24. juli 2006

Like a millionaire I just noticed that my blog just had its 1,000,000th page-view since I started it, making it the 15th Salon blog to reach that milestone. Thanks to every one of you who made that happen! I'm really honored that people from all corners of the world actually click in here once in a while to read my musings, links and more or less well thought-out opinions. 8:21:33 PM    comment []  trackback []

AMD, Intel with drastic price cuts Solid price reductions on processors: Don’t you just love competition? Intel and AMD have both announced drastic price reductions in the near future for their processors and we should expect even more reductions by the end of this year. The first to make a step in this direction was made by California-based AMD, following the threat posed by Intel’s Core 2 Duo processors. The positive reviews posted on every site during the last three weeks for Core 2 Duo, after the NDA (non-disclosure agreement) ceased for all testers, determined AMD to fight back with lower prices for its chips. Both top chip manufacturers have been complaining about loss of profits last year, "blaming" each other for the stiff competition, but I'm not shedding any tears for them. 6:52:03 PM    comment []  trackback []

WTO talks in crisis. Film at 11. All is normal at the WTO: Last-ditch efforts to unblock the Doha round of global trade talks have collapsed, with fears it will take months for negotiations to resume. A meeting of leading trading nations, the so-called G6 group, hit a stalemate after US trade negotiator Susan Schwab turned on Europe, reports suggest. She is said to have refused to compromise over farm subsidies.  My memory may not be that good, but I really don't remember anything but stalemates and breakdowns in any WTO negotiations ever since farming issues were introduced. Is there really any willingness anywhere to reduce tariffs and subsidies on agricultural products or fisheries? Update: London Times Financial Editor Graham Searjeant argues the Doha round was doomed to failure from the start: The underlying conflicts between the US, the EU, big agricultural exporters and smaller members nonetheless threatened to derail the process several times. In particular, apparent concessions on agricultural subsidies, tariffs and quotas always turned out to be less than they seemed, because to give the developing world what it wanted would radically undermine the farming industries of the North, possibly threatening rural life from California to Cracow. It's one thing to embrace Bono and Bob Geldof on a stage and talk about helping the developing world in abstract terms, and offering some relief for debt that could never be paid anyway, it is another entirely for the rich world to agree on doing something that matters. In this latest round, Europe is trying to pin the entire blame on the US, but there is quite enough blame to go around for everybody. Is any western government willing to raise the ire of its agricultural sector by doing something that will really help poor farmers in developing countries? I don't think so. 4:02:58 PM    comment []  trackback []

Iran and Hezbollah have a plan to dominate the Middle East The Sunday Times has a sobering article: God's army has plans to run the whole Middle East You are the sun of Islam, shining on the universe!” This is how Muhammad Khatami, the mullah who was president of Iran until last year [a so-called moderate! --ed], described Hezbollah last week. It would be no exaggeration to describe Hezbollah — the Lebanese Shi’ite militia — as Tehran’s regional trump card. Each time Tehran has played it, it has won. As war rages between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon, Tehran policymakers think that this time, too, they can win. “I invite the faithful to wait for good news,” Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said last Tuesday. “We shall soon witness the elimination of the Zionist stain of shame.”  It is a scary article outlining the Ayatollah Khomeini-inspired extremist organisation, bent on dominating far more than Lebanon. Iran's "handicap" in the Middle East is its Shiitism, putting it at odds with the majority Sunni Muslims. But Iran has a very determined plan: The problem is that since the Iranian regime is Shi’ite it would not be easy to sell it to most Arabs, who are Sunni. To overcome that hurdle, it is necessary to persuade the Arabs that only Iran is sincere in its desire and capacity to wipe Israel off the map. Once that claim is sold to the Arabs, so Ahmadinejad hopes, they would rally behind his vision of the Middle East instead of the “American vision”.  Anti-semitism sells itself in the Muslim Middle East (in Europe it requires a bit of packaging, but not much). Anyone who can provide results against Israel will become attractive. Imagine what Iran will do with nukes... 1:15:55 AM    comment []  trackback []

© Copyright 2006 Jan Haugland. Last update: 01.08.2006; 17:38:39.