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Are the Arab Gulf Nations Drowning In A Flood Of Money?

Oil Energy Me — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 10:02:50 +0000

It should be no surprise that Arab nations have received huge windfalls as a result of the spiralling price of oil. The GCC's (Gulf Cooperation Council) top oil exporter Saudi Arabia will witness GDP growth of 30.8% this year, up from 6.7% last year, according to a note by Dutch financial group ING.

The United Arab Emirates, already prosperous with its luxury tourism industry and the world's tallest building under constructuon, is expected to witness GDP growth of 32.3%, while Kuwait's economy will hulk out to 50.6%, the fastest growth rate in the region.

If the price of oil remains above $135 a barrel, Gulf countries are expected to gain an export surplus of $1bn, reports Gulf News. But while the flow of income should aid liquidity in the short to medium term, it raises inflation fears and pushes up asset costs, possibly creating asset bubbles in the medium term.

The biggest concern should be inflation, which crippled Japan's economy in the early 90's and is still haunting the island nation. As well as the influx of money, many gulf currencies are pegged to the US dollar, whose weakness makes imports more expensive and further increases prices. According to this Reuters article, inflation in the UAE hit a 20 year high of 11.1%. That was with growth rates of just 7.6%, when growth almost quadruples, and the dollar is even weaker, inflation could destroy gains in national quality of life.

Comparing inflation for other countires is difficult because, and this is the second major concern, government statistics are scarce and unreliable. In a UAE report last October, the International Monetary Fund reported that "The national accounts compilation system suffers from a number of deficiencies, including lack of a comprehensive data collection program."

The UAE is the only oil producer to release yearly inflation estimates and Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait and Oman have yet to release constant price GDP estimates for 2007. Released figures are susceptible to change, in late June Qatar revised its current price GDP growth rate figure for 2007 to 25% from a 12% rate released in March. Similarly, the UAE revised its 2007 GDP growth rate to 5.2% from an earlier 7.6% and then issued a statement denying the revision. With such unreliable data, many economists instead rely on microeconomic factors like bond yields to gauge the health of gulf economies.

These issues are being addresed, if slowly. To combat inflation, in May 2007 Kuwait severed the link between its dinars and the US dollar, tracking instead to a basket of currencies. A new center for national statistics has opened in the UAE to compile and release economic data.

With so much money flowing in, an infrastructure must be created to efficiently allocate it. The alternative is corruption and destruction, as witnessed in oil rich yet undevelopd nations like Nigeria. The World Bank estimates that between $100-200bn of Nigeria's oil revenues have been stolen by corrupt officials. An interview at Alternet with Michael Watts, author of Curse of the Black Gold, compares the exploitation and corruption in the oil trade to trade in blood diamonds. Watts puts it bluntly, "If oil is inserted into a corrupt federal system, then the combination of non-transparent Big Oil and authoritarian Big Government produces a perfect storm of violence, corruption, ecological destruction and poverty."

GCC Summit 2008 - been there, got the t-shirt

bauermann — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 06:05:08 +0000

I have finally found some time to write a bit about the GCC Developer's Summit 2008, which happened one month ago in Ottawa, Canada (well, I didn't really find time, since it's past 1:30 AM now but still...).

In summary, I had a blast there! I was in last year's summit and enjoyed it and learned a lot from it. But this time I already knew GDB people and they knew me, and I am involved in a couple of current developments and have more experience with the project, all of which made some difference. And everybody there is very friendly, of course, even if they never heard of you before. :-) In fact, Ian Taylor in his welcome presentation urged people to be friendly to newcomers since GCC and the GNU toolchain need new blood.

There was a good number of GDB-related events: a GDB talk and two debugging information talks, a debug information BoF, an informal GDB get-together and a GDB BoF. Unfortunately I know squat about GCC internals (I intend to learn more about it, but didn't have a chance yet) so the two debugging information were above my head, and I absorbed little. The GDB talk was interesting but since I follow the GDB mailing lists I already knew most of what was presented.

The debug information BoF was interesting, especially since the discussion didn't focus so much on the two competing approaches to improve debug information (which was the original point of the BoF), but mostly on what should be expected from debug information generated by GCC (i.e., what a debugger should be able to do with it, especially at higher optimization levels), and how its quality can be tested in the GCC testsuite.

The most interesting events for me were of course the GDB get-together and the GDB BoF. The former was a table reserved for us at lunch one day (thanks for organizing this, Joel Brobecker!) where folks interested in GDB would get to see each other faces and talk about random stuff (GDB-related or not). It was fun, and we were able to throw some ideas around about things such as conversion of the GDB repository from CVS to Subversion, the patch review process, and even about rewriting GDB in C++ (which is a hot thread in the GDB mailing list today!). I have a picture of the event:

If you follow the link you can see the notes with the name of each person in the photo above.

The GDB BoF was very interesting, and it felt weird to be at the front (thanks for inviting me Daniel!) discussing current GDB issues with Daniel Jacobowitz, Tom Tromey, Pedro Alves (the other people at the front) and the other GDB maintainers and developers in the room.

We nailed down some pending issues that were being discussed in the mailing list at the time regarding Python scripting support (man, it's so much easier to decide things face to face rather than by e-mail!), and also discussed a bit of reversible debugging, multithreading GDB itself, GDB scalability, what to do regarding the next release (in a nutshell: wait about a year from the last release so that all the cool stuff which is being worked on right now gets in and settle down), moving the bugs database from GNATS to bugzilla (thanks for doing this Tromey!) etc.

Also after the BoF Pedro Alves gave a very good improvised tutorial on the GDB event loop which he has been studying for the past few months. It felt like cheating, to get all that knowledge in what, half an hour? :-) Thanks so much Pedro, it was awesome.

And of course all the interaction with the people who were there, like Joel Brobecker (playing tennis is more serious than I thought!), Gaius Mulley (Pink Floyd!), Anmol Paralkar, Ramana Radhakrishnan and many others (I don't even try to enumerate, just a random sample).

I shared a suite in Ottawa with David Edelsohn and Kenneth Zadeck, which was an interesting thing in itself. Heading back to the hotel felt like going to an extended GCC summit. :-) I almost learned something about GCC internals (SSA, LTO, register allocation) and also had very interesting conversations in general.

And of course my one week of backpacking in Canada after the summit, which was another blast. :-)

Red Letters

klampert — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 13:52:02 +0000

Product development for Islamic banks discussed at MEFX conferences

ayah.biz — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 20:58:20 +0000

Product development for Islamic banks discussed at MEFX conferences
By: Mike Gallagher

Greater visibility needed if Islamic finance is to become internationally acceptable. International listings and uniformity of standards key to spread say delegates.

MEFX, Islamic real estate investment trusts, Sukuk, Qatar, Alpen Capital, Sanjay Vig, Saadiq, Ghazanfar Naqvi, Mobily Sukuk, standardisation

Delegates at the Future Proofing Your Bank MEFX conference in Dubai on Sunday discussed the vexing issue of product development from an Islamic finance perspective. Standardisation was given the most attention, as it always seems to at conferences where Islamic finance is discussed, but how much progress is taking place with regards to the subject is still not certain.

Sanjay Vig, managing director of Alpen Capital, which was behind several high profile Sukuk, such as the Berber Cement Sukuk in Sudan and the Mobily telecoms issuance in Saudi Arabia, pointed out that the issue of standardisation was not just an issue between regions, but also sometimes between countries. He said that while the Mobily Sukuk was accepted in Saudi Arabia, it was not in the UAE.

Vig also said that sorting out the critical issue of uniformity was vital if Islamic finance wanted to become globally acceptable. Uniformity and replication of products would speed up the process because the complex documentation that is part and parcel of the current trend in Islamic finance was slowing down its spread. Any bank that became involved had to run the product past its Shari’ah board, which also added to the time it took to bring it to market. Uniformity would greatly speed up that process, he said.

Ghazanfar Naqvi, director of Islamic products for Saadiq in the UAE added that very few law firms in the region understood Islamic finance and he said they needed “to gear up” to be able to meet demand. One thing that would help product development, said Naqvi, would be if more conventional bankers moved over to Islamic banking. “You cannot teach banking to everyone, but you can teach Islamic [law],” he said.

Delegates were told that not more than 20 to 30 per cent of Islamic banks portfolios from the GCC are invested outside the region and that more diversification of risk was required. This, they were told, would also help to increase the awareness and popularity of Islamic finance.

Vig said that more international listings of Sukuk on exchanges like New York, Hong Kong and London would increase its visibility and he said would assure investors that by listing there, that they were meeting internationally recognised standards.

There was also talk among delegates about the role of Takaful in markets such as the UAE and Qatar where a huge real estate boom was taking place. Many wondered why Takaful had such a small share of the market, compared to conventional insurance, when so much money was being invested in real estate. Others expressed wonderment at why Islamic real estate investment trusts were not more popular, given that India, Pakistan and Malaysia were actively considering them.

Source: http://www.cpifinancial.net/v2/News.aspx?v=1&aid=431&sec=Islamic%20Finance

GCC pure virtual method called

tombarta — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 01:50:13 +0000

I spent about two hours today trying to debug a race condition in a multi-threaded C++ app today... definitely not a fun thing to do. The worst part? The runtime diagnostics weren't giving me anything useful to work with! Sometimes things just worked, sometimes I got segmentation faults inside old, well-tested parts of the application. At one point, I saw this error pop up:

pure virtual method called
terminate called without an active exception
Aborted

What? I know I can't instantiate a class that has any pure-virtual methods, so how did this error show up? To debug it, I decided to replace all of the potentially-erroneous pure virtuals with stub functions that printed warnings to stderr. Lo and behold, I confirmed that polymorphism wasn't working in my application. I had a bunch of Deriveds sitting in memory, and yet, the Base methods were being called.

Why was this happening? Because I was deleting objects while they were still in use. I don't know if this is GCC-specific or not, but something very curious happens inside of destructors. Because the object hierarchy's destructors get called from most-derived to least-derived, the object's vtable switches up through parent classes. As a result, at some point in time (nondeterministic from a separate thread), my Derived objects were all really Bases. Calling a virtual member function on them in this mid-destruction state is what caused this situation.

Here's about the simplest example I can think of that reproduces this situation:


#include <pthread.h>
#include <unistd.h>
struct base
{
    virtual ~base() { sleep(1); }
    virtual void func() = 0;
};
struct derived : public base
{
    virtual ~derived() { }
    virtual void func() { return; }
};
static void *thread_func(void* v)
{
    base *b = reinterpret_cast<base*>(v);
    while (true) b->func();
    return 0;
}
int main()
{
    pthread_t t;
    base *b = new derived();
    pthread_create(&t, 0, thread_func, b);
    delete b;
    return 0;
}

So what's the moral of the story? If you ever see the error message pure virtual method called / terminate called without an active exception, check your object lifetimes! You may be trying to call members on a destructing (and thus incomplete) object. Don't waste as much time as I did.

Una intelligenza artificiale per GCC

markostyle — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 19:02:22 +0000

Il Wall Street Journal ha segnalato un interessante progetto europeo il cui scopo è quello di integrare una AI (Artificial Intelligence) all’interno del noto compilatore GCC.

IBM, l’Università di Edinburgo, l’Istituto di ricerca francese INRIA ed altre aziende/istituti che partecipano allo sviluppo di Milepost (MachIne Learning for Embedded PrOgramS opTimization) hanno annunciato i risultati preliminari della loro sperimentazione durante il GCC Summit 2008: in un solo mese di lavoro sono riusciti ad incrementare le performance di GCC del 10%!

La nascita di questo progetto va legata con molta probabilità alla complessità delle architetture cui vanno incontro gli sviluppatori di sistemi embedded: ad ogni nuova generazione, i tempi di sviluppo dei compilatori aumentano ed ottimizzare diventa sempre più complesso.

L’utilizzo di una AI dovrebbe quindi porre rimedio ai limiti dettati dal design dei compilatori (che non possono supportare “staticamente” così tanti tipi differenti di nuovi architetture/processori).

[via: slashdot.org || ossblog.it]

GCC To Depeg From USD

malaysiatourismasia — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 08:57:33 +0000

United Arab Emirates is lobbying neighboring countries to depeg their currencies from the U.S. dollar to curb inflation.

UAE is calling on all six Gulf Cooperation Council member states to "rethink" their monetary policy amid soaring inflation in the oil-rich region. The GCC members are Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Oman. All of their currencies are pegged to the dollar except Kuwait, which depegged its currency, the dinar, from the dollar in May 2007 in favor of a basket of currencies.

Below are some related commentary and opinions on GCC to depeg:
Economist: Argues GCC should depeg or revalue vs USD but politics forms a high barrier to change. US applied political pressure against UAE de-peg earlier this year, but political winds may be shifting
ABDPE: Although official statements from the UAE have ruled out a unilateral depeg or reval from the flagging dollar, a government study suggests GCC states should move to a trade-weighted basket of global currencies to fight inflation
BNY: Despite the best efforts of Saudi Arabia (and the US) to support the USD peg, the pressures for change have not gone away and would certainly increase should the USD start to slide again
Merrill Lynch: Latest US Treasury report gave tacit approval of revaluation of GCC currencies to alleviate region's inflationary pressures. UAE, Qatar will probably move to currency basket in next few months, with their currencies appreciating 5% by yearend
HC: UAE wants to avoid losses on USD-denominated FX reserves
Jadwa: Revaluation of the riyal would not tackle the underlying causes of inflation but a significant revaluation (15% or more) would have a clear and immediate impact on inflation and would provide some breathing space while supply bottlenecks gradually unwind
MS: Small step revaluations remain a risk particularly for the smaller open economies within the GCC - UAE, Qatar
JPMorgan: Saudi Arabia, UAE unlikely to de-peg in 2008. Most inflation not 'imported'. Revaluation may invite further speculation rather than quell it
UBS: Bahrain, Oman and Saudi Arabia unlikely to change currency regime as they face less structural or cyclical need to do so
Khan: Large revaluation risks loss of non-oil competitiveness; modest revaluations (2-3%) and adoption of individual currency baskets more likely
May 2007: Kuwait switched to basket peg (70% USD); revalued 4th time on Oct 16 to stem accelerating inflation
NBER: Fixed exchange rate regime becomes unsustainable due to unexpected increase in government spending

Youth Camp Video Day 3

revkevgcc — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 20:30:40 +0000

Takaful: A new and viable insurance business model or just a marketing opportunity?

ayah.biz — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 18:45:07 +0000

Takaful: A new and viable insurance business model or just a marketing opportunity?

Cultural and religious reasons are commonly cited for the underdevelopment of insurance markets in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) region.

Takaful could be the key to increasing insurance awareness and delivering on customer expectations, capitalizing on the positive economic dynamics of the region.

The opportunities for increased uptake of takaful insurance in the GCC are positive. The considerable economic growth in the region, coupled with a sizable, underinsured population, means that there are substantial prospects for further development of personal lines cover. The ability of the industry to demonstrate the need for and benefits of insurance, as well as to successfully meet customer demands, remains unproven, however.

Over time, if the world average insurance premium of $550 per capita is achieved and applied to the Gulf states, the GCC insurance market has a potential size of $20 billion(currently $4.6 billion). Taking as an example Malaysia, where the takaful market is expected to contribute 20% to the overall market in the medium term, the GCC takaful market has the potential to reach $4 billion at the current level of development (currently $170 million). How much actual premium the takaful sector generates and how quickly it will do so remains to be seen, however, and will depend on the industry's ability to deliver on policyholder expectations.

In terms of credit ratings for the takaful sector, Standard & Poor's Ratings Services will apply the same analytical process as for the traditional market, but will also take into account the sector's positive growth dynamics and high execution risk.

GCC Insurance Markets

The insurance markets in the region are recognized as being underdeveloped, as is shown by the relatively low level of insurance penetration relative to Western or even Eastern Europe.

The economic boom in the GCC, driven by high oil prices, has led to substantial infrastructure investments across the region, with the corresponding need to insure these sizable risks. There are a number of established insurers in each of the GCC markets who are able capable of participating on the new risks arising. Certainly, the development of the non-life insurance market in the region is strong, with premium growth of about 10%-15% on average since 2004. The proportion of personal lines insurance cover, however, and in particular life insurance, remains low.

Opportunities For Takaful

Increasing insurance penetration, raising awareness

Takaful is not a new concept. The idea of cooperative risk sharing is the oldest form of insurance. The Grand Council of Islamic Scholars, Maja-al-Fiqh, only approved takaful as a Sharia-acceptable alternative to traditional insurance in 1985, however. The real opportunity for takaful in the longer term is substantial in our view, as it is able to reach the specific segments of the market that traditional insurance has been unable to attract.

Strong growth relative to traditional insurance market

The GCC takaful market is currently growing at about 40% per year, and gross contributions (equivalent to gross premiums written) amounted to nearly US$170 million in 2005.

This appears impressive relative to the expansion of the world markets, with average premium growth at 2.5% in 2005 (Swiss Re sigma No. 5/2006). It is, however, important to remember that this is a new segment of the market and growth at this level is not unexpected. At the same time, this growth is not purely driven by the personal lines market--one which we consider to be a natural market for takaful--but to a large extent also by general commercial lines. The main challenge for takaful still remains: to increase awareness of the benefits (social as well as individual) of insurance among retail customers. Still, the future success and sustainability of this pace of development will be dependent on a number of factors that, within personal lines, are just as relevant to the traditional as to the takaful regional markets.

The Success Factors

Product innovation and service quality

Although compulsory lines of business (motor and, in some cases, medical for expatriates) have driven much of the growth in the retail sector across the GCC, personal lines products are far from developed. This is as true of the traditional as of the takaful market. We view the recent announcements by international insurers that they will be entering the family takaful segment as positive, whether this is done as a joint venture with local companies, a greenfield operation, or through a branch.

The takaful market faces some unusual challenges. It has to match the service quality of the traditional insurance market and persuade an uninsured market to use the facilities of the takaful market. But across the Gulf region we are now seeing traditional insurers accept risks into new takaful divisions or subsidiaries of the mainstream company. Although the takaful division is operated as a wholly Sharia-compliant unit, it is fully complementary to the noncompliant business. If this model achieves the three key requirements of meeting Sharia council approval, being accepted by the Islamic community and policyholders, and passing regulatory requirements, the probable benefits of economies of scale to the traditional company will prove a real challenge to the nascent takaful sector. Each of the approaches has its own merits, but Standard & Poor's is unable to comment on their relative Sharia compliance and acceptance in policyholders' eyes.

The role of foreign insurers is also important, as they bring pockets of expertise in designing, for example, life products suited to local customers. This is gradually improving product choice, but the success of the takaful business model will depend on its ability to offer the same choice, range of products, level of cover, cost effectiveness, and, ultimately, quality of policyholder security, as traditional insurers. The challenge for takaful operators in developing family takaful will be to structure the products in such a way as to meet any religious and cultural obligations and still offer comprehensive cover.

In our opinion, it will also be crucial for takaful operators to demonstrate their ability to offer a comparable, if not better, level and quality of service than the traditional market when dealing with retail policyholders. The use of improved technology in automating processes (ease of buying a policy, speed of claims handling) to directly benefit the consumer will also benefit the takaful operators' long-term competitive standing and prospects in the market.

Promotion and distribution capabilities

Even with the best products and service, future development will be constrained without the creation of demand and an increased awareness of the need for insurance. The onus still remains on the takaful operators to emphasize the broad appeal of Islamic insurance. In fact, takaful can be marketed as the 'ethical' alternative to insurance contracts due to its rigorous screening of investments. Additionally, in our view, expansion of independent financial adviser networks in all the Gulf states is essential. At the same time, some form of regulation is necessary to ensure adequate training of advisers and quality of advice to protect policyholders. The growth of Islamic finance, and in particular retail Islamic banking solutions including Islamic mortgages and credit cards, is certainly encouraging.

We also see bancassurance as providing the right additional distribution mechanism to reach the right retail customer. In the more established Malaysian takaful market, contributions from bancassurance constitute slightly more than 20% of all takaful contributions, second only to direct marketing (about 45%). In comparison, this distribution channel remains underutilized in the GCC, and generally contributes only a small amount to the overall contributions generated, as there are few bank-owned takaful operators.

Policyholder security, enterprise risk management, and profitability

Many family takaful contracts, and some general takaful contracts, will be more long-term in nature than the policies currently prevailing in the market (such as term life assurance or mortgage protection products). Therefore, the ability of a relatively new takaful operator to service claims and ensure policyholder security over the next 10-20 years is crucial. This is where a strong regulatory environment
comes into its own--to protect the policyholder and encourage healthy development of the industry, for both the traditional and the takaful segments. Specifically for takaful, the role of the Sharia board in overseeing the proper management of policyholder funds should help to increase transparency and improve corporate governance. Participants can increasingly benefit from the scrutiny of takaful operators by rating agencies such as Standard & Poor's.

Generally, capitalization is strong given the underwriting risk base, and is expected to remain so for the medium term for both traditional and takaful insurance providers. Few insurers, however, have developed a more comprehensive, holistic approach to capital and risk management, and many appear to face high investment risk in their portfolios. Although traditional insurers currently have more investment opportunities open to them, they don't always take them. In fact, a lot of the regional companies have a high percentage of equities in their investment portfolio. In the recent market corrections, companies have faced substantial volatility in earnings and shareholders' funds, and have experienced reduced investment liquidity. There has been a high level of liquidity for policyholders' funds, however, as cash deposits typically generously cover technical reserves. For takaful providers, as Islamic financial markets are developing rapidly, we expect that investment concentration risk, subject to management asset allocation choice, will be diversifiable in the medium term. Nevertheless, quantification of the risks undertaken throughout all operations, whether investments or underwriting, still requires development to ensure controlled earnings over time.

To date, takaful has not necessarily been the more profitable approach, as the general concept of mutualization of risks is applied. Average combined ratios have been higher than for traditional, regional peers.

Although the essence of takaful is cooperative risk sharing and community well being, rather than profit optimization, continued underwriting profitability will be important in order to invest in future growth. At the same time, takaful operators are currently suffering from a lack of economies of scale and an inability to more effectively diversify their risks. Hence, the management fees and contributions charged appear high in light of the true costs incurred by the operator. Although it is up to the individual Sharia boards to look more closely at this, we expect fees to decline and premiums charged to be more reflective of the level of cover provided as competition and scale in the takaful segment increase. The key benefit for policyholders over time, however, will be the distributable surplus more closely reflecting actual performance.

Source: http://www.ameinfo.com/116316.html
United Arab Emirates: Tuesday, April 10 - 2007 at 15:19

Paris forum stresses significance of GCC sovereign funds

Shay Shaffaii — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 04:02:49 +0000

Points of Essence:

GCC's influence in the financial market is acknowledged more than ever in a Parisian forum.
DIFC stated that the region is growing fast at 11% a year. Soon the GCC will be the 5th biggest economy in 2020 and its single currency will emerge as a global currency alongside the Euro and the Dollar.
The forum was held to position Paris as a welcoming and responsive financial centre for global funds.
The French law offers the flexibility and adaptability to welcome Islamic finance operations. New measures are currently under way with the set up of a new framework for Sharia's compatible asset management instruments by the French financial authority (AMF) with some measures including tax incentives are on track, aimed at facilitating Islamic banking and takaful products as well as Sukuk issuance to make Paris an attractive center for Islamic Finance.
New initiatives have also been taken by the AMF in order to facilitate the issuing of Sukuks on the Paris Stock Exchange and tax incentives are being studied to ease Islamic banking and insurance operations (takaful).

A fundamental shift in global finance has thrown the GCC countries into full glare of the world spotlight amid surge of GCC sovereign funds.

The rise in importance of Gulf region Sovereign Wealth Funds has been ongoing for some months, but yesterday at the International Financial Forum in Paris, staged by Paris EUROPLACE, the organisation promoting Paris as a Financial Market, the evidence of the GCC's influence was stronger than ever.

Attendees included more than 1,200 representatives of investors, banks and financial institutions, French and international issuers, as well as a large delegation of the GCC member countries and high representatives of the European Commission and Parliament.

The topic of the forum was "the contribution of the Paris Financial Centre to the global economy", which included 3 GCC-focused panel discussions showcasing the growing importance of the GCC region in global finance and the positioning of Paris as a welcoming and responsive financial centre for global funds. The panel discussions stole the show: they were largely oversubscribed and there were rows of people standing at the back of the room.

The large GCC delegation - led by Dr Nasser Saidi, Chief Economist of Dubai International Finance Centre (DIFC), Jean Paul Villain, Head of Strategy Unit of Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA), Arif Sherani, Director of Investment Strategy of Qatar Investment Authority (QIA) and Tom Healy, CEO of ADX (Abu Dhabi Exchange) - was on a mission to explain the opportunities offered by the Gulf areas and succeeded in seducing European investors, bankers and media.

The 3 sessions were: "The role of long term investors in the global economy", "GCC cooperation opportunities", and "Islamic finance developments".

Each was vastly oversubscribed, an interesting fact in a country such as France which has had a recent history of economic patriotism.

The role of long-term investors in the global economy (plenary session) underlined the shift of capital to the southern hemisphere, where the capacity on saving averages 50% to compare with 15% in the North, but also the emergence of SWFs as long-term investors together with pensions funds or central banks. The growing financial capacity of SWFs, their long term investment policy and their will to collaborate on policy principles were all highlighted.

De Romanet, CEO of the Caisse des Depots (the French State Fund), underlined the role of the SWF in the global market, and their growing capitalization "from 3 000 billion today to 15 000 billion in the near future". For him, "SWFs are no more or less than institutional investors and I invite them to join the Caisse des D?p?ts, in the Global Institutional Investors Club that I am setting up." Villain from ADIA and Sherani from QIA insisted on the need for continuous dialogue.

Dr Nasser Saidi from DIFC underlined that "in the 70s and 80s, the petrodollars were coming in and out without benefiting the economy, there was no stock exchange, no financial market to leverage the benefits of that flow. Now that we can control that wealth and invest it, foreigners are welcome to come, operate, and list their companies on one of the region's stock exchanges.

He added that "The region is growing fast, 11% a year. At this rate the GCC will be the 5th biggest economy in 2020 and its single currency will emerge as a global currency alongside the Euro and the Dollar." Dr Saidi also called for stronger ties between Europe and the GCC countries, a sentiment backed by the Abu Dhabi Exchange whose representatives signed a strategic partnership agreement with NYSE Euronext.

Tom Healy the CEO of ADX, who said: "The advantages of cooperation are far bigger than merely technical; the expertise and people are more valuable." He invited the best EU organisations and companies "to contribute to and benefit from the current growth".

NYSE Euronext a member of Paris EUROPLACE has signed a number of agreements with Financial markets in the GCC region, the most recent being the acquisition of 25% of the Doha Securities Market for USD 250 M, the biggest investment made by NYSE Euronext in a foreign Stock Exchange.

The session on Islamic Finance Developments boasted an impressive panel of regional and French specialists and explained the mechanism of Sharia-compliant finance. It underlined the growing importance of Islamic finance, which is predicted to grow from its current US$800 million to US$1.4 trillion in 2010. It currently represents 20 to 30% of all GCC banking activities in the GCC region.

Christine Lagarde, France's Minister of Economy, Industry and Employment, highlighted the initiatives, inspired by Paris EUROPLACE committees, more particularly those concerning the development of Islamic finance services on the Paris financial marketplace.

The French law already offers the best flexibility and adaptability to welcome Islamic finance operations. Nevertheless, new measures are currently under way with the set up of a new framework for Sharia's compatible asset management instruments by the French financial authority (AMF). Some measures including tax incentives are on track, aimed at facilitating Islamic banking and takaful products as well as Sukuk issuance which will make Paris an attractive center for Islamic Finance.

New initiatives have been decided by the AMF in order to facilitate the issuing of Sukuks on the Paris Stock Exchange and tax incentives are being studied to ease Islamic banking and insurance operations (takaful).

Paris EUROPLACE is the organisation which promotes Paris as a financial market. It represents the major players in the financial market, namely corporate issuers, investors, brokerage firms, banking institutions, market authorities, law, accounting and consulting firms, and professional associations. Its main strength is bringing together the multiplicity of players in the financial industry.

Publié le 4 July 2008.

Youth Camp Video Day 2

revkevgcc — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 03:17:36 +0000

NNE4 Youth Camp

revkevgcc — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 22:16:04 +0000

I'm still digesting all of camp and trying to get my head around the whole experience. While I do I will just be posting some of the daily videos from this past week. Enjoy!

Reference Points

pbonanno — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 13:13:02 +0000

How easy it is to stop paying attention...to go on with life as usual and subtly drift from where we are supposed to be. I noticed this the other day at the beach. Every so often I get up my nerve and go into the ocean even though it's so cold here in New England that it numbs my flesh. As long as you stay knee deep, have your feet planted in the sand, and stay close to shore you probably won't drift too much. But as someone said, "ships weren't meant to be docked in the harbor, but to go out to the open sea." And neither were we. Our lives should be adventurous and risky and outward!

But, like pressing out further from the shore at your favorite beach, the potential for drifting increases substantially. I can think of times when I've been out far enough on a boogie board that the waves have not only brought me back into shore, but they've brought me several hundred yards away from my starting point. It has caused me to always keep an eye on where I put my beach chair and towel, to create visual reference points while I'm out swimming. Maybe a lifeguard station or a multi-colored beach umbrella are helpful also. Several reference points instead of just one.

Today while I was journaling in Hebrews 2:1, these images came to mind. The writer says that we much be careful to pay attention otherwise we will drift. We can't just assume that all of our decisions or actions are the right ones. We can't just go on with life without paying attention and creating reference points. That's what God's Word and God's words do for me. Whether from the Bible or from the mouths of those who care for me enough to pray and speak the truth in love- I need to come back to these things again and again. I must keep my sights on the shore to the anchoring places while I set sail in the deep blue ocean of God's purposes.

Unfortunately there are times when we can be so far off course that returning can seem almost impossible. This is especially true when we don't notice how far we are drifting. It's not until we end up in some unfamiliar place like the prodigal son did when he developed an appetite for the corn husks that he was feeding to a pack of hogs. Hopefully we'll go back to the reference point before we eat the husks. "My father...," he thought. He remembered and returned humbly.

When I was just a teenager I remember a startling scene at the beach. I was on the shore when I saw several men run into the ocean at full speed. Someone was getting sucked in by a strong undertow- a current that was causing them to drift outward and fast. I looked and saw that it was my younger brother who was about 8 years-old at the time. The men made it out to him in time and brought him back to shore. He was saved from the oceans current.

I'm looking toward my reference points this morning; to the things that are always sure. I appreciate that His Word never changes even though circumstances do. Look to the shore often. Pay attention so that we don't drift.

Update del Kernel de Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4.x

Julián Rodríguez — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 21:51:28 +0000

Red Hat ha publicado una actualización del kernel de Red Hat Desktop, Enterprise Linux AS, ES y WS en su versión 4 que corrige varios fallos de seguridad que podrían permitir a un atacante local causar una denegación de servicio o acceder a información sensible.

* Se ha encontrado un fallo en las rutinas de copia de memoria en el kernel de Linux al ejecutarse en ciertos sistemas AMD64. Si falla un intento de copia de memoria del kernel, las rutinas no ponen a cero las porciones de memoria que fueron copiadas en destino, lo que podría ser aprovechado por un atacante para ganar acceso a información sensible.

* Se ha descubierto una condición de carrera en ptrace que podría ser aprovechada por un atacante local para causar una denegación de servicio en el sistema (kernel hang).

* Existe un fallo en la emulación de los kernel de 32 y 64 bits que podría ser aprovechado por un atacante para causar una fuga de datos por medio de un binario especialmente manipulado.

* Se ha descubierto que el kernel de Linux manejaba las operaciones de cadenas de una forma opuesta a la de GNU Compiler Collection (GCC). Esto podría ser aprovechado por un atacante local sin privilegios para causar la corrupción de la memoria.

La actualización también solventa otro fallo de menor importancia.

Se recomienda actualizar a través de las herramientas automáticas
up2date.

Fuente:
http://www.hispasec.com

Más Información:

kernel security and bug fix update
Advisory: RHSA-2008:0508-21
https://rhn.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2008-0508.html

CPP IDE - Eclipse + MinGW

zenedith — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 15:29:59 +0000

Ponieważ w poprzednim projekcie "Nikita - Tajemnica skarbu piratów" używałem środowiska Eclipse, postanowiłem krótko opisać, jak wykorzystać to świetne IDE do pracy z cpp zamiast Javy. Trzeba przyznać, że rozszerzalność tego IDE jest niesamowita - istnieje mnóstwo plugin'ów dzięki którym można wykorzystać Eclipse do programowania w większości języków kompilowanych oraz skryptowych.

Potrzebne będą dwie rzeczy:

Wykorzystałem dystrybucję MinGW Distro - nuwen.net, ponieważ jest szybka w instalacji (rozpakowanie plików) i zawiera wszelkie podstawowe aplikacje oraz te bardziej specjalne, ale o tym można się dowiedzieć na podanej stronie.

Jeśli chodzi o Eclipse, to jest to wersja specjalnie przygotowana do projektów w cpp i zawiera oprócz CDT (w wersji 5.0) także klienta repozytorium CVS (klienta SVN można ściągnąć ze strony subclipse.tigris.org) oraz Mylyn.

Istotne jest to, jak należy "zainstalować" tą dystrybucję MinGW, żeby była widoczna dla Eclipse. Otóż możemy rozpakować podaną dystrybucję gdziekolwiek (najlepiej bez białych znaków w strukturze katalogów), lecz jeśli nie będzie to standardowe miejsce C:\MinGW\ to musimy utworzyć na dysku C takie katalogi: C:\MinGW\bin\, ponieważ CDT wyszukuje zainstalowanego toolchain'a od MinGW właśnie po istnieniu podanej ścieżki na dysku C.
To oczywiście nie wszystko - w zmiennej PATH należy dodać lokalizację rozpakowanej dystrybucji ze ścieżką do podkatalogu bin, czyli dla przykładu D:\PRO\MinGW\bin\. Żeby sprawdzić czy wszystko jest ok, należy uruchomić ponownie komputer lub wylogować się z profilu - dopiero wtedy zmiany w PATH zostaną uwzględnione dla systemu (oczywiście można wszystko zmienić z wiersza polecenia ale nie będę komplikował).

W tym momencie należy sprawdzić, czy zmienna systemowa PATH zawiera dystrybucję MinGW - w tym celu wydajemy w konsoli systemu (cmd) polecenie:
g++ -v.
Jeśli wszystko jest ok, to powinniśmy otrzymać parę linii komunikatu kończącego się np. tak:
gcc version 4.2.1-dw2 (mingw32-2).

Czas na odpalenie Eclipse i stworzenie projektu.
W tym celu wybieramy opcję New Project/C++ Project z menu kontekstowego nad oknem Project Explorer, przez przyciśnięcie przycisku na liście toolbox'a New C/C++ Project lub przez menu File.

W otworzonym okienku istotne są dwie rzeczy:

W prawym panelu powinien być widoczny toolchain MinGW GCC,
Tworząc "zwykły" projekt .exe wybieramy "Empty Project", zamiast pozostałych "Hello World ...".

Dalsze okienka akceptujemy bez wprowadzania zmian.
Tworzymy nowy plik implementacji (.cpp) z menu new, i dodajemy tam przykładowy kod:
#include <iostream> using namespace std;
int main () { // Say Hello five times for (int index = 0; index < 5; ++index) cout << "HelloWorld!" << endl; exit(0); }
Domyślnie kompilacja następuje przy każdym save'owaniu - o ile przy programowaniu w Javi'e nie jest to uciążliwe (a wręcz bardzo pomocne), to w przypadku pracy z cpp może to przeszkadzać osobą takim jak ja, które wciskają ctrl+s co 20 sekund. Warto więc odznaczyć pole "Build Automatically" w menu Project.
Kompilacji (build całego projektu) dokonywać teraz można np. poprzez skrót ctrl+b lub przez odpowiednią ikonkę "młotka" na toolbox'ie Eclipse'a.
W odpowiedzi w oknie Console dostaniemy podobne podsumowanie:
Build complete for project (twój projekt) Time consumed: 1578 ms.

Teraz wystarczy otrzymany .exe odpalić bezpośrednio z Eclipse przez menu Run as - Local C/C++ Application i w oknie Console otrzymamy wynik działania aplikacji podanej wyżej.

Jews in Bahrain ..

Omanymous — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 12:33:01 +0000

ok for this post ... i decided to go a bit regional... why not, right?

We should really know what is going on around us ... and we should highlight the interesting stuff that we feel others might find ..... interesting ....

So this post is going to be about Bahrain...

i dont know if anyone really knows about this other than the Bahrainis .. but there seems to be a few (seven) jewish families that still live in Bahrain ...

I recently came across an article in mideast youth about a lady called Ms. Huda Azra Ibrahim Nunu who has been appointed as Kingdom's ambassador to the U.S.

Miss Nunu is also.............. A Jew !

Miss Nunu is also a member of the Bahraini parliament ( the same parliament that voted against Haifa Wahbe performing in Bahrain) She is also, co founder of the Bahrain Human Rights Watch Society.

Isnt this just mind blowing .. a GCC state appoints a women ambassador to the United States of America (like us) and this woman happens to be Jewish !!!! what a stunt ! Bahrain must have hired some kind of think out of the box PR firm to come up with that idea ... And the profile of the lady is just the right one to have .. ok so she doesnt have any diplomatic experience but she would have the whole foreign affairs machine behind her.... this is the kind of stuff that makes headlines ... i am surprised it didnt come to my attention earlier .. its kind of big news .. right ?

i cannot help but wonder if the other GCC nations have any jewish residents ... that are nationals ... has anyone heard of omani jews, have you? Wikipedia reports that Oman no longer has a jewish community .. I would be interesting to know if there is any documented history of this .. just out of curiosity ...

GCC dependent type disambiguation

Wed, 02 Jul 2008 03:12:01 +0000

If that title makes you say "wtf?", me too. The explanation from GCC about this part of the C++ standard is here, but you still have to stare at it a while to sort it out. Here is the most trivial case I have seen, based on reduction of some real-world code from our engine that GCC didn't like.

// this won't compile, gcc gives "error: expected primary-expression before 'int'"
template <class T>
void test(T t)
{
  t.f<int>(); // f is a dependent type, just like you the compiler doesn't know what it is here
}

And this is how you fix it:

// this will compile
template <class T>
void test(T t)
{
  t.template f<int>(); // now the compiler knows that f is a template
}

BTW the Visual Studio 2005 C++ compiler will accept either one.

A Unique Toolkit: Managing Gulf Inflation

Aamir A. Rehman — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 15:30:35 +0000

In recent weeks, commentators around the world have become increasingly concerned about the menace of inflation. As pointed out in an Economist cover story, "inflation's back" and is particularly damaging in emerging markets most sensitive to commodity prices and the cost of foodstuffs. The Economist rightly points out that at least half the Gulf states are grappling with double-digit inflation. In the Gulf context, however, it's worth noting that policy makers have a unique toolkit for managing inflation which differs significantly from the tools available elsewhere.

In general, two types of tools are used for managing inflation: monetary policy and fiscal policy. OECD observers are most familiar with the use of monetary measures -- namely, the raising and lowering of interest rates -- as the first line of defense against inflation or recession. Fiscal measures relate to government spending and resource allocation.

All GCC member states, with the exception of Kuwait, peg their currency to the dollar and therefore have limited flexibility in the realm of monetary policy. While many have blamed the peg for "importing inflation," it is telling that even Kuwait -- without a dollar peg -- is facing double-digit inflation. Due to a number of trade-related concerns, it appears the dollar peg is here to stay for at least the short-term future.

It is in the realm of fiscal policy where GCC economies have more flexibility. On almost a daily basis, governments make choices about how much oil and gas to produce and -- perhaps more importantly -- how to allocate the revenue from energy exports. Much of the region's growth has been spurred by investing more of the energy surpluses at home, as part of overall economic development and diversification strategies. Allocating the surplus is therefore a key instrument in the trade-off between growth and inflation.

The Gulf's toolkit for managing inflation is thus a unique one. Monetary policy is relatively constrained, while the flexibility of fiscal policy -- and particularly the allocation of energy surpluses -- is substantial and potentially more potent than in states without such surpluses.

One key factor driving Gulf inflation is the rising prices of imports, upon which the GCC economies rely. Since many of these imports come from the EU and other non-dollar economies, their prices in relative terms have soared as the dollar has lost value. While policy makers are taking steps to reduce import-dependence, the economies and natural endowments of the Gulf are such that imports are simply indispensable.

In this environment of unprecedented energy prices, Gulf policy makers are choosing to stimulate their local economies as never before. Inflation is a natural consequence of this choice. The challenge will be for Gulf decision makers to grow household incomes at least as fast as inflation -- and to do so using their unique toolkit.

"Lou" The Blogger

revkevgcc — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 00:29:28 +0000

About a month ago we had an incredible baptism service during our Sunday services. We baptized 60 people that day between the 2 services. It was absolutely amazing! I am still in awe of the stories that people shared as they prepared to enter the waters of baptism. Collin Locker was one of those who was baptized. Rather than give a regular, run-of-the-mill testimony her shared a poem that he wrote out the inspiration of his life. Below is the poem that he wrote.

A New Beginning

And now I begin anew,

the blood of both of us has been spilt,

and his has cleansed me with grace.

No matter what I’ve done,

No matter what I’ve said,

No matter what I’ve felt,

Freedom is finally mine.

My jail breaker has stormed the prison of which I was enclosed.

As tears of confusion and sorrow fall,

I ask this of you:

Do not pity my suffering,

for it is gone now.

Do not fret for my old way,

for they have been diminished.

Do not worry for my safety,

for now I am protected.

Do not hide from me,

for I will never hurt you again.

Do not remember the pains I’ve caused,

for I regret them more than you could know.

Do not allow my past to fool you,

for I am no longer plagued by its memory.

Do not recall my lies,

for now I want to speak the truth.

Do not remember me,

for what I was is no longer living.

Like a phoenix from the ash,

I am reborn.

Many people have asked about this poem and wanted to know how a kid could have such depth in his writing. This is nothing! Collin has begun blogging. Check him out here. I truly feel that the Lord is raising up a prophetic voice from this younger generation. Check it out often and please comment on his blog - encourage his gift of writing and spur him on in this calling.

Anticipation...

revkevgcc — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 21:54:20 +0000

...not that I am getting ready to eat fish or anything. But I am hungry. Hungry for what is about to come. For the past few weeks we have been praying with such fervency and hope for God to move in the lives of the students at Impact. We have been running to the throne room of God boldly asking that He bring about lasting, true change in the lives of so many.

We are seeing the fruit of those prayers. Last night at Impact the atmosphere was electric. There was such a sense that God was about to do the miraculous - and He did! Lives were changed, relationships were reconciled, hope was found by many. Thank you God!

But I am still hungry. With youth camp fast approaching us I am so excited for what it "yet to come". I know and fully expect that there will be physical, emotional, and spiritual healings that take place next week. Our theme for this years camp is AWAKE and I am believing for many to be awakened to the call that God has for them. There has been a word spoken about this young generation. That no longer will they be called the "whatever" generation - but that they will be the "Whenever, wherever" generation. That they would be eager to follow God wherever He leads them and to be ready whenever He calls them.

My prayer is that we see that happen more and more today, tomorrow, and throughout the coming years. Please join me in this prayer!

As I will be speaking at youth camp this coming week I would covet your prayers. Please cover the youth of the Northern New England Foursquare District as well as me throughout the coming week - we begin camp on Monday, June 30 and finish up on Friday, July 4. Please pray during this time that there would be an honest openness for the work of the Holy Spirit to be done in each of our lives.

I'll be updating the blog each day with specific prayer requests so please check back often and if you feel that the Lord is giving you a word to share with us please leave a comment here.

More eCommerce Fun

matt — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 21:13:10 +0000

After much searching, tinkering, installing, re-installing, re-re-installing, etc., I've sort of narrowed down some options that look like really good possibilities for open-source, fully featured eCommerce solutions.

Magento: Very obviously an extremely professional product. Though relatively new, it's got TONS of support and buzz. Right now I see two drawbacks: it looks like it'll take a good bit of tweaking and designing to make it look REALLY good (it looks "just good," though professional, out of the box), and it does not yet support "virtual products" (aka digital downloads). For the first, we've got a crack team of website gurus here at GCC, and if they ever feel over their heads, we can hire some outside help to get it up and running. For the second, the Magento team promises that virtual products will be an option in the next release, slated for sometime this July (and the alpha I tried out does indeed have it as an option, just not a working option yet)

PrestaShop: Looks very, VERY nice out of the box, was EXTREMELY easy to use/customize. Probably wouldn't need any outside help to make it look how we want, with plenty of flash (the aesthetic, not necessarily the technology). Downsides: it's currently in Release Candidate 4 for the stable 1.0 version. Hopefully that means full stable coming very soon. Downloadable product size limited to 7MB, so we'd be restricted to users downloading PDFs with links/passwords to actual product. Also, on my first run (today), the whole backend/admin panel suddenly stopped working. Not sure what's going on. Time for one of those re-installs.
*update* before even posting this, I checked again, and was able to get to it. I blame our lack of good connection here at work, as it had been timing out

Drupal with Ubercart: Actually has pretty much everything we need. TONS of free modules, ability to have calendar with workshops scheduled, final releases of the software, all the options we are looking for. Drawback: it just doesn't seem as professional as the other two. Oddly enough, it seems like a CMS that has an eCommerce layer on top of it (hmm, wonder why that is). Things are relatively clearly laid out.... it just doesn't FEEL as nice as the others (we're talking admin panel here). The store itself should be pretty easy to make it look nice.

SO HERE'S MY QUESTION: Has anyone used any of these, and can provide feedback/advice on the good, bad, and ugly of using them in production? These seem to be three of the top dogs in the open-source eCommerce community, but are there others that are so amazing that I simply must check them out? Let me know!

Onkel Joakim ville være grøn af misundelse

Hodja — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 22:25:30 +0000

Men han ville nok ikke bruge pengene til udbredelse af islam i Vesten:

The oil-rich Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states are projected to earn close to 1.3 trillion dollars in oil revenue in 2008 and 2009, a Kuwaiti economic report said on Saturday.

The six-nation alliance -- Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia -- earned 364 billion dollars from oil in 2007, the Al-Shall Economic Consultants said in its weekly report.

The GCC oil revenues are projected to reach 636 billion dollars in 2008 and 657 billion dollars in 2009, Al-Shall said.

Oil powerhouse Saudi Arabia's earnings in the two years will be just under 700 billion dollars. The kingdom posted 194 billion dollars in oil revenues in 2007.

The six states, which boast just less than half of the world's crude proven reserves, produce around 16 million barrels per day, or just under one-fifth of the world's consumption.

Fra gulf in the media

(Engelsk: 1 billion = 1 milliard. 1 Trillion = 1.000 milliarder eller 1 billion).

Utiliser pkg-config pour faciliter l'édition des liens

hypoblog — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 22:16:11 +0000

Vous avez sans doute déjà fait l'expérience du compilateur qui ne trouve pas les fichiers d'entête ou les bibliothèques utilisées et vous gratifie d'un beau "file not found". S'ensuit alors une recherche minutieuse de l'ensemble des fichiers nécessaires qu'il faudrat ensuite aller renseigner au compilateur lors de la compilation. He bien, sachez que ce cauchemar peut s'arrêter maintenant car il existe un outil spécialement conçu pour résoudre ce problème. Il s'agit de pkg-config!

Pkg-config est un logiciel qui accède à des fichiers relatifs aux bibliothèques utilisées contenant tous les fichiers à renseigner au compilateur. Par exemple, si vous utilisez la bibliothèque SDL dans votre projet, il suffit de demander à pkg-config de vous donner les renseignements concernant cette bibliothèque. Pour ce faire, rien de plus simple, voici le format courant de la commande (il existe beaucoup d'autres options et je vous invite à lire le manuel):

pkg-config [––cflags] [––libs] <bibliotheque>

L'option ––cflags demande d'obtenir les options de compilation avec les dossiers contenant les fichiers d'entête et l'option ––libs concerne les fichiers de bibliothèque.

Ainsi, pour l'exemple avec la SDL, cela donne:

pkg-config ––cflags ––libs sdl

Et pkg-config nous répond par

-D_GNU_SOURCE=1 -D_REENTRANT -I/usr/include/SDL -Wl,-rpath,/usr/lib -lSDL -lpthread

Qui sont les options qu'il faudrat renseigné à gcc pour la compilation.
Auriez-vous pensez à indiquer tout cela?

Pour savoir quelles sont les bibliothèques supportées, allez dans le dossier /usr/lib/pkgconfig. Ce dossier contient tout un ensemble de fichiers avec une extension .pc. Le nom des fichiers correspond au nom de la bibliothèque. Attention, une bibliothèque peut posséder différents fichiers .pc, par exemple pour Qt:

Qt3Support.pc            QtDBus.pc      QtOpenGL.pc     QtSvg.pc     QtXml.pc
QtAssistantClient.pc     QtGui.pc        QtScript.pc       QtTest.pc
QtCore.pc                  QtNetwork.pc  QtSql.pc           QtUiTools.pc

Vous pouvez dès lors simplifier vos appels au compilateur:

gcc `pkg-config ––cflags ––libs sdl` test.c -o test

Ou dans votre Makefile, la variable CFLAGS par exemple contiendrait `pkg-config ––cflags <bibliotheques> `

En plus de la simplicité, cette méthode vous permet de mettre des options de compilation conseillées par les développeurs de la bibliothèque. Elle regroupe ainsi toutes les qualités requisent pour être utilisée par tous les développeurs en herbe que vous êtes :D