TOP STORIES
[EDIT: Eijsden, March 30] Incidentally, on another topical issue, Limburg(NL) MP, Mr Wilders' recent film "Fitna" has clearly been the top story. There was concern that the film would provoke a negative response from the Muslim community. However this does not appear to have been the case. In itself, this is not surprising, since a greater part of the film is taken up by gentlemen - one uses the term loosely - wearing, what one assumes to be, Muslim clerical garb, making statements about the West in terms that one would have thought rendered them actionable in Western courts. In this general context, it is worth reading news from Turkey, available at the link that follows: "Turkey in radical revision of Islamist texts" http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/02/26/wturkey126.xml and also William Dalrymple in the NYRB, who talks about "A New Deal in Pakistan" at this link: http://www.nybooks.com/articles/21194. The interest in this is that the two authors above reveal that other things are happening on the Islamic home front than the quotes in the film would lead us to believe. On another topic, we regulary pass on rating agency assessments of major businesses in this newsletter, as we receive them from the companies concerned. However, although it may have no relevance to the report in this issue, concern has been expressed in the media about delays by ratings’ agencies in downgrading mortgage bonds and related structured debt products, despite widespread awareness of problems in the subprime sector.
Try the Liège Biologistics story and then Isobionics at Chemelot. The new flights to Tel Aviv’s Silicon Valley could be interesting too. Expats should also not forget the MAY FAIR at Snowworld.
SW