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Pension investing fund loses 9 trillion yen
THE ASAHI SHIMBUN
2009/7/3
The Government Pension Investment Fund lost a record 9.667 trillion yen in stock and bond markets in fiscal 2008, the second consecutive year it has come out a loser in its investments.
The rate of return for its investments using reserve funds from the employee and national pension programs was minus 10.03 percent, the worst on record, the GPIF said Wednesday.
[ . . . ]
The GPIF invested 117.6286 trillion yen in fiscal 2008, 92.5397 trillion yen of which went into financial instruments. About 80 percent of that money was invested in Japanese and overseas bonds and 20 percent in domestic and foreign stocks.
Japanese bonds were the only investment that produced a positive yield, at 1.35 percent. The rate of investment return for foreign stocks was minus 43.21 percent, the GPIF said.
[ etc. ]
http://www.asahi.com/english/Herald-asahi/TKY200907030082.html
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Video
Jun 10, 2009
Russia Destroys Chemical Weapons
[From - ]
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U.S. to give up missile shield plans – Russian upper house speaker
MOSCOW, July 4 (RIA Novosti) – The speaker of the Russian parliament’s upper house said Saturday the United States could give up its plans to deploy a missile shield in Poland and the Czech Republic.
Federation Council Speaker Sergei Mironov told Ekho Moskvy radio he has reasons to believe that “ultimately, this thoughtless and very dangerous step will not be made – there will be neither radar nor missiles.”
[ . . . ]
http://en.rian.ru/world/20090704/155432376.html
RIA Novosti
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Medvedev counts on specific results of Moscow meeting with Obama
MOSCOW, July 4 (RIA Novosti) – Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said Saturday he hopes for specific results of the forthcoming visit to Moscow by his U.S. counterpart Barack Obama on July 6-8.
“We are actively preparing for your visit to Moscow. We proceed [from the assumption] that specific results will be achieved at the summit, which should open new prospects of our ties’ development for the benefit of Russian and U.S. nationals, for peace and progress,” Medvedev’s message to Obama on U.S. Independence Day said.
“Today Russia-U.S. interaction is acquiring particular significance to resolve the most important problems of modern times. Their number includes maintaining strategic stability, nuclear nonproliferation, fighting international terrorism, settling regional conflicts,” the Russian leader said.
Medvedev said he hopes “by joint efforts, while acting in the spirit of mutual respect and trust, the required dynamics will be given to the Russian-American partnership, and it will be taken to a qualitatively new level meeting the interests of our states and the entire global community.”
Kremlin aide Sergei Prikhodko confirmed Friday that the Russian and U.S. presidents would sign a key framework arms control agreement during Obama’s visit.
[etc.]
http://en.rian.ru/russia/20090704/155430135.html
RIA Novosti
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Video about Preparations in Russia for US President Obama’s visit
U.S. President Barack Obama is to pay an official visit to Russia July 6-8. Preparations in Moscow are in full swing to give President Obama the full red-carpet treatment. His hotel accommodation and restaurant venues have already been announced.
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Picture Gallery
Stunning Snaps From NASA’s Eyes In Our Skies
Stunning photos from space have been released by NASA, including this breathtaking image of the Sarychev Volcano on the Kuril Islands, seen from the International Space Station.
11:02am UK, Thursday June 25, 2009
15319365.jpg
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Prized items missing from Archives
Updated 4h 56m ago |
By Larry Margasak, Associated Press
WASHINGTON — — National Archives visitors know they’ll find the Declaration of Independence, the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights in the main building’s magnificent rotunda in Washington. But they won’t find the patent file for the Wright Brothers’ Flying Machine or the maps for the first atomic bomb missions anywhere in the Archives inventory.
Many historical items the Archives once possessed are missing, including:
• Civil War telegrams from Abraham Lincoln.
• Original signatures of Andrew Jackson.
• Presidential portraits of Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
•NASA photographs from space and on the moon.
• Presidential pardons.
Some were stolen by researchers or Archives employees. Others simply disappeared without a trace.
And there’s more gone from the nation’s record keeper.
The Archives’ inspector general, Paul Brachfeld, is conducting a criminal investigation into a missing external hard drive with copies of sensitive records from the Clinton administration. On the hard drive were Social Security numbers, including one for one of former vice president Al Gore’s daughters.
Because the equipment also may include classified information, Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, calls it a a major national security breach.
Brachfeld has documented thousands of electronic storage devices, including computers and servers, that have gone missing over the past decade from the National Archives and Records Administration.
Grassley, who has demanded an accounting of all missing items, said the loss of historical documents robs our nation of its history and is completely unacceptable.
[etc.]
Some records have been missing for decades from the Archives’ 44 facilities in 20 states and the capital, including 13 presidential libraries.
[ . . . ]
We do not have item-by-item control, said Archives spokeswoman Susan Cooper. We can’t. We have 9 billion documents. We don’t know exactly what’s in each of those boxes. There’s no point in preserving materials that cannot be used.
Each missing historical item has its own story.
• From 1969 to 1980, the patent file for the Wright Brothers Flyer was passed around multiple Archives offices, the Patents and Trademarks Office and the National Air and Space Museum. It was returned to the Archives in 1979, and was last seen in 1980.
• In 1962, military representatives checked out the target maps for the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan. The maps have been missing ever since.
• In May 2004, one of FDR’s grandsons asked to see a portrait of his grandfather at the Roosevelt presidential library in Hyde Park, N.Y. It couldn’t be found, and hasn’t been seen since 2001.
[etc. - there's lots more]
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2009-07-04-archives-missingitems_N.htm
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Lettera di Benedetto XVI alla vigilia del vertice dell’Aquila: «Creare posti di lavoro per tutti che consentano di mantenere una vita degna ai bisogni della famiglia»
Il Papa scrive al presidente del Consiglio Silvio Berlusconi in vista del G-8 che si terrà all’Aquila dall’8 al 10 luglio e chiede che la crisi non fermi gli aiuti ai paesi poveri.
[etc.]
L’Aquila – (the crisis cannot be a reason to not attend to the poor) – as G-8 ministers come to meet together in L’Aquila
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G8: IL SUMMIT 2009 ALL’AQUILA 
La crisi economica internazionale e le crisi regionali, la sicurezza alimentare, la lotta ai cambiamenti climatici, la liberalizzazione del commercio mondiale.
Questi i temi principali che gli Otto Grandi affronteranno all’Aquila dall’8 al 10 luglio nel summit organizzato dal governo italiano, presidente di turno del G8 dal primo gennaio 2009.
I formati ‘allargati’ del Summit dell’Aquila prevedono il primo giorno le riunioni dei Paesi G8, il secondo giorno il coinvolgimento dei Paesi G5 (Brasile, Cina, India, Messico, Sud Africa) e, su invito della Presidenza italiana, dell’Egitto.
Nello stesso giorno la discussione sarà aperta ad altri tre Paesi (Australia, Indonesia, Corea del Sud) rappresentanti del MEF (Major Economies Forum) con i quali si affronterà il tema dei cambiamenti climatici e della sicurezza alimentare.
L’ultimo giorno verranno infine coinvolti altri Paesi, tra cui quelli africani, oltre alle sei più importanti Organizzazioni Internazionali, per un totale di 39 presenze internazionali sedute allo stesso tavolo.
G-8 in L’Aquila
July 8 – 10, 2009
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Translation using Google translation tools on the search page under “advanced search” where it says ‘language tools’ -
G8 SUMMIT 2009 THE All’Aquila
The international economic crisis and the regional crisis, food security, combating climate change, the liberalization of world trade.
These are the main issues that face the Eight Great All’Aquila from 8 to July 10 in the summit organized by the Italian Government, President of the G8 from January 2009.
The formats’ enlarged ‘dell’Aquila provide the Summit the first day of the meetings of G8 countries, the second day, the involvement of the G5 countries (Brazil, China, India, Mexico, South Africa) and, at the invitation of the Italian Presidency, the’ Egypt.
That same day, the discussion will be open to other three countries (Australia, Indonesia, South Korea) representatives of the MEF (Major Economies Forum) by which it will address the issue of climate change and food security.
The last day will be finally involved other countries, including those in Africa, in addition to the six major international organizations, for a total attendance of 39 international meetings at the same table.
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July 7, 2009 at 5:55 am
Great site! Very professional looking. Thanks!