Union ratifies trash collection contract in Calif

(Reuters) - The contract includes "strong wage and pension increases
and protection from future cost increases in health care," the
group said.







Read more at Reuters.com Bonds News

Paulson's Yuan Appreciation Anticipated by Pictet, Western Asset's Trades

(Bloomberg) -- Investors from Switzerland to
California are banking on U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson
convincing China to let its yuan appreciate more than 5 percent
in coming months.

Western Asset Management Co. in Pasadena and Pictet Asset
Management in Geneva are buying contracts tied to the future
value of the yuan, driving the price so high that the currency
must strengthen at least 5.5 percent in the next 12 months
before they see any profit. The so-called non-deliverable
forwards are rising at the fastest pace in two years.


Read more at Bloomberg Currencies News

In China, Paulson eyes debate shift to environment

(Reuters) - Aiming to keep his strategic economic dialogue with China
on track amid controversies over Chinese product and food
safety and currency legislation gaining momentum in the U.S.
Congress, Paulson will visit Qinghai lake in western China on
Monday before meeting President Hu Jintao and Vice Premier Wu
Yi on Tuesday and Wednesday.




The lake and surrounding glacial watershed are threatened
by global warming and encroaching desert, with Paulson saying
the area was a strong symbol of the need for U.S.-China
cooperation on environmental issues.


Read more at Reuters.com Bonds News

Porsche not planning now to raise VW stake: paper

(Reuters) - The federal law guarantees special rights for the German state of Lower Saxony, where VW's headquarters in Wolfsburg are located, as a shareholder as well as preventing any one individual investor from exercising more than 20 percent of their voting rights.




Wolfgang Porsche did not deny that the Porsche and Piech families who control the sports car maker were immune to the idea of controlling VW itself, effectively founded in 1937 by Beetle designer and family patriarch Ferdinand Porsche.


Read more at Reuters.com Business News

RPT-Bay Street Week Ahead - Offshore sirens beckon

(Reuters) - VANCOUVER, British Columbia, July 29 - As foreign
takeovers and private equity buyouts strip the Toronto Stock
Exchange of some of its biggest names, institutional investors
are increasingly shifting their gaze outside Canada.




Those investors with mandates to invest domestically, such
as "pure" Canadian mutual funds, say they might at some point
ask their fundholders to let them rejig their limits so that
they too can follow their peers to greater choice offshore.


Read more at Reuters.com Mergers News

UPDATE 9-Japan PM says to stay despite huge election defeat

(Reuters) - TOKYO, July 29 - Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo
Abe's conservative ruling camp suffered a devastating defeat in
upper house elections on Sunday, but the 52-year-old conservative
said he intended to stay in his post despite the drubbing.




"I am determined to carry out my promises although the
situation is severe," Abe said, after acknowledging that he was
responsible for the huge loss.


Read more at Reuters.com Bonds News

Egypt's El Sewedy H1 net profit rises 32 pct

(Reuters) - Egypt's El Sewedy Cables posted a 32 percent rise in consolidated net profit to 337 million Egyptian pounds in the first half of 2007, the stock exchange said on Sunday.

Net profit in the year-ago period was 256 million pounds.


Read more at Reuters Africa