Monday, September 28, 2009 WASHINGTON: World Bank President Robert Zoellick on Sunday warned that the United States should not "take for granted" the US dollar's role as pre-eminent global reserve currency."The United States would be mistaken to take for granted the dollar's place as the world's predominant reserve currency, Zoellick said, in excerpts of a speech to be delivered Monday."Looking forward, there will increasingly be other options to the dollar," Zoellick said in the address to be given at Washington's John's Hopkins University.His speech on Monday comes ahead of World Bank and International Monetary Fund annual meetings in Istanbul, Turkey early next month.Addressing the recent global economic crisis, he faulted the world's central banks for having "failed to address risks building in the new economy," although in the case of Washington's Federal Reserve Bank, he said, "it will be difficult to vest the independent and powerful technocrats at the Federal Reserve with more authority.""My reading of recent crisis management is that the Treasury Department needed greater authority to pull together a bevy of different regulators" to manage the finance crisis.He added that since Treasury is an executive department "Congress and the public can more directly oversee how it uses any added authority."
Sunday, February 28, 2010 HAVANA: Hundreds of wealthy merchants and cigar aficionados from all parts of the world gathered in Havana this week to bid high stakes for humidors full of premium cigars. Cuba's annual Habanos festival ended on Friday night with an auction of ornate humidors of cedar and mahogany stacked with hand-rolled stogies that raised 800,000 euros ($1.09 million dollars). Habanos S.A. executives this month said cigar sales fell 8 percent to $360 million in 2009, so they have created the Julieta, a smaller, milder version of the Romeo y Julieta cigar, aimed specifically at female smokers. Women now make up only 5 to 10 percent of customers for Habanos. But even with the creation of the Julieta, Garcia said Habanos has only modest hopes for 2010 sales, due largely to a weak economy in Spain, the biggest market for Cuban cigars. The flavor of premium tobacco relies on the soil and climate in which it is grown. The western province of Pinar Del Rio, famous fo...
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