Some of my picks for today: €72.3 billion bid for ABN Amro AMSTERDAM, Netherlands: A consortium of banks led by Royal Bank of Scotland PLC announced plans Wednesday for a rival bid to Barclays PLC's offer for ABN Amro NV, setting up one of the largest takeover battles in corporate history and sending shares in the Dutch bank up more than 5 percent. More here: - http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/04/25/business/EU-FIN-COM-ABN-Amro-Takeover-Battle.php ############################ China's economy : breathing fire Roaring too fast for comfort ONE would think that Asian equity markets would be happy at the news that China’s economy, the regional powerhouse, is growing even faster than expected. But that’s not the way it turned out. Shortly before China’s government said, late last week, that the economy grew at an annualised pace of 11.1% in the first three months of 2007, and as forecasts rose for the year’s overall growth, traders on the region’s big exchanges briefly took fright. The next day markets rebounded. Nobody is jumpy about growth, of course, but of the government's reaction to it. Chinese officials are getting worried that a meltdown may be pending, and have been intervening to dampen things down. But over the past few years tighter interest rates, lending restrictions and heavier bank regulation have failed to cool the economy. Now they may have to be even more aggressive. China’s fairly primitive financial infrastructure makes it difficult to fine-tune credit through monetary and fiscal policy. As worries grow about credit bubbles and overinvestment, no one knows quite how hard the government may need to step on the brakes. All this makes investors, who should be bullish, uncertain about what the near future may bring. More here: - http://www.economist.com/world/asia/displaystory.cfm?story_id=9063414 ############################### Morgan Stanley offers settlement in gender suit NEW YORK: Morgan Stanley, one the world's largest securities firms, said Tuesday that it had set up a $46 million claims pool to settle a sex-discrimination lawsuit and said it would enact new policies to help women succeed as financial advisers. The settlement, which must be approved by the U.S. District Court in Washington, would change training and management-development programs in Morgan Stanley's wealth-management division, the company, based in New York, said. Six women who are former Morgan Stanley financial advisers filed the complaint last year, claiming the company had discriminated against them and more than 3,000 other current and former advisers since August 2003. Morgan Stanley paid women less than men and gave them fewer promotion opportunities, the women claimed. More here: - http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/04/24/business/morgan.php ################################# Between the lines of Britain's class warfare LONDON: Did a "toilet" come between them? We will probably never know. But the reports last week that Prince William and his girlfriend, Kate Middleton, broke up in part because of her mother's so-called middle-class behavior, including using the word "toilet" for "bathroom," were a vivid reminder that class issues still bubble vexingly beneath the surface of British life. Mrs. Middleton's other missteps, apparently, included having once worked as a flight attendant, a fact that caused some of William's friends to cattily mutter "doors to manual" whenever Kate came into the room. But it does not really matter what she did or did not do. What is significant is that even in new, egalitarian Britain, everyone seemed so mesmerized by accounts of it, so ready to believe in the return of the class war that had supposedly ended in a truce years ago. British society is certainly no longer as rigid or stratified as it was when George Bernard Shaw said in "Pygmalion" that "it is impossible for an Englishman to open his mouth without making some other Englishman hate or despise him." More at - http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/04/24/america/britain.php ###################