| HBS, KSG announce new joint degree program
Harvard Business School (HBS) and Harvard's Kennedy School of Government (KSG) announced Tuesday (April 3) the creation of a fully integrated joint degree program in business and government that represents an innovative approach to preparing leaders for a growing area of practice of critical importance to global society. Armed with the skills required to manage complex organizations and shape innovative public policy, students will be prepared to work in positions of influence at the interface of business, government, and nonprofit organizations, dealing with challenges in such critical areas as health care, the environment, economic development, and government regulation. "Graduates of this new program will be able to address some of the world's most pressing issues — issues that call for collaboration between the public and private sectors and that require leaders who can effectively operate in both areas," said Kennedy School Dean David T.
[Column] The economics of the FTA
I don't know how they did their survey, but according to an article I once read in a foreign academic journal, 97 percent of economists support free trade theory. The problem is most of the economists I know are opposed to the FTA with the United States; or, to be more precise, are opposed to the agreement in its current form, so I guess they make up the remaining 3 percent who didn't learn their economics right. The FTA is already more than the subject of debate about economics in Korea. It has become a political issue, and everyone is being forced to choose a position. Have you noticed how there is a clear taking of sides in the way the media covered the story of a working man who committed self-immolation in protest? That may be the fate of social science theory, but various economic theories are being degraded and used as tools for justifying political positions.
Michigan : Michigan Council for Labor & Economic Growth Vulnerable ...
March 7, 2007 -- Employers in southeast Michigan left their real-world identities behind and tried to make ends meet as low wage workers today at the Council for Labor & Economic Growth (CLEG) Vulnerable Worker Forum held at the CVS Learning Center on the campus of Wayne County Community College. A modified poverty simulation was used to jumpstart employer awareness of the struggles that most vulnerable workers - hourly and entry level staff face and whose difficulties with poverty often impact their employment success.The CLEG Low Wage Worker Advancement Committee, in partnership with the Detroit Regional Chamber of Commerce and CVS Pharmacy hosted the event. Featured was an employer-led roundtable discussion of key action steps employers large and small can take to connect low income employees to support services to decrease turnover, provide opportunities for advancement, and improve long-term workforce stability.
Turkish lira firms, but investors cautious
Turkey's lira firmed in early trade on Thursday but investors were seen cautious ahead of key jobs data due in the United States on Friday. The lira strengthened to 1.4260 against the dollar in early trade from Wednesday's close of 1.4330, which followed a range-bound session. Despite recent losses from a global sell-off of risky assets, the lira is still more than 20 percent above a June 2006 trough, though slightly weaker than its end-2006 level. "Abroad the global turbulence has decreased which has affected us positively and that will continue today," one Istanbul trader said. He saw the lira trading in a range of 1.42 to 1.44 until Friday, when markets would be focused on U.S. non-farm payrolls data, a key indicator of the strength of the economy and a guide to future interest rate moves there.
2p won't buy Brown a ticket to No 10
We really should have seen it coming. Those of us who have watched and charted the progress of Gordon Brown's political philosophy could easily have predicted it. The 2p tax cut, the centrepiece of this Chancellor's last Budget, which has shaken the pieces in the kaleidoscope of British politics and thrown a different coloured prism across our view of the political parties, was always an inevitable next step for Mr Brown to take. The clues were all there. Gordon Brown has laid them himself over the past few years, during which acute observers will recall that he has consistently sought to reclaim the considerable reputation of the philosopher Adam Smith - Margaret Thatcher's favourite economist - as a bulwark for his "New Labour" economics. It is, of course, a wonderfully appropriate claim for him to make, not only because of their shared enthusiasm for prudence and a strong sense of the importance of what Smith called "moral sentiments", but only because of the pleasing symmetry provided by their shared home town of Kirkcaldy in Fife.
The Chinese are coming!
ORLANDO, Fla.The competitive cauldron that is the domestic Chinese handset market has produced a few winners. And that has fueled a desire among those winners to enter the U.S. market.
The prize? Prestige, profits and brand-building that could serve long-term, global growth, according to analysts.
At least two of those Chinese vendorsZTE USA Inc. and Alcatel Mobile Phones, owned by the industrial conglomerate TCL Corp.have arrived on American shores bearing handsets and grand ambitions.
Grand ambitions in this context might well translate to a couple SKUs (stock keeping units) at a tier-one carrier, maybe a handful of SKUs at a handful of tier-two carriers. (ZTE, for instance, has also scored WiMAX business with Sprint Nextel Corp.)
For carriers, the Chinese handset vendors may provide a source of low-cost phones, giving them leverage with larger, better-branded vendors for better deals.
Preist jailed for internet petition
Father Nguyen Van Ly, a 60-year-old Catholic priest in View Nam who helped set up an internet petition calling for democratic change, has been sentenced to eight years imprisonment for conducting propaganda against the state.
Four of his associates, Nguyen Phong, Nguyen Binh Thanh, Hoang Thi Anh Dao and Le Thi Hang, were also sentenced.
In response, Amnesty International's Deputy Asia Pacific Director Tim Parritt said:
The politically-motivated charges against Father Ly and his associates are a blatant attempt to silence them and to scare off other critics of the government.
"This sentence means Father Ly will be a prisoner of conscience for the fourth time in two decades. It is indicative of a broader crackdown on dissent by the Vietnamese authorities that has been intensifying since late last year.
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