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Features of the week

Welcome to our features of the week. Lots of interesting article links and interviews ahead, so enjoy!

1. Who will succeed Warren Buffett as chief investment officer at Berkshire Hathaway? BNN interviews Canadian investor Jeff Hull and finds the model for one potential candidate.

2. CME raises its offer for CBOT. The Chicago Mercantile Exchange has increased its offer for CBOT Holdings by 16 percent in an effort to stave off a rival bid from Intercontinental Ecxhange (ICE).

Will CBOT make a match or choose to go it alone? See FT's analysis for more.

3. Newspapers aren't dead yet. Sam Zell discusses his deal for the Chicago Tribune and the role of newspapers in the internet age, as well as his view of the commercial property market, on FT.com's View from the Top.

4. Newsvine on "The censorship of Ron Paul".

5. The Economist on "How to fight back" against Russia's "inept bullying".

6. Gordon Gekko is back, and this time the popular Wall Street villain is cast as a market operator of the hedge fund era.

Meanwhile, Dealbreaker wants to know which hedgie or pirate will provide Michael Douglas with the model for his 2007 character. Vote their poll and see the results.

7. No way to win hearts and minds. Civilian deaths continue to mount in Afghanistan and Iraq, as the US' military campaigns plod on.

8. Tony Blair to step down as Britian's prime minister on June 27. See also: "Was Blair Bush's Poodle?".

9. Bloomberg discusses the flush times and the hard times felt by Hong Kong on the way to its current state of prosperity.

10. Dow Theory Letters writer, Richard Russell, has surprised a few onlookers with his call for a possible worldwide boom in the period ahead.

Some commentators feel this could be a contrary indicator in which "the last bear turns bullish". But while Russell has opted to stay largely out of stocks for the past few years (aside from attractive resource based shares and dividend paying utilities), his propietary trend indicator has been bullish for much of that time.

See last week's "Features" for more on this.

11. Paul van Eeden appears in this BNN interview to discuss inflation, gold prices, and junior resource stocks.

12. Troubles down south: Financial Times on Venezuela's dying stock market. See also, the piece on Argentina's problems with inflation.

13. From the Mises Institute, "Ten Recurring Economic Fallacies, 1774-2004".

14. "If You Love Nature, Desocialize It". Interesting to see this, as I've been trying lately to reconcile my love of nature with worries over indiscriminate land development and was wondering what the "free-market" take on this issue might sound like.

15. John Mauldin looks at the future of communication in, "A Most Disruptive Technology".

Lots to see and hear. Explore and enjoy.

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