Facebook has a reputation as a source of gossip, and the occasional embarrassing photo. But anyone who doubts Facebook can be a political tool ought to talk to former Tunisian dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali. In this episode of Fast Forward, social media experts gather in a Google Hangout session to talk about how Facebook chatter can change society.

Watch more episodes of Fast Forward.

We recently announced the launch of Elektron hosting and managed services in Brazil in the context of the Brazil Investment Summit. Over a hundred clients attended the cocktail-panel, co-hosted by renowned high-frequency traders market specialists Clécio Lima (BTG Pactual) and Leo Yamauchi (Santander), and Thomson Reuters represented by Bill Ruvo (Head of Elektron Hosting) and Tito Singh (Head of Trading & Portals Solutions Sales, Americas).

The new service, situated in close proximity to the Bolsa de Valores, Mercadorias & Futuros de São Paulo (BM&F BOVESPA) exchange, will provide trading firms with cost effective, low latency access to the real-time data required to fuel algorithmic and high-frequency trading strategies in Brazil.

Based in São Paulo, the new Elektron data solution delivers high speed connectivity to BM&F BOVESPA, the world’s third largest exchange by market value, for market participants seeking local liquidity in Brazil, including full depth of market pricing along with US-traded American Depository Receipts (ADRs) and CME futures data. By accessing the Elektron services, either through cross-connecting applications within the data centre or externally through a choice of connectivity options, local firms can consume both low latency local market content as well as global, cross-asset real-time data from over 350 electronic venues and hundreds of OTC market contributors and reference data sources.

Investor interest in the fast-growing Brazilian market has increased rapidly in recent years, driving market liquidity and seeing an expanding number of domestic and international firms adopting algorithmic trading. Elektron Hosting and Managed Services provides the comprehensive, high-quality, real-time data and high-performance delivery required to support these trading strategies and help customers gain competitive advantage. (more…)

Now in its 7^th year, Canada Day in London is an initiative of the Canadian community in the United Kingdom. While the primary spot to celebrate Canada Day is in Canada’s capital of Ottawa, Canadians can find celebrations across the country and the world, with people joining together on July 1st to celebrate the birth of the country.

This year, we’re excited to sponsor Canada Day in London and the I LOVE CANADA contest to win the trip of a lifetime! All you have to do is to be creative and tell them in 100 characters or less why you love Canada. Select entries will be posted on Facebook and Twitter.

The grand prize winner will receive a trip for two to the Niagara Region with round trip flights from London to Toronto with Canadian Affair, a two night stay at the Niagara Falls Hilton Hotel, a round of golf at the coveted Legends of the Niagara and a visit to the Mike Weir Winery with a VIP tour through the vineyards. Accommodation, golf package and winery tour were all made possible by Thomson Reuters.

Good luck and Happy Canada Day!

Thousands of journalists and movie executives are in the glamorous Riviera resort for 12 hectic days of screenings, red carpets, parties and deal-making as today marks the first day of the 2012 Cannes Film Festival. The graphic below shows the official selection of films in the main competition for the Palme d’Or, the total number of selections over the years and a visual of the iconic buildings of the festival.

Rob Cox and Breakingviews columnists discuss how investors are rationalizing the hype over Facebook’s IPO.

Don’t forget to check out the Breakingviews eBook: “Facebook: A Like Story – Why Investors Shouldn’t Fall in Love”

In conjunction with Global Property Research, we recently announced the launch of the first highly-liquid, real estate indices. Designed specifically to be tracked by ETFs looking to offer investors exposure to real estate markets globally, the TR/GPR indices provide a more investable and tradable solution than currently available elsewhere.

The new suite of real estate indices provides broad global diversification, including emerging markets. The TR/GPR Global 100 Index is composed of the 100 most liquid real estate stocks worldwide. The TR/GPR indices can be used to build real estate ETFs that closely represent the property market, to track real estate performance or simply for benchmarking purposes.

Learn more about this announcement in the press release or by checking out our Thomson Reuters Real Estate product.

Every week, CQ Roll Call takes the burning issues of healthcare straight to our experts at Thomson Reuters.

This week, CQ HeathBeat addressed the Republican-proposed slashing of the Prevention and Public Health fund. The report says draining the fund is the Republicans attempt to prevent the doubling of student loan interest rates this June. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D, Nevada) has countered with preventing the hikes by closing of a corporate tax loophole.

Ray Fabius, Michael L. Taylor, Michael R. Udwin and William Bithoney of Thomson Reuters tackle this issue by fielding questions from Dena Bunis, CQ HealthBeat Managing Editor.

Q. Is the Prevention Fund as important to women’s health as the Democrats said during this debate?

Fabius. There are three levels of prevention; primary, secondary and tertiary. Primary prevention is gender balanced. Immunizations, seat belt usage and health lifestyles benefit both men and women. Tertiary prevention or chronic care management is also equally beneficial to both sexes. However, secondary prevention or health screening does serve women’s health to a greater extent. There are no equivalences for mammography and PAP smears in men’s health programs.

Taylor. A small percentage of the healthcare costs in the U.S. are spent on preventing disease; most of the dollars are spent on illness treatments. Preventing disease is more cost efficient than treating disease. Breast and cervical cancer screening are important elements of the prevention strategy. Most cervical cancer is found in women who have not had cervical cancer screening, so diverting funds from this effort is likely to decrease the screening rate. If the cancer prevalence rises, so will the overall cost of treating the cancer. Political grandstanding occurs on both sides of the isle, but cancer screening efforts need to be encouraged and funded.

Udwin. No doubt screening efforts are an integral component of any population health program. However, it is unclear whether this is the only path to both funding and implementation.

Bithoney. Student loans recently passed credit card debt as the number one source of debt in the U.S. Thus, this issue is far from trivial. Allowing student loan interest rates to increase so substantially will be problematic for future generations and for our economy. The Prevention Fund is quite important and funds prevention care and screening when other sources are unavailable. This is a crucial health need. Public health officials have requested such a program for years. However, what is truly needed is comprehensive healthcare access for those who at present lack it, so as to obviate such ongoing battles. With a one-year fix as described above, this political and fiscal problem will recur repeatedly.

Q. What would be the practical impact of the Prevention Fund being eliminated? (more…)

Today’s graphic is the featured “Chart of the Week” at our Alpha Now blog. It focuses on key economic indicators to compare France and Germany. Notice how the unemployment rate has gone in complete opposite directions for each country. What else do these charts tell you about the situation in Europe?

As states are about to legalize online gambling a number of casinos and social media giants are racing to take advantage. Reuters correspondent Joseph Menn tells Anthony De Rosa that social media giants Zynga and Facebook need to be careful before becoming involved with online gambling.

Watch more episodes of Tech Tonic.

Anyone who has their eyes on the markets is eagerly awaiting the $100 billion Facebook IPO.  Will Facebook live up to the hype?  Will Mark Zuckerberg turn into Rupert Murdoch?  Will businesses that are riding its coattails benefit as much as they expect?  A new book from Reuters Breakingviews gives investors clear insight into why Zuckerberg’s dorm room creation may be a game-changer, but a risky investment.

“Facebook: A Like Story – Why Investors Shouldn’t Fall in Love” is a compilation of two dozen columns that illustrates “Facebook’s trajectory and increasing importance – from a site used by college students to a business approaching a billion users and potentially worth more than $100 billion.” Breakingviews has led the agenda on Facebook’s story since the beginning, writing its first piece when the social network had just 9 million collegiate users.

The Breakingviews ebook hits on three important themes:

• Valuation: The social network is aiming for an IPO at $28-$35 a share, for a value of up to $95 billion. But as a Breakingviews analysis shows, sanity resides at the low end of the valuation scale.

• Governance: It could take decades or only a few years but the overwhelming control investors are ceding to the 27-year-old Facebook founder will eventually cease to be in their best interest.

• Dependence: It’s not just social networking junkies that are hooked on the firm. Businesses such as Zynga have been created on its back. Bankers are pegging their careers on floating the firm. And California needs the impending IPO to help close its yawning budget gap.

For the first time, customers can buy the Breakingviews ebook for their iPad, Kindle or Nook. Give it a read and let us know what you think…