Singapore's star rises as Switzerland stumbles

Singapore's star rises as Switzerland stumbles

Reuters Neil Chatterjee and John O'Donnell

As pressure mounts on Switzerland's flagship bank UBS and the country's secrecy code comes under fire from the United States and Germany, Singapore's star as a haven for the super-rich is rising fast.

The sun-drenched Asian city-state, with the highest density of millionaires in the world, is seeing wealth management prosper as the U.S. and Europe grapple with the worst slump in a generation.

Singapore's strict bank secrecy rules seem likely to be spared an assault similar to the one that Berne is defending now, following the charging of UBS's wealth management chief for helping Americans hide money.

With close ties to powerful Asia, Singapore is in a stronger position to resist pressure from the U.S. than rival Switzerland or Alpine retreat Liechtenstein, which recently partially surrendered bank secrecy.

"It's a wealth centre," said Martyn Schilte, a manager in charge of selling million dollar supercars in Singapore. "If you look at the type of client we sell to, it's people with a net worth of $50 million-plus."

The city-state has its sights on attracting the world's wealthy to its palm-tree-lined coastline where some apartments come with a private yacht berth. Its plan is working.

As Asia's elite move billions to the country, assets under management soared by a third last year to more than $800 billion (538 billion pounds).

The amount may be small compared to Switzerland. Singapore had $500 billion in offshore assets under management last year, according to the Boston Consulting Group, compared to four times as much in Switzerland.

But it puts the region on the map for banks hoping to capitalise on a more resilient Asia as the West slows.

As jobs cuts cloud London and New York, banks such as Credit Suisse and Macquarie Group are hiring wealth management staff in Singapore, despite a local recession.

Bank of China is one of the latest to plan a wealth management arm in the Southeast Asian country, hoping to meet millionaires such as those who recently gathered to buy and sell private jets on the sidelines of a Formula One night race.

"Singapore has developed a lot and has all the ingredients to compete internationally," said Deepak Sharma, an executive in charge of Citigroup's global wealth management business outside the United States.

NO SURRENDER

Like tax hideout Monaco, Singapore has a hard line on bank secrecy. It has not agreed to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development's (OECD) standards of transparency and exchange of information.

Singapore, which is trying to grow financial services to wean dependence on manufacturing, is on the International Monetary Fund's list of tax havens and targeted by a proposed new U.S. anti-tax-abuse law.

Another country that had similarly shunned the OECD, Liechtenstein, recently agreed to a landmark deal with the U.S., paving the way for the exchange of bank account details with Washington in cases of tax evasion.

The agreement may pressure Switzerland into similar concessions, which could work to Singapore's advantage.

Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said this month such scrutiny in the West could lead to more European money flowing into the country, a hot talking point in the industry.

"It is interesting to notice a growth in the number of European clients booking wealth through Singapore, which unlike Switzerland does not recognise the European tax directive," said Sebastian Dovey of consultancy Scorpio Partnership.

But European cash comes with the risk that Singapore too could be targeted in the crackdown on tax havens. "I expect Singapore to come under pressure, too," Prime Minister Lee said.

The U.S. told Singapore and its banks last year to sever financial links with Myanmar's military junta, widely believed to use the city state as its main offshore banking centre.

"Increasingly Singapore is looking out on a limb," said Jeffrey Owens, director of the OECD's Centre for Tax Policy Administration.

"It's for the Singapore government to assess how the political climate is changing to protect the reputation of the Singapore brand," he said.

Singapore's central bank said confidentiality laws were no shield for criminal activities and that banks could disclose customer information to assist such investigations.

PANDORA'S BOX

Singapore is in a stronger position to resist the strong arm of Washington.

Singapore, experts in the region point out, is a U.S. military ally and one of the few Asian countries with a deepwater port that could hold a U.S. aircraft carrier.

Brussels too may shy away from a fight as it is unclear how many Europeans park money in Singapore. Bankers played down its significance as a destination for European money and said most comes from Asia and in particular Indonesia.

Singapore's central bank says over half the money managed in the city-state came from outside the Asia-Pacific, although this includes pension funds and hedge funds as well as private banking.

Ultimately, however, it may be politics that makes throwing down the gauntlet to Singapore difficult. To do so, said experts, would be an indirect challenge to China.

"If I were the Singapore government, I would not sign unless it's on equal footing with Hong Kong, the key competitor," said Roman Scott, managing director of consultancy Calamander Capital.

The European Union, said Scott, is not putting pressure on Hong Kong, however, because it is reluctant to confront Beijing.

Furthermore any agreement with Europe could pave the way for demands for the same treatment from countries such as Indonesia, Thailand or Taiwan.

"That is one of the reasons for the resistance as they do not want to open a Pandora's box," said Scott.

"They are scared what might come up. The European customers are minor -- what's more important is that you do not want to open up everything for everybody."

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イラク空自派遣の真実を白日の下にさらした東京（中日）新聞の大スクープ

　１２月１４日の東京（中日）新聞の大スクープを、果たしてどれだけの国民が問題意識をもって読んだことだろう。

　その大スクープは、航空自衛隊隊員の証言として、「多くの武装米兵を運んだ」、「空自機は米軍のいいように使われ、コマに過ぎなかった」、と指摘している事を、はっきりと書いている。

　この大ニュースは他のメディアにはまったく報道されていない。

　という事は、殆どの国民は知らないままだということだ。

　折から、イラクからの空自輸送隊の帰国により、わが国のイラク戦争協力のための自衛隊派遣が、すべて終了する。

　イラク情勢がまったく不透明にもかかわらず、ブッシュ政権の終わりとともに、終わる。

　そしてオバマ新政権のアフガンにおける「テロとの戦い」への協力要請に対し、麻生自民党も小沢民主党も、その協力について競い合う事になるのだ。

　愚かなことだ。情けない事だ。何よりも、間違いである。

　サマワでの水供給というパフォーマンスの正体がばれ、おまけにサマワの治安が悪くなりつつあった時、待ってましたとばかり、代って始められたのが空自の後方支援であった。

　日本の国を守るはずの自衛隊は、一体何を後方支援して来たのか。

　度重なる国会質問にも、安全保障上の理由を盾に、政府、防衛省、外務省は、一切を隠してきた。

　輸送実績に関する資料要求に対しては、見事に黒塗りで埋め尽くされた資料で答えた。

　その嘘が、東京新聞のスクープで、一瞬にして暴かれる事になったのだ。

　４月１７日に名古屋高裁が下した、「空自のバクダッド空輸支援はどこから見ても違憲である」、という判決の正しさが証明されたのだ。

　もうそろそろいいだろう。

　政府、防衛省、外務省は、国民の前に頭を下げて、対米従属の前に憲法違反を繰り返しました、と詫びるべきだ。

　嘘を隠して仕事を続けても、まともな仕事ができるはずはない。

　自らを滅ぼす事になる。
　
Copyright ©2005-2008 www.amakiblog.com

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Shell pension scheme value falls 40%

By Ed Crooks and Norma Cohen

Published: December 12 2008 23:01 | Last updated: December 12 2008 23:01

Investments in Royal Dutch Shell’s Netherlands pension fund have dropped 40 per cent since the start of the year and the scheme has fallen far short of the regulatory minimum requirement, the company has told employees.

It said in a letter that contributions from some employees and the employer would have to rise. It could need increased investment of billions of pounds to comply with Dutch regulations, which demand that schemes in deficit are brought back to asset levels of 105 per cent of liabilities within three years.

Shell will increase its contribution from 5 per cent to 23.6 per cent of pensionable salary.

Although the measures will only affect Dutch pension scheme members, the financing will have an effect on Shell, which is listed in London.

The scheme is now only 85 per cent-funded compared with 180 per cent at the end of last year. The Netherlands has one of the toughest pension funding regimes in the world but does not have a pension insurance fund to guarantee benefits for workers whose employer has become insolvent without a fully funded scheme.

The letter was published by royaldutchshell.com, a website used to air complaints against Shell. The letter said that its assets were 70 per cent invested in equities and there was “an above average allocation to emerging markets”, both sectors that have suffered badly in the downturn.

Shell confirmed that the fund had fallen into deficit, but would not say how much more it expected to have to pay in. It is reviewing its investment strategy and has shifted some assets into government bonds.

Shell’s UK pension fund shifted out of equities and into bonds in 2007, and remains in surplus.

The company said the deficit would have no effect on current pension payments, but could affect whether workers’ pensions kept pace with future inflation.

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Oil-rich Angola launches direct flight to China

AFP Louise Redvers

Angola has launched a flight linking it to China, which has sent thousands of citizens to work on the reconstruction of the continent's fastest growing economy following its 27-year civil war.

The first direct 14-hour flight from Luanda's Fourth of February Airport to Beijing's Capital International Airport left on Saturday.

"The flight will run twice a week on a Boeing 777-200 ER," said a spokesman for TAAG, Angola's national airline.

It is being launched on a charter basis but if the market reacts positively, we'll pass to a scheduled service," he added.

Chinese money and manpower have played a key role in the reconstruction of Angola since the end of its 27-year civil war in 2002. Tens of thousands of Chinese workers are employed on building and roads projects across the west African country.

Last year more than 22,000 Angolan visas were issued to Chinese passport holders.

Credit lines from China to the former Portuguese colony are believed to exceed four billion US dollars.

Many of these loans are oil-backed and Angola is now China's largest supplier of crude oil.

"The opening of a direct air link has been planned for a while -- and is needed because of all the Chinese construction workers in Angola," said Alex Vines, head of the Africa Programme at the London-based thinktank Chatham House.

"As long as large Chinese construction projects continue in Angola, a direct air link between China and Angola will be profitable."

The new Luanda to Beijing route comes in the same week TAAG announced it was halting flights to Addis Ababa in Ethiopia and Pointe Noire in Congo (Brazzaville).

Citing "serious safety concerns," the European Union last month renewed its ban on TAAG flights and extended the restrictions to all Angolan Airlines.

The Angolan government responded by sacking TAAG's board and creating a commission to run the airline and investigate the safety issues.

It was also revealed that TAAG had lost 70 million dollars in the last year and was ranked 122 in a list of 124 world airlines.

Angolan Transport Minister Augusto Tomas said: "It is important that TAAG's performance is in line with Angola's current economic development."

Angola is one of the world's fastest-growing economies and has overtaken Nigeria as sub-Saharan Africa's largest oil producer with Luanda growing as key destination for many international airlines.

Lufthansa, British Airways, Brussels Air, Air France, Portugal's TAP and South African Airways (SAA) are just some of the major carriers running flights in and out of the country.

Flights are usually full and often overbooked. One-way tickets can sell for up to 5,000 dollars on some routes due to the demand from the growing expatriate community of oil and construction workers enjoying Angola's post-war boom.

Lufthansa spokeswoman Karin Webr said: "In terms of revenue, this is one of our best performing flights, and there is certainly a potential to increase the frequency of the flight to more than once a week."

"As well as the oil traffic, we are seeing a demand from the Asian market using Frankfurt to transfer into Luanda from China and other parts of the region."

Next year Delta hopes to become the first American airline to run a scheduled service from the United States.

A company spokeswoman confirmed the flight was awaiting approval from the Angolan government but the plan was to operate from Atlanta to Luanda, via Cape Verde.

Thousands of Americans work in Angola for oil companies such as Exxon Mobile, Chevron and BP and there is also a large diplomatic and NGO presence in the country.

Currently the only direct route to the United States is via a charter service limited to oil workers and their families.

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Queen Elizabeth II reins in extravagance as credit crunch grips

AFP Cyril Belaud

Always concerned about staying in touch with her subjects, Queen Elizabeth II has invited the royal family to follow her example and tighten the purse strings during the financial downturn.

The 82-year-old monarch has warned her grandsons Princes William, 26, and Harry, 24 -- third and fourth in line to the throne -- that all ostentatious signs of living it up would be inappropriate, according to newspapers.

British subjects are apparently in no mood to see the young royals partying in exclusive London nightclubs while the kingdom sinks into recession, the cost of living rockets and jobs are lost.

"Whatever is the mood of the nation, she (Queen Elizabeth) tries to go along with that mood," Nicholas Davies, an author of several books on the monarchy, told AFP.

The sovereign has a personal fortune of 320 million pounds (475 million dollars, 355 million euros), according to The Sunday Times newspaper's 2008 Rich List, but is not a spendthrift.

"She's not a flamboyant character and never has been," Davies said.

"She is not someone who has gone and spoiled her children, because she doesn't believe in spoiling them. She would expect them all (the other royals) to follow her example this Christmas.

"Children or grand-children, they will all behave in the same way. It is unlikely that this coming season we will see William and Harry going out to nightclubs, getting blind drunk and fooling around with attractive girls."

Adapting to the credit crunch should not be difficult for Queen Elizabeth, who has long since garnered a reputation for looking after the pennies.

For example, she insists that the Buckingham Palace lights are turned off when rooms are vacated and left-overs from banquets are re-used.

Annual head of state expenditure has dropped from 87.3 million pounds in 1991-1992 to 40 million pounds in 2007-2008.

In mid-October this year, during her state visit to Slovakia and Slovenia, she showed how she has cut back her wardrobe expenditure as a nod to the tougher times enveloping her subjects.

For a state banquet in the the Slovene capital Ljubljana, the queen asked her dressmakers to make her a formal gown out of some material she was given more than 20 years ago during a tour of the Middle East.

For her walkabout in the city centre, she wore a red outfit already seen at an official engagement in April. In Slovakia, she appeared in the same pink wool outfit that she wore on Easter Sunday.

Normally, etiquette demands that the queen never wears the same outfit twice.

However, the press believes Her Majesty is a convert to "credit crunch couture", or fashion for those whose clothing spending has been hit by the financial downturn.

Her husband Prince Philip remains a peppery naval officer without no zest for flashy spending. At the age of 87, he still wears trousers bought 30 years ago.

In line with her position as head of state, Queen Elizabeth avoids voicing her opinion on political matters.

But during a recent visit to the London School of Economics, she called the situation "awful" and asked: "Why did nobody notice it?", showing her feelings on the events gripping her subjects.

The queen has not been completely spared by the credit crunch. Her dressmaker Hardy Amies and favoured porcelain maker Royal Worcester and Spode have both filed for administration.

-----------------------------------
Panic as Ukraine's currency plummets

AFP Anya Tsukanova

The national currency of Ukraine, whose pro-West government wants to join the European Union, has almost halved in value in the last six months, prompting panic amongst its heavily indebted population.

The sudden fall in the hryvnia has sent Ukrainians rushing to exchange booths to change local money for hard currency, in scenes that recalled the hyperinflation suffered by the country in the early 1990s.

Not only do Ukrainian consumers have to pay back loans taken out in more prosperous times but many will also have to pay them back in dollars.

The hryvnia (UAH) was on Friday trading at 7.49 UAH against the dollar compared with 5.05 UAH at the beginning of the year and 4.84 UAH in July.

The National Bank of Ukraine has allowed the hryvnia to trade freely in line with the conditions of a 16.4-billion-dollar (12.8 billion euro) IMF loan aimed at helping the country through the financial crisis.

The hyrvnia -- a currency introduced in 1996 and named after money used in ancient Kiev -- has endured the ignominy of suffering one of the worst devaluations, along with the Icelandic krona, in the global financial crisis.

"I consider myself a cultivated gentleman. But at the moment I'm thinking of taking petrol and a lighter and setting the National Bank of Ukraine on fire," said Egor Sobolev, a journalist who owes 60,000 dollars for his flat.

"We are paid in hryvnia and for the moment our family budget allows us to make monthly payments of 1,000 dollars, but if the hyrvnia falls to 10 or 15 to the dollar the Bank has a big chance of going up in flames!"

As of December 1, Ukrainian consumers had notched up debts of 235.5 billion hryvnia (31 billion dollars) some 70 percent of which (176 billion hryvnia or 23 billion dollars) has been taken out in foreign currency.

Dollars and euros were almost impossible to buy in banks and exchange offices in Ukraine in November as people flocked to trade their hyrvnia for stronger currencies.

The growth in hryvnia-denominated bank deposits was replaced in October by an outflow amounting to 10 percent of investments.

The panic reached a peak earlier this month when a newspaper reported that all dollar bank savings could be converted into hryvnias, a rumour vehemently denied by the authorities.

"Savers can only feel that they have been duped and have reason to be scared of similar surprises in the future," said the Dzerkalo Tyjnia weekly.

"Who is going to answer for for the devastation of entire layers of Ukrainian society?"

President Viktor Yuschchenko oversaw the currency's introduction when he was working as head of the central bank in the 1990s.

Ukraine has been among the countries hardest hit by financial turmoil as the plunging price of steel, the country's main export, has exacerbated a credit crunch and a sharp fall in stock prices.

Underlining the country's difficulties, Ukrainian industrial production is in freefall, crashing 15.2 percent in November compared to the previous month and 28.6 percent compared to November 2007.

Metals output in November was 23.5 percent lower than in October and a whopping 48.8 percent lower than the same figure for November 2007.

Out of the three major economies of the former Soviet Union -- Kazakhstan, Russia and Ukraine -- Ukraine is to see the sharpest slowdown, analysts at UBS said in a bleak research note.

"Ukraine will see the sharpest slowdown among the three countries despite support from the IMF. Its currency will have to devalue given that it has the worst net international asset position," the UBS analysts said.

But they added that with the conditions of the IMF loan there is a "good chance" that Ukraine might finally start implementing the reforms that it had put off for 10 years.

----------------------------
Iraq's reconstruction a 100-billion failure: report

AFP

An unpublished US government report says US-led efforts to rebuild Iraq were crippled by bureaucratic turf wars, violence and ignorance of the basic elements of Iraqi society, resulting in a 100-billion-dollar failure, The New York Times reported on its website.

The newspaper said it had gotten hold of a copy of the 513-page federal history of the reconstruction effort that is circulating in Washington in draft form among a tight circle of technical reviewers, policy experts and senior officials.

The document has former secretary of state Colin Powell complaining that after the 2003 invasion, the Defense Department "kept inventing numbers of Iraqi security forces -- the number would jump 20,000 a week! We now have 80,000, we now have 100,000, we now have 120,000.'"

The overarching conclusions of the history is that the US government has in place neither the policies nor the organizational structure that would be needed to undertake the largest reconstruction program after the Marshall Plan, the report said.

All in all, the document concludes that the rebuilding effort never did much more than restore what was destroyed during the invasion and the pervasive looting that followed, The Times pointed out.

By mid-2008, according to the history, 117 billion dollars had been spent on the reconstruction of Iraq, including about 50 billion in US taxpayer money, the paper noted.

At one point, an official at the US Agency for International Development was given four hours to determine how many miles of Iraqi roads would be needed to be repaired and reopened, according to the newspaper report.

The official searched through the agency's reference library, and his estimate went directly into a master plan.

Money for many of the local reconstruction projects was divided up by a spoils system controlled by neighborhood politicians and tribal chiefs, according to The Times.

"Our district council chairman has become the Tony Soprano of Rasheed, in terms of controlling resources," the paper quotes one US Embassy official in Baghdad as saying. "You will use my contractor or the work will not get done.'"

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Ecuador to seek 'very large' debt reduction: Correa

AFP

Ecuador will seek a very large reduction in its foreign debt, President Rafael Correa said Saturday, a day after announcing the country would default on its interest payments on "illegitimate" foreign bonds.

"We want to present a proposal which recognizes the value of the debt, but at a price much less that those 3.8 billion dollars they say we owe, when we have paid much more than that," Correa said in a weekly radio and television broadcast.

Ecuador said last month that it would contest 3.8 billion dollars, or 39 percent, of its foreign debt in international bonds, saying corruption and illegal activity contributed to the sum.

Correa on Friday said he had cancelled payment of 30.6 million dollars in interest on 2012 Global Bonds, due Monday, in a default that would also affect interest payments on 2015 and 2030 bonds that were negotiated at the same time.

The move is the country's third debt default in 14 years and could compromise its access to credit in the current financial crisis.

Correa based his reasoning on a 14-month government ordered audit that looked at Ecuador's finances from 1976 to 2006.

Ecuador's external debt amounts to 10.6 billion dollars, or about 20 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP), and international bonds made up 3.86 billion dollars of the foreign debt, the audit found.

Some of the bonds originated as part of debt restructuring after Ecuador's economic crisis of 1999-2000, when the banking system collapsed and the South American country defaulted on its foreign debt.

The debt default prompted the bonds to sink and the country's risk value to rise.

"I personally assume responsibility. If this costs too much to the country, the country will also decide if it wants me to continue as president or not," said US-trained economist Correa.

Analysts said the move was likely to be welcomed at home ahead of April 2009 elections.

Ecuador has already begun to feel the effects of worldwide recession with the drop in oil prices -- which finance 40 percent Ecuador's state budget -- and also in remittances from its emigrants abroad.

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米巨額詐欺：野村ＨＤも被害か　欧州の大手銀行なども？

　米中堅証券会社社長バーナード・マドフ容疑者による巨額詐欺事件で、日本の野村ホールディングスや欧州の大手銀行なども損害を被った可能性がある、と米メディアが１３日伝えた。被害総額が５００億ドル（約４兆５０００億円）に達し史上最大ともいわれる詐欺事件は、大規模な国際犯罪に発展しそうだ。

　マドフ容疑者は、自ら設立したヘッジファンドを通じ投資家の資産を運用。新しく呼び込んだ投資資金を既存投資家の配当に回す「ねずみ講」的な手法で高利回りを演出、長年にわたり投資家らをだましたとされる。

　被害額など詳細は不明だが、野村のほか、米大リーグ、メッツのオーナーら著名人や、フランスの大手銀行ＢＮＰパリバなども被害を受けた可能性があるという。（共同）

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Investors fear $50bn loss in Madoff's 'big lie'

By Joanna Chung and Henny Sender in New York and James,Mackintosh in London

Published: December 13 2008 02:00 | Last updated: December 13 2008 02:00

Investors around the world were yesterday rushing to assess potential losses from what could be Wall Street's biggest fraud - a multi-billion-dollar scheme allegedly perpetrated by investment manager Bernard Madoff.

The case threatens to stoke fears among investors and encourage withdrawals from hedge funds struggling to raise cash to meet redemptions. At least one civil lawsuit had been filed yesterday on behalf of

Madoff investors seeking to recover money.

"These people went to sleep Wednesday night thinking they had a comfortable retirement and now they are thrown into a spiral of horror," said Stephen Weiss, a lawyer representing people who had invested a combined $1bn with Mr Madoff. "Some of these people don't know how they are going to pay their mortgage."

Mr Madoff, former chairman of the Nasdaq stock market, was released on a $10m bond on Thursday after prosecutors said he told senior employees, including his sons, that his operations were "all just one big lie" and "basically, a giant Ponzi scheme [similar to a pyramid scheme]". Prosecutors said Mr Madoff put his losses at about $50bn but that estimate has not been independently confirmed.

Mr Madoff apparently came to grief over redemptions. He told a senior employee this month he was struggling to meet $7bn in redemption requests from clients, the criminal complaint said.

Mr Madoff's investors ranged from his friends in New York financial and charitable circles to globally known fund managers. Funds that invested with Madoff - including Tremont, a US fund of hedge funds that had put more than $1bn in his hands - were particularly active in recent weeks in soliciting new money for his vehicles, say people who received the requests.

The biggest exposure appears to be Fairfield Greenwich, a US group with a $7.28bn fund managed by Madoff. Sterling Equities, flagship company of Fred Wilpon, owner of the New York Mets baseball team, was another investor.

In Europe, two funds from Pioneer Investments, an arm of Italy's UniCredit, had "substantially all" their $835m of assets invested with Madoff. Other investors include Switzerland's Union Bancaire Privée, London's Man Group, Spanish bank Santander's Optimal division and UK fund manager Nicola Horlick's Bramdean Alternatives.

The Securities and Exchange Commission obtained an order to freeze assets of the firm. Experts questioned whether regulators could have acted earlier. "You have to wonder why the SEC did not know anything about this . . . if this has been going on for years," said Bradley Simon, a former federal prosecutor.

Dan Horwitz, Mr Madoff's lawyer, did not return calls for comment. He said on Thursday that Mr Madoff "is a longstanding leader in the financial services industry. We will fight to get through this unfortunate set of events".

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Ｃ型肝炎訴訟：日本製薬と和解合意　提訴６年で全面終結へ

　薬害Ｃ型肝炎訴訟で、全国原告・弁護団と被告会社「日本製薬」（東京都千代田区）は１４日、事実上の和解にあたる基本合意書に調印した。国と別の被告企業２社とは既に合意を結んでおり、提訴から約６年を経て訴訟は全面終結する。

　調印式では、日本製薬の三浦勉社長が「被害の発生と拡大を防止できなかった責任を認め、心より深くおわび申し上げます」と陳謝し、「製薬会社として深く反省し、より安全な血液製剤の研究開発に努める」と誓った。原告側は「たった１度きりの人生を踏みにじったことを永遠に忘れないで下さい。薬害を起こさないために、何ができるか真剣に考えていただきたい」と訴え、再発防止などを求めた。

　同社の血液製剤で感染した原告３６人は、この合意を受けて、裁判所で損害賠償の請求権を放棄して訴訟を終結させる。

-----------------------------
北朝鮮で第３世代携帯電話サービス開始、エジプトの通信会社
2008.12.14 23:31

　エジプトの通信会社「オラスコム・テレコム」の関係者は１４日、北朝鮮での第３世代携帯電話サービスを１５日から開始すると述べた。同社は平壌での今年末のサービス開始を目標に通信網工事などの準備を進めていた。

　ＡＰ通信によると、同社による投資は通信インフラなど約４億ドル（約３６４億円）規模。（共同）