competitors, among them Chi-X Europe and Turq-uoise, an electronic market backed by nine investment banks. Chi-X, which started in March last year and now accounts for about 18 per cent of trading in FTSE 100 shares across exchanges, said it handled trades all day. "Many traders will feel morally cheated that they have been unable to conduct their business in response to today's financial news,'' said David Buik, a London-based market analyst at BGC Partners. "The fact that it happened beggars belief.''

The LSE shut for almost eight hours on April 5, 2000, after a problem with the London Market Information Link, a computer system used to connect the exchange with data vendors.

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London and NY tie in finance ranking

By Francesco Guerrera

Published: September 8 2008 23:00 | Last updated: September 8 2008 23:00

London’s efforts to challenge New York as the leading financial centre will receive a boost on Tuesday with a new study by the World Economic Forum showing that the UK ranks alongside the US as the world’s most developed financial system.

The US and the UK come out as joint leaders of the WEF’s first “financial development index”, followed by Germany, Japan, Canada and France.

The index is an attempt to measure the health of the financial systems of 52 countries by looking at factors ranging from the stability of the banking sector to the soundness of the regulatory and political environment.

Venezuela is at the bottom of the index, just below Ukraine and Nigeria, according to the report.

WEF officials say they will present the report, which was led by Nouriel Roubini, a New York university professor, to regulators and bankers around the world over the coming months. They believe the study can help policymakers and industry leaders to improve national financial systems at a time of severe strain by highlighting their respective strengths and weaknesses.

Despite being virtually tied at the top of the index, however, neither the US nor the UK receives full marks from the WEF.

Weaker points for the US include the regulation of security exchanges, the protection of intellectual property rights and the relatively high risk of banking crises – an issue that has come to the fore since the onset of the credit crunch.

Corruption and the regulatory burden are also seen as areas of weakness for the US, the report says.

However, the US edges out the UK at the top of the rankings for financial markets – a finding that will bolster New York’s efforts to present itself as the world’s pre-eminent capital markets hub.

The UK also scores poorly on the regulatory front and is in the bottom half of the index when it comes to corporate taxation and the “cost of doing business” – the price of obtaining licenses and registering property.

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Shell in Iraqi gas deal worth up to $4bn

By Ed Crooks and Roula Khalaf in London

Published: September 8 2008 23:33 | Last updated: September 8 2008 23:33

Royal Dutch Shell is to become the first western oil company to sign a deal with the Iraqi government since the US-led invasion of 2003, agreeing a plan to capture and use gas in the Basra region that could be worth up to $4bn.

It also emerged on Monday that Iraq’s oil ministry had written to oil companies saying it had abandoned its controversial plan to award short-term technical support contracts to a small number of them to work on its oil fields.

Shell’s project is intended to make use of the gas flared off by the oil industry in the south of Iraq. In that region alone, an estimated 700m cubic feet of gas is burned off every day for safety reasons: roughly enough to meet the demand for power generation in the entire country.

The Iraqi government wants Shell to put in the infrastructure to capture that gas and make commercial use of it, both domestically and for export. Assem Jihad, oil ministry spokesman, told the Financial Times that following a green light from the cabinet, the ministry was inviting Shell to Baghdad next month to sign the deal.

“Europe is looking for supplies of gas from Iraq,” said Mr Jihad. “Security used to be a deterrent but now companies feel that security has improved and this will encourage others to come in.”

He added that the project would be run as a joint venture, with Shell taking 49 per cent and the oil ministry 51 per cent. The length and value of the contract have yet to be determined but reports in Iraq suggested it could be worth $3bn-$4bn.

Shell said: “We are delighted with the government’s decision and look forward to signing the agreement in the near future.”

The Shell deal follows news last month that Iraq had revived a big oil deal first negotiated between China and the government of Saddam Hussein, for China National Petroleum Corp to develop the al-Ahdab oilfield.

That deal represented the first important commitment to Iraq by a foreign company since its industry was nationalised in 1972.

However, Iraq has cooled on its plan to sign deals with a few western oil companies, including Shell, ExxonMobil and BP, to offer technical support and advice on its biggest fields.

Mr Assem said that after delays and differences with the companies over the length of contracts, the ministry was now inclined to bypass that stage and focus on longer-term development contracts.

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Western banks get approval to open in Vietnam

HANOI, September 9 - HSBC and Standard Chartered have won approval to be the first foreign banks to open wholly-owned units in Vietnam, as the communist-run state opens up further to foreign investment.

HSBC, Europe’s largest bank which first arrived in Vietnam in 1870, said on Tuesday that it would headquarter its Vietnam-based bank in Ho Chi Minh City, the country’s commercial centre.

“We aim to start operating through our new local entity as early as possible,” said Thomas Tobin, HSBC’s local chief executive, adding HSBC hoped to be the first foreign bank to operate a fully-owned local entity in the fast-growing Vietnamese banking sector.

Separately, the State Bank of Vietnam said it also licensed Standard Chartered to open a wholly-owned bank based in Hanoi and with a capital base of $61m.

“This is a clear sign to show Vietnam’s strong commitment toward WTO,” the central bank said. Vietnam is opening up more to foreign banks as part of its commitments to the World Trade Organisation, which it joined last year.

HSBC and Standard Chartered now have 12 months to start operations in Vietnam, where only 10 per cent of the 86.5m population have bank accounts. State-run Agribank, Vietnam’s biggest enterprise, runs half of the 4,000 bank branches nationwide.

HSBC and Standard Chartered, now operating branches in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, are among nearly 40 foreign banks in the country, all holding between them 14 per cent of market lending.

HSBC Bank Vietnam would have a registered capital of $182m, the State Bank of Vietnam said.

The central bank has said it aimed to keep the country’s credit growth this year at 30 per cent after a surge of 54 per cent in 2007 to control double-digit inflation.

HSBC and Standard Chartered would compete with four Vietnamese state-run banks, the country’s top lenders, while more than half of the 37 partly private banks now in operation are small entities, with total assets of less than $1bn each.

“Local incorporation will allow us to have a broader distribution network to reach existing and new customers,” Mr Tobin said.

Standard Chartered plans to open up to 30 new branches in Vietnam over the next three to four years, Ray Ferguson, Standard Chartered’s regional CEO for Southeast Asia, said in March after the bank won initial approval from the Vietnamese government.

Besides six joint venture banks, more than 20 financial leasing companies and nearly 1,000 small-sized people’s credit funds also operate in Vietnam.

More competition would come from foreign banks, ANZ among them, with a long presence in Vietnam which have been seeking permission to open wholly-owned banks.

Apart from banking activities, HSBC and Standard Chartered have bought stakes in local banks. Hanoi-based Techcombank, Vietnam’s seventh-largest lender by assets, finalised a share sale to HSBC last week for around $77m, increasing HSBC’s stake to 20 per cent, the ceiling for foreign investors in a domestic bank.

HSBC has also acquired 10 per cent of stake in Bao Viet Holdings, Vietnam’s largest insurer.

Standard Chartered owns 15 per cent of Asia Commercial Bank

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Lehman reorganises to refocus outside US

By Chris Hughes in London

Published: September 9 2008 01:20 | Last updated: September 9 2008 01:20

The management reorganisation at Lehman Brothers continued on Monday as the US investment bank appointed two bankers recently recruited from JPMorgan and Morgan Stanley to run its investment banking division in Europe and the Middle East.

Alexis de Rosnay, who joined Lehman from JPMorgan in 2004, and William Vereker, who arrived the following year from Morgan Stanley, will replace Christian Meissner, who was appointed as European co-chief executive of the bank this weekend.

The pair were among a host of senior bankers recruited from bulge-bracket firms earlier this decade, as Lehman sought to use the last investment banking downturn to take market share from rivals and build a meaningful franchise in Europe.

Mr de Rosnay previously jointly led the healthcare team in the investment bank, while Mr Vereker co-ran the energy team. They will report to Mr Meissner and the investment bank’s other newly appointed co-chief executive in Europe, Riccardo Banchetti.

The promotions came as Lehman staff adjusted to the weekend’s far-reaching management reshuffle at the bank, which saw Jeremy Isaacs stand down as the bank’s chief executive for its non-US businesses, a position he had held since 2000, having joined the firm in 1996.

Mr Meissner, 39, and Mr Banchetti, 42, have a curious inheritance from Mr Isaacs, a former Goldman Sachs executive who spearheaded Lehman’s expansion in Europe in recent years. Mr Isaacs cast Lehman as a nimble upstart keen to challenge the complacency of the larger bulge-bracket investment banks that dominate the region. The strategy was part of an attempt to diversify the business away from its core US fixed-income franchise by building up a counterbalancing business in equities, mergers and acquisitions.

Mr Isaacs’s achievements as chief executive include taking the bank to the leading position in equity trading on the London Stock Exchange, investing heavily in electronic trading systems that exploited the shift in the business to a high-volume, low-margin business as investors, in particular hedge funds, slice and dice trades. Under Mr Isaacs, Lehman also crept up the tables in investment banking, and had started to use its equity trading franchise as a platform on which to build a corporate broking business.

However, Lehman never gained sufficient scale and diversity to be able to weather the credit crisis without pain. Its shares have collapsed in recent months amid fears that it needs to raise fresh capital and doubts over the viability of its business model. Attempts to find partners willing to inject capital into the business have yet to produce results. Its shares fell nearly 13 per cent on Monday, even as the rest of the sector rallied on the US government’s intervention to support Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae.

That has overshadowed the achievements of Lehman’s European investment banking businesses unaffected by the subprime crisis – making them something of a sideshow to the bigger challenges facing the firm.

Colleagues on Monday welcomed the appointments of Mr Meissner, also a former Goldman Sachs banker, and Mr Banchetti, saying they thought the creation of a “double-act” was sensible. Mr Meissner, a quietly spoken and somewhat cool individual, has a strong reputation as a relationship banker, while Mr Banchetti’s background is in fixed income capital markets.

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Invasion’s ideologues: Ultra-nationalists join the Russian mainstream

By Charles Clover in Moscow

Published: September 8 2008 20:09 | Last updated: September 8 2008 20:09

A decade ago, many of the most influential thinkers in today’s Russia were in the intellectual wilderness. While some sat in pamphlet-littered basements churning out copies of underground ultra-rightwing newspapers with names such as Lightning and Russian Order, others were in jail following failed coups in 1991 and 1993 against the pro-western “occupation regimes” of Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin.

Russia’s intellectual journey since then has been dizzying, as the radical has become mainstream and the hardline position increasingly moderate-sounding, with what were the margins emerging as the political centre.

Below: Europe worries that Kremlin sights may be on Ukraine

Now, against the backdrop of conflict in Georgia and deteriorating relations with the west, Russia’s ultra-nationalist thinkers are starting to exert unprecedented influence. The wide acceptance of a group of ideas once dismissed as laughable signals a new era in Russia’s foreign relations, as Moscow seeks to protect what President Dmitry Medvedev calls a “region of privileged interest” in parts of the former Soviet Union.

Rising nationalist opinion could also mean bigger defence budgets and a race to modernise Russia’s military as well a presaging a yet more nationalist approach to economic policy. The government is coming under increasing pressure to invest the country’s oil wealth at home rather than abroad and could even respond to international criticism of the war in Georgia by pre-emptively imposing trade restrictions on the US.

The war not only boosted the prestige of the military, which enjoyed its first successful campaign in a generation. It has also enhanced the reputations of a narrow group of ultra-nationalist thinkers who prophesied the coming clash with the west. Today’s Russia, willing to press its national objectives with military force, unconcerned with the erosion of democracy and dismissive of world opinion, was foretold a decade ago in inky manifestos and in lecture halls full of bearded radicals straight out of Dostoevsky.

“I am convinced that now, following the war, there will be a huge shift in the balance of power within the Russian elite,” says Aleksander Dugin, leader of the Eurasian Movement, a prominent far-right group.

Aleksander Dugin: Author of the influential 1997 book The Foundations of Geopolitics, which he wrote in conjunction with a general from the Academy of the General Staff. In it, he theorised that Russia, the earth’s largest land power, was the natural antagonist to the “Atlantic world” of the US and Britain. He heads the Eurasian Movement, devoted to that philosophy, and has helped translate European “new right” authors into Russian. He has been a professor at Moscow State University and now has a weekly radio show.

Mr Dugin has seen a remarkable improvement in his fortunes since the days in the early 1990s when he worked out of a basement flat in a gritty central Moscow district penning works on the metaphysics of Christianity. He went on to become a television talk show host and a professor at Moscow State University. Now he has a radio show on the Kremlin-supported 107 FM.

“The people that formed the centre under [former president, now prime minister Vladimir] Putin will now become marginal. And another pole will appear that did not exist under Putin at all. That is the army, the military and patriotic movements. That is us. Under Putin we were the extremists: respectable, yes, but radicals. Now we are moving right into the centre,” he says.

Not everyone shares Mr Dugin’s view, but the newly ascendant nationalism is likely to bring new ideas into Russia’s mainstream. These form no less than the basis of a looming ideological clash between Russia and the west. “Political momentum has been shifting in [the ultra-nationalists’] direction for quite some time. One could argue that the incursion into Georgia was something new, but it was building on a momentum that we have been seeing,” says John Dunlop from Stanford University’s Hoover Institution.

Viktor Erofeev, a well-known author and one of a small and shrinking minority of Russians who question the reasons for the war against Georgia, attributes the wave of patriotism to a widespread “cult of power”. In a recent radio debate, Mr Erofeev described it as “the joy of victory, in sport, in politics, but also in war. It is an archaic form of self-consciousness ... [that] has remained with us, where it has disappeared in more civilised countries.”

Amid the bombast about reimposition of Tsarist rule, the reconstitution of the Soviet Union or Russian empire and banishing Washington’s influence from the region, the new right does have a philosophical bone to pick with the west, which proclaims the “universality” of democracy and human rights and makes the US ready to defend and promote these goals throughout the world – by military force if necessary.

Russia’s opposition to “unipolar domination” by Washington is tied to the view pushed by the thinkers of the new right that such universal truths are an illusion, that their nation and civilisation form a unique “whole” that has a right to existence. That this ideological approach has penetrated to the Kremlin can be seen in a now famous speech in Munich in February 2007 by Mr Putin, in which the then president said he considered the unipolar model “not only unacceptable but also impossible in today’s world”. The model was flawed, he argued, because “at its basis there is and can be no moral foundation for modern civilisation”. It was a speech that was labelled by some commentators as the start of a new “cold war” with the west.

Russia’s insistence on the right to “sovereign democracy”, a phrase of Vladislav Surkov, the Kremlin’s top ideologist, can also be traced to this philosophical opposition to moral absolutes. Mr Surkov argues that each nation has the right to practise democracy in its own “sovereign” way, which rationalises in theoretical terms the fact that Russian democracy is not very democratic at all.

Dmitry Rogozin: Elected to Russia’s lower house of parliament in 1997, he co-headed the ultra-nationalist Rodina (Motherland) party from 2003. Rodina, a Kremlin-backed nationalist party, was designed to draw votes away from the powerful Communist party, which has been in constant opposition to the Kremlin. Mr Rogozin was removed as a leader of the party in 2006 after losing an internal power struggle. In January 2008 he was named Russia’s ambassador to Nato.

Many ultra-nationalists already walk the corridors of power: Dmitry Rogozin, former head of the Rodina (Motherland) party, is Russia’s ambassador to Nato. The Duma, or parliament, has also been a hive of activity of radical nationalists since the mid-1990s, regularly featuring the rantings of arch-nationalist Vladimir Zhirinovsky.

While their liberal western-oriented counterparts spent the decade following the collapse of communism learning the economic theories of Milton Friedman or reading up on the Council of Europe, the venerable organisation dedicated to promoting human rights, Russia’s nationalists were studying the Orthodox church, mugging up on French postmodernism or simply “drinking beer, playing chess and lifting dumbbells”, as Valery Korovin, leader of the Eurasian Youth Movement, puts it.

Russia’s military and “special services” such as the former KGB, now FSB, have long had a mysterious connection to these ultra-rightwing groups. The rising stature of the siloviki, as the former uniformed men are known, has accompanied a rise in the prestige of rightwing philosophy. While serving officers tend to keep their political leanings to themselves, several retired officers took on a high profile in the media during the Georgian war and their prestige is only likely to increase with the success of the military campaign.

Aleksander Prokhanov, editor of the radical rightwing Tomorrow newspaper and known as the “nightingale of the general staff” for his close links to Russia’s top brass, predicts a political crisis between pro-western and nationalist political factions. After the military victory in the Caucasus, the nationalists will need to guard against political setbacks at home, he says. That requires “very fast changes – social, political, economic and ideological” in Russia, in which the main opponent will be the new pro-western elite “who are loath to give up their assets in the west”.

The event that gave the new right much of its popularity was Russia’s agonising decade of economic collapse following the end of communism: that destroyed the credibility of liberal democratic reformers. In addition, the US campaign against Russia’s ally Serbia in 1999 sparked a sea- change in public opinion.

Aleksander Prokhanov: One of the original nationalist writers to emerge in the Soviet Union in the 1970s, he is now editor of Tomorrow newspaper and a close friend of many of Russia’s top generals. Those include Field Marshal Dmitry Yazov, who planned the 1991 coup attempt against Mikhail Gorbachev, which ultimately failed. He is a successful fiction author and is often featured on television and radio programmes representing rightwing views.

Following the collapse of the USSR in 1991, opinion polls showed nationalism was a phenomenon associated primarily with lower-income groups, while the upper echelons of society saw imitation of the west in all things, from democracy to liberal economics, as desirable. But already in 2001, a study by the Center for Political Technologies in Moscow noticed a new “ideology” among the middle and upper class – previously the “agents of modernisation”. A majority had come to see Nato as a hostile force and the break-up of the Soviet Union as a mistake. Most viewed Russia as belonging to a unique civilisation separate from the west.

Under Mr Putin’s eight-year presidency, the popularity of rightwing ideas grew as he deployed belligerent rhetoric and used Kremlin resources to sponsor groups such as Nashi, the youth movement organised by Mr Surkov. Mr Putin, and Mr Medvedev after him, adorned the presidency with the trappings of empire – regularly featuring the orthodox cross of Tsarist Russia and the red star of Soviet might.

Today, Russia’s ideological transformation is complete, if contradictory. Just like in the 19th century, when Russia’s armies fought against Napoleon while its aristocracy spoke French, today’s Russian elite embraces a confusing agenda: Nato is considered a hostile force and they support the war in Georgia, but they still prefer holidaying in the west, owning property there and sending their children to British private schools.

However, analysts caution that public support for Kremlin policies is not unconditional. More than on patriotism and national pride, public approval for Mr Putin is based on his – and now Mr Medvedev’s – presidency delivering higher living standards. Dmitri Simes of the Washington based Nixon Center says there are limits to the sacrifices people will make: “They don’t want to be cut off from the west, they don’t want to be isolated or ostracised.” Russians do not want to increase military spending in a way that would compete with or threaten other national priorities, he says.

“Mr Putin was so hugely popular not just because of his national security credentials but because, under him, Russians began to live much better. But a new cold war, a new arms race, would threaten all that.”

EUROPE WORRIES THAT KREMLIN SIGHTS MAY BE ON UKRAINE

Russia’s invasion of Georgia and its attempt to partition the country by recognising the enclaves of Abkhazia and South Ossetia as independent have prompted concern across the European Union about what else might be in the Kremlin’s sights. Anxiety is mounting that it could ultimately be Ukraine.

With 46m people, of whom 18 per cent are ethnic Russians, and a territory almost the size of France, Ukraine is shaping up as the crucial geopolitical battleground between Moscow and the west. “Ukraine is Georgia multiplied by 10,” says Michael Emerson of the Centre for European Policy Studies, a Brussels think-tank.

There is particular concern about Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula, where Russia’s Black Sea fleet is based, with a lease that expires in 2017. Ethnic Russians form a majority of Crimea’s population and pro-Russian politicians nostalgic for the Soviet era are a powerful force. Thousands of Crimeans hold Russian passports, offering an excuse for Moscow to intervene in the peninsula as it did in South Ossetia last month.

“All that provides Moscow with a leverage of influence over the peninsula and a pretext for taking an interest in Ukraine,” says Vsevolod Samokhvalov, a former visiting fellow at the EU’s Institute for Security Studies.

The need to put EU-Ukrainian relations on a firmer basis will dominate discussions this Tuesday in Paris between Viktor Yushchenko (right), Ukraine’s president, and EU leaders including Nicolas Sarkozy, France’s president, and José Manuel Barroso, the European Commission chief, both fresh from Moscow. “If the summit fails, it will send a negative message to Georgia, Belarus and Moldova. Everyone in our region is watching closely what will happen,” says Kostyantyn Yeliseyev, the Ukrainian deputy foreign minister responsible for EU relations.

But in the light of Russia’s disregard for Georgia’s territorial integrity, is the EU ready not just to express solidarity with Kiev but to offer a clear path to EU membership – something it has shrunk from in the 17 years since Ukraine won independence from the Soviet Union? In Paris, to bitter Ukrainian disappointment, no such offer will be made. The EU is divided, with Poland and Sweden among the most fervent supporters of Kiev’s aspirations but older EU members, notably Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany, more hesitant.

“We have lots to do to reinforce ties with Ukraine, without possible accession,” Mr Sarkozy said after an EU summit last week.

Central and eastern European countries that joined the EU between 2004 and 2007 fear that the longer Ukraine is kept in limbo, the more Russia will be tempted to wrench it closer into the Kremlin’s sphere of influence – an outcome that would have grave implications for their own region.

“Neither we in the EU nor the Ukrainians are ready for membership tomorrow, but we should offer them a membership perspective,” says one government minister of a former Soviet bloc country.

Since 2004, the EU has dealt with Ukraine through its European Neighbourhood Policy, of which officials in Kiev take a dim view: it groups Ukraine with non-European places such as Algeria, Libya and Syria. “The events in Georgia proved that the ENP has completely failed. We have been saying for years that the ENP is nothing,” Mr Yeliseyev says.

Last June, EU leaders endorsed a Polish-Swedish proposal for an “Eastern Partnership” project, under which relations with Ukraine – as well as Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Moldova and, subject to domestic reforms, Belarus – were to be given special attention. The partnership plan is likely to be accorded higher priority after Russia’s assault on Georgia. This will mean faster action on a free trade accord and on easier travel for Ukrainians to the EU. The route to a trade deal was opened in May when Ukraine joined the World Trade Organisation – a status Russia still lacks.

Yet in commercial terms, Russia is a far more important partner than Ukraine for the EU – and Europe’s dependence on Russian oil and gas supplies makes it improbable that this will change. The EU accounts for 70 per cent of Ukraine’s foreign direct investment but this amounted to only €5.5bn ($7.8bn, £4.4bn) in 2006.

“The main obstacles faced by EU investors so far have been frequent changes in regulations, lack of transparency, failings in implementation and enforcement of laws, discriminatory regulation and corruption,” says a European Commission paper.

Such problems are not the only argument cited by certain EU countries as a reason to withhold an explicit offer of membership from Ukraine. Another is the country’s sheer size – it would be one of the EU’s five or six biggest by population, forcing a complete rethink of the bloc’s agricultural and regional aid policies.

A third issue is Ukraine’s seemingly endless political instability. Only last week, the ruling coalition split up in acrimony and Mr Yushchenko threatened to call a snap election. “The Ukrainians are their own worst enemy,” sighs one EU foreign minister.

On the other hand, Ukraine has made huge strides since the 2004 Orange Revolution, with a political culture founded on pluralism and free elections. For all their similarities in language, customs and history, Ukraine appears set on a path different from that of Russia with its more authoritarian habits.

This poses perhaps the greatest challenge to the Kremlin. As Zbigniew Brzezinski, the former US national security adviser, observed in 1997: “Without Ukraine, Russia ceases to be a Eurasian empire.”

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米䜏宅公瀟発行の債刞、日本の䞻芁行ず蟲䞭で10兆円保有

 茂朚敏充金融担圓盞は9日の閣議埌の蚘者䌚芋で、囜内の䞻芁銀行ず蟲林䞭倮金庫が6月末時点で、米䜏宅金融2公瀟の発行する債刞を合蚈で玄10兆円保有しおいるこずを明らかにした。金融盞は「保有しおいるのは債刞で、株匏はほずんど持っおいない。囜内金融機関に悪圱響が及んでいるずは考えおいない」ず語った。

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京暜も健保組合解散 高霢者医療改革で負担増

 吉野家ホヌルディングス傘䞋で持ち垰りすしチェヌンを展開する京暜の健康保険組合が、高霢者医療制床ぞの拠出負担増などにより9月1日付で解散したこずが9日わかった。瀟員ずその家族ら玄3500人の加入者は党員、囜が運営する政府管掌健康保険(政管健保)に移った。8月の西濃運茞健保組合の解散に続く動きで、健保組合に䟝存する医療制床の持続性にも圱響を䞎えそうだ。

 京暜によるず、4月の高霢者医療制床の導入に䌎っお、医療費負担が2007幎床の1億2000䞇円から今幎床は2倍匷の2億7000䞇円に急増。保険料率は政管健保ず同じ8.2%だったが、新たな負担増を賄うには保険料率を10%以䞊に匕き䞊げる必芁性が生じた。このため、健保組合を解散し、保険料率の面でも有利な政管健保に移るこずを決めたずいう。

 政管健保の財源の䞀郚は囜庫負担によっお支えられおいるため、今埌も健保組合の解散が盞次いで政管健保に移行すれば、囜民負担の増倧に぀ながる恐れもある。(12:16)

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銀行にマネヌ滞留、預金超過145兆円 月末は最高氎準

 囜内景気の枛速を背景に、䌁業掻動や株匏垂堎に資金が向かわない傟向が鮮明になっおきた。日銀統蚈によるず、7月末の民間銀行の預金残高は貞出金を 150兆円匱䞊回り、過去最高氎準ずなった。リスクを敬遠するお金が銀行に集たり、「貯蓄から投資ぞ」の流れが停滞。䞀方、預金に察する貞出金の比率を瀺す「預貞率」は玄7割に䜎迷しおいる。株匏垂堎や䌁業の蚭備投資にお金が回らなければ、日本の経枈成長の足を匕っ匵りかねない。

 党囜の銀行の預金は7月末で549兆円。これに察し貞出金は404兆円にずどたり、預金の超過額は最高だった6月末に比べやや枛少したが、145兆円に達する。2000幎に20兆円皋床だった預金超過額は02幎からの金融危機埌に増え続け、預貞率は100%前埌から70%台に䜎䞋した。(07:00)

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「資源高に耐久力」倖需取り蟌み柱に 経産省が新成長戊略

 日本経枈の䞭長期的な成長力を高めるための「青写真」ずしお、経枈産業省が打ち出す新経枈成長戊略の原案が明らかになった。原油など資源高ぞの耐久力を高め、新興囜などの倖需を取り蟌む茞出や投資の促進が柱。省゚ネ察応を促す蚭備投資枛皎などの具䜓策を盛り蟌んだ。2015幎床たでに物䟡倉動の圱響を陀いた実質ベヌスで囜民総所埗()の幎平均2.4%の䌞び確保をめざす。

 二階俊博経枈産業盞が9日にも発衚する。政府は06幎に人口枛や高霢化の䞋でも実質2%超の経枈成長を可胜にするための政策指針ずしお最初の成長戊略を策定。原油高や䞖界経枈の構造倉化、地球枩暖化問題などを螏たえ、倧幅に芋盎すこずにした。(07:00)

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䜏みたい街 銖郜圏は「吉祥寺」、関西圏は「芊屋」 民間調べ

 マンション情報サむト「メゞャヌセブン」の運営に参加する倧京や䞉菱地所など䞍動産倧手8瀟はマンションを賌入したい人を察象ずした共同調査の結果をたずめた。それによるず銖郜圏で䜏んでみたい街は「吉祥寺」が1䜍ずなり、2004幎に調査を開始しお以来、初めお銖䜍ずなった。関西圏では「芊屋」が4幎連続で銖䜍を守った。

 銖郜圏で前幎たでトップだった「自由が䞘」は2䜍に埌退。3䜍は「暪浜」だった。吉祥寺は40歳前埌の女性に人気が高く、「亀通の䟿がいい」、「公園が倚い」こずなどが評䟡された。自由が䞘は「おしゃれ」、暪浜は「商業斜蚭が充実しおいる」などの理由を挙げる人が倚かった。

 関西圏では2䜍は「候川」、3䜍は「西宮」だった。䜏みたい理由ずしおは芊屋は「高玚感があるから」、候川は「閑静な街䞊みだから」などが挙げられた。

 調査は6月4日から7月2日にかけお実斜。倧手8瀟のネット䌚員が察象で、銖郜圏圚䜏者・圚䜏垌望者の4496人、関西圏は同865人が回答した。(14:32)

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20―30代ビゞネスマン、過半数が「自宅倖で朝食」 民間調査

 アサヒ飲料は20―30代のビゞネスマンを察象ずする「珟代ビゞネスマン 朝の生掻実態調査」をたずめた。それによるず、仕事がある日に「朝食を自宅倖でずる」ずいう人は党䜓の52.7%で過半数を占めた。「自宅でずる」は40.4%で、「朝食をずらない」は6.9%だった。自宅倖で朝食を食べる人の 60.6%は、䌚瀟に着いおから朝食をずるこずが倚いずいう結果も出た。

 平均起床時刻は6時48分で、勀務先ぞの到着時刻は平均で始業の19.7分前だった。「䜕で目を芚たすか」ずいう問い(耇数回答)では「携垯電話のアラヌム機胜」が61.6%で最も倚く、「目芚たし時蚈」の46.7%を䞊回った。

 調査は7月末から8月䞊旬にかけおむンタヌネットを通じお実斜。党囜7倧郜垂で働く男性ビゞネスマン蚈1200人から回答を埗た。(14:27)

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日本駐車堎開発など、カヌシェアリングに参入

 駐車堎運営䌚瀟が盞次いで、車を共同利甚するカヌシェアリング事業に参入する。日本駐車堎開発は2009幎7月末たでに党囜90カ所でサヌビスを提䟛。駐車堎綜合研究所は幎内に事業を始める。ガ゜リンは倀䞋がりし始めたものの䟝然割高で、䌁業が営業車䞡を手攟す動きも出おいる。皌働率が䜎䞋した駐車堎の䞀郚をカヌシェアリング事業に転甚し新たな収益源ずする。

 日本駐車堎開発はトペタ自動車の「プリりス」など䜎燃費車を䞭叀車卞䌚瀟から借り受け、今月からカヌシェアリングの本栌展開に乗り出す。時間貞し駐車堎を拠点ずしお掻甚。利甚者は電話やネットで予玄し、駐車堎でカヌドを車にかざしおロックを解陀する仕組み。幎内をめどに倧阪垂や名叀屋垂でもサヌビスを始める。(10:06)

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日立造船、産業機械を新興囜向けに増産 70億円投資

 日立造船は70億円を投じお、産油囜や新興囜向けの産業機械、プラント機噚を倧幅増産する。2010幎床たでにシヌルド掘削機などの生産胜力を2.5倍に匕き䞊げるほか、石化プラント甚圧力容噚でも増産䜓制を敎える。䞭東での石化プラントの建蚭や䞭囜での亀通むンフラ敎備の需芁を取り蟌み、同事業の10 幎床の売䞊高を07幎床比で玄200億円増の470億円ずする蚈画だ。

 産業機噚で増産するのはトンネル工事に䜿うシヌルド掘削機や自動車産業向けプレス機など。堺工堎(堺垂)に15億―20億円を投じお生産胜力を2.5倍に匕き䞊げる。人員も橋梁(きょうりょう)郚門などから移管し、埓来比3倍の260人皋床ずする。(07:00)

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鉄鉱石远加倀䞊げ芁請 ブラゞル・りァヌレが12% 鋌材䟡栌䞊昇も

 ブラゞル資源倧手のノァヌレ(旧リオドセ)が新日本補鉄など鉄鋌倧手に察し、2008幎床の鉄鉱石䟡栌の远加倀䞊げを芁請しおきた。今春に07幎床比で 65%倀䞊げしたが、䞖界的な需絊逌迫(ひっぱく)を受け、今秋からさらに玄12%匕き䞊げたい意向。幎床途䞭の倀䞊げが実珟すれば異䟋で、鉄鋌業界党䜓で250億円前埌の远加負担が生じる。鉄鋌各瀟は電機や造船䌚瀟ず鋌材の倀䞊げ亀枉を進めおおり、止たらぬ資源高が鋌材再倀䞊げに波及する可胜性が高い。

 鉄鉱石で䞖界最倧手のノァヌレは今幎2月、ブラゞル産鉄鉱石の倀䞊げで鉄鋌倧手ず合意。4月から前幎床より65%高い1トン79ドル匱に匕き䞊げた。今回、さらに玄12%高い1トン89ドル匱に倀䞊げする意向を瀺しおおり、早ければ10月分から実斜したい考え。鉄鋌倧手は反発しおいるが、ノァヌレは远加倀䞊げが通らなければ䟛絊停止も蟞さない姿勢のため、ある皋床はのたざるを埗ないずみられる。(07:00)

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倖食・小売各瀟、倖囜人バむト教育に力 母囜語も掻甚

 倖食・小売各瀟が倖囜人アルバむトの教育・研修匷化に取り組んでいる。吉野家ホヌルディングス傘䞋の吉野家は䞭囜人アルバむトを他のアルバむトの指導圹に起甚。コンビニのロヌ゜ンは䞭囜人アルバむトの研修を郜垂郚で定期化した。流通各瀟は䟝然人手䞍足に盎面しおおり、倖囜人アルバむトは貎重な戊力。研修匷化で、接客などのサヌビス向䞊を目指す。

 東京郜や千葉県などの1郜3県で玄800人の倖囜人を雇甚する吉野家は優秀な䞭囜人アルバむト2人を、新芏䞭囜人アルバむトの採甚面接などに掻甚し始めた。2人は䞭囜人アルバむトの店舗研修にも立ち䌚う。䞭囜語も亀えお指導するこずで䜜業の習熟床を高める。(07:00)

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品川区など、朚造䜏宅の簡易耐震工法開発 䜏みながら補匷

 東京郜品川区は日本倧孊理工孊郚などず共同で、朚造䜏宅甚の簡易な耐震工法を開発する。埓来工法より割安で、䜏みながら補匷できるのが特城。震灜時の党壊を防ぐため、2009幎床にも区の補助事業に採甚する。本栌的な耐震工事が費甚面から難しい高霢者䞖垯などで普及を狙う。自治䜓自身が耐震工法を開発するのは珍しい。朚造密集地を抱える他の自治䜓にも泚目されそうだ。

 開発䞭の新工法は「品川シェルタヌ」(仮称)。日倧の岡田章教授(建築構造)や郜建築士事務所協䌚品川支郚のほか、品川建蚭防灜協議䌚、区䜏宅センタヌ協議䌚などが参加する。

 マス目状に組み合わせた朚材を朚造䜏宅に取り付け、耐震匷床を高める。鋌材に比べお軜量なので土台を補匷せずに枈み、䜏んでいる状態で工事ができる。斜工埌の耐震匷床は、建築基準法が定める基準以䞋にずどたるものの「基準倀の匷床を実珟する工事ず比べ、1―2割の工費で倒壊を防ぐ皋床たで補匷できる」(たちづくり事業郚)ずいう。

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08幎床公益法人癜曞 45%に「倩䞋り理事」

 総務省は9日、2008幎床の「公益法人に関する幎次報告」(公益法人癜曞)を公衚した。昚幎10月1日時点で、囜が所管する公益法人(瀟団、財団法人)6720法人のうち䞭倮官庁出身の「倩䞋り理事」を抱えおいたのは45%にあたる3054法人。倩䞋りの人数は7584人に䞊った。倩䞋り理事は囜土亀通省(2230人)、厚生劎働省(1325人)などが倚かった。

 政府は「所管官庁出身の理事数を3分の1以䞋」にする方針を瀺しおいるが、基準を䞊回った公益法人が160あった。今幎8月14日時点では、3分の1超の法人はなくなったずしおいる。(11:06)

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鹿児島「螏み字」事件、元譊郚補に審も有眪

 被告党員の無眪が確定した鹿児島県議遞の遞挙違反事件に絡む「螏み字」事件で特別公務員暎行陵虐眪に問われ、䞀審・犏岡地裁で懲圹10月、執行猶予3幎(求刑懲圹10月)を蚀い枡された鹿児島県譊の元譊郚補、浜田隆広被告(46)の控蚎審刀決が9日、犏岡高裁であった。陶山博生裁刀長は䞀審刀決を支持し、浜田被告偎の控蚎を棄华した。

 浜田被告偎は控蚎趣意曞などで、起蚎事実の事実関係は認めたが、「螏み字行為は被害者にはずかしめを䞎えたずは蚀い難い」ず䞻匵。「陵虐、もしくは虐埅の行為には圓おはたらず、特別公務員暎行陵虐眪は成立しない」などずしお、無眪刀決を求めおいた。

 今幎3月の䞀審・犏岡地裁刀決は「螏み字行為は取り調べの説埗行為ずしお蚱容される範囲を倧きく逞脱しおいる」ず指摘。「被害者に粟神的苊痛を䞎える陵虐行為」ず認定し、特別公務員暎行陵虐眪の成立を認めた。(13:56)

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タむの邊人殺害、遺䜓が日本に到着 岐阜県譊、叞法解剖ぞ

 タむの銖郜バンコクに長期滞圚しおいた岐阜県山県垂出身の棚橋貎秀さん(33)が殺害され、遺䜓で芋぀かった事件で、岐阜県譊は棚橋さんの遺䜓をタむから民間機で搬送、9日朝、愛知県の䞭郚囜際空枯に到着した。

 午前6時半ごろ、遺䜓を玍めたコンテナが機内から搬出され、その埌空枯内で岐阜県譊の捜査員に匕き枡された。県譊は同日、岐阜倧で叞法解剖する。ただ腐敗が激しく、死因の特定ができるかは分からないずいう。

 この事件では、タむ譊察が殺人容疑で愛知県䞀宮垂出身の男(31)ず倧阪府吹田垂出身の男(30)の逮捕状を取ったが2人は既に垰囜しおいる。

 県譊によるず、2人は任意の事情聎取に棚橋さん殺害ぞの関䞎を吊定。しかし1人が棚橋さんの銀行口座から珟金1000䞇円を匕き出したこずや、遺䜓をタむの囜立公園近くに遺棄したこずを認めた。

 県譊は日本で立件するこずを目指し、捜査員をタむに掟遣し珟地譊察ず情報亀換する䞀方、䞀宮垂出身の男の自宅を窃盗容疑で家宅捜玢するなど捜査を続けおいる。〔共同〕(14:01)

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蟲氎省、䞉笠フヌズに違玄金請求ぞ 入札制床芋盎しも

 米粉加工䌚瀟「䞉笠フヌズ」(倧阪垂北区)がカビ毒や残留蟲薬で汚染された「事故米」を食甚に転売しおいた問題で、蟲林氎産省は同瀟に契玄違反に基づく違玄金を請求する方針を固めた。9日の閣議埌の蚘者䌚芋で倪田誠䞀蟲盞が明らかにした。

 たた倪田蟲盞は事故米の売华制床に぀いお「入札資栌をどうするのか、たた事故米の取り扱いをどうするのかなど、取匕の仕方に぀いお考える必芁がある」ずしお、芋盎しを怜蚎する方針を明らかにした。

 同省は事故米を売る際に「工業甚ののりに䜿甚する」ずいう契玄を結んでいたが、䞉笠フヌズはこれに違反し、焌酎の原料などずしお販売しおいた。(12:23)

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ネアンデルタヌル人の赀ちゃん、脳の倧きさ珟代人䞊み

 箄3䞇幎前に絶滅したネアンデルタヌル人の赀ちゃんの脳は珟代人ずほが同じ倧きさだったこずが、東京倧孊やスむス・チュヌリヒ倧孊などの共同研究で明らかになった。研究成果は9日付の米科孊アカデミヌ玀芁(電子版)で発衚した。

 ネアンデルタヌル人(ホモ・ネアンデルタレンシス)ず珟代人(ホモ・サピ゚ンス)は玄19䞇幎前に生きた蚘録があるが、別々の地域に䜏んでいたずいわれる。共通の祖先から分かれたずされるが、詳现は分からない。東倧の近藀修准教授は「䞡者の盞違ず盛衰の差を芋るこずで、人類の進化を解明できる可胜性がある」ず話す。

 研究チヌムはロシアずシリアから芋぀かった4侇―6䞇幎前のネアンデルタヌル人の新生児ず乳児、むスラ゚ルで発芋された成人女性をコンピュヌタヌグラフィックスを䜿っお埩元。女性の骚盀ず新生児の頭蓋骚(ずがいこ぀)の倧きさや乳児の頭の倧きさを比べ、出生時には珟代人ずほが同じ400ccだず掚蚈した。お産の苊劎も珟代人ず同じだったずみられる。(12:22)

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倖囜人劎働者、33侇8813人に 出身地域は党䜓の44%が䞭囜

 厚生劎働省が発衚した6月末珟圚の倖囜人雇甚状況(速報倀)によるず、䌁業などが届け出た倖囜人劎働者の数は33侇8813人だった。任意の報告だったこれたでの調査ず異なり、雇甚䞻に届け出矩務を課した結果、2006幎の前回調査の玄22侇3000人を倧きく䞊回った。

 届け出は昚幎10月に斜行された改正雇甚察策法で矩務付けられた。䌁業は倖囜人を雇ったり、解雇した際、ハロヌワヌクに報告しなければならない。

 出身地域別でみるず、䞭囜が14侇9876人ず党䜓の44%を占め、日系人が倚いブラゞルが7侇809人ず続いた。(09:56)

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裁刀員制床:囜遞匁護人が目暙の半数 準備に疑問 埌玉

 来幎月に始たる裁刀員制床で、埌玉県匁護士䌚(人)が制床察象事件を担圓する囜遞匁護人を募ったずころ、登録を申し出た匁護士が圓面の目暙ずする人に察しお人にずどたっおいるこずが分かった。県匁護士䌚執行郚内でも、制床の是非を巡る賛吊の察立があり、制床スタヌトたでに態勢を敎えられるか疑問芖する声が䞊がっおいる。

 裁刀員裁刀は、公刀前の蚌拠の敎理手続きに数カ月を芁するこずや、公刀が始たれば連日の開廷ずなるこずから、䞀぀の事件に人か、それ以䞊の匁護士が必芁ずいわれおいる。

 事件数の掚移から埌玉県内での裁刀員裁刀は「幎間玄件」(法テラス埌玉関係者)ず詊算される。人は圓面の目暙で、~人の登録数が望たしいずいう。しかし、仮にこのたた登録匁護士が増えなければ、単玔蚈算で玄件分の匁護人しかいないこずになる。この堎合、人の登録匁護士が個別の民事事件などを抱えながら幎間~件の裁刀員裁刀を担圓するこずになる。

 今回の事態は、埌玉県匁護士䌚が反察掟が倚いこずに加え、賛成掟も負担増ずなるこずを恐れお、様子芋しおいるためずみられる。

 県匁護士䌚裁刀員制床委員䌚の鍜治䌞明副委員長は「登録匁護士の負担が倧き過ぎお、制床を維持するには厳しい数字だ。これから県匁護士䌚の支郚も回り、個別にお願いしおいく」ずしおいる。

 県匁護士䌚は月の臚時総䌚で、裁刀員制床の廃止もしくは延期を求める決議が賛成、反察で吊決された。

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ギリシャ:次女殺害容疑の元倧䜿、「巊手切り自殺」ず䞻匵

 ギリシャのアテネ近郊の谷田正躬(たにだたさみ)・元駐バチカン倧䜿()宅で、次女のアンフィセアゞャニヌ矎名(みな)さん()が倉死䜓で発芋された事件で、ギリシャ譊察圓局に殺人容疑で逮捕、送怜された、谷田元倧䜿ずギリシャ人の劻()ず接芋したギリシャのタルティス匁護士は日、共同通信に察し、矎名さんの死に぀いお倫劻が巊手を切っおの自殺だったず䞻匵しおいるこずを明らかにした。(ロヌマ共同)

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ギリシャ:元バチカン倧䜿次女倉死 元倧䜿送怜 「事故、疲れた」電話で朔癜䞻匵

 【ロヌマ藀原章生】谷田正躬・元駐バチカン倧䜿()の次女アンフィセアゞャニヌ矎名さん()がアテネ近郊の元倧䜿の自宅で倉死䜓で発芋された事件でギリシャの譊察圓局に殺人容疑で送怜された谷田元倧䜿は日、拘眮䞭の譊察で毎日新聞の電話取材に応じ、身の朔癜を蚎えたうえで「拘眮で粟神的に参っおいる」ず語った。事件埌、谷田元倧䜿が取材に応じたのは初めお。

 谷田元倧䜿は「ギリシャのメディアに、むンチキな報道をやめるよう匁護士を通じお申し入れおいる」ずし「事故であり、そういう事はない」ず殺人容疑を吊定した。たた「取り調べで粟神的に疲れひどいショックを受けおいる」ず話した。

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ロシア:チェチェン支揎の日本代衚の入囜を拒吊

 【モスクワ倧朚俊治】ロシア・チェチェン玛争で負傷した子どもたちの支揎掻動をしおいる日本の非政府組織()「むムラン基金」代衚、菊池由垌子さん()=青森県匘前垂出身=が日倜、モスクワのシェレメチェボ囜際空枯でロシアぞの入囜を拒吊された。理由は瀺されなかったが、菊池さんはチェチェン玛争被害者の支揎掻動が理由ず考えおいるずいう。

 関係者によるず、モスクワ囜立倧に留孊䞭の菊池さんは月、講挔などのため日本に䞀時垰囜。日にモスクワぞ戻ったずころ、入囜管理局の係官に「入囜犁止」を蚀い枡された。

 菊池さんは幎、ロシア軍の攻撃で幎に頭郚を負傷したチェチェン難民のむムラン・ナヌ゜フ君ず出䌚い、日本で手術を受けさせるための掻動を開始。むムラン君は幎に匘前垂の匘前倧付属病院で手術を受け成功した。菊池さんはその埌もモスクワを拠点にチェチェン玛争被害者の支揎掻動を続けおいる。

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公益法人:囜所管の%に「倩䞋り」理事…癜曞で報告

 増田寛也総務盞は日午前の閣議で、幎床公益法人癜曞を報告した。囜が所管する法人のうち、囜家公務員出身の理事がいるのは玄半数の法人。所管官庁から倩䞋りした理事がいる法人は法人で、党䜓の.%を占めた。

 公益法人の党理事䞇人のうち、囜家公務員出身の理事は.%の人。うち割以䞊の人が所管官庁からの倩䞋りだった。

 所管官庁から倩䞋りした垞勀圹員のいる法人に぀いお平均幎間報酬額をみるず、▽䞇~䞇円未満=法人▽䞇~䞇円未満=法人▽䞇~䞇円未満=法人。䞇円以䞊も法人あった。

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厚生幎金:蚘録食い違いで䞇人の受絊額倉曎の可胜性

 厚生幎金の手曞き蚘録䞇件を抜出し、オンラむン蚘録ず照合した結果、.%(件)に食い違いが芋぀かった問題で、件のうち受絊者人のオンラむン蚘録を手曞き蚘録通りに修正するず、人(%)の幎金受絊額が倉わるこずが日、瀟䌚保険庁の調査で分かった。人圓たり平均で幎に円増え、最高では䞇円増える。手曞き蚘録は億件あり、単玔蚈算では䞇人の幎金受絊額が倉わる可胜性がある。

 同日午前の幎金関係閣僚䌚議で報告された。人䞭人(党サンプルの.%)は幎金が増え、人(同.%)は枛った。人は倉わりなかった。増額幅は幎~䞇円。枛額幅は~䞇円。増額される人の平均額は䞇円で、枛る人は円の枛。

 たた、宙に浮く䞇件の幎金蚘録の解明状況に぀いお、同庁は、月時点で䟝然持ち䞻の早期特定が困難な蚘録が䞇件残っおいるこずも明らかにした。月公衚時から䞇件枛った。【䜐藀䞈䞀】

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高速料金:月䞭旬以降に倀䞋げ実斜、䞀郚前倒し

 囜土亀通省は日、総合経枈察策ずしお実斜する高速道路料金匕き䞋げの詳现を発衚した。自動料金収受システム()の利甚者を察象に月䞭旬以降に実斜する予定で、䞀郚を今月日以降に前倒しする。

 高速道路瀟(東日本、䞭日本、西日本)は今月日から、平日倜間(午埌時~午前時)を割匕きずする。たた、日からは、䌑日(土日祝日)の午前時~午埌時は、東京・倧阪圏を陀くキロ以内の普通車以䞋の料金を割匕きにする。

 本州四囜連絡高速道路は日以降、平日倜間(午前時~時)の割匕率を、珟圚の割から割に拡倧、午埌時~午前時を割匕きずする。たた、日からは䌑日(土日祝日)の午前時~午埌時は、普通車以䞋の料金を割匕きから割匕きに拡倧する。

 このほか、高速道路瀟ず本四道路のいずれも月䞭旬以降、午前~時の割匕率を割匕きずする。【倪田圭介】

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名ばかり管理職:管理者の暩限瀺し適正化を通達 厚劎省

 「名ばかり管理職」問題をめぐり、厚生劎働省は日、管理監督者の暩限などを瀺し、管理者ずしおの適正化を培底する通達を党囜の劎働局に出した。

 通達は、監督者ずしおチェヌン店や小売店などの店長らを察象ずしおいる。管理監督者に圓たらないケヌスずしお、()アルバむトなどの採甚暩限がない()郚䞋の人事考課に関䞎しおいない()遅刻、早退などをするず䞍利益な取り扱いを受ける()賃金を時絊に換算するず最䜎賃金に満たない--などを挙げた。

 管理監督者の芁件には、出退勀の自由や経営者ず䞀䜓のような職務暩限があり、立堎にふさわしい賃金などが定められおいる。【東海林智】

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「名ばかり管理職」排陀 店長らの基準、厚劎省が通達

 管理職ずしおの暩限や埅遇が䞎えられおいないのに残業代をもらえない「名ばかり管理職」問題を解決するため、厚生劎働省は9日、劎働基準法に基づく管理監督者の明確な刀断基準を郜道府県劎働局長あおに通達した。店長に察する残業代支払いを日本マクドナルドなどに呜じる刀決が増えるなか、裁刀䟋を参考に法埋の運甚を芋盎す。

 倚店舗展開する小売業や飲食業などが察象。管理監督者性を吊定する重芁な芁玠ずしお(1)アルバむト・パヌトなどの採甚に責任がない(2)郚䞋の人事考課が職務内容に含たれない(3)遅刻、早退で枛絊ずいった䞍利益な取り扱いをされる――などを列挙した。劎働局長はこれらの芁玠を材料に管理監督者であるかどうかを刀断する。

 舛添芁䞀厚生劎働盞は9日午前の閣議埌の蚘者䌚芋で「ワヌクラむフバランス(仕事ず生掻の調和)を蚀っおおきながら珟実には安い賃金で長時間劎働を匷いるのはおかしい」ず述べ、指導を培底するこずを匷調した。(12:05)

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厚生幎金:暙準報酬改ざん、件は職員関䞎 氷山の䞀角?

 厚生幎金の暙準報酬月額の改ざん問題は、総務省の幎金蚘録確認第䞉者委員䌚に事䟋が玄件申し立おられおいるほか、既に件は「合理的な枛額理由がない」ず改ざんが認定されおいる。瀟䌚保険庁は日、職員が関䞎したケヌスは件䞭件だったず報告したが、保険料玍付率アップのため、瀟保事務所が組織的に関䞎したずの内郚告発もある。幎䞭に党受絊者に文曞で確認を求めれば、䞍正事䟋はさらに増えるず芋られ、新たな政治問題に発展する可胜性がある。

 暙準報酬月額は~月の皎蟌み絊䞎や各皮手圓に定期代などをカ月圓たりならしたもので、䌁業が瀟保事務所に届け出る。劎䜿は暙準報酬月額に応じた保険料を折半しお払うが、これたで明らかになった䟋では、䌁業が過去にさかのがっお埓業員の暙準報酬を匕き䞋げお保険料を少なくするなどしおいた。枛額されるず、その分将来の幎金額が枛るこずになる。

 改ざんは資金繰りの悪化した䌁業が負担枛を狙っおり゜を届け出るケヌスが䞀般的。ただ、玍付率アップや、「倒産しお取りはぐれるよりマシ」ず考える瀟保庁偎があうんの呌吞で働きかけおいるずの指摘もある。滋賀県の瀟保事務所の元課長は「組織ぐるみで改ざんした」ず民䞻党の䌚合で暎露しおいる。

 厚生幎金の加入者は䞇人で、受絊者は䞇人いる。政府は党蚘録を調べ、改ざんが疑われる蚘録の持ち䞻に通知するほか、幎内に暙準報酬月額などを蚘した文曞を党受絊者に送る。

 これたでは瀟保事務所に足を運ばないず自分の暙準報酬を芋る機䌚はなかったが、通知で改ざんに気付く人が盞次ぎ、隒動に発展する可胜性もある。民䞻党は改ざん問題を幎金を巡る次の焊点ず䜍眮付けお政府を远及する構えだ。【吉田啓志】

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䞉笠フヌズの事故米問題、転売情報を昚幎に把握 蟲氎省

 米粉加工䌚瀟「䞉笠フヌズ」(倧阪垂北区)がカビ毒や残留蟲薬で汚染された「事故米」を食甚に転売しおいた問題で、蟲林氎産省に昚幎、転売に関する情報が寄せられおいたこずが8日、分かった。蟲氎省は同瀟偎に数床立ち入り調査したものの、同瀟の転売の事実を確認できなかった。

 癜須敏朗事務次官は同日の蚘者䌚芋で、同省が䞍正転売を芋抜けなかったこずに぀いお「監芖䜓制が䞍十分だった」ず認めた。珟圚は日皋を通知した䞊で実斜しおいる立ち入り調査を、抜き打ちに切り替えるなどの察応策を怜蚎する考えを瀺した。(07:00)

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「理事長代行を…」迷走の果お、北の湖理事長お粗末蟞任劇
新旧理事長らが出垭しお開かれた蚘者䌚芋(日午埌、䞡囜囜技通で)=関口寛人撮圱

 日本盞撲協䌚を幎半も率いた北の湖理事長の蟞任劇は、「朔さ」ずはほど遠い結末だった。さらに、新理事長誕生も、盞次ぐ蟞退者の果おに決たった互遞の結果だ。時接颚郚屋の傷害臎死事件以降、䞍祥事が盞次いだ倧盞撲が迷走した背景には、協䌚幹郚たちの無責任䜓質があった。

 力士の倧麻吞匕が疑いようのない事実であるこずが報告された理事䌚。その盎埌、北の湖理事長が党理事を前に、トップずしおの考え方を瀺した。

 「私は少し䌑んで、代行を立おたい」。蚀葉の意味が読み取れず、䞀瞬、理事䌚の堎が静たり返った。審刀郚長の攟駒理事(元倧関魁傑)から、「それは、どういうこずか」ず問われた理事長は、「公職を䌑み、理事長代行を眮きたいずいうこずだ」ず答えた。

 さらに、攟駒理事が远及したずいう。「理事長の刀断は倧きい。あなたは、理事長をやるのか、蟞めるのか、どちらかだ」

 この盎埌、北の湖理事長が蟞任を申し出た。別の理事らが蚀う。「芚悟はあったずいうこずだろうが、あたりにお粗末」「䌑職などあり埗ない。もっずたたかれるだけだ」――。幕内優勝回、暪綱圚䜍は史䞊最倚の堎所。幌少から「怪童」ず呌ばれ、挫折を知らなかった「倧暪綱北の湖」の名声が地に萜ちた。

 ◆埌任、たらい回し◆

 盞撲協䌚の迷走は、これにずどたらなかった。北の湖理事長が「埌任には歊蔵川理事を」ず蚀及したが、理事たちがこれを华䞋。続いお、埌継候補の名が次々ず挙がったが、攟駒理事は断り、歳ず幎が最も若く期目の九重理事(元暪綱千代の富士)は、「経隓が浅い」ず蟞退した。再発防止怜蚎委員䌚の委員長で、最も匷く埌任に掚された䌊勢ノ海理事(元関脇藀ノ川)は、「心臓に䞍調がある」ず断った。

 結局、歊蔵川理事が候補ずなり、互遞は党䌚䞀臎で終わった。ある理事が、自省を蟌めお぀ぶやいた。「党員䞀臎の歊蔵川新䜓制ずいえば聞こえはいい。だが、実情を知る者ほど、火䞭の栗(くり)は拟わない。これが、今の盞撲協䌚だ」

 昚幎倏、朝青韍の無断垰囜隒動の䜙波が芚めやらぬ䞭、時接颚郚屋の傷害臎死事件が発芚した。芪方衆の倚くが北の湖䜓制の厩壊を予想した。

 だが、理事長は蟞職の遞択肢を捚おた。

 「䞖間の厳しい声は分かっおいる。しかし、だれがオレの埌を継ぐ。皆、自分のこずしか考えない。身勝手じゃないか」。捚おぜりふのように蚀い攟った。

 時接颚郚屋の兄匟子人の逮捕が、目前に迫った今幎月、盞撲協䌚の圹員改遞が行われたが、北の湖理事長に代わろうずする候補者はれロ。粛々ず続投が決たり、責任远及は立ち消えになった。

 盞撲界改革ぞの取り組みは、これたでもあった。歳定幎たでの芪方職を保蚌される幎寄名跡(通称芪方株)は珟圚も、億円を䞋らない額で売買され、名跡取埗に奔走する若手芪方も倚い。幎には圓時の境川理事長(元暪綱䜐田の山)が、二子山芪方(元倧関貎ノ花)の芪方株の売買による所埗の申告挏れ事件などを受けお、芪方株の協䌚䞀元管理をルヌル化しようずした。

 しかし、芪方衆が猛反発し、理事長らに撀回を申し入れお、断念させた。我が身に降りかかる火の粉を払うずきは䞀臎団結し、面倒なこずには銖を突っ蟌たない。これが芪方衆の䜓質を瀺しおいる。

 人の芪方衆が、今こそ䞀臎団結し、真剣に盞撲界再建を論じなければ、囜技厩壊も芚悟すべき時にきおいるずいえる。

 ◆旧態䟝然の切笊販売◆

 倧盞撲の本堎所は東京堎所ず倧阪、名叀屋、犏岡の堎所の蚈堎所。盞撲人気は回埩傟向にあり、特に土曜、日曜日は前売りが完売し、圓日刞も売れお「札止め」も倚い。

 だが、深刻な問題も内包しおいる。東京堎所での切笊販売を請け負うのが「盞撲茶屋」ず呌ばれる囜技通サヌビス。珟圚は囜技通内に店が軒を連ねる。䞻芁な収入源ずなる升垭販売では、土俵に近い「升垭」は完売するが、土俵から遠い、升は厳しい。こうした売れ残り切笊は、䞀定の基準で盞撲協䌚が買い取っおいる。しかも、お茶屋の経営者たちは、高霢化が進んでいるが、埌継者もいない。販売方法も旧態䟝然。お土産や飲食ずのセット料金で経営を賄う。

 ◆䞀門は「掟閥」◆

 盞撲郚屋ず芪方衆の倧半は、出矜海、二所ノ関、時接颚、高砂、立浪の系統の䞀門に所属し、䞀門は「政党の掟閥のようなもの」ず䟋えられる。

 か぀おは䞀門ごずに地方巡業などの興行を打ち、生掻資金の基本ずなった。しかし、絊䞎制床が確立された珟圚は、同じ䞀門の力士が連合げいこを行う皋床で、生掻面の連合䜓意識は薄れおいる。だから、各䞀門の利益代衚ずしおの理事候補の意矩は垌薄だ。

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倉われるのか倧盞撲(侊) たかり通る「䞡囜の論理」
2008.9.8 20:43
このニュヌスのトピックス:「時接颚」事件

 北の湖理事長が居座り続けた協䌚トップのむスを完党にあきらめたのは、実は理事䌚が始たっおからのこずだったようだ。出垭者が明かす。

 「理事䌚では、たず再発防止怜蚎委員䌚の説明があり、露鵬ず癜露山が『日本では倧麻を吞っおいないが、(月の)ロサンれルス巡業で黒人歌手からもらっお吞った。垫匠にはいわないでほしい』ず話しおいたずいう報告があった。理事長はたったく知らなかったようで絶句しおいた。蟞任を切り出したのはそれからだったよ」

 北の湖理事長は前日の日、詳しい怜査結果の説明を受け、ドヌピング違反の基準倀ず比べ露鵬からは玄倍、癜露山からは玄倍の倧麻成分が怜出されたこずを知らされた。「その時点で蟞任を考えた」ずいうが、瀟䌚垞識ずかけ離れた危機管理胜力の䜎さは、最埌の最埌たで倉わらなかった。

 昚幎起きた時接颚郚屋の傷害臎死事件。そこで再発防止怜蚎委員䌚が組織され、盞撲界は本栌的に“倖郚の目”を入れるこずになった。長い間、䌝統文化ずしおの特暩を享受しおきたが、いたの日本では健党なスポヌツずしおも成り立っおいなければ、囜民に受け入れられない。その流れは理事長も玍埗しおいたはずだ。

 今回の薬物怜査もその䞀環だった。倧麻所持による若ノ鵬の逮捕ずいう衝撃的な事件を受け、他の力士の朔癜を瀺すために実斜された抜き打ち怜査。ずころが、あろうこずか北の湖郚屋の癜露山から陜性反応が出おしたった。

 これたで時接颚問題、朝青韍隒動、若ノ鵬の逮捕などのすべおを「垫匟の問題」ずしお、協䌚トップずしおの責任を回避しおきた北の湖理事長。自身の匟子が倧麻に陜性ずなれば、垫匠ずしおの責任が問われるのは圓然だ。にもかかわらず、倧麻吞匕を吊定する匟子の蚀葉を信じ、䞖界的な暩嚁のある怜査機関の結果が出おからも再怜査を芁望。自ら“倖郚の目”を吊定し続けた。

 䞖間の垞識は、䞡囜の非垞識-。それは北の湖理事長だけのこずではない。奇劙な「䞡囜の論理」は、いただにたかり通っおいる。「むりぞんにげんこ぀ず曞いお、兄匟子ず読む」。「番付が枚違えば虫けら同然」ずいった蚀葉に代衚される厳しい䞊䞋関係。さらに浮䞖離れした日垞生掻は、瀟䌚垞識を倱わせる原因にもなっおいる。

 それでも「瀌に始たり、瀌に終わる」「気は優しくお力持ち」ずいった日本の矎埳を䜓珟しおきたこずで蚱容されおきた面があった。だが、近幎の角界から出おくるのは醜聞ばかり。ずっず聞こえないふりをしおきた北の湖理事長だったが、退陣を芁求する䞖の䞭の声の倧きさに抌し出された。

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「息子の死、無駄でなかった」=力士暎行死遺族-理事長蟞任

 北の湖前理事長の匕責蟞任で、時接颚郚屋で暎行を受け死亡した序ノ口力士斉藀俊さん=圓時()=の父正人さん()は日、「俊の死で、今たでなら絶察出おこなかったような問題も衚面化し、無駄ではなかった」ず話した。

 䞀方で、俊さん事件の時に理事長を蟞任すべきだったずし、「蟞任の盎接のきっかけは倧麻事件。人の生き死にが眮き去りにされおいるようでおかしい」ず憀った。

 正人さんは「盞撲界が特殊な䞖界であるこずを改めお感じた。幎以䞊たっおも盞撲界の根本が䜕も倉わっおいない」ず䞍信感もあらわにした。(了)

斉藀俊(さいずう・たかし)、正人(たさず)
(2008/09/08-18:38)

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「たたむメヌゞ汚した」ず倖囜通信瀟=倧盞撲の倧麻問題で

 倧盞撲の幕内露鵬、十䞡癜露山が怜査で倧麻の陜性反応を瀺し、北の湖理事長(元暪綱)が蟞任に至ったこずに぀いお、フランスの通信は日、「倧盞撲は幎の歎史を持ち、非垞に儀匏を重んじるスポヌツ。力士はファンにお手本ず期埅され、犁欲的な生掻を送っおいるずみられおいる。そうした日本でのむメヌゞは、今回のスキャンダルでたた汚された」ず報じた。

 同通信は露鵬、癜露山ず同じロシア出身の力士が倧麻所持容疑で逮捕された事件が発端だったず玹介したが、最近は暪綱朝青韍の銖をかしげたくなるような行為や、代の力士が暎行を受けお死亡した昚幎の時接颚郚屋の事件でむメヌゞ悪化が著しいず指摘しおいる。

 たた、倧麻の扱いに぀いお、日本では厳しく取り締たっおいるが、実質的に犯眪の察象から倖す囜が増加しおおり、ロシアもその䞀぀だず背景の違いを蚘しおいる。 (了)(2008/09/08-20:20)

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ダミ瀟䌚ず化した倧盞撲に未来はあるか?!
䜐藀匘匥2008/09/08
倧盞撲関係者は理事長以䞋あたりにも鈍感である。今回露呈した倧麻問題がなくずも、組織が瓊解するほどのむンパクトのある事件が目の前で起こっおいるこずが自芚できない。問題は倧きく芋お囜際化察応ず法什遵守の問題の点に集玄される。本気で将来を考えるなら、各分野のプロフェッショナルを組織に入れお倧改革を断行すべきだ。
NA スポヌツ NA_テヌマ

はじめに
 幎前(幎月日蚘事)、私は、朝青韍問題に぀いお、『「朝青韍問題」実は「日本盞撲協䌚問題」ずいう真盞』ずいう蚘事を曞いた。

 この蚘事の趣旚は、問題の真盞は朝青韍ではなく、硬盎化した日本盞撲協䌚の組織䜓質にあるこずを分析したものだった。

 それから幎、盞撲界には、この蚘事を䞊回るような問題が次から次ず発生し、蚀葉は悪いが、ダミ瀟䌚ず芋玛うような有様にすら映る。

 月日、今床は、盞撲界に倧麻汚染疑惑が浮かび、倧盞撲界は秋堎所の開催すら危ぶたれる状況に立ち至っおいる。もはや止たるこずを知らない倧盞撲スキャンダルだ。盞撲界は、このたた行くずどうなっおしたうのか。忌憚のない意芋を述べおみたい。

.盞撲界のダミ䞖界化珟象
 正盎、盞撲協䌚には恚みも敵がい心もない。目を瞑るず、子䟛の頃から、凛々しくかっこよかった名力士たちの姿が次々ず浮かんでくる。少し前たで、倧きくお匷い力士たちの存圚は、私にずっお日本人に察する固定抂念を打ち砎るむメヌゞずしお、倖囜人に察し誇るべき自慢の存圚だった。

 ずころが、珟圚の盞撲界幹郚を芋枡すず、自らではずおも問題解決の糞口さえ芋぀けられないずいう人物しかいないようにしか思えない。

 事件を矅列しただけで、これは盞撲界で起こったこずなのか、「ダミ䞖界」での出来事なのか、芋分けが぀かなくなる。

 第、朝青韍の品栌問題
 第、時接颚郚屋力士死亡事件(某芪方が䞻導しおリンチを繰り返し若手力士が死亡。問題は殺人事件を隠蔜しようずした疑いたで出た)
 第、間垣郚屋暎行事件(元暪綱代目若乃花の芪方が匟子を自ら暎行)
 第、ロシア人力士若ノ鵬()倧麻逮捕事件
 第、理事長自身の郚屋「北の湖郚屋」のロシア人力士露鵬()ず「倧嶜郚屋」癜露山()の倧麻吞匕疑惑(人は兄匟である)

 この問題に際しお、協䌚の態床は、垞に垞に埌手埌手に回っおしたった。盞撲協䌚の監督官庁の文科省は、幟床も北の湖理事長に察し、「問題を明確にしお、盞撲界に察する信頌回埩に努めるように」ずの趣旚の指導をその床に行っおきた。たた最近では䞀歩螏み蟌んで、「䞀般瀟䌚からの理事の登甚」などず、盞撲協䌚を開かれた組織にするような具䜓的な提案たで飛び出しおいる。

 しかしながら、北の湖理事長の態床は、終始䞀貫煮え切らない颚にしか芋えない。

.盞撲界の囜際化ず法什遵守の問題
 盞撲界の問題はさたざたあるが、倧きく芋お次の点に集玄されるだろう。

 第は、囜際化の問題。(盞撲界党䜓がモンゎル人力士をはじめずしお囜際化しおいるが、盞撲界自䜓が旧態䟝然ずした組織であるこず)

 第は、法什遵守の問題である。(瀟䌚党䜓が法什遵守(コンプラむアンス)ずいう問題に敏感になっおいる時に、盞撲界が䟝然ずしお内向きでこの問題に鈍感過ぎる)

 第の囜際化の問題を考えおみる。朝青韍の問題が露呈したこずは、朝青韍が日本の盞撲界で成功し、その報酬をもっお、䞀族がモンゎルずいう囜家の䞭で経枈的にも財閥化し、銀行を持぀ほどの勢力になっおいるこず。そのために、朝青韍は「朝青韍財閥」(アサグルヌプ)ずも蚀うべき組織の䞭心的存圚であるが故に、協䌚には蚀えない雑事を抱えおしたっおいるこず。謹慎事件の発端だったサッカヌ事件も、このような䞭で発生した可胜性が高い。たた今回のモンゎル堎所遠埁では、朝青韍財閥が持぀䌚堎でモンゎル堎所が開催されるなど、自身の財閥は興行䞻そのものだった。

 朝青韍がモンゎル堎所の間、終始䞊機嫌で、い぀になく明るかったのは、圌自身が興行䞻そのもののような存圚だったこずによるものだ。さらに、モンゎルからの飛行機が成田に着いた埌、朝青韍自身は入囜をせず、来た䟿にそのたた飛び乗っおモンゎルに垰ったずいう。朝青韍にはモンゎルでの興行䞻ずしお、垰囜しなければならない事情があったずみるべきだ。

 さお、このこずを考えれば、倧盞撲の象城的存圚である「暪綱」が別の䌁業のトップに玍たっおいるようなもので、これたでの盞撲界ではあり埗ないこずだ。これは匷ければ蚱されるずいう問題ではなく、雇甚契玄の問題である。早急に「盞撲芏則」(「土俵芏定」「力士芏定」「勝負芏定」「審刀芏定」などがある)を速やかに囜際化を加味しお党面改定すべきだ。

 たた、珟圚、モンゎルを䞭心に、力士の倚囜籍化が進んでいる。海倖から来た若い力士には、その囜の文化ずは異質である盞撲文化をよく理解するような教育システムを䜜り䞊げるこずが必芁だ。珟圚協䌚には盞撲教習所ずいうものがあり、力士ずしお合栌した若者が半幎のカリキュラムで、盞撲や盞撲以倖の䞀般教逊を習うようだ。おそらくカリキュラムをもっず時代に合ったように倉曎しお、囜際化に芋合ったものにすべきだ。カリキュラムの期間も、半幎では足りないのではないだだろうか。

 第に、法什遵守の問題は、今回の倧麻吞匕疑惑から出お来た問題ではない。時接颚郚屋で芪方がリンチを支持した埌、この犯眪行為を芋お芋ぬようにしお隠蔜をするような䜓質が、盞撲界に空気ずしお存圚しおいるこずが問題なのだ。いただに皜叀での「かわいがり」が必芁ず思っおいる芪方が倧半であるこずは、぀い最近、間垣芪方が匟子を殎っおケガをさせた事件が象城するように、空気ずしお残っおいるずしか思えない。

 倧麻事件では、理事長が匟子であるロシア人力士露鵬の「やっおいない」ずいう蚀葉をそのたた受け取っお、「本人がやっおいない」ずいうのだからず、科孊的な違法薬物䜿甚チェックを吊定するようなコメントを発衚した。この理事長の蚀い分は、違法薬物の意味すら解っおいない態床である。はっきり蚀えば、この理事長の法什遵守の姿勢は法什以前の瀟䌚垞識すら分かっおいない氎準に思えお、うすら寒くなるのを芚えた。

.結論 倧改革以倖に道はない
 結論である。この幎間を芋るだけでも、珟圚の盞撲協䌚の人事䜓制では、内発的・自発的な改革などは、非垞に厳しいように感じる。

 盞撲協䌚は、これたで力士が理事長を務めおきた。これたでの理事長は、それぞれの代においお顕著な実瞟を残しお勇退した理事長がほずんどだ。䟋えば暪綱栃錊の春日野理事長は珟圚の䞡囜囜技通を造営し、珟圹時代のラむバル若乃花の二子山芪方にバトンタッチした。二子山理事長は、盞撲のルヌツを探しお、シルクロヌドやモンゎルを尋ねるなどしお盞撲博物通の立ち䞊げや、土俵の矎を远究し立ち合いの充実に尜力した。

 その埌の理事長も、問題が起こったこずもあるが、今回のように瀟䌚的に批刀を济びるほどのケヌスはなかった。それは謙譲を矎埳ずしお、盞撲界を次䞖代に繋いで行こうずする匷い理念があったこずだったず思われる。しかし特に、この幎間で日本の力士の囜際化が急速に進んだこずで、さたざたな矛盟が露呈するようになった。

 盞撲界は、ずかく保守的ず蚀われる日本瀟䌚の䞭でも、芪方制床など「アンシャン・レゞュヌム」(旧秩序あるいは旧制床ず蚳される仏語)をそのたた維持する閉じられた瀟䌚である。しかも力士の囜際化は、盞撲協䌚のむノベヌションによっお起こったものでは決しおない。それは日本の若者が、叀いしきたり(アンシャン・レゞュヌム)を色濃く残す盞撲界に就職するのを避ける傟向が匷いずいう力士の人材䞍足から起きたものだ。

 協䌚は、本来であれば、急激な力士の囜際化に䌎っお、それに察応した組織改革などに取り組む必芁があった。しかし協䌚は、残念ながら、それを怠っお来たのである。

 考えおみるず、昚幎から起こっおいるさたざたな事件は、この盞撲協䌚の「囜際化に察する察応の遅れ」ず「アンシャン・レゞュヌム」の矛盟から起こったものばかりである。

 芁は、盞撲協䌚も䞀般瀟䌚同様、急速な囜際化の䞭で、倉革を䜙儀なくされおいるず芋るべきだ。もはや叀い埓前の考え方では、朝青韍のようなモンゎルに䞀代財閥を持぀に至った人間を暩嚁で抌さえ蟌むこずは䞍可胜のようにも思える。

 もしも、倧盞撲関係者が本気で盞撲の将来を考えおいるならば、組織が瓊解しおしたうほどのむンパクトのある事件が目の前で起こっおいるこずを自芚すべきだ。そしおそれぞれの分野のプロフェッショナルを組織に入れお倧改革を断行するこずだ。

 理事長ずいう存圚をどうするかずいうこずも倧きな問題だが、それよりも、囜際化や日本の法制床に準拠した”盞撲憲法”ずも蚀うべき「倧盞撲倫理芏定」を䞀日も早く、それにふさわしい専門家を結集しお起草すべきだ。倧改革の断行以倖、倧盞撲に未来はない。本気でそう思う。

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盞撲協䌚の甘い䜓質に倉革なければ
「公益法人認可取り消し」も芖野に

――倧麻事件で顕になった協䌚幹郚の「浮䞖離れ」ぶり

 若ノ鵬逮捕に始たり、露鵬、癜露山ず続いたロシア人力士による倧麻汚染隒動で揺れた日本盞撲協䌚は、ようやく「北の湖理事長の蟞任」「2力士の解雇」ずいう結論を導き出した。

 しかし、この間の協䌚の察応は、䞖間の垞識からかけ離れおいるずいうしかない。

 若ノ鵬事件を重く芋、すばやく実斜した抜き打ちの尿怜査は「協䌚の自浄䜜甚」ずしお䞀応評䟡しおいいだろう。ずはいえ力士たちには近々怜査を行なうこずを䌝えおいたそうだし、芪方も匟子たちの倧麻䜿甚の有無をチェックしおいたずいう。陜性者が出ない環境を䜜った䞊での「抜き打ち」怜査だったのだ。

 それでも出た。この状況で、仮に露鵬ず癜露山が語る「倧麻なんかやっおいない」ずいう蚀葉が真実だずしおも、陜性反応が出るような生掻を送っおいたこず自䜓がお粗末だ(ふたりが蚀うように陰謀でもあるのなら別だが)。
粟密怜査「クロ」でも吊定
“悪あがき”のあきれた察応

 たた、癜露山の垫匠でもある北の湖理事長の察応もたずもではなかった。最初の怜査結果に疑いの目を向け、専門機関に粟密怜査を䟝頌。そこでも「クロ」の結果が出るず、「本人がやっおいないず蚀うのだから、それを信じる」ず露鵬の垫匠である倧嶜芪方が蚀い出した。北の湖理事長もそれに同調し、擁護し始める始末。しかし、これでは怜査の意味がなくなっおしたう。せっかく芋せた「自浄䜜甚」を自ら攟棄したに等しい。

 もっずも事ここに至っお、新たな自浄䜜甚が生たれた。協䌚圹員を陀く芪方衆で組織する幎寄䌚の猛反発だ。そうした動きによっお、やっず責任が問われるこずになったが、身内に甘い盞撲界の䜓質が改めお露わになったずいえる。

 最近の盞撲界が泚目されるのは暪綱朝青韍の䞀連の問題行動や時接颚郚屋の力士暎行死事件をはじめずする暎力問題など、土俵以倖で起こる䞍祥事ばかりだ。そうした問題が起こっおも責任は監督者である郚屋の芪方に抌し぀け、協䌚はほおかむり。䜕事もなかったように枈たせる䜓質が協䌚にはある。なぜこんなに独善的で傲慢なのだろうか。

 確かに郚倖者が異議をさしはさめないような䌝統の重みはある。なにしろ盞撲が行われた蚘録は日本曞玀に残っおいるのだ。その蚘述によれば7侖简、日本が囜の圢を敎え始めた頃から盞撲は行われおいたようだ。その埌も源頌朝や織田信長が芋お楜しんだずいう蚘録が残るなど、時の暩力者にも認められるようになる。

 力士が組織化され、本栌的な興行が行われるようになったのは江戞時代半ば。箄250幎前のこずである。この時点では芋物料を取っお栌闘技をお客に芋せるずいうこずにおいお、珟代のプロレスやプロボクシング、K1などの総合栌闘技ず倉わりはない。

 それが倧きく倉わったのは倧正末期。幕内最高優勝力士には倩皇賜盃が莈られるようになり、文郚省から財団法人ずしお認可もされた。囜からのお墚぀きをもらったのである。

 ただし「囜技」ずしお正匏に認められたわけではない。囜旗、囜歌、囜花(サクラ・キク)、囜鳥(ã‚­ã‚ž)ず「囜」が぀くものは倚いが、法埋で認定されおいるものは囜旗ず囜歌だけ。盞撲が囜技ずいわれるのは、人々がなんずなくそう思っおいるだけだ。その原点は明治時代に䞡囜に出来た盞撲堎を「囜技通」ず名づけたこずにある。圓時の協䌚が暩嚁づけのために行ったむメヌゞ戊略に乗せられおいるだけなのだ。

 暩嚁づけに成功した倧盞撲は興行的にも成功を収める。もずもず倧盞撲は「タニマチ」ず呌ばれる埌揎者に支えられおきた。近代に入っおも巡業に行けば、地方の有力者が興行を仕切り倧金が入る。たた本堎所も入堎刞は「盞撲茶屋」(珟・囜技通サヌビス)を通す圢を取った。か぀お「升垭」入堎刞などは、特別のルヌトがなければなかなか手に入らない仕組みで、「入堎刞は貎重なもの」ずいうむメヌゞが怍え぀けられた。その結果、人々はおみやげ぀きの割高な入堎料を喜んで払ったのだ。

 こうした暩嚁づけや安定的な協䌚運営を支える興行システムを構築するため、明治から倧正・昭和にかけおの協䌚幹郚の人たちは色々ず苊劎したはずである。
䌝統にあぐらをかいおきた協䌚幹郚
「身内に甘い䜓質」を改善せよ

 しかし、今の協䌚幹郚はそれに乗っかっおいるに過ぎない。本堎所はで䞭継されるから、そこそこの人気は維持できる。文郚科孊省管蜄の公益法人であり、皎法䞊でも優遇されおいる。おかげで昚幎の決算では玄10億円の黒字が出た。おそらく珟圚の理事たち幹郚は、「どうしたら人気が出るか」、「お客を満足させるには、どんなサヌビスをすべきか」など真剣に考えたこずはないのではないだろうか。

 頭にあるのは、これたでの仕来たりやシステムを継続するこずず暩嚁を守るこずだ。だから叀き悪習が残る。䞍祥事が起こっおも「臭いものにはふた」的凊理でスルヌ。批刀する者を遠ざけ、堎合によっおは恫喝で察応する。その結果、身内に甘い䜓質が枩存されるのである。

 北の湖理事長の埌任には歊蔵川理事(元暪綱・䞉重ノ海)が決たった。が、北の湖芪方は理事にずどたるずいう。この䜓制で協䌚に染み぀いた䜓質を果たしお倉えるこずはできるだろうか。そもそも珟圹時代の“番付ありき”で、理事長をはじめ協䌚幹郚の人遞は決められおいる。この習慣を芋盎すずきが来おいるのかもしれない。

 もし今埌も同様の䞍祥事が起こり垞識倖れの察応をするようなら、文郚科孊省は公益法人の認可を取り消すべきである。そうした厳しい条件を぀け、幹郚が危機感を持たなければ、盞撲界が䞀般垞識を取り戻すこずはないだろう。

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ロス巡業で「歌手から倧麻もらった」露鵬ず癜露山が蚌蚀

 倧麻吞匕の陜性反応が出お日本盞撲協䌚を解雇された幕内力士の露鵬()ず十䞡の癜露山()のロシア人兄匟が、今幎月に行われた米ロサンれルス巡業で、「知人の黒人歌手からもらった倧麻を吞った」ず、再発防止怜蚎委員䌚の耇数の芪方に蚌蚀しおいたこずが日、分かった。

 盞撲協䌚幹郚によるず兄匟は、今月日の力士䌚で行われた簡易尿怜査で陜性反応が出た埌、控宀に残されお埅機した際、、人の芪方がいる前で吞匕を認め、「怖いから垫匠には黙っおいお欲しい」ず、懇願したずいう。日の協䌚理事䌚前の再発防止怜蚎委で䞡力士に再床、発蚀を確認するず、露鵬ず癜露山は、「歌手の家に行くず、嫌なにおいがした。それを(間接的に)吞っただけだ。僕らはほずんど、日本語が分からない。(日は)頭が真っ癜だった」などず、蚀い逃れを始めたずいう。

 専門怜査機関の分析が進む䞭、䞡力士は「䞀切、吞っおいない」などず吊定し続けおいた。再発防止怜蚎委は、月の吞匕では今回の簡易怜査に反応しないこずから、力士が自ら語った倧麻の吞匕歎の情報を慎重に扱った䞊で、理事䌚に報告した。

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垫匠には「いい子」だった露鵬、癜露山

午前時分、再発防止怜蚎委員䌚䌚合に出垭するため郚屋を出る癜露山
午前時分、再発防止怜蚎委員䌚䌚合に出垭するため郚屋を出る癜露山

 平幕露鵬(=倧嶜)、十䞡癜露山(=北の湖)兄匟はなぜ、倧麻に手を出したのか。人に近い関係者は「番付が䞊がっお私生掻が乱れ始めた。倜な倜な繁華街を出歩き、倧麻を芚えたのではないか」ず指摘する。

 珟圚の盞撲界は、䜓力に恵たれた倖囜人力士が䞊䜍を垭巻しおいる。露鵬、癜露山もレスリングの経隓を生かし、スピヌド出䞖を果たした。人ずも垫匠の前ではたじめな匟子で通しおいた。䞀方で巡業での態床は目に䜙った。この日に釈攟された元若ノ鵬を加えた人は、巡業䞭も垞に䞀緒に行動。露鵬、癜露山が「倧麻を吞った」ず告癜したずいうロス巡業では、人がそろっお集合時間に遅刻した。囜内巡業でも朝げいこをサボるこずもあり、担圓の千田川芪方(元関脇安芞乃島)から「おたえら、このたただず協䌚に蚀っおクビにしおもらうぞ」ず怒鳎られおいた。モンゎル巡業は若ノ鵬が逮捕され、癜露山は十䞡で䞍参加。露鵬は腰痛を理由に䌑堎したが、関係者は「無理をすれば出られた。人以倖、友達がいなくお寂しいから䌑んだんでしょう」ず指摘した。

 それぞれの垫匠は「たじめにけいこをする。玠盎な匟子」ず評䟡しおいた。䞀方で他の芪方衆の目は人に厳しかった。ある芪方は「倧関、暪綱を目指す意欲は感じられず、盞撲内容も匕き、はたきが倚く、ある皋床、勝おばいいっお感じだった」ず指摘する。事実、若ノ鵬事件発生埌、週間を経お行われた抜き打ち怜査で、露鵬、癜露山は倧麻陜性反応を瀺した。垞習者ゆえの行動にも思えるが、ある協䌚幹郚は「結局、この䞖界をなめおいたのでしょう」ず吐き捚おるように蚀った。

 昚幎の朝青韍問題以降、倖囜出身力士再教育の必芁性は蚎えられおいる。だが、行動を垞に泚芖される朝青韍以䞊に、垫匠にはいい匟子を挔じながら、裏で法を犯すような行為をしおきた人は、あたりにたちが悪い。

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今床は玉ノ井郚屋力士 タクシヌで暎れる

 盞撲協䌚に激震が走った日、新たな䞍祥事が明らかになった。玉ノ井郚屋の栃東芪方(元倧関)によるず、日倜に同郚屋の若手力士がタクシヌ車内で泥酔。運転手に蚀われた内容に腹を立お、埌郚座垭から運転手を殎ったずいう。若手力士は譊察に呌び出され、状況確認のために栃東芪方も立ち䌚った。同芪方は運転手に察し「車内の壊れた個所は郚屋で匁償したす」ず謝眪。被害届も提出されず、瀺談が成立しおいる。同芪方も「匟子にもきちんず察応しなさいず蚀い聞かせおいるのですが…こういう時期に問題を起こしお本圓に申し蚳ありたせん」ず頭を䞋げおいた。

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「助けるこずはできない」 倧嶜芪方が露鵬ず決別

 倧麻問題で日本盞撲協䌚から解雇された露鵬の垫匠、倧嶜芪方(元関脇貎闘力)は日、露鵬に察しお「悪いけど、もう助けるこずはできない」ず決別の意思を䌝えた。同日倜に東京郜江東区の倧嶜郚屋で露鵬ず面䌚した塩谷安男匁護士が明らかにした。

 倧嶜芪方は日の尿怜査で露鵬が倧麻に陜性反応を瀺しお以来「倧事な子どもですから信じる」ず匟子を擁護した。粟密怜査で陜性反応が出た埌も、別の機関ぞ怜査を䟝頌する可胜性を瀺唆しおいた。

 匟子ぞの態床が䞀転した倧嶜芪方に、塩谷匁護士は「芪方も郚屋の責任者、日本盞撲協䌚員ずしお苊しい立堎にあるのでしょう」ず話した。露鵬は近日䞭に郚屋を去る。

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䞉浊元瀟長の逮捕、拘眮は正圓 人身保護請求に怜察反論

 幎の米ロサンれルス銃撃事件で、米自治領サむパンで拘眮䞭の元䌚瀟瀟長䞉浊和矩容疑者()=日本では無眪確定=偎による人身保護請求に察し、サむパンの怜察は日、元瀟長の身柄を米本土ぞ匕き枡す什状等の法的芁件は満たされおおり「逮捕、拘眮は正圓」ず䞻匵、請求棄华を求める反論曞をサむパンの地裁に提出した。

 反論曞で怜察は、刀決確定事件で再び眪に問われない「䞀事䞍再理」の原則により蚎远されないずの元瀟長の䞻匵に぀いお、事件はロサンれルス郡地裁の管蜄であり、サむパンの地裁に䞀事䞍再理の適吊を怜蚎する暩限はないず指摘。

 たた、匁護偎が、殺人ず共謀の容疑の逮捕状が出おから幎が経過し「(叞法圓局は)匕き枡しの暩利を倱った」ず䞻匵しおいる点に぀いおは「出頭しないから蚎远が遅れたのであり、ばかげた考えだ」ず反論した。

 人身保護請求をめぐる審理は日に予定されおいるが、匁護偎はロサンれルス郡地裁が逮捕状取り消し請求に察する決定を日(日本時間日)に蚀い枡すこずになったこずを受け、延期を求めおいる。(共同)

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`Overvalued' Pound to Fall 20% as Darling Despairs (Update4)

By Lukanyo Mnyanda and Bo Nielsen

Sept. 8 (Bloomberg) -- Currency traders are starting to take the British government at its word, putting the tumbling pound on course for the worst year since 1992.

The pound is about 20 percent too strong against the dollar, even after falling more than 10 percent this year, according to New York-based International Foreign Exchange Concepts Inc., the world's biggest currency hedge-fund company. Futures traders became more bearish on the U.K. currency than at any time in the past 16 years.

Britain's steepest housing slump in 18 years prompted Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling to tell the nation it faces the biggest slowdown since World War II. The Bank of England kept interest rates unchanged for a fifth month last week to curb inflation that accelerated to 4.4 percent in July, more than twice the central bank's target. During the two previous times the economy cooled since 1997, the pound fell as much as 19 percent, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

The pound may be ``massively overvalued against the dollar,'' said John Taylor, who oversees $14.6 billion as chief executive officer of FX Concepts in New York. ``They're going to have to go for a cut. I don't know who they think they're kidding by holding out.''

Most Since Soros

Twelve percent weaker this year, the pound's slide has taken investors and strategists by surprise. The currency ended last week at $1.7661, below the year-end median forecast of $1.85 by 35 firms surveyed by Bloomberg. The last time it fell this much in a year was 16 years ago, when George Soros earned more than $1 billion speculating against the currency and the economy was emerging from its last recession. The pound fell to $1.7570 as of 3:49 p.m. in New York.

In the past two decades, the five major sell-offs in the pound averaged about 22 percent from peak to trough against the dollar, according to Bloomberg calculations. Since reaching a 26-year high of $2.1161 on Nov. 9, the currency depreciated 16 percent.

The pound's battering continued last week, after Darling, in an Aug. 30 interview with the Guardian newspaper, said Britain faces ``arguably the worst'' slump in more than 60 years. While Darling said the next day his comments had been misinterpreted, and that he had been referring to the global economy, Hans-Guenter Redeker, the London-based global head of currency strategy at BNP Paribas SA, took him at his word.

``There is no relief out there,'' said Redeker, whose firm was the most accurate forecaster in a 2007 Bloomberg survey. ``A part of the government is giving up hope of this economy doing better in the next couple of years. That tells us a lot.'' The pound will weaken another 2.6 percent by year-end to $1.72, according to BNP Paribas.

Stalling Growth

The U.K.'s longest expansion in more than a century stalled in the second quarter as the economy posted zero growth. House prices fell in August at the fastest annual pace in at least 25 years, HBOS Plc, the nation's biggest mortgage lender, said Sept. 4. The economy will grow 1.4 percent this year and 0.9 percent in 2009, down from 3 percent last year, according to the median of 29 economists' forecasts compiled by Bloomberg.

Until June, the U.K. had clocked up 63 straight quarters of growth as soaring property values fueled consumer spending, propelling former Prime Minister Tony Blair's Labour Party to three election victories. That imploded as credit markets seized up amid the U.S. subprime-mortgage crisis, leading to the first run on a British bank in more than a century when Northern Rock Plc collapsed. Prime Minister Gordon Brown, formerly Chancellor under Blair, nationalized Northern Rock in February.

`Looks Expensive'

``The past weeks and months you have clearly seen the deterioration in growth in the U.K,'' said Andrew Balls, an executive vice president and member of the investment committee of Newport, California-based Pacific Investment Management Co., which oversees almost $830 billion. ``The pound still looks expensive.''

Traders have amassed a net 47,285 futures contracts betting on a pound decline, data from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission in Washington showed on Sept. 5. That's the most since at least 1992 and compares with 1,460 wagers on a stronger pound at the end of July.

So quickly has the pound slumped, some technical indicators used to predict changes in direction are signaling a rebound is in the cards.

`Fallen Too Far'

Trading envelopes, which measure how far from the mean a price has strayed, show the pound's decline is more than double the typical changes versus the dollar in the past 20 days. The pound's 14-day relative strength index against the dollar averaged 13 last week, below the level of 30 that signals an imminent gain. The last time the index averaged below 20 was in the week ended March 8, 1985. The pound strengthened 21 percent versus the dollar in the following six weeks.

``For the moment sterling has arguably fallen too far compared to current rate expectation,'' said Michael Metcalfe, the London-based head of macro strategy at State Street Global Markets, which has $14 trillion under custody.

Traders have increased bets the Bank of England will cut interest rates. A Credit Suisse Group index of probability derived from overnight indexed swap rates showed 30 percent odds of a 25 basis-point reduction in the main U.K. lending rate at the Oct. 9 meeting. As recently as July 23, they showed 28 percent odds of an increase. The central bank left its key rate at 5 percent last week.

``Outside of the U.S., the U.K. is where you've seen the most acute impact of the credit crunch on the real economy,'' said Adam Boyton, a senior strategist in New York at Deutsche Bank AG, the biggest currency trader in 2007, according to Euromoney Institutional Investor Plc.

A decline in the U.K. currency to $1.50 by July 2009 is a ``fairly reasonable'' possibility, said Taylor at FX Concepts. Against the euro, the pound may be overvalued by between 5 percent and 10 percent, he said.

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囜民生掻基瀎調査 玄割が「生掻苊しい」 (1/2ペヌゞ)
2008.9.9 22:55

 「生掻が苊しい」ず感じおいる䞖垯が過去最倚の・%にのがり、幎連続しお増加したこずが、厚生劎働省が日に発衚した平成幎囜民生掻基瀎調査で分かった。バブル厩壊以降、所埗の平均額がほが䞀貫しお䜎䞋するなど、家庭の懐が冷え続けおいるこずが原因。調査では、倚くの人が健康に自信を持おず、心の元気床も䜎い状態に陥っおいるこずも明らかになった。

割が生掻苊

 調査時期は幎月ず月で、米サブプラむムロヌン問題を契機にした株䟡䞋萜や景気埌退が衚面化する前。調査察象は党囜玄䞇䞖垯。今回は幎ごずに行われる倧芏暡調査の幎にあたり、所埗に加え、貯蓄や健康なども調べた。

 生掻が「倧倉苊しい」「やや苊しい」ず答えた䞖垯は過去最高の蚈・%。児童(歳未満の未婚者)のいる䞖垯で%、母子䞖垯では%になった。

 厚劎省では「生掻苊の原因に所埗の䜎迷がある」ず分析しおいる。調査によるず、幎の䞖垯あたりの平均所埗は䞇円で、幎に比べお䞇円の増だった。しかし、ピヌクずなった幎の䞇円に比べ玄䞇円の枛。バブル厩壊埌の長匕く賃䞊げ抑制が、生掻実感を寒々ずしたものにしおいる。

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政府保管の事故米、すべお廃棄も怜蚎 蟲氎省次官が衚明

2008幎9月8日21時29分

 蟲林氎産省は日、政府が保管する事故米をすべお廃棄するこずも含め、珟行の売华制床を芋盎すこずを明らかにした。売华自䜓を継続する堎合も、食甚米を扱う業者は入札に参加させない方針だ。

 癜須敏朗事務次官が定䟋䌚芋で明らかにした。圓面の予防策ずしお、()売华先を、工業甚のりメヌカヌに限る()食甚米に混ぜられおもすぐ分かるよう、売华前に事故米に着色する()賌入業者が粉末にする堎合、珟行の䜜業圓日に職員が立ち䌚う怜査方法から、事前の抜き打ち怜査に改める――などを怜蚎䞭ずいう。

 蟲氎省はこの日、政府から事故米を賌入しおいる瀟のうち、奈良県ず犏岡県の各瀟ず䞉笠フヌズを陀く瀟に察し、食甚ぞの転甚の有無を調べる点怜に着手した。

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「資源効率良い産業構造に」 新経枈成長戊略を改定

2008幎9月9日22時20分

 経枈産業省は日、人口が枛少するなかでの経枈成長を目指す「新経枈成長戊略」を改蚂した。戊略は小泉政暩が幎月に䜜成したものだが、このずころの原油・原材料高を「想定しおいなかった環境倉化」ず䜍眮づけ、資源を効率的に䜿う産業構造ぞの転換を柱の䞀぀に掲げた。

 改蚂では、幎の資源高による日本の海倖ぞの所埗流出は幎に比べ兆円増えおいるず指摘。資源高が囜内䌁業の収支を悪化させおいるうえ、投資や賃金が䌞びず、需芁が拡倧しおいないず分析。急速な原油・原材料高などで成長率が䞋ぶれしおいるこずぞの危機感を盛り蟌んだ。

 こうした状況を克服するため、少ない資源を効率的に䜿う「資源生産性」の高い産業構造ぞの転換を提唱。資源囜や新興囜などからの投資を増やすこずなども、新たな戊略の柱に䜍眮づけた。

 生産性を高める政策ずしお、省゚ネで資源効率の良い蚭備を導入した䌁業に察する蚭備投資枛皎や、䞻芁枯湟のコンテナタヌミナルの時間化などを盛り蟌んだ。たた、海倖に流出した所埗を囜内に還流させる方法ずしおは、来幎床に蚭立される官民共同ファンド「むノベヌション創造機構」を通じた産業育成や、新興囜・資源囜ずの経枈連携協定()・投資協定()の締結加速などに力を入れるずしおいる。

 䞀方、個人消費を促すため、賃䞊げを産業界にも働きかける。経産省は、こうした政策を進めるこずで、幎に想定した実質(囜民総所埗)の成長率(幎平均.%)を確保できるずしおいる。(久保智)

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