By Neil Chatterjee
    The U.S. has promised it will hunt down tax evaders.
    And it seems tax evaders are on the run.
    DBS bank, based in the growing offshore financial centre of
Singapore, told Reuters it had been approached by U.S. citizens
asking for its private banking services. But when told they would
have to sign U.S. tax declaration forms, the potential clients
disappeared.  
    Swiss banks also approached DBS on the hope they could
offload troublesome U.S. clients to a location that so far has
not been reached by the strong arms of Washington or Brussels.
    DBS said no thanks. In fact many private banks and boutique
advisors now seem to be avoiding U.S. clients.
    Will this spread to other nationalities, as governments
invest in tax spies and tax havens invest in white paint?
    Is this the end of offshore private private banking?

Stephan Dolezalek, Managing Director of VantagePoint Venture Partners and Tom Werner, Chief Executive of solar power company SunPower, sat down at Reuters’ Global Climate and Alternative Energy Summit in San Francisco and shared their views on global warming, investment and cleantech.

Dolezalek sees industrialization in developing countries as a more predictable impetus for investment than global warming.

Werner sees global warming as a stimulus for new business and a tool for adaptation.

What are your thoughts?  Is global warming an economic stimulus, an unreliable driver for investment, neither or both?

(Editing/video by Courtney Hoffman, pictures by Kim White)

Everyone likes to set records. Think about those two giant twins who felt the need to ride motorcycles for their Guinness Book of World Records picture. What were those guys thinking?

Well, after many Reuters Summits, it seemed we set a record on Monday for the use of the word “crap” in one session.

It’s not a particularly glorious achievement, of course, but when thinking about the state of the real estate industry these past few years the words could have been a lot more nasty.

At the Reuters Real Estate Summit today, Richard Jones, partner at the Dechert LLP law firm and co-chair of the firm’s real estate group, spoke about the kinds of deals that will have to get done to help get the ball rolling on the many restructurings that need to be completed industry-wide in the next few years.

As there are a great number of troubled loans out there, the question of what happens to the worst of them (jokingly granted an effluent-style nickname). Jones, who advises clients on almost every side of an available real estate transaction, gave a good sense of exactly what will have to happen to start seeing the market swing back into action.

Jones was one of the featured speakers at this year’s summit, whch continues through this week around the globe. Reuters will be welcoming guests to centers including New York, London, Shanghai, Kuala Lumpur and Sydney.

For a chance to listen to Jones’ thoughts, please click on the link below:

Richard Jones, Dechert LLC

Williams did credit Apple with one thing — a knack for design:  ”They pioneered new ground by taking this beautiful display size and doing a display-only product. That was pioneering”.  Symbian software is used in about two-thirds of all smartphones but of course not in the hugely popular Apple iPhone.

                                                                                                                        Apple introduces iPhone

                                                                                                                        3.0 OS software 

                                                                                                                        development kit in 

                                                                                                                        March 2009 

Tech managers are not just savvy about new technology but also own the coolest, most cutting edge gadgets, right? Think again, some of them have no use for gadgets at all, finding pleasure instead in century old paintings and (gasp) pen and paper.

Alain Dutheil heads the world’s second largest mobile chipmaker, ST-Ericsson, but told Reuters Technology Summit he is not a big fan of the gadgets that run on his company’s chips.

“I am not a gadget man. I prefer paintings,” Dutheil said. He is particularly fond of late 19^th and early 20^th century masters from his home region Provence, which he collects.

Warren East, who runs leading chip designer ARM, admits he too has little use for gadgets. “I am a pen and paper kind of man. I can’t live without my fountain pen, it goes everywhere.” He does own a BlackBerry but says it’s just a “work tool” for him.

KPN’s Stan Miller, responsible for the Dutch company’s international mobile business, has only one thing to say when asked what his favourite device is or which gadget he cannot live without: “I don’t do gadgets.”

The global economic meltdown has the World Bank on high alert.
 
As the financial crisis deepens, the World Bank is issuing even bleaker warnings about rising poverty and hunger in the developing world.  Initially, it estimated that 46 million people in developing countries could be pushed into poverty.  Now, that level is up another 7 million.

"We estimate that about 130 million people were pushed into poverty from the food crisis and if you add the financial crisis on top of that we are estimating that about 53 million more people could be pushed into poverty as a result of the financial crisis," World Bank Managing Director Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala told the Reuters Food and Agriculture Summit. 
 
Children and women are being hardest hit, she said.  The World Bank estimated that the current financial downturn may add between 200,000 and 400,000 additional infant deaths per year on average in the 2009 to 2015 period.  That means a total of 1.4 million to 2.8 million more infant deaths, if the financial strain continues. 
 
"The one big piece we need to look at in this financial crisis and its translation into the food crisis is that we're talking about human beings," said Okonjo-Iweala.  "Remember that 923 million people are malnourished the world over.  When you talk about the financial crisis becoming an unemployment crisis in the developed world, in the developing world for many poor people it's not an issue of unemployment, it's an issue of life and death."
 
(Reuters photos of Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Jan. 2009/Girls waiting for drinking water in Kathmandu, March 2009)

Are you worried about the rash of high-profile and often deadly tainted-food scandals involving everything from peanut butter and chili peppers to spinach and baby formula?

You are not alone.

"When I heard peanut products were being contaminated earlier this year, I immediately thought of my 7-year-old daughter, Sasha, who has peanut butter sandwiches for lunch probably three times a week," U.S. President Barack Obama said recently, referring to a salmonella outbreak that has made 683 people in 46 states sick, killed as many as nine and forced the recall of more than 3,000 products. 

"No parent should have to worry that their child is going to get sick from their lunch," said Obama, who is leading a charge to improve the U.S. food safety system. 

Parties ranging from the CEO of cereal maker Kellogg to Rosa DeLauro, chairwoman of a House of Representatives Appropriations subcommittee that oversees the FDA, have joined the call for stricter oversight.

China will enact a new food-safety law on June 1aimed at preventing another massive health threat like last year's melamine-tainted milk formula that killed at least six toddlers and made almost 300,000 sick.

But in a chilling reminder of the troubles in an increasingly global food chain, China's Ministry of Health said in a document: "At present, China's food-security situation remains grim with high risks and contradictions."

World Bank Managing Director Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala is on the food safety bandwagon, but cautions that it could be misused by anti-trade advocates.

"If we're asking for more open trade and less protectionism on food, I think the safety issue is absolutely crucial. Countries will run away from trading if they believe you are going to export food to them that is not safe," she told the Reuters Food and Agriculture Summit, referring to health threats like melamine contamination and mad cow disease. 

On the other hand, she said, "some countries use the food safety issue artifically ... as a barrier, if you will, from getting in imports from other countries."

(Photos\Reuters)

The mood in the asset management industry is "very cautious, very realistic but not pessimistic" after the financial industry's "Chernobyl" of Lehman Brothers collapse, according to Europe's fund industry chief.

Peter De Proft, director general of the European Fund and Asset Management Association (EFAMA) told the Reuters Funds Summit, that the mood was now more optimistic.  At least, certainly more so than  4-5 months ago.

Lehman Brothers, though, was Chernobyl. "Boom, it was the atomic bomb," De Proft said, adding that many in the financial industry, including asset managers, appeared "shell-shocked" at the time.

Now he sees more optimism and backs it up with preliminary EFAMA data showing net inflows into investment funds  in January, reversing the trend of outflows seen in the last quarter of 2008. Not huge, but positive, he says. February, meanwhile, was "presumably positive or break-even."

But De Proft was under no illusion that it will take time for investors to venture back in big time. Then again, if you were a fund manager, what else could you bee but optimistic?

(Reuters photo: Andrew Winning)

While the six degrees game is tied to Kevin Bacon, connections to other celebrities are helping a major charity.

Feeding America, formerly known as America’s Second Harvest, has several celebrities on its entertainment council, including chairman David Arquette.

The actor, who volunteers at a Venice, California, food pantry twice a week, and wife Courteney Cox Arquette introduced Feeding America to Ben Silverman, the co-chairman of NBC Entertainment and NBC Universal Television Studio, President and CEO Vicki Escarra said at the Reuters Food and Agriculture Summit.
 
One large way Feeding America has gotten its name out over the past few months is through its mentions on NBC’s “The Biggest Loser” weight loss television show.
    
Escarra said Feeding America met last week with Silverman “to see if there’s a way that Feeding America can really be more involved in the properties of NBC.”
 
She said Silverman is now considering the idea.

Among many campaigns from corporations that highlight Feeding America is one that caught even Escarra by surprise. 
 
“We now have a really nice piece that I didn’t even know we had. I was watching TV Sunday night and I saw this really beautiful Visa commercial,” she said.
 
Escarra also spoke about some upcoming campaigns.  The Arquettes will appear in 40 magazines and on signs in U.S. post offices in April and May promoting the Letter Carriers’ food drive. Last year, the drive collected 73 million pounds of food, according to Feeding America.
 
And for Easter, along with the egg producers, Feeding America is doing an event in Hollywood. For every egg decorated by celebrities and their children, a tractor trailer full of eggs will go to a food bank. 

(Reuters photo)

Master-fraudster Bernie Madoff is the invisible guest at an annual fund fest in Luxembourg, the European capital for fund administration.

Even though the former Nasdaq chairman is under arrest thousands of miles away from this discreet financial centre nestled between Belgium, France and Germany, his presence was omnipresent. Fund managers just can't stop mentioning him.

 One example: "The hedge fund bubble has popped. The market bubble has popped, and to put a cherry on the top you had the Madoff probe in December," said Ken Kinsley-Quick from hedge fund Thames River Capital.

Other speakers have gone into deep soul-searching, accepting that more transparency and due diligence is needed. But few would openly beat their chest and admit any wrongdoing as they all seemed to agree that if the Securities and Exchange Commission could not catch Madoff's wrong doing over 20 years, no-one could.

"Except for a few whistle blowers no-one had expected anything. I really do not think that custodians did not take their role seriously. But it's not helping the industry," Yves Francis, a partner from Deloitte said.

Even Luxembourg's budget minister, Luc Frieden, got into the act, suggesting that a deal should be made out of court to compensate Madoff investors who had gone through Luxembourg-based investment vehicles.

He clearly wanted Madoff to just go away.

(Reuters photo: Mike Segar)