(Source: Economist) Is the rise in the price of gold merely the flipside of the dollars fall? Or does it point more broadly to a loss of faith in central bankers promises? link

(Source: NYTimes) The biggest takeover battle in Japanese history got even bigger as the Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group sought to disrupt a rival's expansion plans with a $29 billion hostile bid for UFJ Holdings. link

(Source: BBC) The US dollar continued its slide against the euro on Friday, tumbling to a new record low and taking declines this year to nearly 15%.

 

Comments by Treasury Secretary John Snow and worse-than-expected consumer sentiment data weighed on the currency. Also denting investor confidence were reports on the US trade and budget deficits, which showed them widening.

 

The dollar slid to $1.23 to the euro, before rebounding slightly. It also dropped against the pound and yen. article

 

(Source: Economist) Lev Leview shakes up the de Beer cartel. Good story.

 

Like the Oppenheimers, Mr Leviev has made himself very rich over the past three decades. An Israeli of Uzbek descent, he is reputedly worth around $2 billion. Though he has interests in transport and property, his real love is diamonds. His Lev Leviev Group is the world's largest cutter and polisher of them. He has mining interests too: his fleet of clanking mining ships began operating off Namibia's coast earlier this year, sucking up diamonds from the sea bed. He boasts it is the world's second-largest fleet; only De Beers has a bigger one.

 

And Mr Leviev recently moved into diamond retailing. He claims that he is the only tycoon with interests in every stage of production from mine to mistress (a canard in the industry holds that men buy more diamonds for their mistresses than for their wives). But his real power lies in the cutting and polishing businesses.