Manny Pacquiao cemented his place in the pantheon of boxing greats by recording an unanimous points victory over Antonio Margarito on Saturday to claim the vacant WBC super welterweight title. The 31-year-old southpaw dominated all 12 rounds against his bigger Mexican opponent at Cowboys Stadium to land an eighth world title in an unprecedented eighth weight class.
Having already established himself as one of the best offensive fighters of all time, Pacquiao outclassed Margarito with his lightning hand speed and precise power punching to improve his career record to 52-3-2 with 38 knockouts.
"It was a really hard fight, the hardest fight in my boxing career," Pacquiao told reporters after winning his 13th consecutive bout since losing to Erik Morales in Las Vegas in March 2005.
"He's strong. I never expected him to be as strong as he was. He's a very tough fighter. I can't believe he took all those punches." The Filipino, a heavily odds-on favourite going into the fight, pummelled the Mexican's head virtually at will for much of the bout, leaving his opponent with a puffed left eye and a cut under a badly swollen right eye.
Despite being outweighed by 17 pounds, Pacquiao blended raw power with speed in front of a crowd of 41,734 to deliver a spectacular performance against an opponent who was also four-and-a-half inches taller.
The pride of the Philippines, who had never previously fought above welterweight, dominated the official ringside statistics, landing 474 power punches compared to Margarito's 229. At one point during the 11th round, Pacquiao looked across at referee Laurence Cole and asked him to stop the fight.
Japan, Peru agree on free trade pact
YOKOHAMA: Japan and Peru announced Sunday that they have concluded negotiations on a free trade pact, aiming to further bolster trading that has steadily blossomed in the last six years. Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan and Peruvian President Alan Garcia signed a statement declaring the conclusion of more than a year of talks on an Economic Partnership Agreement.
To come into effect, it needs to be approved by both countries' legislatures. The ceremony took place on the sidelines of a summit of Pacific Rim countries in the Japanese port city of Yokohama.
Since 2004, trade between Peru and Japan has grown 235 percent, hitting $2.2 billion in 2007. Eighty-five percent of Peru's exports to Japan are minerals, including small amounts of rare earth metals. It also exports asparagus, corn, mangoes, grapes and squid.
Japanese exports to Peru include automobiles and electronics products. Under the free trade pact, Japan and Peru will eliminate tariffs on up to 99 percent of imports over the next 10 years, Japanese officials said.
Kan welcomed the conclusion of the trade negotiations, calling it ``a major step for the two countries to develop closer ties.' The deal is significant for Japan because Peru already has reached a free trade deal with South Korea, which has become Japan's biggest rival in electronics and other advanced manufacturing, a Japanese official said.
``Now we can compete against South Korea on equal footing,' said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, citing policy. Peru, Japan's 13th free trade partner, has actively sought free trade deals with major countries, including several in Asia.
China to consider hot money policies
BEIJING: China may deploy a mixture of policies to fend off hot money, an official paper cited a central bank executive as saying at the weekend, amid worries that the United States' policies could create unwelcome flows of capital toward China.
Ma Delun, a deputy governor of central bank the People's Bank of China (PBOC) said such a policy kit would include reserve requirement adjustment, management of foreign exchange positions, and open market operations, expanding on an earlier remark by the PBOC governor.
"The 'pool' mentioned by Governor Zhou Xiaochuan does not refer to a specific market, but an array of policies," Ma was quoted as saying by the Shanghai Securities News on Saturday. Earlier this month, Zhou said China's existing foreign exchange controls were able to prevent irregular capital inflows, and proposed establishing a "pool" that could help lock and release capital as required.
With the United States weakening the dollar with a second round of quantitative easing, worries are mounting that much of that cash may end up overseas, putting pressure on countries including China to find ways of fending off unwanted capital inflows.
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