Click on ‘More’ for the rest of the post (plenty of rare Jarre concert videos).

And now, the concert he did in London with Lady Di in attendance:

The 1981 concerts in China (where he was the first Western musician to perform since the revolution):

Prompted by this CES coverage:

From China to Brazil, Russia to Mexico, India to Turkey and many places in between, consumers want instant voice and data connections from their handhelds on every street corner, easier access to more music and high-definition (HD) video and the ability to harness the collective intelligence and aspirations of their communities.

This phenomenon is playing out in an evolving, multipolar world for consumer electronics. In this world, economic, cultural and political powers are growing rapidly in emerging nations, starting to unlock their potential. China and India are the obvious examples, but progress in Mexico, Russia, Brazil as well as the emerging economies of Eastern Europe is less familiar. All are crucial to understand the evolving nature of the consumer electronics industry in a multipolar world.

Initially, globalization was a concept exported to the emerging world by dominant economies like the United States. Now, emerging economies have grasped globalization and packaged it, and are sending new versions of it back to the West.

It is against this backdrop that the industry heads to the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas. [...]

1. Uninformed traders will be able to trade their opinions. Most of the US citizens have an opinion (positive or negative) on the US Congress politics and the federal legislations.
2. Informed traders (hopefully, the market makers) will be able to follow some advanced indicators (in the Washington D.C. media, for instance) pertaining to this upcoming legislation (if any).

Once again, it shows that John Delaney’s InTrade is the King of the Prediction Markets —and that BetFair-TradeFair is painfully playing catch-up.

Here’s the InTrade contract statement for the US — (USA agrees before end of 2009 to reduce CO2 emissions by 10% or more by year 2025):

A contract will settle (expire) at 100 ($10.00) if the United States agrees before the end of 2009 to reduce CO2 emissions by the amount specified in the contract by the year 2025 (relative to the 1990 emissions baseline).

A contract will settle (expire) at 0 ($0.00) if the United States DOES NOT agree before the end of 2009 to reduce CO2 emissions by the amount specified in the contract by the year 2025 (relative to the 1990 emissions baseline).

Any reduction target must be part of a United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC) [*] agreement reached before the end of 2009. Any agreement to reduce CO2 emissions made outside of the UNFCC will not be considered for expiry purposes.

A reduction target does not have to be ratified for the contracts to be expired – only agreed to under the UNFCC. [*]

Expiry will be based on official and public announcements from US officials or the UNFCC Secretariat, as reported in three independent and reliable media sources.

Due to the nature of this contract please also see Contract Rule 1.7 Unforeseen Circumstances.

The Exchange reserves the right to invoke Contract Rule 1.8 (Time Protection) if deemed appropriate.

Any changes to the result after the contract has expired will not be taken into account – Exchange Rule 1.4

Please contact the exchange by emailing help@intrade.com if you have any questions regarding this contract before you place a trade.

Important:
Please contact the Exchange if you have any query or uncertainty (including how it may be settled) about this Contract, the Rule above or the Contract Rules before you trade.

There are 4 other contracts (E.U., Russia, Japan, and China+India).

[*] There are 3 “C”s actually. Those Irish bozos are not even able to spell it correctly. –> UNFCCC (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change). Look at the logo, below.

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UPDATE: Mike Linksvayer’s comment…

They’d be even more interesting if offered in combination with electoral outcomes and more yet if offered in combination with climate outcomes. I’m happy to see BINLADEN+MUSHARRAF contracts recently added, but volume is almost nil. Intrade (or someone new) will need better technology to be really socially interesting — be a source of many contingent probabilities. Many explicit combination contracts is just unworkable. I’m also happy to see Intrade offering several multi-year contracts, of which the climate ones are a good example. I believe the Google Lunar contract is currently the longest term one, expiring in 2012. I’m rooting for Intrade and for something better to come along, simultaneously.

UPDATE #2: I have just found out, this Sunday afternoon, thanks to a tip from Ralf Martin, that the InTrade global warming prediction markets were set up in collaboration with the London School of Economics’ Centre for Economic Perfomance.

UPDATE #3: InTrade have corrected the spelling on Saturday, December 15, 2007.

NEXT: The London School of Economics chose InTrade-TradeSports over BetFair-TradeFair for floating event derivatives on global warming.

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Drudge Report:

• Pax Americana, the era of U.S. global dominance, is over. A struggle for global hegemony has begun among the United States, China, a resurgent Russia and radical Islam.
• Bush’s invasion of Iraq was a product of hubris and of ideology, a secular religion of democratism, to which Bush was converted in the days following 9/11.
• Torn asunder by a culture war, America has now begun to break down along class, ethnic and racial lines.
• The greatest threat to U.S. sovereignty and independence is the scheme of a global elite to erase America’s borders and merge the USA, Mexico and Canada into a North American Union.
• Free trade is shipping jobs, factories and technology to China and plunging America into permanent dependency and unpayable debt. One of every six U.S. manufacturing jobs vanished under Bush.
• Sovereign Wealth Funds, controlled by foreign regimes and stuffed with trillions of dollars from U.S. trade deficits, are buying up strategic corporate assets vital to America’s security.
• As U.S. wages are stagnant, corporate CEOs are raking in rising pay and benefits 400 to 500 times that of their workers.
• The Third World invasion through Mexico is a graver threat to our survival as one nation than anything happening in Afghanistan or Iraq.
• European-Americans, 89% of the nation when JFK took the oath, are now 66% and sinking. Before 2050, America is a Third World nation.
• By 2060, America will add 167 million people and 105 million immigrants will be here, triple the 37 million today.
• Hispanics will be over 100 million in 2050 and concentrated in a Southwest most Mexicans believe belongs to them.

There’s matter here for long-term prediction markets.

Bet scandal worries Davydenko

RUSSIAN Nikolay Davydenko is worried his reputation will suffer after becoming embroiled in a betting controversy. Davydenko retired with a foot injury in the third set of his match with Argentine Martin Vasallo Arguello at the ATP event in Sopot, Poland, last week, only to find the match was at the centre of a betting scandal. “It’s so surprising,” Davydenko said in Montreal, where he is competing in the Masters Series tournament. “Like, who can know that I can be injured and (would) retire in my match? “I am disappointed, because I’m a top player and people are talking (about it) not only in Russia, in my country, (but) also talking everywhere in the world. “It is pretty tough for me, I get more pressure now. Mentally, it’s pretty tough.” British betting exchange Betfair voided all bets on the match, saying $8.55 million had been placed on it, more than twice the usual amount. Though world No. 5 Davydenko won the first set, Vasallo Arguello — ranked about 80 places lower — became the favourite, the opposite of normal practice in such a situation. Betfair voided all bets and notified the governing body of men’s tennis, the ATP. Davydenko said he was not in contact with anyone regarding the throwing of a match. “I play 30 tournaments in a year,” he said. “Last year I lost 10 tournaments in the first round and also sometimes I’m injured and I retire from a match.”
- Reuters

Previous: CORRUPTION IN TENNIS: the Nikolay Davydenko vs. Vassallo Arguello prediction markets at BetFair

More info from The Guardian

NEXT: BetFair has an anti-fraud team whereas InTrade-TradeSports has none.

• The volume was ten times higher than the normal;
• The clear favorite (Nikolay Davydenko) was short-sold en masse one hour before the start of the tennis match;
• Nikolay Davydenko (who won the first set, but lost the second set) declared an injury in the third set and resigned from the game.

Czarek Sokolowski / AP

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The Numbers Guy (who blogs for the Wall Street Journal) has interviewed the BetFair manager responsible of the anti-corruption team at BetFair, and tries hard to come up with explanations for the foul betting. He can’t.

[...] To verify, tape of the match would have to be reviewed to see if Mr. Davydenko’s injury was apparent. Mr. Marks told me that a Betfair employee watching the match saw no evidence of injury until a trainer visited Mr. Davydenko in the second round. [...]

It looks like Nikolay Davydenko, before the match, had alerted some accomplices that he would resign in the third set. Those accomplices would have short-sold him at BetFair. But it’s of course impossible to accuse a professional tennis athlete of foul play without strong evidence.

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UPDATE

Did we suspect an innocent??

Bet scandal worries Davydenko

RUSSIAN Nikolay Davydenko is worried his reputation will suffer after becoming embroiled in a betting controversy. Davydenko retired with a foot injury in the third set of his match with Argentine Martin Vasallo Arguello at the ATP event in Sopot, Poland, last week, only to find the match was at the centre of a betting scandal. “It’s so surprising,” Davydenko said in Montreal, where he is competing in the Masters Series tournament. “Like, who can know that I can be injured and (would) retire in my match? “I am disappointed, because I’m a top player and people are talking (about it) not only in Russia, in my country, (but) also talking everywhere in the world. “It is pretty tough for me, I get more pressure now. Mentally, it’s pretty tough.” British betting exchange Betfair voided all bets on the match, saying $8.55 million had been placed on it, more than twice the usual amount. Though world No. 5 Davydenko won the first set, Vasallo Arguello — ranked about 80 places lower — became the favourite, the opposite of normal practice in such a situation. Betfair voided all bets and notified the governing body of men’s tennis, the ATP. Davydenko said he was not in contact with anyone regarding the throwing of a match. “I play 30 tournaments in a year,” he said. “Last year I lost 10 tournaments in the first round and also sometimes I’m injured and I retire from a match.”
- Reuters

NEXT: BetFair has an anti-fraud team whereas InTrade-TradeSports has none.