Business

After the launch of "Halo 3" on Tuesday (September 25), Microsoft promoted a brand new Xbox360 racing game "Project Gotham Racing 4" (PGR4) with a friendship match as a "TOP on TOP" competition between Taiwanese World Cyber Games (WCG) PGR3 Delegate You-cheng Liu and "Drift Master of Taiwan" Po-hsiung Chou at YAMAHA MotorTown in Taipei City, Taiwan. Before the friendship match, Cary Chen (Senior Product Marketing Manager of Entertainment and Device Division, Microsoft Taiwan) show the new features on PGR4 to the press, VIPs, and guests and pra

Dr Karl Kruszelnicki has announced that he will run for the Australian senate in the upcoming federal election. Kruszelnicki will be number two on the Climate Change Coalition's New South Wales Senate ticket. "I'm in the business of communicating important ideas. I've dedicated my life to it. This is another way to continue that dedication. And I'm looking forward to the opportunity to talk about the big questions in a political context. The personal is political," Mr Kruszelnicki said in a media release. According to his ABC bio, Kruszelni

Up to 20,000 people have protested against the Australian governments industrial relations legislation (WorkChoices in central Melbourne today. Protestors, including children wearing hardhats and holding anti-Work Choices signs, blocked traffic for up to two hours. Victorian Trades Hall Council secretary Brian Boyd linked the WorkChoices legislation to the upcoming election. “The key thing we have to do is make sure that John Howard is not re-elected, that is our number one task over the next coming weeks and months," he said. "As the worker

Police in Hollywood, Florida, United States are investigating a strange bank robbery involving a bomb-like device being attached to a bank teller. Law enforcement sources said the bomb-like device was comprised of cylinders taped together with wires. The bank teller said that yesterday three armed men came into his house in Dania Beach, Florida and strapped the fake bomb to him. The armed men ordered the man to rob the Wachovia bank in which the man works. Hollywood police spokesman Tony Rode said the men questioned the teller about the bank

Australian Prime Minister John Howard today announced medical research grants totalling AU$560 million. The grants are the result of the Australian Government's 2008 National Health and Medical Research grants. According to a government media release, the grants will fund research into heart disease, obesity, cancer, child health, depression and chronic diseases such as diabetes and asthma. Howard said that the grants were possible because of the good state of the economy. "It's an extraordinary human dividend out of good economic times," he

The Australian Federal Government today announced an additional AU$714 million in aid to farmers affected by the drought. Prime Minister John Howard announced $430 million on September 17, bringing the total aid to over $1 billion. Deputy Prime Minister Mark Vaile has said that the farming sector is important to the Australian economy. "There's about 130,000 farming units across Australia that contribute over $100 billion into our GDP - up to about 18-20 per cent of our exports in a good year," he said. "We cannot afford as a nation to lose o

Jean-Claude Trichet, president of the Frankfurt, Germany, based European Central Bank ECB, today in an interview with radio station Europe-1 scolded France for spending to much, warning the country's finances were in a 'critical' state. Previously, French president Nicolas Sarcozy had attacked the ECB for not lowering rates even when the euro reached a new record high of 1.41 € against the US dollar. Trichet used the radio interview for a counter-attack and claimed that the problems France might have with international competition were homema

A briefcase containing magnets, batteries and a cell phone sitting in the bushes outside a Charleston, South Carolina coffee shop drew the local bomb squad's attention, before it was determined that it contained no explosives. Police had earlier closed down Calhoun Street in downtown, where the coffee shop is located, but reopened the street and let local residents and business owners that the situation was over after performing an investigation. Customers inside the shop called police around 9:00 a.m. when they found the package by a bush,

Police in Florida, United States, are looking for a 10-year-old boy who was last seen in the back seat of a car that was later carjacked. Authorities at the Broward County sheriff's office say that Louis Gonzalez was with his stepfather when his stepfather was forced out of the car by an armed suspect. Another suspect was also at the scene at the time of the crime. Both suspects were males. Gonzalez's stepfather had just came from the area bank. The car was hijacked at about 12:40 p.m. today at the corner of McNab Road and Andrews Avenue in

The U.S. economy and its currency as an instrument of world trade has suffered a series of major setbacks in recent months. Some analysts say that the Federal Reserve's September 18th dramatic rate cut to 4.75% from 5.25% may be a case of "too little, too late", or that it was excessive and dooms the dollar. Today, Saudi officials declined to cut interest rates in lockstep with the US Federal Reserve for the first time in decades. According to Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, International Business Editor for The Daily Telegraph, "it's a signal that t

The ability of Australian opposition leader, Kevin Rudd to run the country's economy has been questioned by the Government after he made an error responding to a question on Australia's current tax system today. Speaking in Queanbeyan, New South Wales earlier today, Mr Rudd was asked if he could name the current tax rates and the thresholds at which they kick in. Mr Rudd said that he thought the top tax rate started at AUD$175,000. In fact, Australia's top taxation rate begins at $150,000. "Well, as of July 1, if you went through the four thre

__NOTOC__ In a free trade zone in Antalya, Turkey, 80 women workers of FMC Novamed are in strike for almost a year now, since September 26th, 2006. They allege not only low wages but also severe abuses on FMC's part. Novamed, founded in 2001, is a factory managed by Turkish capitalists and located in the free trade zone in Antalya, Turkey. 95% of its workers are women. It is owned by Fresenius Medical Care (FMC), which is an international corporation with its headquarters in Germany. With factories in 12 countries and a total of 100,000 work