• Canada: Toronto hotel boasts own honey from rooftop
• Peso at five week high in Chile, retailers boost stocks
• Portugal: EDP wind generation doubles in six months

• USA: Washington, DC home to world's largest Maharishi Vedic Architecture building
• Grenada: New products to help support education and world peace
• 'World's Healthiest Building' inaugurated in Washington DC, USA

• About 20 per cent of EU timber illegal or suspect - report
• US: Widespread earnings woes reflect consumer fears
• Logging threatens tribes in Peru's Amazon

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Positive Trends
10 Short Summaries of Top Stories

Canada: Toronto hotel boasts own honey from rooftop
22 July 2008 - The arrival of three queen bees and their 40,000 workers has created a new buzz at one of Toronto's oldest hotels, and its chefs have first rights on the up to 700 pounds of honey produced there. The luxury Fairmont Royal York hotel installed three bee hives on its 13th floor rooftop terrace this spring to supplement an in-house garden that already provides its restaurants with fresh herbs, vegetables, and flowers. (more)

Peso at five week high in Chile, retailers boost stocks
22 July 2008 - Chile's peso closed on Monday at its strongest in nearly five weeks as bank and pension fund stop-loss orders kicked in, while stocks were pulled higher as investors snapped up shares of large retailers. (more)

Portugal: EDP wind generation doubles in six months
22 July 2008 - Portugal's EDP Renewables, a subsidiary of Energias de Portugal, said on Monday its wind-powered electricity generation doubled in the first six months of the year to 3,961 gigawatt hours. Wind energy output in the United States soared over 300 per cent to 1,957 GWh in the first half of 2008 and in Europe it rose 241 per cent to reach 2,003 GWh. (more)

Solar panels get aesthetic designs
22 July 2008 - Bulky and obtrusive rack-mounted solar panels may be a thing of the past. Spurred by recent advances in technology, solar panel makers are scrambling to come up with neater and cleaner products that will overcome the aesthetic objections of home owners to traditional solar panels. (more)

Spain: Solar thermal plant buoys Spanish investors
22 July 2008 - Spain's Industry Minister Miguel Sebastian buoyed hopes in the country's solar power industry on Monday just days after announcing a dramatic cut in subsidies. The cuts will not apply to solar thermal, a technology that concentrates the sun's light to produce heat and steam which in turn drives turbines, rather than producing electricity directly in silicon PV panels. (more)

US: General Motors allies with utility group on electric cars
22 July 2008 - General Motors Corp on Monday said it is collaborating with an organization representing US utilities to ready the nation's electric infrastructure for the widespread sale of plug-in electric cars, such as the Chevrolet Volt. The company is the second major US automaker to announce a collaboration with Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), which represents utilities that generate more than 90 per cent of the power in the United States. Ford Motor announced its own partnership with EPRI in March. (more)

Hong Kong shares close at 1-month high, led by bank HSBC
21 July 2008 - Hong Kong shares rose 3 per cent on Monday, their biggest single-day gain since early April, led by financial stocks after Citigroup calmed credit market worries with a smaller-than-expected loss for the first half. Europe's largest bank, HSBC Holdings, jumped the most since end-March, rising 4.1 per cent, boosted by a Sunday Telegraph report that said the lender had held talks with China's main sovereign investment fund over a potential investment. (more)

Taiwan to allow China institutions to buy Taiwan shares
21 July 2008 - Taiwan is preparing to allow Chinese funds approved under the Qualified Domestic Institutional Investor (QDII) program to invest up to 3 per cent of their assets in Taiwan stocks, in the latest sign of warming ties across the Taiwan Strait. Once Taiwan and China have signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU), the cap would be lifted to 10 per cent. (more)

Libya, Portugal sign investment agreements
20 July 2008 - OPEC-member Libya and Portugal have signed two accords to boost cooperation in the oil and gas industry and allow the north African country to carry out investments inside and outside Portugal, Libya's official news agency Jana said. The agreement also aims to boost bilateral trade and invited Portuguese companies to carry out projects in Libya in sectors such as housing, renewable energy, water purification, and tourism. (more)

Uganda sees tourism earnings up five per cent in 2008
20 July 2008 - Uganda projects $500 million earnings from its growing tourism sector in 2008, up five per cent from last year, a marketing official said. The country has battled a brutal insurgency in the north for over two decades, but on-off peace talks have restored some normalcy in the region of late. The Uganda Tourism Board said two investors were looking to put up two hotels in the north, a sign that businessmen were confident of peace. Uganda straddles the equator but enjoys a tropical climate. It prides itself as being the source of the Nile and having Lake Victoria, the second largest fresh water lake in the world. (more)

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Success of Maharishi's Programmes
10 Short Summaries of Top Stories

USA: Washington, DC home to world's largest Maharishi Vedic Architecture building
20 July 2008 - Speaking on the Maharishi Global Family Chat, Dr Bevan Morris, Prime Minister of the Global Country of World Peace, reported highlights of his recent trip to the United States, which included a visit to the largest building in the world constructed according to the principles of Maharishi Vedic Architecture. (more)

Grenada: New products to help support education and world peace
15 July 2008 - Speaking 9 July 2008 on Maharishi's Global Family Chat, Raja Graham de Freitas, Raja of Invincible Grenada for the Global Country of World Peace, reported progress in developing a line of agricultural products in Grenada, the proceeds of which will help support educational and peace-creating initiatives on the island. (more)

'World's Healthiest Building' inaugurated in Washington DC, USA
29 June 2008 - Real estate developer Jeffrey Abramson presented news about the opening of his Maharishi Sthapatya Veda Architecture office building in Washington, DC, USA christened 'Tower II'. The building was inaugurated on 20 June 2008 in the presence of members of the Washington brokerage community who had come for the unveiling of the 'Healthiest Building in Washington'. Attending members of the press renamed Tower II 'The World's Healthiest Building'. (more)

Announcing a new programme for businesses, organizations, and clubs to learn Transcendental Meditation
6 June 2008 - In a recent Global Family Chat, Raja Steven Rubin, Raja of Invincible China for the Global Country of World Peace, spoke about special new group programmes for learning Transcendental Meditation in clubs, businesses, and organizations. (more)

All-green Maharishi Sthapatya Veda office tower to open in Washington DC
2 June 2008 - Real estate developer Dr Jeffrey Abramson presented details of his newly constructed all-green, non-toxic office building in Washington, DC, USA, called 'Tower II', which is built according to principles of Maharishi Sthapatya Veda architecture in accord with Natural Law. Dr Abramson, a major partner in The Tower Companies, noted that in the real estate industry, builders of commercial buildings are responsible for 40% of the energy used in the United States. (more)

Estonia: Rising coherence promotes invincible economy
1 June 2008 - Dr Jaan Suurkula, National Director of Estonia for the Global Country of World Peace, reports that a well-known source for credit ratings of businesses and countries has in its latest evaluation shown confidence in Estonia, in spite of decreases in the Estonian economy during the spring. Dr Suurkula attributes the continuing stability of the economy to the large number of Yogic Flyers and practitioners of Transcendental Meditation creating invincibility for the nation. (more)

Washingtonian Magazine and Washington Business Journal present first Green Awards to The Tower Companies
15 May 2008 - Washingtonian Magazine has given The Tower Companies (based in North Bethesda, Maryland, near Washington, DC, USA) its first Washingtonian Green Awards for being green-building pioneers in the design and construction of the world's largest Vedic office building. In addition, the Washington Business Journal has given the company a Green Company of the Year Award. Tower Company partner, Jeff Abramson, is a well-known practitioner of the Transcendental Meditation technique. (more)

Stockroyalty.com interviews successful investment manager, long-time practitioner of Transcendental Meditation
5 May 2008 - Successful and knowledgeable investment manager Monty Guild's company has been operating continuously for nearly four decades. He and business partner Tony Danaher are long-time practitioners of Transcendental Meditation. (more)

Raja Willem Meijles reports on the strength of the Dutch economy
1 April 2008 - Raja Willem Meijles, Administrator of Invincible Holland for the Global Country of World Peace, spoke about the nation's achievement of invincibility as reflected in the news reports that Holland's economy is doing very well, especially compared with other European countries. (more)

Denmark: Indications of rising invincibility
6 October 2007 - Dr Bjarne Landsfeldt, Raja (Administrator) of Denmark for the Global Country of World Peace, recently reported on indications of rising invincibility in the nation. (more)

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Flops
10 Short Summaries of Top Stories

About 20 per cent of EU timber illegal or suspect - report
22 July 2008 - Nearly a fifth of wood imported into the European Union has been harvested illegally or comes from suspect sources, mostly in Russia, Indonesia, and China, according to a report by environmental group WWF. In all, 40 per cent of wood-based products from southeast Asia, 30 per cent from Latin America, and over 36 per cent of those from Africa originated from illegal or suspect sources, said the report on 2006 imports. Major importers were Finland, Britain, Germany, and Italy, it added. (more)

US: Widespread earnings woes reflect consumer fears
22 July 2008 - The deepening plight of the American consumer has started to take a big bite out of corporate earnings. A number of major US companies who rely on consumer spending warned about their results on Monday evening, including credit card company American Express Co, Macintosh computer and iPod maker Apple Inc, and cruise ship operator Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd. The breadth of the warnings, which also came from makers of chips and carpets, may signal that the credit crisis is quickly moving beyond housing and banks and into mainstream Corporate America. (more)

Logging threatens tribes in Peru's Amazon
21 July 2008 - Delia Pacaya grew up in Peru's Amazon in a nomadic tribe that shunned contact with outsiders, but when loggers invaded the land she fled the virgin rain forest and settled in a tiny village. Like many others born in the jungle, Pacaya says she felt threatened by loggers, who often cut beyond the reach of police. The result, environmental and human rights groups say, is the destruction of the Amazon and ancient tribal life. Although experts do not know for sure how many indigenous people have abandoned the rain forest and wound up in towns in recent years, they say former tribe members struggle to adapt and often fall to illnesses that their people had never before been exposed to. (more)

Japan: Nikkei falls for 6th week, tech shares hurt
20 July 2008 - Japan's Nikkei stock average slipped 0.7 per cent on Friday for its sixth straight week of falls as Kyocera Corp and other tech shares dropped on disappointing results from Google Inc. Early Tokyo gains on better-than-expected results from JPMorgan evaporated as investors took stock of after-the-bell results from Google, Microsoft, and Merrill Lynch which all came in under expectations. (more)

Mexico jobless rate rises to 3.55 per cent in June
19 July 2008 - Mexico's jobless rate in June came in slightly higher than expected at 3.55 per cent, the national statistics agency said on Friday. A Reuters survey of analysts had forecast an unemployment rate of 3.50 per cent for the month. Mexico's economy is slowing as its top trading partner, the United States, goes through a sharp downturn. Industrial production, which makes up nearly 40 per cent of the economy, slipped 1.2 per cent in May. (more)

Unnecessary flights killing the poor
19 July 2008 - Businessmen who take flights rather than use video conferencing are adding to global warming that is condemning millions of the world's poorest people to death, according to Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu. Scientists say average global temperatures will rise by between 1.8 and 4.0 degrees Celsius this century due to burning fossil fuels for power and transport. They note that emissions at altitude are many times worse than at ground level. These rising temperatures will cause droughts, floods, crop failures and water shortages, putting millions of lives at risk. Tutu, a Nobel Peace laureate and tireless campaigner for global justice and equality, said scientists predicted that up to 185 million Africans would die this century as a direct result of climate change. (more)

US: Economic crisis called worst since 70s
15 July 2008 - For many Americans this feels like the worst economic crisis in their lifetimes, and some leading investors are starting to say they may be right. The bursting of the dot-com bubble in 2000 and 2001 seems tame by comparison, and the savings and loan crisis of the late 1980s and early 1990s almost forgettable. Similarly, the global impact looks to be greater than that of the Asian financial crisis of 1997 and 1998. Most comparisons turn to the low growth, high inflation, weak dollar, and soaring energy prices of the 1970s, but this time with a housing crisis and spiking commodities prices thrown in, all threatening a prolonged recession. (more)

US: Administration rejects regulating greenhouse gases
11 July 2008 - The Bush administration on Friday rejected regulating greenhouse gases blamed for global warming, saying it would cause too many job losses. In a 588-page federal notice, the Environmental Protection made no finding on whether global warming poses a threat to people's health, reversing an earlier conclusion at the insistence of the White House and officially kicking any decision on a solution to the next President and Congress. (more)

US: June home foreclosures up 53 per cent
10 July 2008 - Home foreclosure filings jumped 53 per cent in June from a year earlier, although they were down 3 per cent from May, and foreclosures are expected to rise further, real estate data firm RealtyTrac said on Thursday. Foreclosure filings rose on an annual basis in 39 states to a total of 252,363 properties during the month, with Nevada, California, Arizona, and Florida posting the highest foreclosure rates. One out of every 501 US households received a notice of default, auction sale or bank repossession in June, RealtyTrac said. (more)

European biotech firms get support from wealthy patrons
4 July 2008 - As traditional sources of venture capital and public equity funding dry up in a global flight from risk, young biotech firms are turning instead to an informal network of high net worth individuals. Geneva-based NovImmune, raised 58 million Swiss francs ($57.3 million) in just such a private financing round in 2006. Basel-based Speedel, now listed with a market valuation of around $500 million, is another company that skipped venture capital, winning support instead from rich individuals including former Roche chairman Fritz Gerber and Nestle vice-chairman Rolf Haenggi. (more)