WORLD IMPORT NEWS

NOL Notches Q3 Net Of $ 35 m

2008-11-16T23:51:00.001-08:00

Global container shipping, terminals and logistics group Neptune Orient Lines (NOL) has reported a net profit of $ 35 million for the third quarter of 2008 (3Q08),down by 82 percent when compared to the third quarter of 2007 (3Q07).

Group EBIT fo 3Q08 of $ 52 million was down by 75 percent from 3Q07, While third-quarter revenue was up 16 percent year-on-year to $2.4 buillion.

Announcing the results, the NOL Grouop president and chief Executive officer, Mr Ron Widdows, said, “The Group continued to generate a profit in the third-quarter despite the deterioration fo conditions in the container shipping market.

“Reduced demand in key trade lanes, combined with coast increases and worsening global economic conditions hav adversely impacted our profir performance in the third-quarter.

“Against this challenging backdrop, our logistics business delivered satisfactory earnings in 3Q08.

In 3Q08, NOL’s container shipping arm, APL, recorded a 10 percent to 622,000 FEUs, driven Primarily by the intra-Asia trade, as well as and increase in Asia –Europe and transpacific backhaul volumes.

“APL volumes grew on a year-on-year basis but overall demand in the main trades slowed considerably in the third quarter”, said Mr.Widdows.

APL’s average third-quarter 2008 overall head haul utilization level was 90 percent compared to 99 percent in3Q07.Average revenue per FEU for container shipping in3Q08 was 8 percent higher year-on-year, reflecting continued fuel cost recovery measures. Total revenue for 3Q08 rose by 22 percent over the previous year to $2.04 billion and by 28 percent for the year-to-date to $5.98 billion.

Crore Asia-Europe head haul freight rates(excluding bunder adjustment factors) came under severe downward pressure as demand softened and the trade anticipated the high number of large container vessels due to inter service in 2009/2010.

Head haul volumes in the transpacific contracted I 3Q08; a factor which may be further compounded by the global financial crisis and economic slowdown.

“We are acting quickly and decisively to tram capacity and reconfigure our service networks, adjusting port calls and service loops and with drawing a number of vessels from service. These actions will reduce our costs and better align.APL’S service networks to the lower demand levels currently being experienced,” he stated.

Exchane Rates Flexibility

2007-12-16T21:29:00.000-08:00

Last week's article identified two price change drivers on the supply side of goods and services. These are "economic" changes, e.g. increases in the prices of raw materials in a production process, and fiscal, changes in the money supply in the country. Today we in T&T and even in the region are suffering from increases in prices in the local markets of food (imported and local). We need to disaggregate the proportion of these supply side price changes caused by increases in our money supply.

We are all well aware that the price of food on the global market is driven by increased demand for more sophisticated food by China and India, Peak Oil, i.e. the inability of the world's petroleum production system to meet demand, hence the increasing cost of transportation and production costs of food, salination and erosion of soils, the movement of land away from food production to that of alternative fuels, failure of crop production in certain countries due to poor weather and climate change.

This price increase is affecting all of the countries in the world whether they import food or not, and they, as we, are experiencing increasing food prices. However, the corresponding current annual food price increases in say India is ten per cent, Nigeria - 36 per cent, US - 3.5 per cent, Europe - 2.5 per cent, Singapore - 2.9 per cent, China - 18.2 per cent and T&T - 20 per cent.

Surely, then, the price increases of imported and local food in T&T stands out in stark contrast to the other countries with the exception of China and Nigeria. In China we see that its currency is undervalued, there is a large positive balance of trade and the liquidity in the country is very high. Its Central Bank is again poised to increase interest rates so as to reduce credit, liquidity and even exports.

T&T is in a similar boat with good balance of trade due to its petroleum exports, massive government spending and, based on the Real Economic Exchange Rate, an undervalued local currency. Hence, food prices in T&T are not simply driven by economic supply constraints but, like China, also the increase in money supply in the country.

Core inflation in these other countries is also well below what we have in T&T, again demonstrating the more general push on prices by high liquidity. But should we, like Singapore, allow the nominal exchange rate of the T&T dollar to appreciate, which as stated in last week's article could reduce the liquidity in the country and also put more purchasing power in the hands of the consumer particularly with respect to imported food?

If our economy was sustainable - i.e. did not depend almost solely on the exploitation of the depleting petroleum resource then the obvious monetary solution would include an appreciation of the TT dollar. The other variable in the equation is that we have to save foreign exchange earned given the volatility of petroleum prices, the ensuing depletion of reserves and the fundamental need to reconstruct the on-shore economy, i.e. reverse the effects of the Dutch Disease. It is encouraging that our new Minister of Finance has accepted the use of part of the RSF for economic diversification - development of the on-shore sector, a song I have sung for ages in the Senate.

It is impossible, like Norway, to use only the earnings of the RSF at this time. Instead we have to live as though, say, the price of oil was US$30. In order to prevent inflation in domestic prices our fiscal and monetary policies have to be in step. The Central Bank Governor is calling on the Government to reduce spending, as is the IMF.

Government's budget spending has to be restricted to that based on the revenues that would have accrued if the petroleum price were actually US$30 i.e. the liquidity has to be controlled at the source - Government spending.

The present Budget allocation by law is not based on the desire to save but on the "error" in the Government's expected price of petroleum. The Central Bank with its monetary policy must release just enough US dollars into the local market so as to maintain and manage the exchange rate at a value consistent with the US$30 price - and allow it to float when necessary to compensate for higher import prices by compatible monetary and fiscal policies.

The present model, however, sees the Executive rapidly expanding its spending to increase GDP, based on rising petroleum revenues with the TT dollar pegged to the depreciating US dollar. The Central Bank, to the detriment of our need to save, is struggling to prevent a depreciation of the exchange rate by increasing its sale of US dollars into the local economy - from US$700 million to US$2.09 billion in five years. Controlling inflation then becomes virtually impossible.

US permits import of Markhor Conservation Hunting Trophy from Pakistan

2007-12-16T21:28:00.000-08:00

PESHAWAR, Dec 16 (APP): The US Fish & Wildlife Service (USFWS) has recognized and rewarded Pakistan’s world-class Markhor Conservation program by issuing the first Markhor Sports Hunting Trophy import permit in 15 years.

The permit was received by Conservation Force which handled it, said a press released issued here on Sunday by Anchan Ali Mirza, Managing Director of Karakurum Treks & Tours who is associated with this project.

The first trophy will be received in US by hunter, Wayne Lau, who took the male flare-horned Markhor from Gaharet Markhor Conservancy in Chitral district of North West Frontier Province (NWFP) in March 2006.

Gaharet conservancy is part of the Mountain Areas Conservation Program (MACP), aims to protect the rich biological heritage of the Karakuram, Hindukush and the Western Himalayan Mountain Ranges through a community based conservation approach.

Dr. Mohammad Mumtaz Malik, Chief Conservator of the NWFP Wildlife Department, Dr. Mumtaz Malik when contact expressed contentment over the development. We are exceptionally pleased that US authorities have recognized the success of our programs in bringing back a highly endangered species from the brink of extinction, remarked Mumtaz Malik.

The development which will strengthen Pakistan’s trophy hunting programme and conservation efforts, he added.

Dr. Richard Garstang, WWF-P’s Conservation Advisor and National Programme Manager of the Pakistan Wetlands Programme explains, Participation by international sports hunters is vital to the success of this innovative conservation initiative. I hope that this leads to a greater level of participation in Pakistan’s officially sanctioned hunting programme’s by members of the international sports hunting community.

The flare-horned markhor trophy is the first markhor of any kind to be imported in to the United States since all markhor were listed on Appendix I of CITIES at COP8 in Kyoto, Japan in 1992, 15 years ago.

It is also the first new US import of any game trophy listed on Appendix I of CITIES since 1996 when the USFWS began permitting import of Botswana elephant hunting trophies 11 years ago.

The real beneficiaries of the USFWS permit are the markhor themselves as well as the local Gaharet communities who will ultimately determine the fate of the markhor.

Credit is due to the Pakistan government and its Wildlife Departments for their support for the conservation program. Credit is also due to the US Fish & Wildlife Service for their wisdom in granting the permit. In effect, they are rewarding all those instrumental in conserving the markhor, and for setting a positive example for others, concludes the press release.

China talks introduce world of import controls

2007-12-16T21:26:00.002-08:00

BEIJING : A toy dog, an electric train and a blond-haired doll would bring smiles to most American homes this Christmas. When the giver is the Chinese government, and the recipients are visiting U.S. trade officials, the meaning is more pointed than simple festive cheer.
"It's a lot of fun. The gift is very nice," said U.S. Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez in Beijing Monday, according to state news agency Xinhua, when he accepted a life-size toy dog from the chief of China's product quality watchdog.

Worries about the safety of Chinese imports have defined the booming but often fraught Chinese-U.S. trading relationship in 2007. On Tuesday, during bilateral talks with Gutierrez that she described as "heated," Chinese Vice Premier Wu Yi, leader of a nationwide quality-raising campaign, complained that U.S. media had "hyped the product safety issue, causing serious damage to the image of Chinese products and China's national reputation."

Tensions surfaced in the spring, when thousands of American dogs and cats were poisoned by eating pet food made with tainted ingredients imported from China. A subsequent cascade of quality problems has included toxic toothpaste, unsafe tires, chemical-laden seafood and millions of lead-painted toys. On Thursday, Home Depot (HD) recalled about 64,000 Chinese-made festive figurines because of the lead paint hazard, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission says.

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Product safety "engages at a deeper, more visceral level than other issues," said U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Mike Leavitt, who was also in the Chinese capital Monday.

The globalized marketplace, in which the USA imported $2 trillion worth of goods last year, means "you can't inspect your way to product safety. There's just too much of it," Leavitt said. "We are not just scaling up existing processes, we are inventing them."

On Tuesday, Leavitt unveiled what he sees as the new world of import controls. With Chinese counterparts, he signed two "strong and action-oriented" agreements to enhance the safety of food and feed, plus medical devices and drugs, that the USA imports from China.

Leavitt promised the new pacts would "enhance the safety and quality of products that Americans use every day" and "form the framework for agreements that will exist all over the world."

What's new:

•New registration and certification requirements. Chinese exporters of food, feed, medical devices and drugs must register with the Chinese government and achieve certification that they meet U.S. standards.

•Greater information-sharing. Within 24 hours (for drugs and medical devices) or 48 hours (for food and feed) of determining a health risk, each side commits to inform the other and provide necessary tracking information.

•Increased access to production facilities. U.S. officials "will be capacity-building, not just inspecting," Leavitt said, without giving specifics. China has resisted giving U.S. regulators such access in the past.

Feeling confident

Visiting Huiyuan Juice Group in the Beijing suburbs Tuesday, Leavitt promised that the new system, supported by China's growing use of bar codes and tracking systems, "will provide great comfort to American consumers. If there is a problem, they can trace (a bottle of juice) back to the grower who picked it off the tree," he said.

Juice was rarely found in China just 20 years ago. Today, Huiyuan, China's largest juicemaker, is listed on the Hong Kong stock exchange and exports $10 million worth of goods to the USA each year, including the kids-oriented BellyWashers and TummyTickler brands sold at Wal-Mart (WMT) and 7-Eleven stores, export manager Rainbow Wang said.

"American parents can feel confident buying our products, as we have a strict quality system and monitor 100 critical points throughout the production process," Wang said.

Mass campaigns

Poisonous pet food sparked this year's burning debate about cheap, low-quality goods shipped from China.

"There will be no more problems with pet food," promised Li Chunfeng, deputy head of China's import and export food-safety bureau, on Tuesday.

One-party states are generally adept at crackdowns. China has been busier than ever this year with a series of old-style campaigns to assuage both foreign critics and domestic concern. The key initiative came in August, when Vice Premier Wu began a four-month "special battle" to improve the quality of goods and food safety.

The campaign has mobilized hundreds of thousands of inspectors, distributed millions of brochures and delivered success, said Wei Chuanzhong, deputy minister of quality supervision. "This has been the biggest campaign to improve product quality in the history of (China)," Wei said.

Highlights include shutting down 47,000 illegal food factories and confiscating 500 tons of highly poisonous pesticides, according to ministry figures.

"American consumers can trust made-in-China products. The problems with melamine-laced pet food were caused by only a few companies, and we have tackled this through the new food and feed agreement with the USA and also by our own campaign these last few months," Li said.

Despite the government's claims, U.S. retailers should still be cautious, visit their suppliers frequently and help them improve their ability to guarantee the sources of all raw materials, suggested Liu Kaiming, head of The Institute of Contemporary Observation in south China's Shenzhen City.

"There are too many factories in China. Quality is a long-term problem and cannot be solved in just four months," said Liu, who is concerned that many Chinese firms lack the "concept of quality control and the habit of observing the law."

On Wednesday, the Chinese and U.S. governments begin their third Strategic Economic Dialogue, designed to bring the two sides closer together on key issues such as the value of the yuan, China's currency, which Washington believes is deliberately undervalued to favor Chinese exporters.

Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, who is chairing the talks for the U.S. side, has said that product safety will be a key agenda item during the talks near Beijing.

Sort out the imports now

2007-12-16T21:26:00.001-08:00

Trans-Tasman board general manager Tony Holding says talks with the New Zealand Players' Association have not "stalled" but confirmed that the contentious import rule was still "a topic for discussion".
It shouldn't be.
The TT board should increase the number of imports allowed in each team to three, adding the proviso that two must have New Zealand residency, unlike Wellington Pulse's English defender, Sonia Mkoloma.
It's obvious why that franchise wanted her: Central netball hasn't had a pulse for years and needed an ER-PR boost.
Yet a loyal servant like former Wellington Shakers captain Frances Solia is on the outer because she played for Samoa at November's world champs. And standout Northern Force shooter Catherine Latu is in the same outrigger.
Holding and his board maintain that the one import rule will prevent a flood of foreigners (Aussies, Jamaicans and English) taking the place of Kiwi players. Fair enough. But why penalise Pacific Island stars after the decades of service they have given netball here both at the elite level and, more importantly, at the coal face.
Names like Margharet Matenga, Rita Fatialofa and Vilimaina Davu hold special places in the game here. As in rugby and league, Island players are interwoven into the rich cultural fabric of Kiwi sport.
Holding still hopes to have a collective contract in place by Christmas. That's five working days. Santa Claus will also rock up to his place with a shiny Aston Martin.
Respected former Silver Ferns defender and current Samoa coach Linda Vagana calls the current one-import ruling "stupid" and it's hard to argue when we're living in a multi-cultural country where there are scores of international-class netballers and only one team to play for the Silver Ferns.
That may change at the next world champs, when Aotearoa Maori hope to have a team accepted, but a sprinkling of NZ-based netballers turning out for their spiritual Pacific Island homes has been vital for the world champs over the past decade, saving them from a complete meltdown. Wales versus Botswana, anyone?
The delay has angered all five Kiwi franchises, who argue that fringe players fighting for contracts in the new restricted market are being mucked around badly.
The first game is scheduled for April 5, when the Pulse host Sharelle McMahon and the Melbourne Vixens.
The Aussies, who have had a players' agreement for 12 months, have named their five squads and, as they go to the holiday break with training schedules locked in, they must be laughing like kookaburras at our tweety birds.

World grain prospects may improve in 2008-09

2007-12-16T21:24:00.000-08:00

Mumbai, Dec 16 Examining the global outlook for food supplies in the current tight global market, the London-based International Grains Council (IGC) during its biannual session in Tokyo early this month, concluded that the global ending stocks would be further drawn down in 2007-08, as consumption will remain unmatched by even the highest ever global output.

By far the biggest increase in consumption would be in biofuels sector, with the amount of grain (mainly corn/maize) used to produce ethanol set to reach100 million tonnes, an increase of 44 per cent from the previous year.

With wheat supplies especially tight due to disappointing 2007 crops in several countries including Australia, prices had hit record highs. Some exporters had taken measures to protect domestic consumers, including new or additional export taxes.

Ocean freight

Recent surges in ocean freight rates had added further to the burden of importers, especially developing countries, although the expected decline in wheat trade in 2007-08 would be largely due to improved crops in some leading importers rather than the high import prices, IGC pointed out.

Growers were expected to respond to the much higher prices and expand the global wheat area by around four per cent for the 2008-09 crop. Based on average yields, output in 2008 could increase to around 645 million tonnes, experts forecast.

This could result in some recovery in world stocks at the end of 2008-09.

A huge rise in maize output in the US, more than offsetting the expected increase in ethanol use, prevented maize prices from rising as sharply as those of wheat.

Maize prices

However, this year’s substantially higher international demand for this grain, especially in the EU, will lift trade to a new record, it is believed.

Although maize supplies appear adequate, there were concerns about outlook for 2008-09 when a significant shift in plantings back to soyabean was likely to occur in the US.

With respect to rice, noting the firmness in international prices, the Council saw prospects for trade in calendar year 2008 dependent on the outcome of harvest between now and mid-2008. But there were indications that world shipments could se an increase even if Indonesia is a less significant buyer, IGC pointed out.

Dollar Crisis: Economic Pearl Harbor?

2007-11-14T21:01:00.001-08:00

What do Brazilian supermodel Gisele Bündchen and the People's Republic of China have in common? The answer, as of last week, is that both distrust the dollar.

Patricia Bündchen, the twin sister and manager of the world's top model, announced that Gisele now prefers to be paid in euros rather than dollars. Almost simultaneously, the Chinese central bank predicted that the dollar is likely to lose its status as the world's leading currency.

One could easily overlook a supermodel's currency preferences, but China is a different story. It's the beast breathing down America's neck.

The most important country in the world for the United States isn't Great Britain, Germany, Saudi Arabia, Russia or Iraq. China holds that dubious distinction, because it is also the country the US can least do without. Without its willingness to buy an almost unlimited supply of US treasury bonds, there would be no American spending miracle. Without a spending miracle there would be no economic growth. In other words, without China the US superpower would lose a significant share of its economic clout.

So far Beijing has behaved like the benevolent shopkeeper who willingly extends credit to his customers. The Americans receive shipments of Chinese-made television sets, toys and underwear, but the Chinese do not import a comparable volume of US goods. The gap between buying and selling amounts to about $5 billion every week.

The Chinese are satisfied with buying US treasury bonds, partly to keep their most important customer afloat. The central bank in Beijing already holds currency reserves of $1.4 trillion.

The Chinese have looked on with great patience as their best customer has gradually lost its ability to supply goods.

But the men in power in Beijing cannot be indifferent to the dollar's decline. It devalues their central bank's dollar reserves, the monetary embodiment of some of the fruits of China's export machine.

For the United States, a Chinese decision to abandon the dollar would be tantamount to Pearl Harbor without the war. It would represent a challenge to the world's biggest economy by the world's fastest growing economy. Millions of people would see their standard of living suffer as a result, and American self-confidence, already shaky, would crumble even further. The United States would suffer a serious blow on its very own turf, the economy.

Americans can hardly blame Beijing for their troubles. The Chinese aren't exactly kamikaze politicians, concocting some secret plan to attack the dollar. On the contrary, the preparations are taking place in full view. Translated into Texan, what the Chinese politely told the Americans last week simply means: Unless something happens, all hell will break loose.

For years the US economy has suffered one dramatic setback after another. A historic trend reversal began with the rise of the Asian economies -- first Japan, then China and now India. The United States, a once-proud exporting nation, became the world's biggest importer. In only 15 years, from 1992 to 2007, the US balance of trade deficit has surged from $84 billion to $700 billion.

Within a single generation, the world's biggest lender has become its biggest borrower, a circumstance the United States has made no serious attempts to change. And what has been Washington's standard take on the shift? The dollar is our currency, but it's your problem.

Thus, the tone of the US government's callous and thick-skinned reaction to China's announcement last week came as no surprise. There was a reason the dollar became the world's reserve currency, US Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson said in a slightly offended tone.

But the truth is that the United States would be better off if Paulson and the administration of President George W. Bush would take decisive action instead of sulking. The US's ability to deliver goods should be increased and its industrial base should be reinvigorated. Government and consumer spending, which in reality is doing nothing but eating away at the country's future, should be curbed. Although growth would decline as a result, it would be a more sustainable form of growth.

Last week's remark by a Chinese central bank official should be interpreted as a warning, not a threat. Indeed, China has no choice but to respond, given the dollar's ongoing weakness.

For these reasons, an attack on the US economy is probably the most easily predictable event of the coming years. And if it happens, the attacker will even be able to justify its actions as self-defense.

What is the difference between the US government in 1941 and the administration in Washington today? Perhaps there is none. A Japanese attack on the US Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor was unimaginable, even though US intelligence had picked up clues that it could happen. Washington, at the time, was convinced that the Japanese wouldn't dare stage an attack on a target 5,000 miles away, and that they wouldn't succeed if they did.

The crews on America's ships were sleeping as the Japanese bombers approached Pearl Harbor.

Another British import finds running success at Butler

2007-11-14T21:00:00.001-08:00

Like so many runners before him, Andy Baker arrived from England without ever having seen the Butler campus or met the coach. Baker was ambitious, though.

"I wanted to prove I'm a better runner than what it looks like I am," said Baker, who is in only his fourth year of serious running.
He made his U.S. cross country debut Sept. 28 at the Notre Dame Invitational. He finished 97th.
What that proved to coach Matt Roe was that something was wrong. Roe was right. Baker was diagnosed with iron deficiency, a condition that improved with supplements and change of diet.
"Now, he's just like a freight train," Roe said.
Baker won the Horizon League race by more than a minute. He finished third in last week's Great Lakes Regional, one of the toughest of nine regionals nationwide. That qualified him for the NCAA Championships, set for Monday at Terre Haute.
Notre Dame's Patrick Smyth was first on Bloomington's 10,000-meter course in 30 minutes, 22.44 seconds. Big Ten champion Matt Withrow, Wisconsin, finished second in 30:38.42. Baker followed about two seconds later.
Baker said he wasn't familiar with the names, and that might have been advantageous.
"They didn't really mean anything to me," he said.
Now it is Baker making a name for himself. Butler has a legacy of top finishers in NCAA cross country -- Victoria Mitchell was fourth in 2005, Mark Tucker fourth in 2002, Fraser Thompson 14th in 2000 and Julius Mwangi third in 1998.
Baker, 22, is a transfer from Loughborough College, where two-time Olympic gold medalist Sebastian Coe and former Butler runner Becky Lyne attended. Butler's pipeline from the United Kingdom was built by former coach Joe Franklin, who left for New Mexico.
Baker conceded there was initial concern but that the transition has been easy. Roe wants to intensify recruiting in the Midwest but said Butler would continue to seek foreign athletes. Baker, in particular, has become valuable as a teammate.
"To have somebody like that who's an international athlete, who's a little bit older, really provides a great dynamic and structure for our program," Roe said.
Butler did not qualify its men's or women's teams for the NCAAs, but it has another British representative in senior Genni Gardner, 23, who was ninth in the women's regional race.
No. 19 Notre Dame and No. 28 Indiana made the men's field as at-large teams. Also advancing were two Hoosiers from Stanford, Nef Araia (Lawrence North) and Katie Harrington (Carmel). Araia, the 2006 NCAA runner-up, was sixth in the West Regional. Harrington, the No. 5 runner for Stanford's top-ranked women, was 14th in the regional.
Sports of all sorts

Gymnastics: Pittsboro gymnast Bridget Sloan, an alternate on the U.S. team that won a gold medal at the World Championships, has been selected to compete in a pre-Olympics test event later this month at Beijing. . . . Samantha Peszek, McCordsville, is narrator for an online episode of "USA Gymnastics: Behind the Team." A video behind-the-scenes look at a visit by Peszek and her U.S. teammates to New York City can be accessed at usa-gymnastics.org or attblueroom.com/teamusa.
Running: IU has constructed a tribute to cross country and track greats at Running Legends Park, a collection of limestone slabs on IU's cross country course. . . . Cindy Harris, 38, Indianapolis, won the women's division of a race to the top of Chicago's Sears Tower for the sixth straight year Sunday. She ran 103 flights of stairs -- 2,109 steps -- in 15 minutes, 1 second. . . . Desiree Davila won a special women's 10,000-meter track race in 33:20.7 Saturday at IUPUI. Erin Nehus of the Indiana Invaders was seventh in 34:14.1.
Trampoline and tumbling: A Fortville 11-year-old, Tristan Van Natta, won a silver medal in women's double-mini trampoline in the age-group world championships at Quebec City, Quebec.

S. Korean firms demand EU's early lowering of import duties

2007-11-14T20:59:00.001-08:00

SEOUL, Nov. 15 (Yonhap) -- South Korean companies called on the government Thursday to push for the early lowering of the European Union's (EU) import duties on cars and electronic goods at free trade talks scheduled for next week.

Representatives from such industry umbrella groups as the Korea Automobile Manufacturers Association (KAMA) and the Korea Display Industry Association (KDIA) said it is imperative that local companies be allowed to export goods without paying import duties if a free trade agreement (FTA) is reached.

In four previous FTA talks held between South Korea and the EU, European negotiators said they want to maintain tariffs on cars and some electronic products for up to seven years.

Cars and electronics account for a large part of South Korea's exports to the 27-nation economic bloc, which totaled US$48.45 billion last year. The EU is the second-largest destination for South Korean products after China.

South Korean companies also said that Seoul must get the EU to soften its stance on its country of origin rules for components that go into products.

"Because EU countries can get cheap parts from East European members, they are insisting on higher percentages of so-called locally made parts than even the United States," said one businessman. He said that since South Korea imports many of its components from countries like China, the EU's position places local companies at a disadvantage if a FTA is signed.

The request by KAMA, KDIA, and other interest groups including the Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry and the Federation of Korean Industries comes as the trading partners get ready for the fifth round of talks in Brussels from Monday to Friday.

Local businesses have held six previous talks beginning in February to coordinate their requests to government negotiators and to exchange views on how best to maximize benefits from the FTA.

The government, meanwhile, said the upcoming talks will determine whether the trade talks will proceed on track or take longer than anticipated. Seoul said it wants to conclude negotiations within the year.

"Policymakers will reflect requests made by businesses at the upcoming talks," said Hong Suk-woo, the deputy minister for trade at the Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Energy.

He said that while Seoul will do its best to help companies, businessmen should do their part to aggressively make inroads into the world's single largest economic block.

World Bank Raises East Asia's Growth Forecast as China Expands

2007-11-14T20:56:00.000-08:00

Nov. 15 (Bloomberg) -- East Asia's economies will expand at the fastest pace in more than a decade in 2007 as China's accelerating growth offsets a slowdown in U.S. demand for the region's goods, the World Bank said.

East Asia, which excludes Japan and the Indian subcontinent, will grow 8.4 percent this year, faster than the 7.3 percent rate the World Bank predicted in April. Economic growth will slow to 8.2 percent next year, the Washington-based lender said its semi-annual report today.

``This year's pickup in East Asia has occurred despite an already substantial decline in U.S. import growth, and some slowing in the region's own exports,'' the bank said. ``Capacity utilization is at much higher levels now than it was in the last global downturn and the region's corporations are also stronger.''

Surging exports and business investment have driven China's trade surplus to a record and boosted its foreign-exchange holdings to the highest globally. In turn, China's appetite for raw materials and other goods purchased from its Asian neighbors is helping the region weather a slowdown in demand from the U.S., which is mired in the worst housing slump in 16 years.

The World Bank has raised its forecasts for China twice this year, predicting Asia's second-largest economy will grow 11.3 percent, before easing to 10.8 percent in 2008. It maintained that forecast in today's report. The country's inflation rate, which rose at the fastest pace in more than a decade last month, is expected to ``gradually ease'' later this year, the lender said.

No Serious Risk

China needs to address its rising trade surplus, which has forced the central bank to mop up the inflow of cash by selling bills, raising interest rates and ordering banks to set aside larger reserves, the World Bank said.

``Although there are some macroeconomic and financial trends that could pose a risk to this strong growth forecast, none appears serious enough at present to derail the current momentum or to cause authorities to make major policy changes that would lead to a marked slowing in the near term,'' the bank's report said.

China's government can rebalance growth by implementing policies including allowing more appreciation and flexibility in the yuan, as well as raising borrowing costs, it said.

Still, risks remain a decade after the Asian financial crisis, which led the International Monetary Fund to arrange more than $90 billion of loans to Thailand, Indonesia and South Korea after their currencies collapsed, the World Bank said.

Threats to the region's growth have increased in the past six months amid turmoil in financial markets and record oil prices, the lender said.

The price of crude oil prices has risen 54 percent this year. It reached $98.62 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange on Nov. 7, the highest price since trading began in 1983.

`Substantial Downturn'

``There is a significant probability the subprime crisis, the associated credit squeeze and rising oil prices could force a more substantial downturn in the developed world, in particular in the U.S.,'' the World Bank said. ``If a U.S. recession were to materialize, it would likely be accompanied by a significant but not severe decline in East Asian growth.''

The collapse of the subprime market in the U.S., where borrowers with impaired credit got mortgages before home foreclosures rose to a record, spread to global credit markets and triggered about $45 billion in writedowns among the world's largest banks.

``The outbreak of the U.S. subprime crisis has had little adverse impact on East Asia so far,'' the report said. ``Risks may increase if the global instability and tightening of credit markets intensifies and leads to further declines in prices of various other structured assets held by banks.''

Investment Climate

The World Bank also raised its forecasts for Southeast Asia's middle-income countries including Malaysia and the Philippines, plus the newly-industrialized economies of South Korea, Singapore, Hong Kong and Taiwan.

Investment in Indonesia is expected to ``remain strong,'' while the country's fiscal deficit may widen further this year, the World Bank said. Growth in the Philippines may reach or exceed the government's targets, it added.

In Thailand, where domestic consumption and investment have languished amid political turmoil following a military coup, elections later this year may spur growth in 2008, the report said.

``Clearer policy direction from the new government after the December elections should help improve investor sentiment and raise investment growth next year,'' the lender said. ``Exports of goods and services remain the key driver of growth this year and will remain so next year.''

The following table contains the World Bank's April estimates of growth, as well as revised forecasts for 2007 and projections for 2008.

April's Nov.'s Estimates
Estimates & Forecasts
2007 2008 2007 2008

East Asia 7.3 7.1 8.4 8.2
China 9.6 8.7 11.3 10.8
Southeast Asia 5.5 5.7 5.7 5.8
Indonesia 6.3 6.5 6.3 6.4
Malaysia 5.6 5.8 5.7 5.9
Philippines 5.6 6.0 6.7 6.2
Thailand 4.3 4.5 4.3 4.6
Newly Industrialized 4.6 5.0 5.1 5.1
Hong Kong (SAR) 5.3 5.1 5.8 5.2
Singapore 5.5 5.6 7.4 6.4
South Korea 4.5 5.0 4.8 5.1
Taiwan (China) 4.1 4.6 4.6 4.6
Small Economies 6.0 5.8 6.4 6.2
Vietnam 8.0 8.0 8.3 8.2

Turning a phone call into import business

2007-10-29T22:41:00.000-07:00

VANCOUVER -- Helen Zhao found out that sometimes you just have to pick up the phone to make your fortune. That's essentially how she got off employment insurance and became the exclusive Canadian importer of China's second-best-selling beer.

Of course, other factors came into play before Pearl River Zhu Jiang Beer arrived in liquor stores and Chinese restaurants as a long overdue alternative to the familiar Tsingtao -- factors such as vision, research, hard work, luck, bravado and persistence.

Even the Canadian government contributed by financing a program for would-be entrepreneurs administered by S.u.c.c.e.s.s., Vancouver's non-profit immigrant services agency. Ms. Zhao enrolled after the computer company where she worked as a bookkeeper went belly up during the high-tech meltdown of the late 1990s.

But the moment of truth came in 2003 when Ms. Zhao, who doesn't drink, boldly called the export manager at Guangzhou Zhu Jiang Brewery in Guangdong -- otherwise known as Canton province -- and asked if he wanted to sell his beer into Canada.

When he said yes, the next step was to get some samples and try to persuade the B.C. Liquor Distribution Branch to list the product. Unfortunately, in the wake of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, it was virtually impossible to get air freight or courier companies to ship small quantities of liquid.

The solution was for Ms. Zhao to go to China and bring back the samples.

"At the time, I didn't have any money," Ms. Zhao said. "I was on EI and out of a job for a while. So I said, 'Yes, I could come, but if you want me to import your beer, you should offer me an airplane ticket.' And they did."

Wasn't that a bit cheeky?

"I know, I know," Ms. Zhao said. "It's amazing, but I did it anyway, and they flew me over and I picked up some samples."

Zhu Jiang Brewery was established in 1985 with guidance from InBev, the Belgian brewing conglomerate owning international beer brands that now include Canada's Labatt and Alexander Keith's. The Guangzhou plant is described as the world's single largest brewing facility, producing 48,000 bottles an hour.

"They make over 20 different kinds of beer," Ms. Zhao said. "Because I don't drink, I don't know which is which, so I showed the liquor board everything and they chose one."

The board selected Zhu Jiang Gold Lager, which Ms. Zhao renamed Pearl River Zhu Jiang Beer for the Canadian market. "At first I thought it would just go into a few Chinese restaurants, but it took off. It's in almost every province except Ontario, and it's mostly Caucasians who drink it because it's a premium import beer and people just love it."

To her surprise, women enjoy Pearl River beer, which she describes as similar to Corona in taste but a little stronger at 5.3% alcohol by volume.

While she is reluctant to disclose financial details of her business, which she operates as Richmond's Omega Trading Group Ltd., she acknowledges that volumes have tripled since the first year when Pearl River was available only in British Columbia and Alberta. The beer is now one of the top 10 imports in Quebec, where it is in more than 400 stores, and approval is pending in Manitoba. Only Ontario's Liquor Control Board is holding out. "We keep on applying, but they've turned me down three times because they say they already have one Chinese beer and that's good enough."

Thanks to the growing strength of the Canadian dollar against the U.S. and Chinese currencies, she says she will be able to discount Pearl River beer to $8.99 for six bottles from its current $10.25, starting on Oct. 28.

"We want to thank the customers for their loyalty," she said. "We made some extra money and we want to pass it on to the customers."

And for would-be entrepreneurs she offers this advice: "If you have a dream and you want to do something, just don't give up. Keep on trying. I had lots of hard times and I cried so many times, but after all this work, you have success."

India may retain top slot in vegetable oil imports

2007-09-04T22:09:00.001-07:00

MUMBAI: India is expected to continue as the largest importer of vegetable oil for at least the next 10 years, owing to slow growth of domestic output as compared to the demand, a top industry official said.
The size of the Indian oilseeds sector is estimated at $16.5 billion inclusive of exports and imports. India is the world’s fourth largest vegetable oil economy, the Solvent Extractors’ Association of India’s executive director BV Mehta said at a presentation on India’s Vegetable Oil Market in Kuala Lumpur.

India is a leading importer of vegetable oil in the world. During FY07, the EU was the world’s largest importers of 17 oils at 10 million tonne, followed by China at 8.6 million tonne and India in the third place at 5.4 million tonne. Each year, India consumes around 12-12.5 million tonne of various edible oils.

Currently, India accounts for 7.4% of the world oilseeds output, 6.1% of oilmeal production, 3.9% of oilmeal export, 5.8% of vegetable oil production, 11.2% of vegetable oil import and 9.3% of edible oil consumption.

Although edible oils are widely consumed, the per capita consumption is around 11 kg a year, considerably lower than in most developed countries. Palm oil and soyabean oil account for almost half of the country’s total edible oil consumption, followed by mustard oil, groundnut oil, cottonseed oil, rice bran oil and sunflower seed oil.

Mr Mehta said that the domestic vegetable oil production of 7-8 million tonne is not sufficient to meet the domestic demand. The trade policy reforms in the mid-1990s fuelled increase in edible oil imports, which now meet 40-45% of the country’s consumption requirement.

The composition of the import basket will, however, depend on relative prices of oils. Currently, crude palm oil/palmolein and crude soyabean oil are the favourites as they provide the lowest price option.

The demand for edible oils is expected to increase from the current level of 12 million tonne to 15.6 million tonne in FY10 and further to 21.3 million tonne by FY15. This assumes a per capita consumption increase of 4% and a population growth of 1.8%, which translates to an overall growth in demand at 6% per annum, Mr Mehta added. He said India will continue its dependence on imports to the extent of about 40% of its consumption requirement. The improvement in yields and the increase in area under cultivation will ensure that the domestic oilseed production is sufficient to meet 60% of consumption requirement.

Commenting on the current scenario of edible oil import by India, Mr Mehta said that from November 2006 to July 2007, India imported close to 3.3 million tonne of edible oils consisting of 2.2 million tonne of palm products and 1.1 million tonne of soft oils.

"The import volume increased by 8% over the same period of previous year. It is expected that during the three months (August-October), arrivals would be 500,000-600,000 tonne per month and the total imports would be 4.7 to 4.8 million tonne for the whole year compared to 4.4 million tonne last year (2005-06)."

“India imports mainly crude oil to utilise its own processing capacity and practically 97%-98% import is in crude form,” he said.

World business briefs: Thomson seeks OK for Reuters takeover

2007-09-04T22:08:00.001-07:00

Thomson Corp. has asked European Union regulators to clear its $17.5 billion takeover of Reuters Group PLC, a deal that faces intense regulatory review because of competitive issues.

The European Commission set an initial deadline of Oct. 8 to examine the deal.

A merger would cut from three to two the number of major companies that sell information and trading systems to the financial services industry — a combined Reuters and Thomson and privately owned Bloomberg LP.

Bones found in beef

South Korea said it found bones in the latest shipment of American beef and will revoke import approval for the U.S. facility that processed it.

South Korea has banned bones in beef because of fears of mad cow disease. The meatpacking plant belongs to JBS Swift & Co. of Greeley, Colo., and is one of 36 U.S. plants originally authorized to handle meat for export to South Korea.

The South Korean ban affected the JBS Swift plant in Grand Island, Neb. The company will serve South Korean customers with meat processed at its plants in Utah and Texas.

Hyundai, union agree

Hyundai Motor Co. and its labor union agreed on a wage deal Tuesday, possibly averting a strike over annual salary negotiations for the first time in a decade.

Union leaders accepted Hyundai’s offer of a 5.8 percent increase in basic monthly salary for each worker, an increase in the annual bonus and a pair of separate lump-sum payments, the two sides said.

The deal is tentative and must be voted on Thursday by the union rank-and-file. The union has gone on strike every year but one since it was founded in 1987. Workers had walked off the job twice this year.

Iraqi oil pipeline opens

Iraq’s oil minister said crude oil began to flow from the country’s northern oil-rich Kirkuk region to a Turkish export terminal last week — for the first time since Saddam Hussein was toppled in 2003.

“We’re pumping between 300,000 to 400,000 barrels a day of Kirkuk crude to the Turkish export terminal of Ceyhan,” Hussain al-Shahristani told Dow Jones Newswires.

The pipeline — Iraq’s main export route from Kirkuk to the Turkish Mediterranean port of Ceyhan — has been mostly closed because of sabotage since the U.S.-led war.

Howard Signs Up To Take World's Nuclear Waste

2007-09-04T22:07:00.000-07:00

Howard signs Australia up to take world's nuclear waste with Global Nuclear Partnership
Prime Minister John Howard has signed Australia up to take the world's nuclear waste with the announcement this morning that the US will support Australia's bid to join the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership.

GNEP involves a small number of countries enriching uranium, leasing the nuclear fuel to other countries eager to develop nuclear power and taking back the radioactive spent fuel for reprocessing and disposal.

Howard signs Australia up to take world's nuclear waste with Global Nuclear Partnership

Prime Minister John Howard has signed Australia up to take the world's nuclear waste with the announcement this morning that the US will support Australia's bid to join the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership. will leave a toxic legacy for generations of Australians without solving dangerous climate change," said Greenpeace CEO Steve Shallhorn.

"Nuclear energy is not the solution to climate change.

"Nuclear energy still produces a significant greenhouse pollution and it will be at least ten years before new nuclear plants can be built when we need action on climate change now.

"Even in the extremely unlikely event that the world could double nuclear power output by 2050, it would only reduce greenhouse pollution by about 5%.

"It is more than 60 years since the first atom bomb was made but there is still no safe, long term solution to nuclear waste anywhere in the world.

"By signing us up to GNEP John Howard is taking the first step towards the imposition of an international nuclear waste dump in Australia," said Wilderness Society Acting Director Virginia Young.

"The entire purpose of GNEP is for countries to take back nuclear waste. It is simply not believable for the Government to claim that we could join GNEP but rule out an international nuclear waste dump.

"The United States desperately needs somewhere to put their nuclear waste after public opposition stopped their proposed dump at Yucca Mountain.

"The Australian Government has already rushed through legislation that for the first time allows Australia to import radioactive waste from overseas.

Will the world economy collapse?

2007-09-04T22:05:00.000-07:00

I don’t spend much time in blogosphere. It was purely by accident that I came across The Big Picture blog, where Chris Laudani has posted interesting predictions by the world’s leading economists in the 1920s.

John Maynard Keynes said in 1927. “We will not have any crashes in our time.” Dr Irving Fisher, another distinguished economist, said on October 17, 1929. “Stock prices have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau.” US Treasury Secretary and Harvard Economic Society, among others, publicly shared their confidence.

They were reflecting on the state of the economy that was booming. It was a time when drivers and window cleaners eves-dropped on the conversations of their patrons to collect tips on shares. The DJ Index doubled from little less than 200 when Keynes made his prediction to almost 400 when Dr Fisher announced the high plateau of the state of the market. Within two weeks of Dr Fisher’s forecast, it had crashed by over 40% to reach 200 again. All those who had invested their savings from 1927 to 1929 were impoverished overnight. Several of them committed suicide. By 1933, the DJ Index lost 90% of its value from the day of Dr Fisher’s ‘high plateau’ proclamation to reach 40. Industrial production declined by two-thirds. The prices of farm land collapsed to nothing. The United States imposed high trade barriers, inviting retaliation by 25 other countries. Since Europe was dependent on exports to pay its World War I debts and Japan to be able to import the most basic necessities of life, high trade barriers devastated their economies. The Germans elected Hitler, a failed artist, to lead them. In Japan, too, nationalist extremism grew at a fast pace. The World War II followed from 1939 to 1945.

Why should one recall those dreadful days when the US economy has been growing at 3.5-4% almost since the beginning of this decade? Moreover aren’t these boom times in Asia, with China and India growing at 9%? Finally Germany and Japan are also on the recovery path. There is a big party going on. The bars of Pudong, Ginza and Colaba are packed with young people high on martinis. Housemaids in Asia and taxi drivers in Europe and North America can be seen soliciting stock market tips from their patrons. Housing prices are moving up, up and up. If Dr Fisher were alive, he would proclaim this time that the stock markets all over the world have not yet reached their plateau. There are miles to climb before they reach their peak.

The problem is that much of US recovery is made possible by high consumer spending, financed by debt, except in Q2 of 2007 when exports contributed significantly to growth. The US public debt has increased from $5.5 trillion at the time of President Bush’s first election to $9 trillion now and perhaps $10-11 trillion by the time he leaves. The US currency has been depreciated by 0.9 at the end of 2000 to almost 1.40 by the end of 2007 against Euro. If the US current account balance and external debt continue to expand, at some stage the fall of dollar, rise in interest rates and recession may prove to be difficult to avoid. The critical question is if the dollar will fall below 1.5 against Euro, and if it does, at what rate of dollar the creditors will press the panic button.

If the President who succeeds George Bush in January 2009 accords top priority to restoring order in trade and current account balances in well-coordinated steps with main trading partners and Fed holds the interest rates at the current level, it should be possible for the United States to restructure its economy slowly. It will be in the interest of China, Japan, India, Europe and main oil exporters to cooperate with the US to protect dollar and their export prospects in the long run. We can expect them to provide a rational response.

However, if the new President gets too trapped in a war to sort the economy out, the dollar can collapse in an unpredictable and violent manner. As most central banks have two third of their foreign exchange reserves in dollars– and the Chinese have already lost $300 billion for this sin – they will have no option but to switch from dollar holdings to other currencies or gold. This will create a run on the dollar, forcing individuals around the world with dollar holdings to lose their savings, leaving Federal Reserve with no option but to hike interest rates, inviting collapse of thousands of banks and recession in the United States. The failure of Doha talks is a clear indication that a strong recession in the United States (with reduction in demand for Chinese and European exports) will lead to a trade war. China’s fragile banking system may come under pressure, creating a spate of bankruptcies in that country. At such a time, if the leaders of Iran, Russia, and Venezuela decide not to quote oil contracts in dollars, there will be a complete collapse of the American economy also causing a severe damage to European and Asian economies.

Will the world economy collapse? The rational economic answer is – unlikely but not impossible. However, politics can be irrational and therein lays the danger. There is no consensus among economists about why the crash of 1927 took place. So, we may not have strong economic lessons to learn from that experience. However, lessons from politics that preceded and followed the crash are clear. If we want to avert a crash in the next decade or half, which can have several times more horrendous consequences than the one in the last century, we will need to get both our politics and economics right.

Alibaba's genie is out of the bottle

2007-09-04T22:02:00.000-07:00

WHILE Australia congratulates itself on riding the China boom by digging resources out of the ground, the Asian giant has spawned a new generation of nimble-thinking, fast-paced entrepreneurs who are making history as they go.

One of the poster boys for the new China is Jack Ma, the founder of the world's largest business-to-business internet commerce company Alibaba, who is visiting Sydney this week as part of China's delegation to APEC.

Alibaba.com is the cyber version of the Canton Trade Fair - a giant internet import-export marketplace for businesses looking to source materials in China and around the world.

Selling anything from wedding gowns and toys to steel coils, ball bearings and Chinese garlic, Alibaba has 3.6 million users in 200 countries. The site covers 30 industries and more than 5000 different product categories.

Its corporate motto is "global trade starts here".

Ma has also extended his business into a Chinese version of eBay, called Taobao.com, which dominates consumer internet trading in China and has about 50 million customers throughout Asia, and has set up his own internet payment system, Ali.pal, which has 48 million customers. He has just launched another business selling cheap software for small businesses.

Along the way he also bought Yahoo's China business in a $1.2 billion deal in 2005 that saw Yahoo take a 40 per cent stake in his company, with Japan's Softbank taking another 28 per cent.

To understand Ma you have to understand where he comes from.

He lives in Hangzhou, the scenic capital of Zhejiang province, a region of 46 million people on the coast of China, just south of Shanghai, which has become one of the hothouses of the new Chinese entrepreneurs.

The birthplace of Chiang Kai-Shek, Zhejiang province has few natural resources but does have access to coastal shipping. It was traditionally regarded with some suspicion by the Communist leaders in Beijing, who didn't favour it with any great investment by state-owned industries.

Never dependent on the state, its hard-working citizens have thrived as China opened up to the world, providing opportunities for a rapidly growing manufacturing and textile base.

Hangzhou itself is consistently listed by Forbes magazine as one of the top places to do business in China. The Commonwealth Bank has had a 19.9 per cent stake in the Hangzhou City Commercial Bank since April 2005.

The young Jack Ma wanted to be a teacher and was keen to learn English. He would hang around the hotels of Hangzhou and offer free tours of the city to foreign visitors.

One of these was a young Australian from Newcastle, north of Sydney. They became friends and Ma, whose plan was still to become a teacher, eventually visited Australia in 1985.

The visit, he says, opened his eyes to the fact that China was not the centre of the world and that there were opportunities to learn from the West.

With his sophisticated English skills, he was sent to the US in the early 90s by a Chinese company wanting to collect money owed by an American company.

That visit opened his eyes to the internet. He came back to China and tried to tell his mates back home in Hangzhou it was time to get aboard this amazing new invention.

They thought he was mad but he went ahead and founded what he thinks is China's first commercial internet business, the China Pages, which contained websites of small businesses in the region.

"I decided to try it although I knew nothing about the technology and had no people," he said in an interview with The Australian this week. "I called myself like a blind man riding the back of a blind tiger," says Ma, an unassuming man with an impish face.

He sold that business and worked in Beijing for a while, heading an internet company for the Government, before deciding to go out on his own again in 1999 with Alibaba. This was the first internet site that allowed businesses from around the world to look for sourcing partners in China.

As the business thrived, he did not hesitate to expand into other areas, taking on eBay with his own company, Taobao.

When he found that payment for online trading was an issue in a country where there are only about 30 million credit card users, he founded his version of Pay.pal, called Ali.pal.

Then there was the Yahoo deal.

Like other new Chinese entrepreneurs, Ma did not let anything constrain him: not history, his lack of formal training in the internet business, or the fact that the net was a foreign invention that he knew nothing about.

Ma is typical of many very successful self-made Asian entrepreneurs who approach life from a very different point of view than the more hidebound Western businesspeople.

They don't bother about defining themselves or acquiring the right skills to approach a task. They don't seek the advice of high-priced consultants or "experts" or take years formulating plans. They don't worry about pay and bonuses and complex share option deals.

They just go and do it. And keep on going, riding the blind tiger, like Ma, on the cutting edge of the China boom.

While Western businesses love to limit their operations - seeking to concentrate on narrowly defined markets - self-made Asian business people often operate conglomerates, cheerfully moving into a whole range of businesses, from trading and manufacturing to property and restaurants and travel.

In China today, particularly, there's a fast-moving open-mindedness and a freedom from tradition that leaps beyond the thinking of "New World" countries such as Australia and America.

Ma wants Alibaba, which is set to list its B2B business on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, to become the world's largest internet company and a member of the Fortune 500.

Ma's assistant during his Australian trip is Brian Junling Li, Alibaba's vice-president of corporate strategy. He was working in Beijing for Motorola a few years ago before he was swept up in the Ma story and joined the Alibaba group.

Brian is proud of the fact that he was born in Hunan Province, the birthplace of Chairman Mao. He also has a PhD in manufacturing from Stanford University in California.

These are the business leaders of the New New World.

Catch them if you can.

Import Dependency Threatens Food Security

2007-09-04T22:01:00.000-07:00

Tajikistan looks set to meet its target for this year’s grain harvest, but NBCentralAsia analysts say that it will still not be enough to meet domestic needs and the government must reduce its dependence on imports by reforming agriculture at home.

The agriculture ministry has said farmers are on course to meet this year’s state target of around 500,000 tons of grain, according to reports from the Asia Plus news agency.

But official statistics show that Tajikistan needs 800,000 tons of grain to feed its people, plus a further 700,000 tons for livestock fodder.

Domestic harvests do not even meet half of the country’s needs and some 700,000 tons of grain is imported every year, mainly from Kazakhstan.

More than 60 per cent of the population lives on less than one US dollar a day, and cheap bread and other grain products make up the bulk of people’s diet.

This summer, a general rise in world grain prices and a lull in flour milling during the harvest season forced up the price of flour in Tajikistan by almost 40 per cent, leaving many families without enough food.

Analysts polled by NBCentralAsia say that Tajikistan must reduce its dependency on food imports and bring domestic agriculture up to modern standards to guarantee affordable food supplies.

Farrukh Abduvaseyev, an expert from Tajikistan’s Academy of Agricultural Sciences, says the country’s heavy reliance on imports is making the domestic food crisis worse. Imports are seen as an alternative to domestic production and so very little is being done to develop the agricultural sector.
Saodat Soibnazarova, an analyst at the Centre for Strategic Studies, explains that the quality of people’s diet has declined since staple foodstuffs like bread became more expensive.

The state lacks the resources to increase grain production, and this is unlikely to increase in the next few years, she said.

Murod Aminjanov, an analyst with a European Union project supporting state agricultural policy, explains that grain from Tajikistan is poor quality because of the hot climate, declining milling industry and backward farming methods. Even so, he argues that local producers could grow enough good quality grain to feed the whole country if the entire sector underwent reform.

Many farmers do not know how to tend crops properly or have enough experienced hands to help, explains NBCentralAsia economic analyst Hojimahmad Umarov. The irrigation system is also poor in many areas and farmers do not always have access to fertilisers.

Aminjanov says farmers need to be taught how to use modern farming methods, and to be given better machinery, irrigation and higher quality seeds to work with.

The estimated cost of the kind of agricultural reforms that could allow Tajikistan to meet its own food needs is put at at least a billion dollars.

(NBCentralAsia draws comment and analysis from a broad range of political observers across the region)

Australia urges 'powerful signal' from US on trade talks

2007-09-04T21:56:00.000-07:00

SYDNEY (AFP) — Australia called Tuesday on the United States to send a "powerful signal" on cutting farm subsidies to break a six-year deadlock in talks on freeing up global trade.

Australian Trade Minister Warren Truss issued the call after meeting with US Trade Representative Susan Schwab ahead of a summit of 21 Asia-Pacific economies that make up nearly 50 percent of world trade.

Truss, who also separately met with other regional counterparts, said a US farm bill that will be considered by the Democrat-dominated US Congress in the next few months was a concern.

His comments came as World Trade Organisation (WTO) envoys meet in Geneva over the next three weeks in a bid to break the long-standing deadlock in the so-called Doha round of negotiations on cutting tariffs and subsidies.

"Other countries, particularly agricultural producing countries, would like to see the United States make positive steps toward reducing its farm support and that would send a very powerful signal for the rest of the world," Truss told reporters.

"So yes we want the US to take action in relation to farm subisidies both in the context of its current farm bill but also in relation to the Doha round."

Truss said a US farm bill that "increases support or one which maintains some of the existing levels of farm subsidies is an unhelpful signal."

However, he said he was encouraged that Washington "knows that a Doha round would have to involve reductions in US farm support in return for improved market access in other parts of the world."

Truss said it was also important that other countries and trading blocs made corresponding concessions to Washington.

"It's unreasonable to expect one country to do all the heavy lifting.

"The US has got a right to expect that other countries will make appropriate concessions and also address the other non-agricultural market access issues which are important to concluding the round."

Schwab is in Sydney for a meeting of trade ministers of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum ahead of the weekend leaders' summit.

Trading nations have spent the past month mulling over compromise proposals on farm subsidies and import tariffs, a key stumbling block in WTO talks which also encompass global trade in industrial goods and services.

The Doha round, launched in the Qatari capital in 2001, seek to cut import duties and subsidies primarily to help developing countries take advantage of expanding global trade.

WTO members are at odds over the extent of new cuts in barriers to trade in agriculture, industrial goods and services amid cross-cutting disagreements between rich and poor countries over the concessions they need to make.

"Because we represent 50 percent of the world's trade we have a key role to provide impetus and encouragement to the negotiations," Truss said.

"If we demonstrate that we remain politically resolved to achieve a good outcome at Doha then that will certainly fire up the negotiations and ensure people take a constructive view to the tasks ahead."

While "we all know that it will be difficult," he said, "if there is a firm commitment and a vision towards what can be achieved, that outcome is still achievable."

Truss said a raft of bilateral and and other trade deals in various stages of discussion among APEC members were useful "building blocks," but could not constitute a "Plan B" in case the Doha round fails.

World Energy Solutions Signs Research Agreement with University of Florida to Commercialize Air Purification System

2007-09-04T21:54:00.000-07:00

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla., Sept. 4, 2007 (PRIME NEWSWIRE) -- World Energy Solutions, Inc. (OTCBB:WEGY), a company focused on energy conservation technologies and environmental sustainability, reports that it has signed a Research Agreement with the University of Florida for the design of the company's 'Pure Air' filtration system. Early prototypes of the 'Pure Air' technology have shown to remove 99% of all targeted compounds.

The Research Agreement is being sponsored by the University's Environmental Systems Commercial Space Technology Center (ES-CSTC) at Gainesville, FL, under the initiative of its Director, Mr. William Sheehan. Mr. Sheehan and his team have agreed to assist the company in identifying and pursuing the commercialization of the 'Pure Air' technology. ES-CSTC member, Ms. Kristen Riley, formerly of NASA, will be in charge of identifying industrial and commercial applications for the technology and leading its marketing efforts. The 'Pure Air' technology is a derivative of NASA-sponsored research at the University.

The NASA Johnson Space Center funded the effort through its Advanced Life Support program which focuses on the need to revitalize air for long-duration space flights.

"This technology has the potential to become a market leader. It will be an efficient and economical unit which can remove 99.9% of all biological and chemical contaminants in air, as well as filtering normally occurring dust and smoke particles. The treated air will be almost 100% sterile," stated World Energy Solutions Inc. CEO Ben Croxton.

Dr. David Mazyck of the University of Florida and Technical Lead for the ES-CSTC will provide the design details based on pre-production units and previous experimental models. After production, the University will evaluate the commercial readiness of the 'Pure Air' technology.

The 'Pure Air' prototype is expected to be completed within 3 weeks and be ready for trials by September 25, 2007. Assembly will be carried out at World Energy Solutions' Research & Development laboratory, adjacent to the company's Head Office in St Petersburg, FL. Testing is estimated to take an additional 1-2 months at which time the prototype will be exhibited to manufacturers of 'pure air' equipment.

About World Energy Solutions

World Energy Solutions, Inc. (OTCBB:WEGY) is an Energy Services Company and electronics manufacturer. WES's primary business focus is the development of technology for lowering electrical, gas and water usage for commercial, government and residential facilities. As a pioneer in the manufacturing of the finest TVSS systems available in the market today, WES uses cutting-edge technologies and unsurpassed design standards to provide its customers with full lifetime warranties on its products.

For more information about WES please visit its website at www.wesinc.net

Forward-Looking Statements Certain matters discussed in this press release are "forward-looking statements." These forward-looking statements can generally be identified as such because the context of the statement will include words such as "expects," "should," "believes," "anticipates" or words of similar import. Similarly, statements that describe World Energy Solutions' future plans, objectives or goals are also forward-looking statements. Such forward-looking statements are subject to certain risks and uncertainties, including the financial performance of World Energy Solutions, which could cause actual results to differ materially from those currently anticipated. Although World Energy Solutions believes the expectations reflected in any forward-looking statements are based on reasonable assumptions, they cannot give any assurance that their expectations will be attained. Shareholders, potential investors and other readers are urged to consider these factors carefully in evaluating any forward-looking statements. Certain factors could cause results and conditions to differ materially from those projected in these forward-looking statements, and some of these factors are discussed below. These factors are not exhaustive. New factors, risks and uncertainties may emerge from time to time that may affect the forward-looking statements made herein. These forward-looking statements are only made as of the date of this press release and World Energy Solutions does not undertake any obligation to publicly update such forward-looking statements to reflect subsequent events or circumstances.

India may import Australian gold

2007-08-24T22:17:00.000-07:00

MUMBAI: Australian gold mining firm Citigold Corporation plans to export 40,000 ounces (over 1,134 kg) of gold to India in the next one year. Citigold currently has over 3 lakh kg gold deposits in its mines. The company also plans to launch its own financial instruments.

“In next one year Citigold plans to approximately export 40,000 ounces of gold to India,” the company head international office Manan YR Desai told ET on sidelines of a gold convention here. He said that they will also be the first mining company to launch their own financial instruments that would be customised.

However, he did not reveal any further details. The company is also scouting for a joint venture partner in the area of gold mining since last year, where it will be a minority shareholder.

Managing director, Mark Joseph Lynch said that talks are underway with possible partners and the company expects to announce further development in the next few months. “Getting hold of new grounds is a competitive area. Who we are partnering with and how we are going is subject to confidentiality. In a few months time we will be able to come back and talk to you,” he said.

India, historically, was a major gold producer and most of the world’s new gold comes out of old gold fields, said Mr Lynch, adding “If you have old gold fields you still have lots of gold remaining.”

Gold is not an easily found metal and all that was easily mineable has already been found. He said, “If you find a big copper mine it might produce 10% of the world’s copper but the biggest mine in the world doesn’t produce even 1% of the world’s gold.”

“If the Indian gold industry is developed, in five years time the country could be a big gold producer,” Mr Lynch added.

India does not have too many refining capacities and all the existing ones are very small. Regarding this Mr Lynch said that all jewellery recycling requires some sort of refining but in India gold is usually bought from other big producing countries.

Also, in the value chain, refineries add little value because it is not remunerative. Nearly 50% value addition is done at the stage of gold mining, while refining amounts to only 1%. Manufacturing amounts to about 10-15%, so the biggest value-addition is in the mining process, he added.

All big producers refine gold in their own country because it is most economical but for a country like India importing finished gold is easier and cheaper than importing raw.

S. Korea to resume import quarantine inspections on U.S. beef

2007-08-24T22:15:00.000-07:00

South Korea will resume quarantine inspections on U.S. beef shipments next week after effectively halting them earlier this month, a government official said Friday.

The decision comes after the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry carefully examined official U.S. explanations on several thousand tons of U.S. beef that included cow backbones and ribs in violation of an agreement reached earlier.

An official at the Agriculture Ministry said quarantine inspections will resume on Monday for newly arrived beef shipments from the U.S. as well as 6,832 tons that have been held in customs.

Under a deal reached in January 2006, South Korea agreed to allow the import of boneless beef from cattle under 30 months old.

This pack permits Seoul to impose an import ban if parts like backbones that were classified as specified risk materials (SRMs) are found. SRMs are blacklisted because they pose the greatest risk of transmitting mad cow disease to humans.

South Korea had banned all American beef after a case of mad cow disease case was confirmed at a U.S. ranch in late 2003.

"While quarantine inspections on American beef are to start again, the current ban will be maintained on the four meat processing centers that shipped ribs, while Seoul has revoked its export permit from the one that shipped backbones," said Lee Sang-kil, head of the ministry's livestock bureau.

Of the five meat processing centers affected, three are run by Cargill Inc. and two by Swift & Co. Both are major exporters of American beef to South Korea.

If more bone-in beef and SRMs are found in future shipments, Lee said a "two-track" approach will be made to ensure that sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) negotiations can move forward regardless of any future discovery of ribs or backbones.

"If non-SRM meat like ribs are found in future packages, the meat concerned processing plant will be barred from shipping meat until a new SPS deal is signed," he said. If SRM materials are discovered, the export permit of the meat processing plant will be revoked, while a blanket ban will be reinstated.

He, however, said negotiations on a new SPS will not be put on hold even if no American beef reaches consumers. For bone chips, only the packages that have them will be sent back, he said.

He said South Korea has no immediate plan to conduct on-site inspections of U.S. slaughterhouses to ensure safety. However, he hinted that a visit may be arranged before a new import arrangement is signed.

"At present Seoul accepts Washingto's pledge to increase the number of inspectors, introduce tougher labelling rules and use computerized weight measurements to determine if bones have been mistakenly put into a package destined for exports," the policymaker said.

The decision is expected to allow progress to be made on negotiations aimed at revising South Korea's SPS that prohibit bone-in beef, such as ribs and backbones from being imported.

Washington has been calling on Seoul since late May to change its SPS rules to permit the import of bone-in beef as well.

The World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) has granted the United States a mad cow "risk controlled status" that technically opens the door for exports of most cow parts as long as they are from animals under 30 months old.

Brazil to import more Arab leather

2007-08-24T22:14:00.000-07:00

São Paulo – Brazilian imports of goat and sheep hides and skins, destined to the shoe industry, should increase in the next half of the year. The reason for that is the tax exemption for imports of those items, which was approved this week. Foreign suppliers of Brazil include the Arab countries. "The leading suppliers of goat and sheep hides are the African countries, and those include some Arab countries," said the executive director at the Confederation of Brazilian Hides and Skins Industries (CICB), Luiz Bittencourt.

From January until July this year, Brazilian imports of skins and hides in general from the Arab countries totalled US$ 1.34 million. The main Arab suppliers include Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Algeria, from where Brazil imports bovine, sheep and goat leather. In the first seven months of 2007, imports of the latter two items totalled US$ 390,000. "Brazilian imports are going to increase for certain," said Bittencourt.

According to him, the Brazilian production of sheep and goat leather is not enough to meet the domestic demand. Currently, the national production capacity is 12 million units per year, but raisers are only able to supply 7 million tonnes, therefore there is a need to import. These types of leathers account for 15% to 20% of the market, and virtually the entire production is in the northeastern states. "Leather from the northeast region has no wool, therefore it is applied to shoes because it looks like some sort of bovine leather. The skins of the southern region, on the other hand, cannot be used in this sector," said Bittencourt.

In previous years, Brazil also imported leather from the United Arab Emirates and Somalia, which may occur again in the face of the tax exemption. In total, Brazilian imports of leather in general in the first seven months of this yaer totalled US$ 89.76 million, an 11.8% increase over the same period of 2006. The data were supplied by the Foreign Trade Secretariat (Secex) of the Brazilian federal government.

Exports

Although Brazil needs to import sheep and goat skins and hides, the country is one of the world's leading producers of leather, with a processing capacity for around 45 million tonnes. Furthermore, Brazil is the world's largest exporter of leather, at 35 million pieces a year. One of the main reasons for this leadership is the abundance of raw material supply, as the country has more than 200 million heads of bovine cattle heads, the world's largest commercial herd.

Leather ranks among the main products exported by Brazil. From January until July, the country exported the equivalent of US$ 1.28 billion, an increase of 26.5% compared with the same period of last year. Just to have an idea, foreign sales of bovine meat yielded US$ 2.5 billion in the accumulated result for the first seven months in 2007.

The industrial complex in the sector is comprised of 800 companies that operate in leather production and processing. The activity generates a turnover of around US$ 3 billion in the country and employs 45,000 people, according to the CICB.

Cubs hope import from Detroit supplies fuel

2007-08-24T22:12:00.000-07:00

SAN FRANCISCO -- Will Craig Monroe become the Randall Simon of the 2007 Cubs?

General manager Jim Hendry can only hope his latest acquisition contributes as much as Simon did during the '03 stretch run and postseason.

Like Simon, Monroe wasn't having much of a season when the Cubs came calling. He was hitting .222 when Detroit designated him for assignment last week, but the Cubs were looking at his .302 average in 96 at-bats against left-handers.

"He's not having a great year, numbers-wise, against the righties (.190 average)," Hendry said. "But he's still swinging the bat great against the lefties, and still has (55) RBIs. I was looking for a little more veteran help against lefties."

The Cubs are 12-19 against left-handed starters, including Wednesday night's win against Giants lefty Barry Zito, who left with a no-decision despite throwing eight solid innings. They began Thursday ranked 13th in the NL with a .253 average against left-handed pitching.

Monroe, 30, hit 28 home runs and drove in 92 runs with the Tigers in '06, including 15 homers and 50 RBIs after the All-Star break. He also hit five home runs in the postseason, helping the Tigers into the World Series.

"He's a good athlete, a good outfielder and he's got some pop," Cubs manager Lou Piniella said.

"The teams we're playing here, they all have left-handed starters in their rotation. He'll be a valuable addition."

The Cubs hope he's as valuable as Simon was in 2003. Acquired in an August trade from Pittsburgh, Simon hit .282 with six home runs and 21 RBIs in 33 games. He hit .333 with a homer and six RBIs in the playoffs.

Monroe is arbitration-eligible in '08 and is likely to be non-tendered in November since he makes $4.8 million and the Cubs already are scheduled to pay Alfonso Soriano and Jacque Jones a combined $18 million in '08.

Detroit will pay around $600,000 of the remaining $900,000 of Monroe's '07 salary and receive a player to be named later.

The Tigers reportedly are seeking a left-handed pitcher on the Cubs' 40-man roster, which suggests either Clay Rapada or Neal Cotts.

The move shows the Cubs aren't satisfied with the play of Matt Murton, hitting .246 since his call-up from Triple-A Iowa. Monroe will platoon in right with Cliff Floyd but will also play some left until Soriano returns from his quad injury.

"This gives Lou some options here we didn't have before," Hendry said.

Cubs bench coach Alan Trammell, who had Monroe for three years when he managed in Detroit, said the outfielder could always hit and plays well defensively in the corner spots.

"He's a great guy and will fit in very, very well," Trammell said. "He gives us some experience, and a guy that's produced at the major-league level."

The Cubs designated Triple-A Iowa outfielder Buck Coats for assignment, giving them room on the 40-man roster to add Monroe, who will join the team in Arizona on Friday. Jake Fox is likely to be sent to Iowa on Friday, and probably will be recalled after Sept. 1, when the rosters expand.

Wheat Price Reaches Record as India, Taiwan, Japan Seek Imports

2007-08-24T22:11:00.000-07:00

Aug. 23 (Bloomberg) -- Wheat prices in Chicago rose to a record, extending gains for a fifth day, as importers, including India, Taiwan and Japan, sought to buy the grain and adverse weather reduced supply in major exporting countries.

India, the world's biggest wheat consumer after China, plans to buy cargoes of 25,000 to 75,000 metric tons each for delivery from October to December, the New Delhi-based company said on the government Web site. The company will decide how much to import by Sept. 3.

Unfavorable weather has damaged crops in major producers including Australia, Europe, Russia and Ukraine. Global inventories of the commodity used to make bread, pastries and biscuits are expected to fall to the lowest in 26 years by May 31, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

``We may see wheat futures go up further as buyers are rushing to secure more and global supplies are very tight,'' said Takaki Shigemoto, an analyst at commodity broker Okachi & Co., by phone from Tokyo. ``We anticipate a higher-than-expected number for weekly U.S. export sales later today.''

Wheat for December delivery gained 11.25 cents, or 1.5 percent, to $7.43 a bushel by 7 p.m. Singapore time in electronic trading on the Chicago Board of Trade. Prices more than doubled in the past year.

Overseas orders for U.S. wheat supplies are up 86 percent since June 1 compared with a year earlier, USDA data show.

Taiwan, Japan

The Taiwan Flour Millers Association, which represents 34 grain users, issued a tender tomorrow to import 92,000 tons of U.S. wheat after it failed to buy grain on Aug. 21.

Japan's Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries said it bought 30,000 tons of Canadian durum wheat today in a tender under the so-called simultaneous buy and sell system, introduced to loosen government controls over imports.

Grain-growing regions in Australia, the world's third- largest wheat and canola exporter, may have warmer-than-average temperatures in spring, potentially crimping crop development.

There's a 60 percent to 75 percent chance of higher-than- average minimum temperatures from September to November, the bureau of meteorology said on its Web site today.

``There's a shortage of the grain worldwide,'' Pramod Kumar, executive director of Sunil Agro Foods Ltd., said by phone from Bangalore. ``Indian imports will fuel the wheat market globally.''

Record Price

State Trading Corp., run by the government, bought 511,000 tons from Cargill Inc., Toepfer International and Riaz Trading for a record $317 a ton to $330 a ton on July 10 to ensure sufficient supplies and curb inflation.

India may receive offers of $375 to $400 a ton in the new tender, Sunil Agro's Kumar said.

State Trading Corp. is seeking wheat in bulk carriers or containers at eight Indian ports including Mumbai, Kandla, Mundra, Chennai and Tuticorin. Suppliers are required to quote prices on the basis of the port and month of delivery.

India was the world's third-biggest wheat importer in the year ended June 1, with purchases of 6.7 million tons, according to the U.S. Foreign Agricultural Service.

China's shoes exports expand in first half

2007-08-24T22:09:00.000-07:00

China, the world's largest shoes producer and exporter, saw a 17.5 percent rise in the value of its shoes exports in the first half of 2007, but prices per pair were lower than that for the previous year.

In the January-June period, China exported 4.4 billion pairs of shoes, worth $12 billion, said Wang Hanjiang, president of the China Chamber of Commerce for Import and Export of Light Industrial Products, Arts and Crafts.

The shoes were priced at an average of $2.7 per pair, down from $2.8 for the whole of 2006 when China sold 7.8 billion pairs of shoes abroad.

Two billion of them, worth $7.6 billion, were sold to the United States, the largest importer of Chinese-made shoes, at an average price less than a third of that of made-in-Italy shoes, said Wang.

Despite rapid development of China's shoemaking industry, most local manufacturers were small, exporting low-end products and earning low profits, said Wang.

iPhone sparks counter measures from Verizon, RealNetworks and MTV

2007-08-24T22:06:00.000-07:00

Whenever a single monolithic company has launched against the globe spanning iTunes, Apple has been able to move the goalposts and push further and further towards a monopolistic market share of online music, but this week a genuine challenge has emerged, one that we are certain will dent the success of Apple, and we suspect that it will be reflected in the company’s share price before too long.

The move, to bring RealNetwork’s Rhapsody to Verizon handsets, with the support of Viacom’s MTV, was attributable almost entirely to Apple’s launch of the iPhone with an exclusive relationship with AT&T. In short Verizon HAD to do something, and this is that something. Rhapsody becomes the music service behind Verizon’s VCast Music service, while MTV’s URGE music service will be merged into Rhapsody, which will become Rhapsody America, and be run by the current General Manager of MTV Network's URGE, Michael Bloom.

Existing user names for URGE will work straight off in Rhapsody. Viacom’s MTV Networks will put in some of its own cash, but also back a $230 million five year note for the venture, giving it a 49% stake, and leaving RealNetworks which will also contribute some cash, with 51%.

It’s a fairly compelling picture and is the first major step towards consolidation of online and cellular music services which will polarize the world. When kids watch MTV they will be pointed towards it, when people subscribe to cellular handsets through Verizon they will be reminded of it, and it drops ARPU right into the palm of the hands of Verizon Wireless.

The simple truth is that we all predicted that Apple iTunes would be eaten alive by little bites from the cellular industry, over a long period of time, and Apple with its typical foresight said let’s take the game to them and launched its own phone on its own terms. But that just meant that serious players are now taking Apple more seriously, sooner, and there are multiple advantages here that are not initially obvious.

First off this pitches Apple’s MP3 and Flash memory enemies, Samsung and LG Electronics, which make many of the first line Verizon handsets, directly against Apple. Samsung is probably the only company in the world that can get its hands on flash memory to store songs more cheaply than even Apple, which two years ago bought up around 30% of global NAND Flash production for its iPods.

Verizon Wireless has no love of Apple and is still smarting after it had to pay Broadcom through the nose to import handsets for its new EV DO rev A network which will also do the job of competing head on with the touchscreen interface of the iPhone. This was because of an indiscretion by supplier Qualcomm, which the court believes used power saving patents that belonged to Broadcom. Verizon will now do whatever it has to, to make these new devices successful.

Secondly Verizon will deliver all of this on handsets which are CDMA enabled, so instead of the waning powers of GSM, the technology that Apple aimed its first iPhone at, Verizon will have the latest, hottest phones from the CDMA community to deliver the service on. Apple is already up against the subscription based Rhapsody service through RealNetworks’ partners, including Best Buy, SanDisk and TiVo. SanDisk is the second biggest retailer of MP3 players in the US, and they could all become further integrated into the service and the new brand.

But with news services around Europe all pre-announcing new Apple partners this week, which include T-Mobile in Germany, Orange in France and O2 in the UK, it is pretty clear that 45 per cent owner of Verizon Wireless, Vodafone is NOT among them.

My friend's enemy
We had always thought that Vodafone would not align itself with the enemies of Verizon, and that also it likes to cut profitable and easy to work deals, and would not accept the kind of terms that Apple was rumored to be insisting upon. There will be some immediate betting that the 232 million customers that use Vodafone's service, the largest outside of China, could be tempted to become part of this "get iPhone" initiative.

Back in January 2006 Vodafone, launched its own interactive music service in conjunction with Sony NetServices called Vodafone Radio DJ. The service streams music to both 3G mobile phones and PCs for a flat monthly subscription, identical as a business model to Rhapsody. But the service is really a radio service with little control over what you listen to.

So Vodafone may well come to believe that the new US initiative could seriously damage the iPhone, and iTunes, and then it might shutter this service or add to it and join the push to build Rhapsody America into perhaps Rhapsody Global, assuming that it can sign overseas versions of its content deals. But even if Vodafone does not come on board, the global distribution of MTV, which can recommend the service, will have huge appeal to other operators, because MTV Networks operates on 135 television networks, and can be seen from 171 websites and reaches 496 million people around the world.

With that kind of support, this deal can internationalize to the benefit of all the partners. This pretty much leaves online and cellular music controlled by a handful of services lead by iTunes. Musicnet powers many of the smaller music services around the world including many that are Microsoft compatible such as the Zune device and can work with its new PlayReady DRM system.

But Musicnet will have lost at least one customer since until now it numbers MTV’s URGE among its clients; Nokia can still provide several millions songs through its purchase of Loudeye over a year ago, and Sony’s Connect collection is still operating, such as through Vodafone. If I’ve forgotten anybody, it's because they are, as of now, forgettable and that perhaps includes Wal-Mart, Amazon, eMusic and Napster, because without the support of a cellular operator, most services are doomed, if not to closure, then to irrelevance, over time.

Finally there is the issue of video. Verizon is just one customer for MediaFLO mobile TV, and it has launched in some markets already under the VCast TV brand. It already had a VCast cellular streaming business that is relatively successful. This will now line up against Apple iTunes on a Video iPod as a source of portable video, but can increasingly target deals with MTV and its parent Viacom, majority owner of the Paramount studio.

The cellular music war in the US is sure to spill over into the rest of the world during the remainder of this year, and that can only mean one thing, that the Apple franchise will begin to erode in percentage terms, but that the market for music on handsets will go through the roof over the coming 18 months to two years.

Tasteless import

2007-08-24T22:05:00.000-07:00

Directed by Steve Bendelack. Stars Rowan Atkinson, Emma de Caunes. Opens Friday at theaters throughout New Jersey.

For a silly kids movie about an accident-prone man on a trip to the beach, "Mr. Bean's Holiday" is actually quite mean-spirited and pretentious.

There are laughs for kids as the title character (Rowan Atkinson) has a variety of misadventures in transit from Britain to southern France, but the picture also has an off-putting insider vibe, setting its closing scene at the Cannes Film Festival.

The hero crashes the event and plays pranks on an arthouse director (Willem Dafoe) who's premiering a ponderous movie to yawns from the crowd. The film within a film seems to be a parody of Vincent Gallo's "The Brown Bunny," a misunderstood road movie that was booed when it screened at Cannes four years ago. The reference is pretty obscure given the preschool demographic.

The film pokes unfair fun at Gallo's work when it has its own questionable segments. During one particularly long, misguided set piece, the protagonist wanders onto a World War II film set where a faux French village is being attacked by German soldiers. Mr. Bean is put into costume as an extra and performs a mock goosestep march. It's always nice to see children's movies with Nazi jokes.

A belated follow-up to 1997's "Bean," the film contains distasteful scenes that make you feel guilty for laughing at the amusing ones. Highlights include a roadside outhouse mishap, a crisis involving a coffee-splashed laptop and an adventurous lunch of cold shellfish at a snooty restaurant. Yes, those are the highights.

Director Steve Bendelack, who has a lengthy résumé of Britcom credits, stages unfortunate incidents on French trains and highways. Occasionally, Mr. Bean is the victim of circumstance. Most of the time, however, he drags innocent bystanders down into his world of disorder. At one point, he unwittingly prompts a suicidal man to jump to his death from a bridge. Good times.

The journey begins when Bean wins a Cannes vacation and a digital camcorder in a raffle. En route, he loses everything, tickets, luggage and travel documents, but finds a few new friends. He teams up with a mischievous Russian boy (Max Baldry) separated from his father (Karel Roden), who's heading to Cannes to serve on the judging panel. Bean also inexplicably charms a beautiful actress (Emma de Caunes) on the road to the film fest for the premiere of her latest picture, "Playback Time" from an American auteur named Carson Clay (Dafoe).

Along the way, the hero captures his vacation on a camcorder and winds up accidentally creating a hit movie at the festival. Although "Mr. Bean's Holiday" takes a few swipes at Euro snobs, ultimately the most ridiculous character is the arrogant American. It's no surprise the comedy is already an international hit.

I sold my houses to begin suitcase manufacturing when banks refused me loans

2007-08-24T22:04:00.001-07:00

At a time, no one thought it was possible to localize the production of once-upon- a- time imported brief cases in Nigeria, Chief James Uzuh dared and proved skeptics wrong.

Starting off under very stringent operational environment, for the Managing Director of J. Jumac International Company Limited, the journey was not only uncertain, but strewn with bumps.
Like a-never-say-die, Chief Uzuh brazed the challenges and today, boasts the first on the continent to begin the manufacturing of suitcases in this part of the world.

However, he tells anyone who cares to listen that as a manufacturer, if you can make a head way in this part of the world, where candle light has become the surest source of energy, coupled with other infrastructural desiderata, you can break even, even in hell.

According to him, it is only people with large hearts that can go into manufacturing and survive.
He lamented that because of the variable power supply, he spends about N2 million every month on diesel. This is besides the two generators, which cost a whooping N16million to procure.
In this chat with Saturday Sun, he also spoke on the vision he has for his company, what government should do to encourage manufacturers and sundry issues. Excerpts:

Beginning
As a young entrepreneur, I had wanted to be like the Razaq Okoyas and the Dangotes of this world. But I must say that as result of the lack of infrastructure in the country, manufacturing is not for lily livered people.
I was inspired by what they were doing, but when the Federal Government placed a ban on the importation of suitcases, which was one of the major items that I was importing from Europe, I thought that my time had come to be like my heroes. That is like Razaq Okoya-Thomas and Alhaji Aliko Dangote, but I did not know that I was venturing into a murky water without hope of getting out.

I first of all built a factory. After that, I began to go from one bank to the other to source for loans or at worst equity participation, but there was nobody interested in that because they felt that they would not make much money from it. Their interest was on short term loans and import finance. I thought then that as somebody going into manufacturing, that would not do me any good. I resorted to selling my houses. I sold three of my houses and with the capital I raised, I imported machinery for the commencement of production of suitcases. It was at this stage that banks began to come to do business with me, that is after I had built and equipped my factory with all that was needed to go into production.

Challenges
The challenges facing manufacturers in the country is enormous. I can use my personal experience as an example. After I had managed to build and set up a factory, I became broke. So I had to depend on the national grid for power. Because of that I lost a lot of machines due to power surge. Then I decided to go for generators. I spent N16 million on two generators. Now I use about N2 million every month on diesel. If this money is channeled into the company, we will grow faster. After production, it takes more than N200, 000 to transport the finished products to the markets. This is due to poor road network. If it were in countries where the railway system is effective, transporting goods from Lagos to Kaduna cannot take more than N50, 000.

The banks are also not helping matters. I had thought that after the much talked about re-capitalization, banks would make things easier for people who are in the manufacturing industry, but the reverse is still the case. Their focus is on short term loan and import finance. But how can our country develop if it remains an importer of finished products? When I was engaged in importation, I had only five staff, but now as a manufacturer I have more than 150 staff. If my company goes under as a result of unfavourable business environment and these people are thrown into the streets, they might be compelled to engage in vicious means to survive and by that, threaten the security of you and I. What I am saying is not peculiar to me alone, this is the experience of every manufacturer in the country. I am therefore calling on government to create an enabling environment for manufacturers to flourish. They should try to make the power sector functional. They should also address the poor road network being experienced in the country. Banks should reduce interest rate and also begin to encourage manufacturers by giving them long-term loans.

Between made in Nigeria and foreign suitcases
With all honesty, I want to say that suitcases manufactured in Europe for consumption are of very high quality, but the ones produced for export, especially for African markets are of very low quality. This is because they feel that Africans are poor and for that cannot afford quality suitcases. That is the reason why you see people handling imported suitcases, as if they are eggs, because they know that once anything happens to them, they will break.

Days are gone when people had the impression that made in Nigeria products were inferior to that made in Europe or Asia. For instance, there is no doubt that wires made in Nigeria are today the best in the world. Those who felt that Nigerians couldn’t come up with quality products have been put to shame by the wire manufacturing company in Nigeria. In the same vein, J. Jumac suitcases are the best in the world. Anybody who doubts this can go and ask anyone experienced in suitcases. Our products are very rugged. We have been to trade exhibitions in Ghana, Mali Tanzania and other countries where we exhibited our products alongside the ones produced in Europe and they came up tops. So we are no longer babies in the field of manufacturing

VISION
My vision is to make sure that Nigerians are given the best in terms of suitcases. I also want to control over 90 per cent of the suitcase market, not only in Nigeria but the whole of Africa. As I said earlier, we have gone for trade exhibitions to Ghana, Tanzania Mali and other African countries. Our finding was that we were on top of the industry. But the reason we have not begun to export was because we had not got the Standard Organisation of Nigeria (NIS) certificate. And without that, they would doubt the quality of our products.

Now that we have got the certificate, we can now start in earnest to export our products to other countries. So we have plans to also expand our factory, more so that we will become the biggest in Africa. If you go to our factory, you will see a new building that is being constructed.
I feel on top of the world receiving the NIS certificate from the Standards Organisation of Nigeria. It is a testimony that J. Jumac suitcases are of international standard. It is because only companies that their products have met International Standard Organisation specified standard that get the NIS certificate. Therefore, I see the certificate as a surety on our products from SON to the world that J. Jumac products are of international quality and standard.

Barbara Horscraft: The world is at her fingers

2007-08-24T22:02:00.000-07:00

Barbara Horscraft had just given up a career in teaching when she met 19-year-old Indian named Mahaveer Jain at a hotel in Jodhpur, India.

The boy took her to his home on a Vespa scooter so she could see the items he wanted to sell, including a religious painting called a pawaya. Horscraft, who had just started an import business in Santa Cruz, bought a few things from him.

But when she got home, the boy called her frantically to ask that she send the painting back. He had just discovered it was stolen, he said. Horscraft packaged up the item and sent it back to him.

Years later, on another buying trip to India for her Santa Cruz store, Gravago, the owner of the large export businesses where she shopped offered to drive Horscraft back to her hotel.

Sitting in the back of his limousine, the elegantly dressed man turned and asked Horscraft if she remembered who he was.

"You changed the course of my life," he told her. If she had not sent back the painting, he would have been in prison instead of owning one of the largest export businesses in India, he said.

It's just one of the stories Horscraft has collected from her travels around the world; stories of sinking into village life in India, riding a swaying bus through Afghanistan and once fending off a group of drunken men who believed that, because she was traveling alone, she was for sale.

There are stories too in the colorful rugs, inlaid mirrors and shining vases she sells in her narrow storefront off Cooper Street: the smiling wooden lion that came from a children's merry-go-round in India in the late 19th century. The settee upholstered with camel skin that the nomadic Tuaregs of Africa decorated and once used for water carriers in the Sahara. The rugs she bought from a man in India who wanted to explain the complete history of natural dyes before he would allow her to buy.

It is something the slightly built woman with the curling blond hair has always loved: histories big and small.

It is a topic she was drawn to, studying history in college and teaching it in school. She loves the politics of history, the dark underpinnings, the mysterious details.

"I've always liked the intrigue of history," she says.

She wanders through her store telling the history of a girl who yearned to travel, of a woman who did just that; running a hand over the history of faraway lives in all the things she sells.

UAE bans import of birds from India

2007-08-06T03:41:00.000-07:00

The United Arab Emirates has enforced a temporary ban on imports of all kinds of birds from India after bird flu was detected there.

Mohammed Saeed Al Kindi, Minister of Environment and Waters, said the ban covers "all domestic and wild birds, including ornamental birds, and their products."

The decision was taken as a precautionary measure following reports by the World Organisation for Animal Health on the emergence of bird flu cases in India, the official Emirates news agency said.

India confirmed on Thursday an outbreak of bird flu in poultry in the remote northeast part of the country was the H5N1 strain.

In June, the UAE has lifted a ban on Indian table egg.

Latest News Headlines on Bird Flu :
Bird Flu

India monitors four children after bird flu outbreak -- NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Health officials in India were monitoring four children suffering from fever on Wednesday after they had contact with dead or sick poultry in Manipur state, where authorities are fighting a bird flu outbreak in fowl. -- Reuters

U.S. report card shows work ahead for bird flu plan -- WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States has helped many countries watch and prepare for a bird flu pandemic, but lacks the rapid tests and hospital capacity to cope with one at home, the White House said on Tuesday. -- Reuters

Czechs confirm H5N1 bird flu at two more farms -- PRAGUE (Reuters) - Tests confirmed the H5N1 type of the bird flu virus in poultry at two farms in the eastern Czech Republic, the State Veterinary Authority (SVS) said on Thursday. -- Reuters

Va. flock of turkeys has bird flu -- Virginia banned all live poultry sales and shows for the rest of July following the discovery of suspected avian flu antibodies in a flock of 54,000 turkeys on a Shenandoah County farm. -- MSNBC

French swans test positive for bird flu -- Three swans found dead in a pond in eastern France have tested positive for the H5N1 strain of bird flu, the Agriculture Ministry said Thursday. -- MSNBC

French Swans Test Positive for Bird Flu -- PARIS (AP) -- Three swans found dead in a pond in eastern France have tested positive for the H5N1 strain of bird flu, the Agriculture Ministry said Thursday.... -- AP

UN Finds Progress in Tackling Bird Flu -- ROME (AP) -- Countries are making progress in fighting bird flu but concerns remain for some nations - especially Indonesia, Egypt and Nigeria - where human contamination is still possible, the United Nations said Wednesday.... -- AP

Experts meet on bird flu threat -- Scientists trying to combat avian flu are being brought together in the Highlands by the UN. -- BBC News - UK

Bird flu heats up in Asia with five new cases -- Bird flu has resurfaced with a vengeance in Vietnam ? with five people falling ill in as many weeks ? after no human cases had been reported for a year and a half. -- MSNBC

U.S. leads bird flu preparation efforts: report -- WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States has pledged more than a quarter of all the funds being used to prepare the world for an influenza pandemic, but is still having trouble identifying which countries need the most help, according to a report released on Thursday. -- Reuters

Bird Flu information update
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MoF plans to cut import tax on CBU cars

2007-08-06T03:40:00.001-07:00

Under the draft tariff compiled by MoF, several kinds of CBU imported cars will be imposed with a tax of 70% instead of 80%. These include cars capable of carrying 8 persons at maximum (including driver); cars capable of carrying more than 10 persons; 4WD cars; cars having diesel engines; cars having internal combustion engines with cylinder capacities of from 1,800cc to 4,000cc; cars designed to carry people (not including ones belonging to 87.02 group); vehicles specially designed for travelling on snow; and golf-class vehicles.

The new tariff is expected by MoF to be effective as of August 8, 2007.

As for used imports, MoF is also considering lowering the tax on medium-size cars by 5%, which would become effective on the same day as the tariff on brand new imports. The ministry has calculated that with the reduction of 5%, the average tax on every used car will be $1,000 lower.

MoF in February 2007 reduced the tax rates on used imports by 15-20%, which made the taxes lower by $1,500-3,000 per unit.

Under WTO commitments, the import tax on vehicles for carrying people can be 100% at maximum. Vehicles for carrying people now have the protection tax rate of 80%. However, the still relatively high protection level has led to the higher prices of cars in Vietnam compared to those in other regional countries and in the world.

Deputy Minister of Finance Truong Chi Trung said that MoF on August 4 officially asked the government to allow the application of the new tariff as of August 8.

Prior to that, when Vietnam officially became a member of the WTO on January 11, 2007, MoF lowered the tariff on imported cars from 90% to 80%.

In another move, MoF has decided to lower the tax rates on car parts. The 10% tax rate (instead of 20%) will be levied on the imports of semi-assembled engines used for vans of 10-20 tonnes. Used vehicles for carrying cargo with the maximum tonnage of 20-24 tonnes will bear the tax rate of 30% instead of 35%, while several other kinds of parts and accessories will be imposed 10%, 15% and 20%.

Singapore Dollar to Rise to Record, BNP Paribas Says

2007-08-06T03:39:00.002-07:00

Aug. 6 (Bloomberg) -- The Singapore dollar may rise 10 percent to a record in a year as an influx of tourists and bankers supports economic growth, BNP Paribas SA said.

The currency may reach S$1.38 per dollar by June 30, passing the record of S$1.3835 reached in 1995, as the Monetary Authority of Singapore seeks gains to curb inflation, said Thio Chin Loo, senior foreign-exchange strategist in Singapore at France's largest bank by market value.

Appreciation in the Singapore dollar slowed to 1 percent this year, from 8.5 percent last year, as a global semiconductor glut caused electronics production to stagnate. The slack was taken up by drugs production, asset management and construction. The city this year started building a Las Vegas Sand Corp. casino and a gaming resort with a Universal Studios theme park.

``Efforts to try to draw investment into entertainment, education and financial services will continue to prop up the economy,'' said Thio. ``Growth is strong and inflation is on the rise.''

The Singapore dollar was at S$1.5187 against the U.S. dollar at 1:55 p.m. local time from S$1.5176 late in Asia on Aug. 3. BNP Paribas has the most bullish forecast of 24 financial institutions surveyed by Bloomberg News. It predicts S$1.42 for year-end, compared with the median estimate of S$1.50.

The Monetary Authority bank targets the exchange rate instead of interest rates to control price gains, as a stronger currency cuts import costs and curbs export earnings. In April, it reaffirmed a three-year policy of a ``modest and gradual'' appreciation of the Singapore dollar.

Export Outlook

The central bank, in its annual report released July 25, said policy makers need to remain alert on prices. It said inflation this year may be at the upper half of its 0.5 percent to 1.5 percent range and reach as high as 2 percent next year.

The government increased the goods and services tax to 7 percent from 5 percent on July 1, which will add as much as 0.6 percent to consumer prices next year, the central bank said.

The Singapore dollar fell 0.9 percent in the second quarter on concern a U.S. housing slump will restrain growth in the world's largest economy, curbing demand for the island's exports.

International Enterprise Singapore, the government's trade promotion body, last month cut its 2007 export growth forecast after an eighth decline in electronics shipments in nine months. It now expects between 4 percent and 6 percent growth in non-oil exports, from a 7 percent to 9 percent range in January.

``Housing concerns may escalate and threaten the U.S. growth outlook and impact Asia,'' said Emmanuel Ng, a currency strategist at Overseas-Chinese Banking Corp. in Singapore. ``Any Singapore dollar strength may be contained'' to S$1.4900 against the U.S. currency by year-end and S$1.4850 by June, Ng said.

Cars, Casinos

A Formula One race through the city, scheduled for September 2008, is among attractions planned to support economic growth. The government wants to double overseas visitors to 17 million by 2015.

The island-state also last year awarded two casino licenses to Las Vegas Sands, the world's largest casino company by market value, and Genting Bhd., Asia's biggest operator, which plans a Universal Studios theme park larger than that in Los Angeles.

Average hotel room rates surged to a record in June, surpassing S$200 ($132) for the first time, the Singapore Tourism Board said last month. More than 4.9 million tourists have visited Singapore this year.

``Hotels and restaurants are doing very well,'' said Philip Wee, senior currency economist at DBS Group Holdings Ltd., Southeast Asia's largest bank. ``The Singapore dollar will resume its appreciation,'' reaching $1.49 by year-end, he said.

More Millionaires

The government is also hiring teachers and extending its subway, predicting the population will rise 44 percent to 6.5 million. Singapore cut its corporate tax rate to 18 percent from 20 percent to narrow the gap with Hong Kong's 17.5 percent rate.

Singapore had the world's biggest growth in the number of millionaires, rising 21 percent last year, a global survey by Capgemini SA and Merrill Lynch & Co. showed in June. The central bank forecasts the economy will expand as much as 7 percent this year, led by growth in financial services.

The city's expansion has caused inflationary pressures as electricity tariffs rise and employers offer bigger salaries to fill job vacancies. Average wages before accounting for inflation rose 5.5 percent in the first quarter, faster than the 3.1 percent rate of increase in the last three months of 2006.

Singapore's price index of private residential property rose 8.3 percent in the second quarter from the first to 147.8, the highest in almost a decade, the Urban Redevelopment Authority said last month. Rents of private homes climbed 10 percent from the previous three months, the URA also said.

Singapore's inflation data are ``understating'' the housing boom, said Glenn Maguire, chief Asia economist in Hong Kong at Societe Generale SA, France's second-biggest bank. ``The risks are to the upside.''

The Singapore dollar may advance to S$1.50 against the U.S. dollar this year, Maguire said.

Zimbabwe Warns of Bad Wheat Crop

2007-08-06T03:39:00.001-07:00

HARARE, Zimbabwe - Zimbabwe's upcoming wheat harvest is likely to be the worst since the country gained independence in 1980, state media reported Sunday, another sign of the economic crisis triggered in the former regional breadbasket by a land redistribution program.

An electricity shortage prevented farmers from irrigating the crop, the official Sunday Mail said. Production was expected to fall below the 86,000 tons harvested last year and well short of the 375,000-ton target set by the government of longtime ruler President Robert Mugabe.

"In some areas farmers could go for four consecutive days without electricity. It became impossible to irrigate and complete the required cycles, resulting in the crop wilting," President of the Zimbabwe Indigenous Commercial Farmers' Union, Wilson Nyabonda, told the newspaper.

Corn, rather than wheat, is the staple diet of most Zimbabweans, so a weak wheat crop is unlikely to cause mass starvation. Nonetheless, it means already scarce bread will be harder to find and adds to Zimbabwe's woes since seizures of white-owned commercial farms began in 2000.

The International Monetary Fund has warned Zimbabwean authorities that inflation could top 100,000 percent by the end of the year, South African Deputy Foreign Minister Aziz Pahad said last week. Officially, inflation in Zimbabwe is 4,500 percent - the highest in the world - but economists say it's at least twice that.

Acute shortages have affected numerous sectors, including electricity, which in turn has affected the farming of wheat. Zimbabwe imports up to 40 percent of its power from neighboring nations, largely because coal shortages have shut down power-generating facilities.

The harvest usually takes place around August or September.

In many areas, mechanized farming has been replaced by cattle-drawn plowing since the often violent seizures of thousands of white-owned commercial farms began, disrupting the agriculture-based economy.

The World Food Program last week appealed for $118 million to help more than 3.3 million Zimbabweans - more than one quarter of the population - facing severe food shortages.

In rare welcome news, the Sunday Mail said the government had repealed proposed legislation to limit the amount of products including cooking oil and beef that Zimbabweans could import.

This would have cut an increasingly important lifeline to desperate Zimbabweans who flock to the borders each day to shop in neighboring countries.

Although South Africa bears the brunt of the influx, Zambian officials said Sunday that the number of Zimbabweans crossing the border to buy basics such as milk and bread had increased from 60 per day to 1,000.

Copyright 2007 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed

Economic Prognosis

2007-08-06T03:37:00.000-07:00

August has begun and Vlast analytical weekly is offering its traditional prognosis for the month. The following questions will be considered: what will happen to the ruble and dollar on the Russian currency market, how consumer prices will change, where world oil prices are going and what will happen to the euro and dollar on the world currency market. But first we will take a look at the main economic events from July.
The main economic event of July was probably the fact that inflation in Russia exceeded last month's indicator, reaching 1.1 percent according to the preliminary calculations of the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade, while prices rose only by 0.7 percent in July last year. Considering that inflation in June of this year reached 1 percent (compared to 0.3 percent last year), it has to be acknowledged that prices are rising noticeably faster this year. That acceleration has eliminated the lengthy lag in the inflation rate this year, compared to last. As a result, prices rose 6.8 percent in the first seven months of this year, which is an inflation rate comparable with last year's 6.9 percent in the same period. Meeting the plan for the year of 8-percent inflation looks as unlikely as it did last year, when the final result was 9-percent inflation.

At the end of July, the Economic Ministry issued a review of the condition of the Russian economy in the first half of the year. There it says that consumer prices rose 5.7 percent in the first half a year, against 6.2 percent in the first half of last year. Base inflation, which takes into account the rise of prices due to monetary factors, was 3 percent, compared to last year's 3.9 percent. The ministry noted that “Although inflation was reduced in the first half of the year on the whole, there were no stable tendencies in the development of inflationary processes in that period.” In the first quarter, everything looked fine. Consumer prices rose just 3.4 percent, while they rose 5 percent in that period of last year. However, according to the Economics Ministry, the first quarter showed only the continuing effects of the anti-inflationary factors – growth in the supply of goods, especially imports, and stronger competition in trade due to a rapid increase in the number of stores – from April-December 2006, when prices rose an average of 1.3 percent per quarter. Lower inflationary expectations also played a role, as did high growth in production and the continuing dedollarization of the economy, which led to a rapid increase in the demand for money. Finally, the slowing of inflation in the first quarter of the year was related to the slowing of the rise in prices for produce, which was due to growth in the supply of Russian potatoes and vegetables and a lower price for sugar. In the first quarter of last year, there were big problems with the supply of vegetables and, especially, sugar.

In the second quarter of the year, inflation was twice as high as in the second quarter of last year: 2.2 percent vs. 1.1 percent. The Economics Ministry emphasized that “reduced supplies of a number of food products and low competition on the foodstuffs market, simultaneously with rapidly growing salaries, were the basic causes of the increased pace of inflation in April-June 2007. Growth of the money supply did not cause inflationary pressures in the first half of the current year, as can be seen from the slowing of the growth of base inflation and lower growth rate of cash on hand.”

Prices for groceries in January-June rose 6.1 percent, somewhat less than in the same period a year ago, when that indicator was 7 percent. In January-April, groceries increased in price relatively slowly at 0.9 percent per month. But then price growth picked up and in June groceries increased in price by 1.7 percent, the biggest price hike since March 2006. Produce especially gained in price in June. Its price growth was 12.2 percent and, if vegetables are taken alone, the price growth hit 22.3 percent. In all, price for produce in the first half of the year grew by 38.6 percent. Last year in that period, they that price grew by 31.5 percent. Vegetables nearly doubled in price and the price of potatoes went up by 40 percent. Economics Ministry experts explain that the cause of the situation was mainly a reduction in imports of carrots, onion, cabbage and beets by an average of 17 percent, decreasing competition on the foodstuffs market, as well as a price increase of 40 percent for imported vegetables “as a result of the replacement of cheap imports from the CIS with more expensive imports from further abroad.”

Non-food items increased in price insignificantly in the first half year, by just 2.2 percent (compared to last year's 2.3 percent over the same time) “mainly because of the continued growth of imports, which dominated the given market. Nonetheless, in spite of the high saturation of the market, the rate of price growth did not decrease (leaving aside prices for gasoline, growth was the same as a year ago) as a result of the continual growth of solvent public demand.”

On the whole, conditions on the Russian market are interesting. The continued high exchange rate of the ruble in relation, for example, to the dollar looks strange. How can the currency of a country with inflation of close to 10 percent annually rise in relation to the currency of a country where 3-percent annual inflation upsets the authorities. On the other hand, the rise of the ruble against the dollar and other foreign currencies stimulates imports, which, according to official declarations, is practically the only anti-inflationary factor. Where import falls, consumer prices rise quickly, and where import does not fall, prices rise comparatively slowly. (We can note that the rise in value of currencies of a country that is too heavily dependent in consumer relations is not very logical either. What foreigner needs the money of a country that clearly cannot take care of its own needs?) In any case, July showed definitively that inflation does not want to decrease and the public is spending money in a hurry, before it loses more of its value.

1. What will happen to the ruble and dollar on the Russian currency market?

June began with an exchange rate of 25.81 rubles/$, and ended at 25.54 rubles/$. Thus, the Central Bank strengthened the rubles quite decisively. As the Economics Ministry indicated in its review of the Russian economy in the first half of the year, “A significant rise in the supply of foreign currency was characteristic of the domestic currency market in the second quarter of 2007 in connection with funds attracted to take part in auction of the property of OAO YUKOS and the initial placement of shares in Vneshtorgbank. As a result, the Central Bank's monthly balance of operations with foreign currency reached a historical maximum. The dynamics of quotations of the ruble to the U.S. dollar and euro was determined by changes in the exchange rate of the two leading world currencies on the international market, the surplus of foreign currency on the domestic market and Central Bank's rate policy. In the second quarter, multidirectional dynamics of movement of the nominal exchange rate of the U.S. dollar and euro to the rubles was observed. At the end of the quarter under consideration, the official exchange rate of the dollar to the ruble dropped by 0.75 percent to 25.8162 rubles to the dollar. The official exchange rate of the euro to the rubles rose insignificantly to 34.7150 rubles to the euro.”

In general, the Russian Central Bank may continue to raise the exchange rate of the ruble (especially in relation to the dollar), making reference to the fact that the American currency is weak not only in Russia, but throughout the world, world oil prices remain unbelievably high, a surplus of dollars is still observed on the Russian domestic market and, besides everything else, raising the ruble rate is an anti-inflationary measure, the need for which is not falling, but rising. The natural limit for raising the exchange rate of the ruble is the psychologically important 25-ruble mark, which should not be passed too quickly or the public will become alarmed.

Our prognosis: In connection with unwillingness to pass the 25-ruble mark, the dollar will remain higher than 25.3 rubles in August.

2. How will consumer prices change?

The final calculations of inflation in July have not been completed yet, but preliminary figures point to an inflation rate of 1.1 percent. Thus, in the first seven months of 2007, consumer prices rose 6.8 percent, with five months and 1.2 percent left to go to the planned 8-percent mark. Nonetheless, Russian officials have yet to admit defeat officially. Rather, they say that everything is still possible. Inflation may suddenly slow down – a lot.

Of course, price growth was insignificant last August and occasionally deflation was even noted. Produce became cheaper, which has great importance in the calculation of the consumer price index in Russia, bringing a general price reduction with it. This year, however, the sharp slowdown in inflation will look too effective. It was 0.3 percent June in last year, 0.7 percent on July, 0.2 percent in August and 0.1 percent in September. Thus the August result was far from off the chart. This year, there was 1.0 percent in June and 1.1 percent in July, and 01-0.2 in August would be strange to see, most of all for the public, which has gotten used to inflation over the summer. Russia no longer resembles Zimbabwe, where the situation is so serious that people get money in the morning and run to spend it while it is still worth something. But Russian buyers are spending money with great willingness too and one reason for that is that it is noticeably losing it value. That willingness to spend money causes price rises by itself.

Our prognosis: In August, inflation will be no less than 0.4 percent.

3. Where are world oil prices going?

July was a good month for world oil prices. Both American WTI and North Sea Brent gained more than $8 per barrel in the course of the month. And as soon as the month ended, on August 1, WTI set a new absolute record high of $78.77 per barrel, passing the old record of $78.40, set when the Israelis invaded Lebanon last year.

There were no particular causes for the new record. It is estimated that OPEC produced 26.75 million barrels per day in July, which is 150,000 more than in June. The cartel officially declines to expand production, in spite of the high prices, saying that U.S. petroleum product producers have more than enough reserves as is. In addition, the fact that the American economy is not in brilliant condition should play against rising oil prices. Economic growth is slowing and investors are made nervous by the problems with the mortgage crediting market. So there is unlikely to be any higher demand for toil in the United States.

Speculators still decided to have decided to play on American authorities' announcing a reduction of oil reserves by 6.5 million barrels due to increased petroleum product production. Thus oil may remain expensive not only from geopolitical causes, but also because of speculative funds' unwillingness to give up hope for a good profit from their investments in oil futures.

Our prognosis: In August, oil will not be cheaper than $74 per barrel after last month's highs.

4. What will happen to the euro and dollar on the world currency market?

July was a bad month for dollar prices on the world currency market. On July 2, the euro had already passed $1.36 and players on the world currency market began to talk about the euro setting new record, to replace the high of $1.3682, set on April 27 of this year. On July 10, the euro passed $1.37 for the first time since it was created in 1999. On July 12, the European currency cost more than $1.38. On July 24, a new absolute record for the fall of the dollar against was set when it reached $1.3852.

A host of reasons could be found for speculators to play against the dollar. For example, the euro passed $1.38 on July 12 after American authorities announced a fall in retail sales of 0.9 percent in June. The market decided that the American economy was in bad shape indeed if American consumers, who never failed to show lively demand, especially for imported goods, stopped wanting to shop. Consequently, the American Federal Reserve Board will not want to shake up shoppers any more by raising the interest rate to slow the economy down, and so the dollar will only become cheaper. (Theoretically, the board could suggest that, as a result of the reduction of demand for imported goods, the huge American foreign trade debt will be reduced as well, which was one of the arguments behind the IMF's urgings that the dollar be devaluated.) After Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke appeared before Congress and said that he was still worried about inflation, and even more worried about the condition of the mortgage market, everyone began to sell even more dollars after what they considered practically an official refusal to raise interest rates. Only toward the end of the month did speculators decide it would be better not to get carried away, and the dollar rose to $1.36/euro.

Tough prawn import restrictions defended

2007-07-28T05:11:00.000-07:00

The federal government has defended its tough new quarantine measures for imported prawns.

The controversial restrictions on the importation of raw prawns have been implemented to reduce the risk of disease entering the country, maintains fisheries minister Eric Abetz.

"Imports will need to come from sources recognised by Australia as free from disease or concern, or be tested for a wide range of diseases," he said.

Imports of highly processed prawns will still be allowed – namely battered, marinated or cooked prawns.

Local prawn fishermen and farmers have welcomed the mesures, but seafood importers have accused the government of acting to protect the domestic industry, not the consumer.

"We're getting screwed politically," said Harry Peters, chairman of the Australian Seafood Importers Association.

The group's 40 members handle about 80% of seafood imports from nations including China, Thailand, Vietnam and Norway.

The importers claim that if more onerous tests for diseases that infect prawns, not people, are required, China, Vietnam and Thailand will pursue the case with the World Trade Organisation. "They've already discussed this with the WTO in Geneva last month," Peters told The Australian.

He said the new tests were unreliable and would cause safe shipments to be rejected. "No importer can afford to bear the loss of a $250,000 shipment," he said. "This is nothing but political bastardry."

"Nowhere in the world at any time in the last 100 years has a disease been transferred to living prawns by dead prawns,” he added.

But fishermen and prawn farmers have welcomed the changes. Scott Walker, head of the Australian Prawn Farmers Association, said the measures would protect the nation's $600 million prawn market.

"Government testing of imported raw prawns late last year found 100% were carrying exotic diseases," he said. "All of Australia's valued crustaceans... are susceptible to these diseases."

Queensland Seafood Industry Association president Neil Green described the measures as "vitally important" to the industry.

The revised quarantine measures are expected to be in place by September.

Bush creates panel to review import safety

2007-07-28T05:10:00.001-07:00

The White House on Wednesday ordered the formation of an import safety panel to review strategy in the wake of a series of consumer and food product scares that have raised concerns over the safety of products from China.

President George W. Bush formed the import safety working group, comprising government agencies, and asked Michael Leavitt, secretary of health and human services, to chair the group and report back in 60 days.

"The world is changing, and in order to make sure that we can continue to have the confidence of our consumers, we will continually review practices and procedures to assure the American consumer," the president said. "This is a serious issue."

World Energy Solutions Expands R&D Facility to Accelerate Time to Market With Diesel Fuel Reduction Technology

2007-07-28T05:09:00.000-07:00

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla., July 25, 2007 (PRIME NEWSWIRE) -- World Energy Solutions, Inc. (OTCBB:WEGY), a company focused on energy conservation technologies and environmental sustainability, announced that additional money has been allocated for the enlargement and expansion of the company's Research and Development facility in St. Petersburg, Florida.

The expansion will enable WES to accommodate large vehicles for the installation of the company's proprietary fuel additive systems, principally the hydrogen/oxygen additive to diesel engines. Additionally, World Energy Solutions' expansion will enable the company to carry out the manufacturing of large technical hardware without having to sub-contract component manufacturing. The expansion will include the acquisition of a range of machine tools and associated ducting and electrical supplies. The first new machine tools are expected to be delivered and commissioned by the end of July, 2007. The rearrangement of the laboratory will be completed by mid August, 2007.

Management expects that the expanded R&D facility will significantly increase the speed of production of components for new product prototypes. Additionally, the specification of component parts can be made more exact and the new plant and machinery will enable the laboratory staff to work to higher manufacture tolerances than would be possible with outsourced components.

Ben Croxton, CEO of World Energy Solutions, Inc., stated, "WES management hopes to create a more efficient production environment for the development of new components. We anticipate there will be significant cost and time savings, as well as the production of higher quality parts.

Recently Reported News

World Energy Solutions (WES) has begun retrofitting a new 2007 Ford F-650 with the company's proprietary hydrogen/oxygen system to reduce the truck's fuel consumption and harmful emissions. The company has entered the diesel engine market to capture the strong commercial demand for the company's proven hydrogen/oxygen (HHO) powered internal combustion engine technology. The expansion of the WES R&D facility is anticipated to speed up this development.

About World Energy Solutions, Inc. (WES)

World Energy Solutions, Inc. (OTCBB:WEGY) is an Energy Services Company and electronics manufacturer. WES's primary business focus is the development of technology for lowering electrical, gas and water usage for commercial, government and residential facilities. For more information about WES please visit its website at www.wesinc.net.

Forward-Looking Statements

Certain matters discussed in this press release are 'forward-looking statements.' These forward-looking statements can generally be identified as such because the context of the statement will include words such as 'expects,' 'should,' 'believes,' 'anticipates' or words of similar import. Similarly, statements that describe World Energy Solutions' future plans, objectives or goals are also forward-looking statements. Such forward-looking statements are subject to certain risks and uncertainties, including the financial performance of World Energy Solutions, which could cause actual results to differ materially from those currently anticipated. Although World Energy Solutions believes the expectations reflected in any forward-looking statements are based on reasonable assumptions, they cannot give any assurance that their expectations will be attained. Shareholders, potential investors and other readers are urged to consider these factors carefully in evaluating any forward-looking statements. Certain factors could cause results and conditions to differ materially from those projected in these forward-looking statements, and some of these factors are discussed below. These factors are not exhaustive. New factors, risks and uncertainties may emerge from time to time that may affect the forward-looking statements made herein. These forward-looking statements are only made as of the date of this press release and World Energy Solutions does not undertake any obligation to publicly update such forward-looking statements to reflect subsequent events or circumstances.

The Geostrategic Import of the Coming Bay of Bengal Naval Exercise

2007-07-28T05:08:00.000-07:00

Come September, India will host a major naval exercise in the strategic Bay of Bengal, located between mainland India, Bangladesh, and the western shores of Myanmar, Thailand, and Malaysia, Indian Defense Ministry officials report. The war maneuver will bring together naval forces from four other countries: Australia, Japan, Singapore, and the United States. The 20 warships that will participate include two nuclear aircraft carriers from the United States, the USS Nimitz and USS Kitty Hawk, and one non-nuclear carrier from India, the INS Viraat. In addition, the five-day maneuvers will also see in action shore-based Jaguar deep penetration strike aircraft of the Indian Air Force and the Indian Navy's Sea Harrier jets and Sea King helicopters from the INS Viraat. Indian defense officials point out that the location of the planned naval exercise has been chosen to maintain distance from the arc of the Pacific Ocean, and skirts the borders of Russia and China where such moves could arouse Beijing's sensitivities.

From all available accounts, it can be assumed that the September naval exercise will be the biggest held in the region by far. Last April, the United States, Japan, and India conducted their first joint naval exercises off the Japanese coast. That was a one-day goodwill exercise, as one Indian official pointed out, and did not involve many maneuvers. The Mysore, an Indian guided-missile destroyer, along with two U.S. destroyers and three escort ships of Japan's Self-Defense Force (SDF), were among the vessels that took part in the exercise off Chiba prefecture (state) on Japan's eastern coast, according to Japan's Defense Ministry. No doubt the September exercises will be dramatically different.

A Troubled Area
The maneuvers will take place at a time and place of great instability, much of which has spun off from the Anglo-American reactions to the 9/11 event. Not far from where the September exercise will take place is the Persian Gulf, the cockpit of the current Iraq conflict, and potential attack on Iran.

The situation in Iraq is deteriorating every day, and the fear of involvement of citizens, if not of the governments of Iraq's neighbors, in this civil war looms large. The presence of about 200,000 foreign troops, of which 170,000 are from the United States, and almost 30,000 private, armed security forces, mostly from western countries, have not succeeded in drawing down the level of violence which exceeds 100 deaths every day in Iraq.

East of Iraq, the United States and the NATO member-nations have been engaged for over five years in trying to physically eliminate the Islamist Taliban militants, who have been entrenched in Afghanistan since 1996. The invaders' self-proclaimed war on terror was launched soon after the 9/11 event. Having achieved a quick military victory in the Winter of 2001, the foreign troops find themselves getting increasingly bogged down by insurgents who can no longer be identified simply as the old Taliban. As a result of the presence of almost 50,000 foreign troops, and an explosion of opium production unprecedented in the history of Afghanistan, violence has spread far and wide. The upheaval has spilled over into bordering Pakistan, making a section of that nation ungovernable. The anti-U.S. and anti-foreigner insurgents, under the garb of being Islamic extremists, have now launched an attack against the powers-that-be in Islamabad.

Sandwiched between Iraq and Afghanistan is Iran, which is very much in the cross-hairs of the United States. Iran is also under pressure from the European nations, for engaging in a uranium enrichment program, ostensibly to power its future nuclear power plants. Influentials within the United States, belonging to the bloodthirsty faction represented by Vice President Cheney and some of the neo-conservatives, are exerting pressure on the White House and the Pentagon to use all means, including military, to bring about a regime change in Tehran. They are now in the process of developing a theory that says that no solution to Iraq or Afghanistan is possible unless the evil regime of Iran is uprooted.

Because of this relentless campaign of the Cheney-led cabal, and the Iranian unwillingness to give up uranium enrichment, a war-like situation has come to prevail in the Persian Gulf. As of now, the United States Fifth Fleet has two aircraft carrier strike forces lodged in the Persian Gulf, and the third carrier strike force, under the USS Enterprise, is on its way. The arrival of the USS Kitty Hawk in 40 days or so, in the Bay of Bengal, which is in striking distance of the Persian Gulf, raises fears of more military activities in the region in the coming weeks.

Signs of Unease
Looking at the scorecard before us, as well as the map, there is clearly good reason to become uneasy when the Bush Administration talks about security and stability. There is no question that under the Bush Administration, U.S. nuclear doctrine has been undergoing radical redesign, to further the imposition of a new imperial order. The U.S. move toward setting up a missile interception system in central Europe is correctly seen as part of this shift. Military sources have told EIR that the most radical aspect of that redesign has been the consolidation of offensive nuclear warfare capabilities, with both missile defense and current and future space-war capabilities.

Thus, the September naval exercise is likely to make nations in Eurasia, particularly Russia and China, suspicious. Although Russia, a close and long-term ally of India, has not expressed any discomfiture officially, China, with which India is in the process of developing a better mutual trust and understanding, has.

There's a recent history to China's reaction. The U.S.A., India, Japan, and Australia met in May on the sidelines of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Regional Forum in Manila to set up a new "quadrilateral" grouping. Although no agenda was set up for the talks, these quadrilateral consultations drew Chinese ire. Beijing issued protest demarches (formal diplomatic communications) to each of the four states.

The meeting was preceded by a joint statement on May 1 by U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Aso, and Defense Minister Fumio Kyuma, who spoke about a common strategic objective of continuing to build upon partnerships with India to advance areas of common interests and increase cooperation, recognizing that India's continued growth is inextricably tied to the prosperity, freedom, and security of the region. Since then, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has said India is not "ganging up" against China, and that the quadrilateral group is "not a military alliance." Subsequently, Australia's Defense Minister Brendan Nelson has tried to allay Beijing's fears, saying there was no quadrilateral security alliance comprised of Australia, the U.S.A., India, and Japan in the offing.

But that is unlikely to satisfy Beijing, which fears that Washington is fashioning a "China containment" strategy involving India, Japan, and Australia. The Bush Administration's record, and the nature of the Cheney-led cabal in the United States, naturally worry the Chinese.

What also concerns Beijing is the growing military interaction between the U.S. military and that of India. While the naval exercise is one major event, it is evident that India is becoming increasingly addicted to the U.S. and Israeli arms and equipment and technologies associated with these. Last year, the Indian Navy made its first big procurement from the United States by purchasing the 17,000-ton USS Trenton (LPD-14), an Austin-class amphibious transport dock. Recently, Indian defense officials said Washington has offered the giant landing ship, USS Nashville, to the Indian Navy, and New Delhi has shown interest.

U.S.-Indian Military Relations
There's no question that the U.S.-Indian military relationship has grown by leaps and bounds in recent years. As pointed out recently by the U.S. Ambassador to India David Mulford, since 2002, the United States and India have been partners in more than 30 military exercises. At the recently held Aero India 2007 air show in Bangalore, American high-technology systems were brought to India by U.S. defense companies, which, in an impressive display, highlighted the next frontier of their desired military relationship.

At Aero India 2007, U.S. defense companies demonstrated flights of the F-16 and F/A-18A fighter jets, the C-17 heavy-lift aircraft, the naval reconnaissance P-3 Orion, and the CH-47 Chinook cargo helicopter. More than 20 U.S. companies, including Boeing, Lockheed Martin, General Electric, and Raytheon, well known for their respective technology and defense manufacturing, were present at the air show. Recently, Lt. Gen. Jeffrey B. Kohler, director of the Defense Security Cooperation Agency in the U.S. Defense Department, was in India. He told news reporters in Delhi that India and the United States are close to signing an agreement under which their armed forces will provide each other logistics support on a reciprocal basis. Kohler said the accord had been presented to India's Cabinet Committee on Security. The Americans usually describe such a pact as an "acquisition and cross-services" agreement. It was listed as a logistics support agreement at the suggestion of India, he said.

"The agreement will ease joint operations by the armed forces of the two countries during exercises and in coming to the aid of people struck by natural calamities," Kohler said, making it clear that the accord did not in any way imply the stockpiling of weapons on each other's soil.

"The armed forces of the two countries are having frequent interactions and face immense difficulties by way of fuel supplies and other logistics. With such an agreement in place, it would ease things for both militaries," he said. The U.S. has signed similar agreements with 65 countries, including a recently concluded pact with India's neighbor Sri Lanka.

Israel, the American Proxy
Moreover, India's growing relations, military in particular, with Israel, which is considered an American proxy in that part of the world, is often bracketed as part of the Indian-U.S. relationship. India has started a $2.5 billion joint venture with Israel to develop an advanced range surface-to-air missile capable of detecting and destroying hostile aircraft, missiles, and spy planes, news reports said. India's Cabinet Committee on Security, chaired by the Prime Minister, approved the project between the Defense Research and Development Organization and Israel Aerospace Industries for developing the missile system. Over the years, India-Israel arms and military relations advanced quietly. Israel is now India's second-largest supplier of arms, Russia still retaining its number one position. Recently, an Indian warship visited Israel, and a seven-member Israeli delegation, led by Deputy Chief of the General Staff, Major Gen. Moshe Kaplinsky, was in the disputed state of Jammu and Kashmir, to the utter dismay of the anti-Indian Kashmiris and the Pakistanis.

Discussions with the visiting army delegation on that occasion focused on anti-militancy operations in the region and also on how the Indian army is challenging the infiltrators from Pakistan across the Line of Control (LoC). India has followed Israeli advice and fenced with barbed wire the 720-km-long LoC with Pakistan.

Security: An Urgent Need
On the other hand, there is little doubt that to enhance security in the Indian Ocean and Pacific Ocean rim countries, naval cooperation between the United States (with the world's largest navy at its disposal), India, Japan, and Australia is an urgent necessity.

A very important element in all this is the steady development of India-Japan relations. Recently, Japan has committed itself to a nearly $100 billion Delhi-Mumbai industrial freight rail corridor. It is said that when Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe visits India in August, the project will come alive.

In recent years, New Delhi has observed a changing mood in Japan's governments. Unlike the insular and chauvinistic underpinnings of its rise in the pre-World War II era, Japan today is different, and trying to develop a foreign policy of its own. What prompted Japan's focus on India, evident from Japan's recent diplomatic overtures and initiatives, can best be answered by Japanese policy-makers. But, it is clear that Japan and India are likely to become close partners in coming years, based on common values and strategic interests.

One analyst, Anirudh Suri, in an article in the Asia Times, recently noted that the rise of China, and increasing tensions between China and Japan, have altered Japan's sense of complacency. Tokyo has therefore become more proactive in taking leadership in Asia, seeking Asian partners to limit, if not contain, China. Building on former Prime Minister Koizumi's January 2002 proposal for a new Asian regionalism based on the promotion of market economics and democratic values, Prime Minister Abe has envisaged an "Arc of Freedom and Prosperity," made up of democratic nations lining the outer rim of the Eurasian continent, Suri wrote.

But, despite Japanese concerns, neither Japan nor India are likely to be railroaded by the United States' anti-China cabal, into a policy of "ganging up" on China.

The 'Trust Deficit'
Nor is India likely to become a trusted ally in other Anglo-American war drives.

One complication is the U.S. relationship with Pakistan, whose armaments the U.S.A. is modernizing. Washington has delivered two F-16 fighter jets to Pakistan, and will hand over another 24 shortly, the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad has announced. These join 34 F-16s already in Pakistan's armory.

The delivery of F-16s did not create an anti-American fervor in India, but New Delhi firmly believes that Pakistan's desire for modernized weapons is for the single purpose of challenging India, which considers a hostile and well-armed Pakistan, friendly to China, to be a strategic threat to India.

Last April, at a two-day workshop at the Indian Defense Studies Analysis (IDSA), a New Delhi-based think tank, discussions took place on emerging U.S.-Indian strategic relations. One Indian analyst pointed out that although Indians are eager to obtain U.S. technology, a "trust deficit" still exists, based on past U.S. sanctions on India, and Indians worry that at a crucial time they might not be supplied with replacement parts if the relationship goes bad again.

At the same time, it was pointed out at the conference that India is in fundamental agreement with the idea of the U.S. Chief of Naval Operations for allied naval cooperation (referred to as the 1,000 ship navy), and in fact has already engaged in some activities compatible with that goal, including tsunami relief, patrolling the Straits of Malacca, and evacuating refugees from Lebanon. Lieutenant General Kohlers' " 'acquisition and cross-services" agreement is also geared in that direction.

A senior Indian military official delivering a luncheon address to the conference cautioned that Indo-U.S. relations are likely to remain fluid, and unpredictable. He asserted that those relations can be better described as an "evolving entente," and argued that given its size, location, and ambitions, India will always march to the beat of its own drummer.

The official stated that when dealing with a potential conflict situation, the Indian political and civil leadership tends to follow a restrained, consensual approach on the domestic as well as international level. He added that India's primary effort is invariably to shape the security environment through cooperative peace, rather than plan on the basis of inevitable armed conflict.

Suspense mounts as Brazil presents World Cup bid

2007-07-28T05:06:00.002-07:00

RIO DE JANEIRO, July 27 (Reuters) - Brazil, the only candidate bidding to host the 2014 World Cup, will make their presentation to FIFA on Tuesday, when they should unveil some concrete plans rather than simply recall the past.
Until now, the Brazilian Football Confederation (CBF) has concentrated on the political side of the bid and emphasised their country's unparalleled World Cup tradition.
They have hosted the World Cup once before, in 1950 and have been world champions five times.
However, the CBF has not publicly disclosed which cities it proposes to use as venues, nor how it and local authorities intend to overcome the country's chronic infrastructure problems.
The poor state of Brazil's major stadiums could still be a major stumbling-block -- but that appears to be the least of the country's problems at present.
CBF president Ricardo Teixeira will make the presentation with his nation's air transport system reeling from two major crashes in the last 10 months.
The last two weeks have seen hundreds of delays and cancellations as the recriminations continue following the July 17 crash of a TAM Linhas Aereas flight, which killed around 200 people at Sao Paulo's main domestic airport.
With many major roads in an appalling state and railways suitable only for freight transport, it remains a mystery how players, officials and tens of thousands of fans will be ferried around the vast country.
Urban violence is another major worry, especially in Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo, Salvador and Recife.
It is not yet known whether Teixeira's presentation will clarify the issues or simply repeat the old discourse about how Brazil deserves the World Cup on its tradition. Either way, it will know FIFA's thoughts on Oct.30 when the world governing body announces its 2014 decision.
POLITICAL EFFORT
South America is due to host the 2014 cup under FIFA's rotation system and Brazil have been favourites to stage the event since 2003 when they were backed as the continent's only candidate by the other nine national federations.
Colombia briefly changed their minds last year and launched their own bid, before pulling out.
However, Brazil can take nothing for granted as far as 2014 is concerned. FIFA president Sepp Blatter has said on more than one occasion this year that FIFA would consider hosting the World Cup "north" of Brazil if Brazil could not meet FIFA's exacting demands to stage the tournament.
So far, Brazil appear to have concentrated their efforts on the political side including winning the backing of their neighbours.
Two months ago, Teixeira visited the governors of Brazilian states who had expressed interest in hosting games.
They were presented with FIFA's Hosting Agreement, a 92-page document detailing all requirements including 10 requiring formal government commitment.
The Brazilian government was quick to sort out the bureaucratic side, pledging to meet FIFA requirements on questions such as visas, work and import permits.
But the logistical problems remain unaddressed and loom uncomfortably on the horizon.
Teixeira's presentation will come two days after the end of the Panamerican Games in Rio de Janeiro, which tested the country's organisational capabilities on a much smaller scale.
Facilities, including the newly-built Joao Havelange stadium, were widely praised.
However, distances between venues were often huge, the results and transportation systems took several days to crank into action and authorities failed to keep their promise to expand the city's limited metro network.

Oil buys a round trip to Dubai

2007-07-28T05:06:00.001-07:00

When international oil prices pushed past US$75 (NZ$93) a barrel a year ago, it was feared that the crippling burden of high energy costs would end the world economy's dream run.

The crunch never came. Despite several years of strong global growth, last year's oil price record was not primarily driven by excess demand, but was instead the result of expectations of shortages to come.

In the end, those predictions were proved wrong, oil prices dropped back to below US$60 a barrel by the end of last year, and concerns about growth dissipated.

However, the downward price correction did not last long. Leaving the usual volatility aside, oil prices have been going up again since March.

This time, prices seem to be driven by actual supply shortages rather than expectations.

In response to softening prices last year, Opec – the 12-member cartel of oil-producing and exporting countries that provides about 40 per cent of global oil supply – cut its production quota by 1.5 million barrels a day.

On the other hand, over the past 12 months the buoyant world economy has added another one million barrels a day to demand.

Even though oil prices are back around US$75 a barrel, this time there seems to be less concern about global growth.

That may reflect a certain attitude that "we've been there before and it didn't do any harm".

However, last year the price rise was short-lived. This time it may be different. Opec appears determined to maintain tight supply, with its members sticking to the agreed production quotas. That is a change from previous years, when it was common practice to cheat on the cartel.

Alternative oil producers can't come to the rescue. Many years of under-investment, the faster-than- expected depletion of North Sea oil reserves, and the dismantling of Russian oil exporter Yukos are only some of the reasons behind the International Energy Agency's projection that non-Opec oil production will remain flat for the next five years.

Opec will not review its supply quotas till September, but the cartel is acutely aware that pushing its luck too hard may slow world growth and hurt revenues.

However, so far there is little evidence of that.

AS IS often pointed out, if one takes inflation into account, real oil prices were actually higher in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

However, leaving that brief period aside, the real cost of a barrel of oil is now more than double the average over the past 30 years.

The decline in the relative intensity of oil use over that period has provided some offset.

Furthermore, most economies now experience relatively low inflation, interest rates and unemployment, which could explain the apparent resilience to the oil shock.

The tipping point may not come till central banks decide to add to the pain by raising interest rates in an attempt to contain inflation pressure from rising energy costs.

In that situation, Opec could literally turn on the tap fairly quickly and cause prices to drop.

Present spare production capacity is estimated to be about three million barrels a day, which undermines some analysts' predictions that oil will reach US$95 a barrel.

The more likely scenario seems to be a range between US$65 and US$75 a barrel over the next year.

What does all this mean for New Zealand?

Four years ago, when global crude prices were sitting below US$30 a barrel, New Zealand's annual import bill for oil was about $2.8 billion. Since then, oil consumption has risen by only 7 per cent, but the import bill has risen to more than $5 billion on the back of record oil prices.

If it were not for the unprecedented strength of the New Zealand dollar, that amount would be significantly higher.

Present petrol prices reflect the sheltering influence of the exchange rate. Last year, when international crude prices were at similar levels, a litre of 91 cost $1.77, compared with about $1.55 today.

The full effect of the global oil price shock will not be felt till weak economic data finally convinces the Reserve Bank to lower interest rates and the New Zealand dollar reverses its bull run.

If the currency settles at its long- run sustainable level of just below 60 cents, the annual oil import bill will end up being about $3 billion higher than it was in 2003.

Ironically, that is close to the amount Dubai Aerospace has offered for the majority share in Auckland International Airport.

It is even more ironic that New Zealand predominantly imports crude oil from Dubai.

One could argue that our economy as a whole would effectively recycle the proceeds from the airport sale back to Dubai to pay for the increased cost of a year's worth of crude oil.

Would that be a particularly cynical view of the world, or simply describe the unpleasant economic reality of the situation?

In A Bug-eat-bug World, Researchers Use Unique Chinese Wasp To Battle Soybean Aphids

2007-07-28T05:05:00.001-07:00

University of Minnesota scientists are field testing a beneficial insect, a stingless wasp from China also known as Binodoxys communis, that kills soybean aphids. A successful field test would be a major breakthrough in controlling a damaging crop pest. The U of M received permission from the federal government to conduct this test and is the leading institution in the testing.

The soybean aphid first appeared in Minnesota fields in 2000 and today costs soybean growers an estimated $200 million annually in lost crop yields and spraying costs in Minnesota alone. The national cost is much higher.

"The soybean aphid was imported without any of its natural enemies, the organisms that keeps aphids in check in China," said Dave Ragsdale, U of M entomologist. "Our researchers and Extension experts are working to provide that check and balance system."

Multiple stages of evaluation and testing have been completed at the Insect Quarantine Facility, a joint effort between the Minnesota Department of Agriculture and the Minnesota Agricultural Experiment Station on the U of M's St. Paul Campus. Special security and air filtration systems ensure the insects being evaluated don't venture out on their own. Field testing will take place in a limited number of grower fields and at Research and Outreach Centers.

Binodoxys communis was approved for release based upon four years of laboratory safety testing. It is an especially promising species for control of soybean aphid, because it comes from a region in China that is a good climate match to Minnesota. The stingless wasp specializes in soybean aphid and has been observed apparently controlling it in China.

A cooperative effort between the U of M, the state and soybean growers, like New Richland farmer Larry Muff, have made this experiment possible.

"The soybean check off is committed to supporting research that will mitigate this devastating pest," said Muff, co-chair of the Minnesota Soybean Research and Tech Transfer Committee. "Organic growers will also benefit from this biological control of aphids."

University researchers and Minnesota Department of Agriculture scientists will monitor the ability of Binodoxys communis to kill soybean aphids this summer and continue the attack this fall when soybean aphids move to buckthorn plants and survive the winter to battle soybean aphids in 2008.

The researchers also have a backup plan. Eleven other species and strains of stingless wasps are under evaluation and some of these that have shown promise from both a safety and efficacy standpoint may be field tested in 2008.

In the wrong direction

2007-07-28T05:04:00.000-07:00

The following newspaper articles, "The real reason developing countries stay poor" (February 23, 2007) and "Trade Liberalisation must not be to the detriment of the region" (February 23, 2007) were interesting and instructive commentaries on globalisation.

The first article discusses issues regarding "gangster" capitalism and a campaign for the non-repayment of some foreign loans by developing countries. In the second article, against the background of the outcome of the recent election in St Lucia (my emphasis), the prime minister of Antigua and Barbuda warned that "trade liberalisation must not be to the detriment of the region". The prime minister is not alone regarding concerns about the backlash of globalisation. The World Trade Organisation (WTO) has produced "Trade Liberalisation Statistics", a report providing data on some of the negative consequences of globalisation.

According to the report, "the following facts are culled to demonstrate that current trade liberalisation rules have led to increased poverty and inequality, and have eroded democratic principles, with a disproportionately large negative effect on the poorest countries". Activists and researchers in the USA, England and Australia have recorded their findings on the impact of globalisation on education. There is also discussion on the new regimes emerging in South America and other parts of the world as responses to globalisation, and also the need for new directions in politics of the coming of the "New new world order".

Researchers have argued that to date there are no clear links between liberalisation and economic growth. "This means that the projected benefits (of liberalisation) are merely hypothetical. Globalisation has features common to the past junctures of "free-trade" emergencies. In looking at studies of Imperialism by JA Hobson, VI Lenin, H Madgoff and particularly Johan Galtung's Structural Theory of Imperialism, it is reasonable to label globalisation as a new form of imperialism. From my observations, globalisation is an Anglo-American construct which emerged after George HW Bush (Transforming US Security Environment) and Margaret Thatcher (A European Magna Carta) had their meeting in Aspen, Colorado, in the early 1990s (Aspen Quarterly, Spring 1991). The New World Order by Paul Nitze was one of the major presentations to the conference (Aspen Quarterly Spring 1991). It was indeed the manifesto of things to come. It was this combined "axis ideas" from Thatcher and Bush Snr that formally ushered in the era of globalisation.

Thatcher expressed with clarity the idea that it is the politics of the developing countries "which have led the economics astray". International regimes were now empowered to help some countries "govern". Prior to this meeting, we were taught about the "rust belts of America" and the "declining and industrial and mining activities" in England. The system was set to ensure prosperity for the Anglo-American axis.
Studies associated with the WTO illustrate how these "untested hypotheses" have eroded "democratic principles", and led "to increased poverty and inequality". According to the report, the number of people living "on less than US$2 per day has risen almost to 50 per cent since 1980" and that the "UN estimates that poor countries lose about US$2 billion per day because of unjust trade rules. trade liberalisation is negatively correlated with income growth among the poorest 40 per cent of the population." and ". if rich nations opened their markets to the Least Developed Countries (LDCs), increased opportunities would generate an estimate of $700 billion of additional trade for the developing world".

Developing countries "face higher tariffs on processed goods than on commodities". Most developing countries are dependent on commodities in a world in which "commodity prices have fallen dramatically, by some two-thirds over the past 30 years." Rural underdevelopment and an ever increasing rural unemployment generate new forms of poverty. It is this new form of poverty, new culture of individualism and greed in a world of "high consumerism" that is of great concern, particularly as factors associated with new and very high levels of crime. There was a clear example of how the negative consequences of globalisation in St Lucia deepened inequality and poverty, resulting in very high levels of homicide.

Opposition leader Bruce Golding spoke about "anaemic growth" in Jamaica in spite of the significant amount of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) to this country. But according to WTO data and analysis, "There is no causal link between foreign direct investments and poverty reduction. Eighty per cent of FDI is in the form of mergers and acquisitions, little in the form of productive investment that creates jobs and exports". The majority of LDCs with strong import liberalisation "have experienced anaemic or negative growth over the past 20 years".

It is "dangerous in general to depend on theoretical benefits which are unlikely to occur when human life is at stake, for example with water privatisation". It has been proved that privatisation of utilities to "gangster capitalists" has resulted in higher cost to consumers, poorer quality and even the absence of services where citizens of those countries were unable to pay. This has been the case in areas such as Puerto Rico, Bolivia and Argentina. Studies by Peter McLaren, Meg McGuire and Glen Rikowski and Geof Hattam et al inform on the negative impact of the WTO and GATS on education in England, Australia and the USA, respectively.

There was a sustained demonstration by students in Greece against "the conservative government's plan to reform higher education" in recent months. Many of the calls to reform education, today, are responses to WTO and the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS).

The new regimes emerging in South America are manifestations of people seeking for new directions in politics and society. There are also clear indications of a type of "indecisive politics" in Europe. According to Drezner (2007) in "The New New World Order", with the shifts in the global distribution of power" the idea of unipolarity is a thing of the past because new forces in the world are shaping the future. Where will we stand in the "new new" scheme of things? What is the nature of our foreign policy with respect to the changing forces in international relations? If we stay in the same place all the time, we will not get anywhere.

Zimbabwe: Hoteliers Desperate for Food Import Licences

2007-07-28T05:03:00.000-07:00

PLAYERS in the hotel and tourism industry have applied for licences to import food products to cushion themselves against shortages triggered by the government price controls.

The Financial Gazette understands that the hotel industry has started engaging the Minister of Environment and Tourism, Francis Nhema on the issue.

Rainbow Tourism Group chief executive officer (CEO) Chipo Mutasa told The Financial Gazette hospitality players were seeking permission to import food products such as beef, dairy products, flour, fish and wines.

"It will come in handy if we do not find any of the stuff on the local market. We do not want to compromise on our services," Mutasa said.

There has been a shortage of most basic commodities on the market following a blanket freeze on products by the government last month.

The government's move sparked panic buying and hoarding among consumers, resulting in empty shelves after producers failed to supply.

Mutasa said most hoteliers had experienced shortages but were mainly cushioned by their capacity to buy in bulk.

The government also banned the import and export of various goods with effect from August 1.

Statutory instruments 137 and 138 of 2007 bans the importation of goods such as beef, butter, cooking oil, milk, cheese, sugar, tea, wheat flour, ice-cream, fertiliser, cotton lint and hides and skins without a permit.

The situation poses serious challenges to the industry, once one of the largest foreign currency earners.

The tourism industry was beginning to regain its place as a key economic sector after suffering a downturn in the aftermath of the 2000 land reform exercise.

The local tourism industry also has to gear up for the 2010 World Cup taking place in neighbouring South Africa.

Shortages will compromise the status of the industry, which is expected to host regional and international visitors during the showcase.

Zimbabwe was recently rated among the top five destinations in Africa, according to recent nominations revealed by the World Travel Awards (WTA) for 2007.

The nominated countries included South Africa, Tanzania, Morocco and Egypt.

Zimbabwe to import 200,000 tonnes of maize from Tanzania

2007-07-28T05:02:00.002-07:00

Dar es Salaam (Tanzania) Zimbabwe is to import 200,000 metric tonnes of the staple maize food from Tanzania to avert widespread food shortages following a poor harvest, Zimbabwe TV, monitored here Thursday, has reported.

“We will have maize coming in shortly from Tanzania,” Samuel Muvuti, head of Zimbabwe’s state-run Grain Marketing Board, said in Harare.

“As soon as everything is put in place, stocks should be arriving into the country through the (Mozambican) port of Beira, to cater for the southern part of the country,” Muvuti added.

The Tanzanian government, however, said it was not aware of this maize sale to Zimbabwe.

The Zimbabwe TV report also said efforts were underway to bring in another 400,000 metric tonnes of maize from Malawi.

In fact, according to an APA correspondent in Malawi, the process of transporting Malawi maize to Zimbabwe began in June.

So far the Malawians have trucked in nearly 100,000 metric tonnes of the staple to Zimbabwe, Malawi’s Deputy Agriculture Minister Binton Kuntsaira told APA on Thursday.

Last month, the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and the World Food Programme (WFP) said in a joint report that more than four million Zimbabweans - a third of the population - were in need of food aid.

In March Zimbabwe, once a regional breadbasket, declared that its 2006/07 farming season was hit by drought, meaning that the government would need to import hundreds of thousands of tonnes of maize.

Apart from the drought, President Robert Mugabe blamed the perennial food shortfall on Western sanctions imposed on him and his ruling party elite.

This followed the last presidential polls, which the opposition and Western observers alleged were rigged to hand Mugabe victory.

But Western critics say the situation is a direct result of the controversial land reforms in which the government seized at least 4,000 farms from white commercial farmers for reallocation to landless blacks.

Govt eyes tougher seafood import rules

2007-07-28T05:02:00.001-07:00

The federal government has welcomed reports China will step up fish farm inspections after some trading partners blocked its seafood exports over contamination fears.

The government also indicated it would consider toughening Australia's import requirements.

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) last month began stopping all Chinese farm-raised eel, catfish, basa, shrimp and dace at its border, over concerns about high levels of antibiotics in the seafood.

It had identified widespread contamination of Chinese seafood with drugs including malachite green, nitrofurans and fluoroquinolone.

Malachite green is a cancer-causing chemical used by fish farmers to kill parasites, while nitrofurans is an antibiotic also linked to cancer.

Australia tests for malachite green in imported fish and for nitrofurans in prawns, but does not routinely test for fluoroquinolone contamination.

Microbiologists are concerned human bacteria will develop resistance to fluoroquinolone if it enters the food chain.

China, the world's largest producer of farmed fish, on Thursday said it was focusing on curbing antibiotic use.

China's state council passed draft rules on Wednesday to give local councils greater power to monitor firms and punish those found breaking the law.

It also promised greater international cooperation, better safety checks and greater openness with quality problems.

"Product quality and food safety have a bearing on people's health and their vital interests, trust in companies and (our) international reputation, and it must be paid the utmost attention," it added.

Fisheries Minister Eric Abetz's office said the minister was consulting with Australia's food regulatory body, Food Standards Australia New Zealand (FSANZ), about seafood imports.

"It is pleasing to see that Chinese authorities are stepping up their own regulatory regime and testing on this matter," a spokesman for Senator Abetz said.

"While Australia has a strong testing regime in place, we can understand the concern about this issue, and the minister is seeking advice from FSANZ."

The government this week announced it would strengthen quarantine measures for imported raw prawns to protect the local industry and marine environment, but the changes do not apply to other types of seafood.

From September, prawn imports will need to come from sources that Australia recognises as being disease and contamination-free, or else be subjected to tougher testing.

Mr Abetz's office said the changes applied to all importers, not just China, and there were no plans to reverse the decision.

Labor has attacked the government for failing to act on the US warnings, and called for increased testing of all potentially harmful contaminants.

Kingfisher's vision finds global results

2007-07-28T05:00:00.000-07:00

Australia has its own stories of IT start-ups achieving great things, writes Garry Barker.

HEWLETT and Packard are the classic example. Jobs, Wozniak and the Homebrew Computer Club are part of the same Silicon Valley legend of global technology companies launched by youthful entrepreneurs in a suburban garage.

But Melbourne has its garage start-ups, too.

Rosmin Robertson and her husband Bruce have devoted 20 years of work, a lot of passion and some world's-first technology to the building of Kingfisher International, a leader in fibre optic test equipment with customers in 70 countries. They began work in their spare bedroom, and from there moved to their garage when business began to pick up.

Even before Kingfisher International was born in 1986, Bruce Robertson was drawn to, and perhaps driven by, the idea that the future of telecommunications lay not with copper wires, which every telco then used, but with fibre optic cable.

He developed an instrument for testing the integrity of fibre optic cables that was half the size and half the price of US-made competitors. Over time, he has continued to refine the instrument, which is now standard equipment for servicemen and maintenance engineers in more than 100 telcos around the world.

Research and development is the lifeblood of the company, Ms Robertson says. "We have to stay in front of competitors by constant research and development," she says.

The internet was then still in its infancy. It would be three more years before Sir Tim Berners-Lee would create the World Wide Web and launch the global communications revolution that has produced the greatest social change on this planet since the industrial revolution.

Back then broadband was a dream; only telecommunications visionaries saw optical fibre cables carrying today's torrents of data to consumer's homes. But Bruce Robertson did, and his entrepreneurial wife saw the commercial opportunity.

Kingfisher's customer list now includes many of the world's biggest telecommunications companies — Telstra, France Telecom, British Telecom, Telecom New Zealand and Sprint-Nextel in the US.

The garage entered the equation when they needed more space for their first five employees — growth sparked by a sale to, of all unlikely customers, for a tiny Melbourne instrument maker, the Boeing Aircraft Company of Seattle.

Ms Robertson was born in Eritrea, daughter of a prosperous merchant and clothing manufacturer. Her early education was in Italian schools in Eritrea but at the age of 14 she was sent to an English school in Addis Ababa. The country was riven by civil war and the capital was less dangerous than Eritrea.

Three years later, in 1979, she went to live with an aunt in London.

"I took up a secretarial course, but within six months I realised that wasn't me," she says. "I thought of being a lawyer, but I was talked out of that, and began a business course." Business has remained her forte ever since.

She met her English husband in London at a spiritual group. It was a Sufi group, a movement founded in India by Hazrat Inayat Khan devoted to harmony, illumination and happiness, principles that are strong in Ms Robertson's approach to business.

"Bruce was my brother's friend. Bruce migrated to Queensland and I came there in 1985 for a holiday. We met up and he proposed. I was 23. We went on honeymoon for six months, came to Melbourne, liked it and settled here.

"My visa did not allow me to take a job, but I could start a business," she says. "I registered the Kingfisher name (because they are birds of speed, power, responsiveness and beauty, and they are in almost every country) and thought of import-export."

Bruce got a job with FibreNet, a company using optical fibre. "But the boss told him there was no point in developing and starting a new way of doing things," Ms Robertson says. Bruce was a designer, and within six months he left to join PA Technologies, a Melbourne consultancy.

But he was consumed with the idea of a hand-held test instrument for fibre optics.

"I was developing my own business, and as a wife you hear, and so I said to him, 'all right, why don't you do it for me?', and that was the start."

Ms Robertson looked at the possible market, saw opportunity, and wrote the specifications, and had some cardboard models of the instrument made up to "see if the world liked it".

Along the way Kingfisher was accused of stealing its technology but successfully defended itself. "We had not copied anyone because no one else in the world was doing what we were," Ms Robertson says.

Their barrister in the case is the now celebrated silk, Julian Burnside, QC. "We pretty much could not afford him, but we did. He was interested in technology, and this was one of the few cases of its kind.

"My father helped us with finance to fight the case. They wanted to buy our technology but for us it was a matter of principle. We had stolen nothing, done nothing wrong."

Says Ms Robertson: "My childhood and upbringing taught me that life is short — I saw that in the terrible civil war in Ethiopia — so I believe you should make everything you do count.

"We all have to make a living. We have to earn our bread, but we also should enjoy life. We have one opportunity at life and we should get our life balance right."

She enjoys running her business and seeing it grow, but she does not believe that the harmony of her life and that of her family and employees should be sacrificed to growth and to making ever-greater profits. "You can't take your money into the grave; it's worthless there," she says.

The company has won an array of awards, including a Dun & Bradstreet and The Age Business award (in 1999) and Victorian Export Award, and was inducted into the Victorian Manufacturing Hall of Fame in 2005. Ms Robertson is a finalist for the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year award.

Developing science and engineering

2007-07-28T04:59:00.001-07:00

CEBU, Philippines—For a country well into the 21st century, President Gloria Macapgal Arroyo’s promise of P3 billion for science and engineering research and development is a very blunt admission of the dismal state of knowledge production and technological expertise obtaining in higher education institutions in the country today.

Educators and academicians, therefore, cannot be faulted for eagerly awaiting the fulfillment of that promise, which she made in last Monday’s State of the Nation Address (SONA). But one skeptic I talked to yesterday commented wryly that if such an amount would still go through the government bureaucracy, nothing much will come of it as the vultures there would simply “filter” the whole amount for themselves. Ever the optimist, I am willing to give government the benefit of the doubt and see how this will play out.

Mrs. Arroyo’s offer, however welcome, is not new as it comes after a long line of presidential and American colonial) attempts at raising Filipino knowledge production to world standards. The success has been minimal at best as can be seen from the very few Filipinos that do get noticed the world over for contributing new things (inventions, innovations) or ideas (theories, philosophies, world-views) to make the world a better place, as it were. In fact, those who did were forced to sell their ideas to private firms who now reap profits after owning patents for these inventions.

Probably the most successful attempt at developing science (both social and natural) and engineering in a very backward country is Japan which, during the Meiji restoration, rapidly modernized to emerge an economic power within 45 years. This remarkable feat began when 15-year-old Emperor Mahutu, who took the name Meiji, assumed the throne in 1868 and promulgated the Five Charter Oath of 1868. A general statement of the emperor’s goals, the fifth oath is of particular import to the Philippines and to GMA in particular thus: “Knowledge shall be sought throughout the world to strengthen the foundations of imperial rule.” (I am, of course, referring to knowledge and not imperial rule here.) Overnight, over 3,000 teachers, engineers and scientists were imported to Japan from the U.S. and Europe while thousands of students went in the other direction to learn from the modern world. By the time of Emperor Meiji’s death in 1912, Japan had become an industrial power to be reckoned with.

The American colonizers also sent hundreds of Filipino scholars, called pensionados, to the United States, while an equal number of Americans began modernizing the Philippines. Many of the scholars came back to become the pioneers of higher education and research. But something happened along the way as many of them took on the appearance and aspirations of the colonial master at the expense of a vastly underdeveloped archipelago, creating a two-tiered society of English-speaking, American educated elite and a large number of barely literate compatriots.

Yet to a certain extent the country came out of the colonial experience and trained its Southeast Asian neighbors in the fields of agriculture, engineering and the social sciences. Vietnam, China and Thailand, from where we often import their surplus rice, learned the modern techniques of rice production from the Philippines, to cite one example.

That was in the 1960s, when all our neighbors (except Japan) were dirt poor and had little opportunities for economic growth. Forty years later, we look with askance as Malaysia and Singapore pour millions of dollars to develop their science and engineering programs carrying out world-class research and development while we produce nurses to earn money for the country abroad and many of our engineering graduates work in call centers, go abroad as domestic helpers, or go back home to farm. Obviously 3 billion pesos is not enough to close the gap with our neighbors. But that is surely a good beginning; that is, if it will not get lost in red tape and corruption.

A U.S. Customs and Border Protection officer under arrest

2007-07-28T04:58:00.002-07:00

A U.S. Customs and Border Protection officer under arrest, accused of conspiracy to import a controlled substance. Federal authorities arrested Margarita Crispin while on duty at the Paso Del Norte Bridge. Authorities say she conspired with others to import more than 1,000 kilograms of marijuana into the United States from June 2003 to July 2007.

A Las Cruces police officer was killed in a motorcycle crash on Thursday night. Officials say David Cordova was driving his motorcycle and slammed into the back of a car. He died at the scene.

Two news helicopters crash in midair in Phoenix, Arizona while covering a police pursuit. The crash killed all four people aboard.

Across Texas, heavy rains are expected through the weekend in much of the state. Governor Rick Perry has sent National Guard troops to areas already hit by heavy rain.

Nasa says it is unaware of any astronauts who were drunk before a flight but agency is investigating.

Around the world, police in Pakistan used tear gas to disperse protesting racial radical Islamists at the Red Mosque in Islamabad.

The price of gas has dropped across the borderland.

An 18-wheeler that split in half along I-10 west near Executive caused a huge traffic back up. The incident happened around 9:30 a.m and left traffic backed up most of the morning and into the afternoon.

These are news headlines in the borderland, across the country and around the world for Friday, July 28th

Publish and debunk this relic of history

2007-07-28T04:58:00.001-07:00

Seventy-four years ago this week, The Times started serialising the worst book ever written. Adolf Hitler had dictated Mein Kampf in Landsburg Prison in 1924, while incarcerated for his attempted putsch against the German Government. The book would not be published in Britain until October 1933, but this newspaper obtained the rights to run exclusive extracts four months earlier.

The Times explained that it was publishing this vile, anti-Semitic rant on the grounds that “readers will find it illuminating as a psychological revelation [which] will show how Hitler came to hate the Jews”. Even so, the Editor of the day, George Dawson, was plainly holding his nose as he placed Mein Kampf (“My Struggle”) in the public domain.

The accompanying editorial spoke of the author as a “fanatical anti-Semite” with “a few ideas, harshly created and stubbornly held”. It noted Hitler’s “revengeful fury” and the “cruel acts of savagery which have degraded Germany in the eyes of the world”. The editorial concluded: “The Hitler regime has actually been established by violence [and] legalised terrorism is still necessary to its maintenance.”

Few in 1933 could have foreseen the full scale of the horror that Hitler would shortly unleash, but there is a flicker of premonition in this newspaper’s palpable distaste. Dawson must also have wondered whether, in giving space to Hitler’s noxious ideas, he was also spreading and encouraging them. Was The Times justified in publishing Hitler’s tract? Or are there some words so ugly in import and so violent in intent, that they should be locked away? Is Hitler’s creed an ideological poison, liable to corrupt and contaminate anyone who is exposed to it? These questions have been asked about Mein Kampf ever since it first appeared, and it is an issue of fierce debate in Germany today, where Horst Möller, a leading German historian, has called for the book to be published openly for the first time since 1945.

The Bavarian state authorities own the copyright to Hitler’s writings, but maintain an effective ban by refusing all requests to print it. Officially, the book cannot be bought in Germany, Israel, Norway or Switzerland. It is illegal to own it in Austria and to sell it in the Netherlands. But the book is available for sale in the US and Britain, as well as through internet bookshops. About 3,000 copies are sold every year in the UK.

Mein Kampf is the central defining text of racial hatred, a lurid, paranoid diatribe founded on the lie of Aryan supremacy. It is not only evil but amazingly badly written, being repetitious, anti-factual, rambling and turgid, the testimony of a furious, self-pitying failure with a slender grasp on reality and none whatever on grammar. It was a huge bestseller: each newly married couple, graduating student, and soldier at the front was presented with a copy by the Third Reich; Hitler earned more than $1 million a year in royalties. It is wicked rubbish, at once stomach-turning and soporific; everyone should read it, once.

Holocaust survivors are understandably unhappy at the prospect of a book that caused such bloodshed becoming freely available once more in the country that gave birth to Nazism. Yet whatever sympathy one may feel for those who suffered, no book should be banned, however pernicious. Allowed to fester in the dark corners of neo-Nazism, Hitler’s ideas continue to hold a spurious glamour for the twisted few: held up to the light, they shrivel. In treating this disease, exposure to fresh air is always more effective than quarantine.

Some argued as much from the beginning. William L. Shirer, the American journalist and historian who covered the rise of the Third Reich, suggested that if Hitler’s ideas had been more widely disseminated and understood outside Germany in the 1930s, then the world might have taken action in time to stop him.

The Times was right to publish extracts from Mein Kampf in 1933; the publisher Hutchinson was brave and right to issue a cheap wartime edition in order that British people might better understand what we were fighting for, and against. And Mr Möller is surely right to argue that Germany has now left the spectre of Nazism so far behind, that it can trust itself to read Hitler’s creed without fear of reinfection.

Quite apart from the issue of free speech, there is the practical consideration that book-banning is virtually impossible in the internet age. The Nazis themselves tried, and failed, to ban and burn the “degenerate” books they feared, and in the process lent those works underground status. Today any neo-Nazi with half a brain (rather more than the usual complement), can download Mein Kampf and feel aggrieved and special for having to do so in secret.

The copyright of Mein Kampf in Germany will expire in 2015, and then German publishers will be free to publish it. How much better, then, to produce a cheap, scholarly, annotated version in German now, with a commentary comprehensively debunking it. That would be a mark of moral courage, a demonstration that Germany has come to terms with its past and can look on the evil of Nazism with confident disdain instead of a lingering fear.

Mein Kampf is a historical relic that has retained its power to horrify: it should be preserved and exhibited in the same way as Auschwitz, the killing fields of Cambodia and Holocaust museums everywhere. Germany has struggled to explore and understand its own history with an honesty that stands as a beacon to other traumatised nations, from South Africa to Iraq to Northern Ireland. Hitler’s apologia for mass murder is a painful but necessary part of that story. It should be published, and damned.

NZ threatens Aust over apple import delays

2007-07-28T04:57:00.001-07:00

New Zealand is threatening to take Australia to the World Trade Organisation over delays to apple imports.

New Zealand's Trade Minister Phil Goff and Agriculture Minister Jim Anderton have scheduled talks next week to clarify Canberra's position.

If those talks fail Mr Goff says New Zealand will most likely refer the case to the WTO.

The myth of economic growth and inflation

2007-07-28T04:56:00.000-07:00

U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson stated on 27th July, the week in which stocks in the US saw its steepest fall in five years:

“Now I believe what we’re seeing is a strong global economy. This is the strongest global economy I’ve seen in 32 years. The growth rate in Europe has doubled. We’ve got growth throughout Asia. Japan is now growing, so I think this is being driven by strong growth outside of the U.S.“

Is something fundamentally different indeed this time which forced a veteran like Paulson to state ‘strongest global economy in 32 years’ – since 1975?

Forecast by IMF has again given almost 5% global economic growth rate for 2008. The traditional cycle of overheating so far didn’t apply in China, and quarter after quarter its economy rather seemed to be accelerating, now reaching almost 12%. Asset prices all over the world, barring only gold and crude historically, did hit new highs with adjusted values of dollars with crude and oil historically.

And talks about economic imbalances – US deficits to China’s forex reserves – and their sustainability often get mentioned while examining the sustainability of present world economic growth.

However the other side of the story, with another news-article (couple of days back only, I don’t remember the source now) narrated a story on how ordinary Japanese people are suffering with the example of a 54-year old lady contractual teacher, who barely survives with the free lunch she gets at school, worth otherwise 200 yen-a-day. That article further analyzed how Abe government became unpopular within years of coming to power. Superimpose this picture with the reality of Yen-Carry trade and 0.5% interest rate in Japan, after years of zero-interest rate; and some +ve economic activities in Japan lately.

And hundreds of similar stories like that of the Japanese teacher asked questions whether economic growth benefits all. Many stated a rising tide does not lift all boats; and Warren Buffet suggested that all boats are rising; but the yachts are rising faster.
And the question that comes from this other side of the story is, if indeed global economy is in its strongest as per the measure of the economists; is it getting translated verbatim in the living of the ordinary people of the world – from US to Japan to China to India to everywhere?

So there remains essentially two questions (1) How long this growth would be sustainable and whether it indeed is different this time (true, a stupid notion), and (2) Whatever drives this growth; has it been good for the vast majority. If not; why so again?
Finding answer of 1st would help us explain 2nd question as well.

Back in June, taking cues from above facts, Moral of stocks up & housing down story appeared in BNN. Since then housing problem in the US has only worsened; and stocks, in-spite of their last week plunge; have decreased marginally. In the month of May’07, Dow Jones Industry Average touched 13K figure for the first time.

Another fad of the business media in between was to report on unsustainably high valuation of Chinese stocks. ‘Bubble in China? The answer is both ‘yes’ and ‘no’ covered those aspects, and since then China has also gone through some increased volatility; however no major downfall has been seen till now.

But none explain extensively the secret of this strongest global growth in 32 years. Have the economist (read Central Bankers) have suddenly found a magic potion on how to run the global economy better; or is it a mere accidental combination of factors that have fueled this so far ‘high-growth-low-inflation-era-with-economic-imbalances’, both within countries and more so within societies?

Simple questions seldom get any simple answers – these indeed are most profound. And probably no ‘right’ answer exists to above questions.

However chances are, both the alternatives (central bankers getting it right with coincidental developments) are right. Yes, indeed central bankers have played a role with easy liquidity; and China did offer a conducive environment by converting liquidity to productive assets, thereby giving a helping hand in controlling global inflation.

However another transition is taking place in-between. The definition of capital itself has undergone vast changes with easy liquidity. Spurt in interest rate in few major economies didn’t spoil the party of easy availability of liquidity (very lately, in-spite of liquidity being there, risk aversion caused by closure of hedge funds of Bear Sterns in subprime mortgage market has prompted less buyers of risky assets. However liquidity, without any doubt, still remains strong).

Capital so long meant resources – human or natural or even monetary ones (fiat currency, post Bretton Woods period). However seldom did we see an era when a vast majority of the capital created in human history originated primarily from the fiat currency part.
Capital (or resources) has now come to a status that can be created as much as Central Bankers of major economies (by ensuring first adequate domestic supply of goods) wishes. However flow of those monetary resources must be controlled, to keep a tab on inflation. So Japan still manages low inflation with 0.5% interest rate and tremendous liquidity with money flowing out in the form of ‘yen-carry’ trade; China manages inflation with investment boom in-spite of tremendous inflows and now planning its investments outside China to ensure the huge cash reserves are utilized elsewhere; US, in-spite of being a borrower sees its investment bankers acquire physical/financial assets in lucrative overseas markets.

It effectively means:

Ensure adequate domestic supply of goods (for China or Japan) or a strong currency (for US to keep costs of import low) to manage inflation. Lately though dollar has weakened a bit; the weakness is not of any significance compared what fundamentals suggest.
Once major economies and its Central Bankers achieve above, keep on creating resources through fiat channel. Print as much money as you can; but ensure much of that money is invested overseas in countries with weaker currencies. The world essentially does not mean the G-8; and much part of the world still remains starved of all the three categories of resources (human, natural or fiat currency. Natural resources, even if they exist, remain undeveloped).
Thereby major economies ensure that it owns up real resources (natural ones) in those underdeveloped parts of the world through artificially created ones; and by manipulating forex rates. China’s acquisition of assets in Africa is a glaring example; and so are US investment bakers backing real estate sectors in India.
So China invests heavily in Africa (no major economy with fiat strength there or with a strong currency); Japan does it all over, and US does it in China, India and to all over within its allies. The assets they acquire eventually come from either the poor governments; or the ‘have nots’ of those underdeveloped countries/societies. So the ‘haves’ acquire physical assets against fiat assets.
Effectively by this ‘magic potion’ formula of easy liquidity; central bankers of major economies can ensure their country owns up more and more assets all over the world. Asset ‘A’ in the US and Japan costs much more than same asset in India or China; and it even costs less in most of Africa. So similar natural resources, true with different geopolitical risks, get valued differently when measured with ‘artificially created resources’ in money markets.

The 2nd thing is, barring China, nowhere does firms report losses as they used to do historically. Auto-sector in US does face some troubles, but those are not from operations alone but more to do with employee welfares. Outputs of firms are already priced quite high; global demand also remains robust as increasingly the large section of ‘have nothings’ slowly converts to ‘have nots’ and to some extent to the ‘have’ section. So as long as firm output prices don’t come down substantially; firms even at present level of prices would make enough profits, with expanded capacities as well. And therefore inflation would be controlled; as China has done to the world.

Demand was always there; enough supply was not. As of now, creation of supply has not yet overtaken that demand to ensure that firms face pricing pressure; which in turn can cause firms to make losses; as business cycles usually meant historically.
So an expanding monetary policy where Central Bankers create resources or capital works well for all. The only victim, if any is nature as more the artificial assets we create with money supply; more is the demand generated and supply created (because pricing supports supply assuring profitability) from natural resources; and more is the pollution, Green House Gas emissions.

Nature never allowed any to consume today fruits of tomorrow. But when central bankers create resources with fiat money and still be able to contain inflation because existing price levels and demand justify that; we allow nature to suffer faster.

Much of the borrowings would never get repaid ever – be it by government or by firms. However no one is certain of the consequences when we borrow from nature beyond what nature can provide us in a sustainable manner; and ten we don’t even pay back. Government can run with perpetual debt; nature can’t.

The cost we pay to the nature for unsustainable borrowings may be much more catastrophic than the interest rate we pay on debts.

With still 3 billion people belonging to different categories of ‘have nots’ and therefore demand being there, firm profitability being higher and therefore encouraging more supply, liquidity being high to drive investments; the only real dampener, barring geopolitical risks that can topple this strongest growth cycle can only come from nature.
And it’s already happening.

And that partly explains why yachts are rising faster than boats in this economic growth cycle where we borrow more and more from nature to drive the strongest growth in 32-years. When central bankers can drive economic growth with easy printing of fiat money; the process logically continues with anyone with little ability to borrow by writing future checks.

People who could not borrow; people who consumed tomorrow’s fruit tomorrow and not today; mostly remained left behind from this Economic Growth

ADB to finance power projects in Pakistan

2007-07-28T04:55:00.000-07:00

ISLAMABAD — The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has decided to support and finance import of about 2,000MW electricity to Pakistan from Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan besides the pipeline project for import of gas from Turkmenistan.

Official sources said that the bank has found economically feasible Pakistan's plans of developing Gwadar port as transnational hub for Central Asian States (CAS), South Asia, China and the Middle East and has decided to fund at least three mega projects of the overall concept. These include import of 1,000MW of electricity each from Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan and the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan (TAP) project.

The sources said the commitment for ADB's support and funding for the three projects has come at the highest level during recent interactions between Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz and the ADB president C. Lawrence. It was not yet clear how much investment would be required for the electricity import projects and what contribution would come from the Asian development, said these sources saying a technical level delegation would be visiting Islamabad in the next few days for more detailed discussions.

The ADB is assisting Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan in development of their vast but untapped hydropower potential. It wants the two central Asian republics to export 1,000MW each to Pakistan that currently faces more than 2,500MW of power shortfall in peak demand timings. Energy demand growth rate is now estimated at 10 per cent per annum in Pakistan.

Pakistan has been in discussions with Tajikistan for import of about 1,000MW of electricity and has held at least three formal rounds of discussions on the subject. In one of the formal interactions, major stakeholders like the United States, Afghanistan, Russia and energy giants from the US and Russia had also participated.

The ADB has been working very closely with the World Bank in the recent days to create a regional electricity grid to ensure that surplus energy from one country in a specific country could be transmitted to another nation. There are many countries in the region which are surplus in energy in one part but short of electricity in another region.

Emagination Israel: bridging future generations with its challenges

2007-07-28T04:54:00.002-07:00

Along with his two business partners, Nir Kouris is building and executing his vision to create three new experiences for people worldwide to explore and advance their technology side within Israel in a summer camp environment. The camp location is not yet public, however, the first camp for around 300 participants aged between 12 to 17 years is set to run in the summer of 2008. Half of the participants are expected to be Israelis and the other half from abroad. Kouris' second type of camp experience is a 'Technological Gadnat' for Israelis around 17 years of age and introduces them to personnel in the IDF's elite technological units. The third camp experience Kouris envisions is called Innovation Israel and is mainly for adults. Already in talks with prospective investors, strategic partners and philanthropic donors, Kouris feels "that Emagination Israel will make a major difference by exposing the young generation to the challenges of a world surging with technological advances, while simultaneously giving them the intellectual and practical tools to confront these challenges in creative and fun ways." An interview and business overview of Emagination Israel follows.

Overview: Emagination Israel: an international fun & high-tech summer camp.

The Challenge: in recent decades science and high-tech have been the success stories of Israel and this will continue into the future. However, increasing numbers of players are now competing in these fields globally, so Israel and the Jewish world must utilize its human potential and strive with great effort in order to remain at the forefront of technological advancements. Furthermore, one of our national goals must be to import the best minds from all over the Jewish world.

The Idea: We, the founders, believe that the way to achieve our potential is by focusing on the future generation: global Jewish youth. Reaching teenagers at a stage when their future is still malleable, like clay to the potter, makes it possible to provide inspiration, guide ambitions and integrate ideas into shaping a positive Jewish-Zionist identity. Only until the gates of the Israeli hi-tech world are opened to teenagers can they begin to truly envision Israel as a place where personal ambitions can be fulfiled and Jewish identities reinforced. Exposing high-caliber youth to these opportunities will ultimately help Israel lead in the fields of science and technology in the long-term and strengthen the bridge between Israel and the Diaspora.

The Solution: Emagination Israel is exactly geared to young minds. The summer camp introduces campers to an enriching experience that will touch their deepest emotions and spur creative energy. We provide an original, creative and fascinating program that matches Diaspora youth with Israeli peers in a unique way using universal language – Technology. During the summer of 2008, hundreds of teens from Israel and around the world will join together at Emagination Israel. The camp's program includes exciting workshops, rich in content that will enlighten imaginations and challenge curiosity in the framework of a fun experience that a summer in Israel can provide. The program is based on the knowledge and the experience gained from Emagination U.S., which has been operating hi-tech camps all over the USA for 25 years and has been adjusted for the Israeli-Jewish world and thereby merged with the Israeli hi-tech success story.

New World Syndrome

2007-07-28T04:54:00.001-07:00

In Kosrae, an island in Micronesia, new arrivals are a curiosity, and it seemed that half the island had come to greet me and Steven Auerbach, a Manhattan-based medical epidemiologist and an officer in the U.S. Public Health Service who had worked in Micronesia in the early 1990s, when we visited last year. Dazed from our 8,000-mile journey, we groped our way down the pockmarked coastal road, driving past groves of trees bent nearly double under loads of bananas, papayas, and breadfruit. We were on our way to a funeral feast.

We arrived to find the feast in full swing. Young men in lawn chairs played cards, while toddlers squatted, transfixed, around a television screen blaring taped cartoons. Hovering women filled plates and wiped faces. Perhaps a hundred people were there, and the dead man's wife looked bored. The deceased, buried four weeks earlier in a nearby crypt, seemed almost beside the point.

Kosraeans die young (the man in the crypt was fifty-six), but not for reasons commonly associated with the developing world. There is no famine here, and with the notable exception of upper-respiratory infections, little evidence of the diseases that cut life short in, for example, sub-Saharan Africa. The big killer in Kosrae—what some epidemiologists call New World syndrome—is a constellation of maladies brought on not by microbes or parasites but by the assault of rapid Westernization on traditional cultures. Diabetes, heart disease, and high blood pressure—scourges of affluence that long ago eclipsed infectious diseases as killers in the West—have only recently appeared here.

Zimbabwe to import 200,000 tonnes of maize from Tanzania

2007-07-28T04:53:00.001-07:00

Zimbabwe is to import 200,000 tonnes of the staple maize from Tanzania to avert widespread food shortages following a poor harvest, state television reported.

"We have got maize which will be coming in shortly again from Tanzania," Samuel Muvuti, head of the state-run Grain Marketing Board, told Zimbabwe Television late Tuesday.

"As soon as everything is put in place, stocks should be arriving into the country through the (Mozambican) port of Beira ... for us to also cater for the southern part of the country."

The report said efforts were under way to bring in another 200,000 tonnes from Malawi.

Last month, the Food and Agriculture Organization and the UN World Food Programme said in a joint report that more than four million Zimbabweans, a third of the population, were in need of food aid.

In March, Zimbabwe a former regional breadbasket declared the 2006/2007 farming season a drought year meaning the government would need to import hundreds of thousands of tonnes of maize.

President Robert Mugabe blames the perennial shortfall on drought and sanctions imposed on him and his ruling party elite following the country's last presidential polls which the main opposition and western observers charged were rigged to hand Mugabe victory.

But critics say the shortages were a direct result of controversial land reforms in which the government seized at least 4,000 farms from white commercial farmers for reallocation to landless blacks.

Beneficiaries of the land reforms often lacked the means and skills to farm, critics say, while others were holding on to fallow land for prestige.

Panel to turn Russia into global IT leader

2007-07-28T04:52:00.001-07:00

MOSCOW: President Vladimir Putin has ordered the setting up of a high-level commission to devise ways and means to turn the former communist state into a global IT leader.

"Today we should act to obtain leadership. Russia has all the chances to be one of the global leaders in IT production by 2015," President Putin said, directing the setting up of a high-level commission by October 1 to look into "new specific spheres" to turn his country into an IT leader.

"We should search for new specific spheres, which will allow us to obtain parity and, in particular real technology leadership, first of all in software.

Our specialists are traditionally considered the best in the world," Putin said, adding that a free exchange of technologies and information is an important factor in strengthening democratic institutions and democracy as a whole.

"Certainly, this will require coordinated efforts by all bodies of power, representatives of business circles and civil society," the president said while chairing the Security Council session on Wednesday.

Referring to the national IT-project 'Electronic Russia' being implemented since 2002, Putin said that the country is now fairing better in the global competition, though much more was needed to be done.

He underlined the need to look for import substitutes for IT and IT-enabled products. "Import substitute is not a self-goal. But in this field (IT), which is related to national security, it's justified," Putin said..

Iberian Peninsula: Energy profile

2007-07-28T04:51:00.001-07:00

Both Spain and Portugal have been members of the European Union (EU) since 1986. EU membership has led to an increased standard of living and economic growth in the Iberian Peninsula and billions of dollars worth of EU structural funds flowing into the two countries. Nevertheless, both countries continue to face economic challenges. Spain's unemployment rate remains stubbornly high, while Portugal has repeatedly exceeded the EU's limits on budget deficits.

Economic growth spurred by EU membership has led to increases in energy consumption. For example, Spain's energy demand has increased over 100 percent since the mid-1970s.

The Iberian Peninsula has limited energy resources, so both Spain and Portugal must depend upon imports for the bulk of their energy needs. Attempts to develop domestic energy sources, though, have focused on hydropower and renewables.

Both countries have also sought greater integration of the Iberian energy sector through policy coordination and infrastructure projects. The two announced in 2001 that they would create a single Iberian electricity market without limits on transnational ownership or market participation. However, repeated delays have pushed implementation of this market, called Mibel, until October 2007.

Oil

Spain and Portugal depend upon imports for almost all of their oil consumption. According to Oil and Gas Journal (OGJ), the Iberian Peninsula had a combined 150 million barrels of proven oil reserves in January 2007. Oil consumption in 2006 stood at 1.89 million barrels per day (bbl/d), with Spain contributing the bulk (84 percent) of that amount.

Even though oil consumption has increased in absolute terms over the past two decades, its percentage of total energy consumption has declined. Due to the lack of significant domestic oil production, Spain and Portugal depend upon oil imports, with the largest suppliers including Russia, Libya, and Saudi Arabia.

Sector Organization

The largest oil company in Spain is Repsol-YPF, created in 1999 through the merger of Repsol, the former, state-owned oil company of Spain, and Yacimientos Petroliferos Fiscales (YPF), formerly owned by the Argentine government.

The combined group is one of the world's largest integrated oil operators, with activities in over 28 countries.

After Repsol-YPF, Cepsa is the second-largest oil company in Spain. Cepsa has exploration and production activities in Algeria and Colombia, with future expansion planned in Yemen and Iran. The Compania Logistica de Hidrocarburos (CLH) is a private holding company for the domestic oil and petroleum products transportation system.

Ten oil and gas companies hold shares in CLH, the largest being Enbridge, Respol-YPF, and Cepsa.

The largest oil company in Portugal is Petrogal, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Galp Energia. Galp Energia is owned by the Portuguese government and a collection of international oil and gas operators.

Petrogal controls the domestic midstream and downstream oil sectors in Portugal, and it also maintains modest production activities in Angola and Brazil. In October 2006, the government completed an initial public offering of Galp shares that earned the government $1.4 billion, though it still continues to hold a small amount of Galp shares.

Exploration and Production

Spain produced only 3,000 bbl/d of crude oil in 2006, while Portugal had no commercial production. According to OGJ, Spain has seven active fields, all operated by Repsol-YPF: Alga, Ayoluengo, Barracuda, Boqueron, Casablanca, Chipiron, and Rodaballo.

Downstream Activities

According to OGJ, Spain has nine oil refineries with a combined capacity of 1.27 million bbl/d. The largest facility in the country is Cepsa's Cadiz refinery (240,000 bbl/d), though Repsol-YPF controls the largest refining capacity of any single company. Repsol-YPF and Cepsa also have joint ownership of a bitumen plant, Asesa, located at the Tarragona refinery.

Portugal has two refineries, both operated by Petrogal. Located in Sines and Porto, the facilities have a combined capacity of 304,000 bbl/d. Petrogal also controls the retail market for refined oil products and operates the country's oil pipeline network.

Biofuels

According to the Spanish Association of Alternative Energy Producers, biofuels represented 0.53 percent of transportation fuel sales in Spain in 2006. Ethanol represented the bulk of this total, followed by biodiesel. The group also reported strong biodiesel exports to the rest of Europe.

In March 2007, Natura opened a new biodiesel plant in Ocana, with a production capacity of 2,000 bbl/d.

Natural Gas

Natural gas consumption in the Iberian Peninsula has grown rapidly in the past decade. There are no significant natural gas reserves in the Iberian Peninsula. Spain only produced 5.6 billion cubic feet (Bcf) of natural gas in 2005, mostly from a single offshore field, Poseidon, operated by Repsol-YPF. Portugal does not have any commercial natural gas production, though there have been repeated exploration attempts in its offshore basins.

In 2005, Spain consumed 1.1 Tcf of natural gas. Natural gas consumption in the country has risen dramatically since the 1980s, and Spain has one of the fastest-growing natural gas markets in the world. Between 1994 and 2004, Spain's natural gas consumption tripled, driven mostly by the large-scale introduction of gas-fired power plants.

The Portuguese natural gas sector has also grown considerably over the past few years. Consumption was nearly non-existent prior to 1997, but in 2004, consumption of natural gas reached 152 Bcf. The increase in natural gas consumption can be attributed to the construction of import infrastructure, including pipeline links with North Africa and liquefied natural gas terminals.

Sector Organization

The largest natural gas supplier in Spain is Gas Natural (GN), the result of a 1992 merger between Catalana de Gas, Gas Madrid, and the gas infrastructure assets of Repsol Butano. Gas de Portugal (GdP), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Galp Energia, dominates Portugal's natural gas sector. GdP directly controls natural gas importation, transportation, and supply, while it indirectly controls distribution through its stakes in Portugal's six regional distribution companies.

Pipelines

Enagas operates most of Spain's domestic natural gas transportation system. Enagas controls 4,500 miles of pipelines in Spain, consisting of six main trunk lines that connect Spain's liquefied natural gas (LNG) and pipeline import terminals with the country's interior. As mentioned above, GdP owns and operates Portugal’s natural gas transmission system.

International Pipelines

Spain imports natural gas through two international pipelines. The Trans-Pyrenean pipeline, linking Calahorra, Spain to Lacq, France, began operations in 1993. This pipeline has a capacity of 330 million cubic feet per day (MMcf/d), allowing Spain to import natural gas from Norway via France. The second import pipeline is the 1,000-mile, 1.1-Bcf/d Maghreb-Europe Gas (MEG, also called Pedro Duran Farell). MEG, completed in 1996, connects Algeria's Hassi R'mel gas field with Cordoba, Spain, via Morocco.

In July 2001, a consortium led by Spain's Cepsa (20 percent) and Algeria's Sonatrach (20 percent) agreed to build the Medgaz natural gas pipeline, a second link between Algeria and Europe. The 120-mile, $1.3 billion Medgaz would link Beni Saf, Algeria to Almeria, Spain, with an eventual extension to France. In September 2002, the consortium completed a study of the line's feasibility, but delays have pushed back initial construction on the project. If completed, Medgaz would have an initial capacity of 770 MMcf/d. In 2007, a dispute between Sonatrach, the Algerian state energy company, and the Spanish government regarding Sonatrach’s ability to sell natural gas from Medgaz in Spain threatened to derail the project.

In June 2006, France's Total inaugurated the Euskadour pipeline linking the LNG terminal in Bilbao, Spain to Lussagnet, France. The system will allow Spain to re-export natural gas to the north. The 19-mile pipeline, running along the Bay of Biscay, has an initial capacity of 48 MMcf/d.

Portugal has two pipeline connections with Spain: Tarifa (1.08 Bcf/d) and Tuy (40.6 MMcf/d).

Spain is one of Europe's largest LNG importers. Enagas operates three LNG receiving terminals in Spain: Barcelona (2.5 Bcf/d), Cartagena (1.4 Bcf/d), and Huelva (1.7 Bcf/d). The Bahia de Bizakaia Group, a consortium of BP, Repsol-YPF, Iberdrola, and Ente Vasco de la Energia (EVE), operates an LNG terminal at Bilbao, with a capacity of 1.2 MMcf/d. The Sagunto LNG terminal, owned by a consortium of Union Fenosa, Iberdrola, and Endesa, has a capacity of 1.2 Bcf/d. In May 2007, the El Ferrol LNG terminal in northwest Spain received its first commercial shipment. The plant currently has a sendout capacity of 350 MMcf/d.

In October 2003, Portugal completed its first LNG terminal in Sines, with an output capacity of 530 MMcf/d of natural gas. The Sines terminal, operated by Galp Energia subsidiary Galp Atlantico, allows Portugal to seek greater independence of its natural gas supply, which is dependent on Spain's natural gas network to process and transport natural gas to the country.

Planned Facilities

There are three LNG regasification terminals proposed for Spain that are in various stages of the planning process. Engas is the proposed operator for a new facility in El Musel, in the Asturias region of Spain. Construction on the project could begin by 2009. In 2005, Compania Transportista de Gas Canarias (GasCan) completed an environmental impact assessment for its proposed LNG terminal on Tenerife, in the Canary Islands. That project would have an initial capacity of 33.9 MMcf/d and would mostly fuel a nearby power plant. GasCan also proposed building another LNG terminal in the Canary Islands, on Grand Canaria.

Electricity

Spain has seen a rapid growth in electricity generation from natural gas-fired plants. Spain produced 263.3 billion kilowatthours (Bkwh) in 2004, while consuming 241.8 Bkwh. The largest share of Spain's electricity generation came from conventional thermal plants, followed by hydroelectricity. There have been a number of new gas-fired power plants built in Spain in recent years to satisfy rapidly-growing demand.

In 2004, Portugal consumed 46.1 Bkwh and generated 42.5 Bkwh of electricity. Portugal has long depended upon hydropower to provide a large part of it electricity needs; however, hydropower's share of total electricity generation has declined from 53 percent in 1980 to 23 percent in 2004. The volatility and unpredictability of hydropower (see chart) has caused the Portuguese government to promote thermal generating capacity, especially natural gas-fired, as an alternative to hydroelectricity.

Sector Organization

Endesa is the largest power generating and distributing company in Spain, with over 21,600 megawatts (MW) of installed generating capacity. The company controls about half of the regulated electricity market and one-third of the liberalized market. The largest source of Endesa’s generating capacity is coal-fired plants, followed by nuclear. Spain's second-largest power utility overall is Iberdrola, though the company controls the largest share of the deregulated portion of the market. Other important players in Spain's electricity sector include Union Fenosa, Hidrocantabrico, and Gas Natural. Red Electricia de Espana (REE), owned by the Spanish government and numerous electricity companies, owns and operates Spain's electricity grid.

There are two electricity markets in Portugal, the Public Electricity System (PES) and the Independent Electricity System (IES). PES is the regulated market with power supplied at fixed rates under long-term contracts. The IES consists of smaller producers and consumers that allows unrestricted access by generators and distributors.

Formerly state-owned Electricidade de Portugal (EdP) maintains a dominant position in both markets. EdP controls almost all of the generating capacity in the PES and holds significant stakes in generating capacity in the IES. EdP's wholly-owned subsidiary, EdP Distribuicao, controls distribution in the PES. Electricity transmission in both markets is controlled by national grid operator Rede Electrica Nacional (REN), majority-owned by the Portuguese government.

Single Iberian Electricity Market (Mibel)

In January 2004, Spain and Portugal formally signed an agreement to create a pan-Iberian electricity market (Mibel). The new market will allow generators in the two countries to sell their electricity on both sides of the border. The country’s two energy market regulators, Spain’s OMEL and Portugal's OMIP, will merge to create a single operator for the integrated electricity market. Repeated delays have plagued the implementation of Mibel, though the official launch date is now slated for October 2007.

Despite administrative delays, there has been some progress towards integrations, namely, a new 40-kilovolt transmission line between the prospective countries at Cartelle-Lindosa. In January 2005, OMIP oversaw the cancellation of long-term power contracts between EdP and REN, which will open up access to the grid to third-party generators.

Spain's conventional thermal generating capacity contributes over half of the country's total power supply.

Over the past several years, this capacity has begun to shift from an emphasis on coal towards natural gas, specifically combined-cycle, gas-fired turbines (CCGFT). Spain has promoted CCGFTs in order to increase existing generating capacity and reduce its carbon dioxide emissions. Construction of CCGFTs has been one the principle drivers behind rising natural gas demand in Spain.

Portugal has also begun invested into CCGFTs, as a means to reduce dependence on hydropower that can fluctuate widely based on weather conditions.

Nuclear Power

Spain has eight operating nuclear plants, while Portugal has none. Spain decommissioned the Vandellos I reactor in July 1990, and Union Fenosa closed the Jose Cabrera plant in April 2006. Nevertheless, the output of the nuclear power sector in Spain has remained stable despite the closures, as upgrades and efficiency gains at existing plants have replaced retired capacity.

However, as the Spanish government has announced a moratorium on the construction of new nuclear power plants, it is likely that nuclear’s share of Spain’s electricity mix will decline in the long-term.

Other Renewables

Spain is the world's second-largest producer of wind power behind Germany, according to the Global Wind Energy Council. According to the Spanish Wind Energy Association, the country currently has over 11,000 megawatts (MW) of installed wind generating capacity. According to the Portugese government, that country has 1,700 MW of installed wind generating capacity, which includes 970 wind turbines spread across 140 separate wind farms.

In March 2007, Portugal inaugurated the Serpa solar power plant, one of the largest such facilities in the world. The plant has an installed capacity of 11 MW and covers 150 acres of land in the southern part of the country.

Coal

The last coal mine in Portugal closed in 1994, while production in Spain is in decline.

Coal is Spain's most plentiful indigenous energy source, with reserves of 584 million short tons (Mmst) in 2003. The country produced 22.7 Mmst in 2003, while consuming 45.6 Mmst, relying on imports for the balance.

Overall coal consumption has remained relatively flat over the past decade, with Spain's electricity sector constituting the largest share. Private companies produce most of the coal in Spain, though the single-largest company is Hunosa, owned by the government through the Sociedad Estatal de Participaciones Industriales (SEPI) holding company. Similar to other EU members, Spain’s coal industry has struggled to remain competitive vis-à-vis imported coal and other energy sources.

Portugal has not produced coal since its last mine closed in 1994. In 2003, Portugal consumed 5.9 Mmst of coal, mostly for electricity generation.

Nigeria: Port Decongestion And International Trade

2007-07-28T04:49:00.000-07:00

It is no news to say that organisation and management of Nigeria's ports and the transportation system in Nigeria generally is a disaster. The ports are lumpishly and corpulently inadequate. Paper work that are cardinal and needed to export and import are fearsomely voluminous and could take months for what would take a day or two in properly harmonised and regulated societies. Talk about the road network and rail network that support the sea ports, you would realise that Nigeria is still what it is, a bewilderingly and discomfortingly third world country.

Nigeria is a country of about 140 million people which effectively makes it the largest market in Africa for consumer goods. Majority of goods consumed by Nigerians are finished products that come in from other countries in far off continents. The implication of the above asserted situation is that Nigeria needs a vast number of sea ports to handle the large number of containers that come into the country daily. Unfortunately the number of sea ports in Nigeria are not even enough to handle the sea traffic that flows into neighbouring Ghana.

Another aspect of sea port development that has not been properly harnessed by the Nigerian government is the area of inland port construction. Nigeria is blessed by several major rivers. The most prominent are the rivers Niger and Benue. These two rivers have not been properly harnessed for commercial and industrial transportation. Along their routes at several strategic locations inland ports could be constructed, and these inland ports would greatly assist to open up the great Nigerian hinterland for more prosperous commerce and industrialisation.

Nigeria also needs more export processing zones (EPZ). These export processing zones should be constructed close to the sea or major inland rivers, as this would allow the construction of ports for the use of the zone. This would effectively make such zones the focal point of new and great industrial cities exploding from such focal points.

Custom and other agencies who handle commerce and bureaucratic work at the ports should be properly trained and remunerated to enable faster and corruption-free flow of business at the ports. Generally all those appointed by the government to handle affairs at the ports must be persons of proven character, who are actually professionals in the duty call at the ports.

A great number of Nigerian youths reside outside the shores of Nigeria and are industrious and desire to engage in export and import businesses between their host countries and their home country Nigeria. Unfortunately, Nigeria is not sufficiently prepared to handle the volume of incoming traffic this segment of Nigerians alone are already generating. Nigerians at home are becoming seriously interested in international business and are struggling extremely hard to generate capital to finance their import and export ventures, however conditions in the country Nigeria seem to be the major obstacle to the adventurous and enterprising spirit and resolve of Nigerians.

To clear a cargo of merchandise in Nigeria through customs and other bureaucratic agencies would require at least 13 different sets of documents and could take not less than 30 days. Nigeria is about the most expensive country in the world to engage in export and import enterprise. The length of time and unjustified high cost and attendant bureaucratic anti-business agencies are baffling. Why on earth should Nigeria erect barriers on the path of smooth and legal businesses at the sea ports. Countries all over the world are doing what ever they can, to make it easier for their enterprising citizens and foreigners with funds to expend on investment in their countries, to find it much easy to do business; ironically Nigeria seems to be comfortable with simply announcing to the international community that it desires investments and trading partners with no corresponding efforts to put in place the proper infrastructure and business friendly policies. In this particular scenario, the idea of making Nigeria the most difficult country on planet earth to engage in export and import venture beats every reasonable imagination.

With China joining the World Trade Organisation, a lot of Chinese goods and products from other far eastern countries now flood Nigeria. All these contribute to choking and cloging traffic in Nigeria's sea ports. With no solution in sight, ports in neighbouring countries like Benin republic, Togo and Ghana are attracting cargo coming into Nigeria and are reaping the attendant financial boost.

Nigeria is the largest exporter of crude petroleum on the African continent and currently the third largest supplier to the United States. This means that on this plank alone Nigeria should have at least twice the number of total sea-port handling capacity available at the moment, to handle the oil and oil-allied export.

A practise that is tolerated in Nigeria whereby companies are allowed to use the port storage facilities for long term storage must be discouraged. Storage facilities at the ports should be for short term storage for containers that have just arrived and are being cleared. One wonders if demurrage which is the detention in port of a vessel by the ship owner, as in loading or unloading beyond the time allowed or agreed upon is penalised properly and whether the practised would be continued.

A country with a huge population like Nigeria, which said population translates into one of the world's biggest markets should have in place a policy that allows private companies to build and manage ports. Agreed there could be serious security implication in allowing private concerns to build and manage sea ports. However a man with sight impairment will not reject corrective eye glasses meant to improve his sight because glass could be potentially dangerous. What the government needs to do is to get involve in the project of building private ports from the inception, by vetting and approving the plans. supervising the construction at all stages. The government should also carry out a serious background check on the true ownership of the companies allowed to venture into the project. The government should also be in charge of security at the ports after they are constructed. All other aspects of management that can not be left in the hands of foreigners or private concerns should be handled by the government. The bottom line is that there should be enough sea ports to handle Nigeria's vastly growing sea based trade.

Chinese Authorities Announce Shipment Of U.S. Homing Pigeons Destroyed Last Month

2007-07-28T04:48:00.000-07:00

Beijing, China (AHN) - China on Friday announced that it had destroyed a shipment of 41 live homing pigeons from the United States. Beijing's Inspection and Quarantine Bureau said it destroyed the birds last month after finding they didn't meet import standards and the number and description of birds did not match the shipping invoice.

Officials said that some of the birds were sick and the Bureau didn't think the problem could be remedied by observing the birds in quarantine, according to Central China Television reports.

Raising pigeons is popular in China where the birds are also served in restaurants.

The homing pigeons were seized at Beijing's airport, then killed and incinerated a month ago. It was the latest volley in rising trade tensions between the U.S. and China after several tainted Chinese products were recently pulled from American store shelves.

Britain's Guardian Unlimited reported Friday that it was unclear why Chinese officials waited until now to announce the homing pigeons had been destroyed last month.

China, with its growing economic dependence on the exports it sends around the world had watched helplessly as its tainted products were pulled from store shelves in the U.S. and elsewhere sparking questions about the safety of Chinese made products in general.

Toxic ingredients in medicine from China killed people in Panama. Then a poison ingredient in toothpaste from China resulted in pulling that from store shelves in the United States and Europe. In the meantime, the U.S. also banned Chinese shrimp and four kinds of fish after finding cancer-causing chemicals and other contaminants in them.

At about the same time, toys imported from China were found to be coated with lead paint that has been banned in the U.S. since the 1970's because it causes brain and kidney damage in children. Those toys were yanked from store shelves, as children's jewelry from China that contained lead had been removed from stores last year. Earlier this year the largest pet food recall ever was sparked by a tainted ingredient from China that killed many pets and sickened numerous others.

China finally began retaliating by suspending some U.S. pork and poultry imports after officials said they had disease concerns about some of the products.

At stake for China are billions of dollars its exports every year. But the recent problems with tainted Chinese products have fueled concerns about the United State's growing trade deficit with China. It now stands at $2 billion and many critics say it is only that high because Communist China is keeping its own currency artificially low to make its products unfairly cheap against world competition.

That has prompted Congress to consider import duties or penalties on Chinese imports if that nation doesn't allow its currency to float in value against the world's currencies, according to Guardian Unlimited reports.

Gas Import from Myanmar

2007-07-28T04:47:00.000-07:00

Energy Bangla report indicates that Bangladeshi private sector entrepreneurs have started showing interest about gas from Myanmar. With the growing uncertainties in the Gas supply to the industrial city, Chittagong and abundance of Gas in the next door neighbor Myanmar it will be the only logical that commercial interest will prevail over other reasons. If the Bangladeshis get the huge lands on lease in Rakhaine for cultivation it will be only logical to set up additional Fertilizer Plants in Chittagong using Gas from Myanmar as the existing gas from Bangladesh National Grid will not support any additional Fertilizer or Power plant in the area for the time being.

The new Bangladeshi initiative in Chittagong area like deep water drilling and Cairn or Total drilling efforts in their allotted blocks are still a long away to bear the fruits. If Bangladesh can now build a pipeline from Rakhaine to Chittagong via Teknaf and Cox’sBazar it will open a new dimension in the gas based industrialization in the greater Chittagong region. It does not matter if Bangladesh discovers more gas in the region in future the gas pipeline will ensure Bangladesh gas market to access the reliable supply from Myanmar. Many countries of the world have huge energy reserve but for economic reasons and for future energy security they import from possible regional source. Think of USA. They have huge petroleum reserve – both oil and Gas. Still they are the largest importer of both. Their aggression in different places in the world and hide and seek game with Bin Laden basically emanate from their hunger for gas and oil. Bangladesh may take several years to explore its own frontiers for gas. But they can not afford the gas based economy to get starved and continue to struggle.

If one has opportunity to read the William Brothers appraisal report of Gas Supply to Chittagong Area based on which Bakhrabad Field development was taken up it will be found that several other gas based industries were taken into consideration. But other than CUFL, KAFCO and the remaining has not come up. It took about 25 years for the Chittagong market to grow to its full potential as conceived in late seventies. Even then national gas grid is struggling to meet the 280-300 MMCFD demand of Chittagong area. KAFCO second unit can not go ahead at Chittagong without assured supply of Gas. GOB proposed to KAFCO to set up the plant at Sirajgonj and assured to buy the entire production but KAFCO is not agreeing. TATA proposal for fertilizer plant at Chittagong may not proceed without assurance of gas supply. No major investor will dare investment in the Korean EPZ without stable power supply and gas supply in the area. These are only possible if adequate gas supply to generate additional power is available and if additional gas is available to fuel other industries. So in consideration of all above a large enough gas transmission pipeline capable of delivering 300-350 MMCFD gas without compression may be issue of discussion with Myanmar team when they arrive in Bangladesh soon.

The pipeline route may be Myanmar offshore i.e. Sittwe in the Rakhaine province to Chittagong via Tekhnaf and Coxsbazar. Gas to these areas will create avenues to industrially develop these two tourist resorts. One single gas field has reserve of about 5.8 TCF. Bangladesh government without bothering for donor funding may let private sector developers build transmission pipelines. In fact the government should only open the transmission segment for private sector. Private sector can either develop the pipeline themselves of let GTCL built and operate on their behalf. But whatever is the modus operandi it will require an agreement between the two Governments to agree on cross border trading of gas. If the negotiation starts straight way the contract may be concluded by January 2008 and it the construction of the pipeline starts in the winter of 2008 early Gas may be available by end 2009.

If the above situation can be reached Bangladesh may go for KAFCO second unit and any other major fertilizer, power and other gas based industries in Chittagong straight away. If Gas from Myanmar can cater bulk of the Chittagong requirement Gas of our National Grid can be utilized in the other areas without stressing our existing fields too much and thereby causing damage to the reservoirs. This move may get serious resistance from certain quarter which is beneficiaries of IOC operations in Bangladesh. But just realize Bangladesh is struggling in meeting the payments of IOCs now. Their share in national supply is 43% and growing. Right now the only possible increase of supply is from Bibiyana . So soon the IOC share may exceed 50 %. Bangladesh can not afford to increase its gas price every now and then.

Our gas demand is increasing @ 10% annually. It is very much linked with the growth of GDP. If investors are ensured of uninterrupted power supply as well as gas supply our GDP may see double digit growth in a couple of years. Let us now think of a situation like this in our Gas mix for a while till we have different scenario.

Petrobangla Gas 50%

IOC Gas 40 %

Import 10%.

In 20011 our Gas demand may be 3500 MMCFD. In that case if the import is 350 MCFD and our own production will be 1750 MMCFD. This may not stress our reserve and resource to a level of panic as being apprehended now. In the meantime exploration may change the scenario. But whatever happens we should approach gas import initiative from Myanmar with open mind and try to have a win- win deal. Import of Gas Myanmar will be much easier than setting up power plant and import power from there.

Let me tell about the North American situation. Canada exports gas to USA from Alberta through Alliance and Other pipelines and then imports also in through other borders. Same is the situation of export import between Mexico and USA. So in situation may alter cases .Who knows?

Strengthen import-product safety

2007-07-28T04:46:00.000-07:00

The American product safety system usually gives consumers a sense of security when they go to the marketplace. But that system is in danger of breaking down under a flood of imports mainly, but not only, from China. Recent moves by Congress and the administration rightly seek to address this challenge to public health and safety.

Scandals involving dog food, toothpaste and cough syrup made with potentially fatal and falsely labeled Chinese products, lead paint on toys, and alleged defects in automobile tires and exploding cell-phone batteries have alerted consumer safety experts around the world to the threat of dangerous imports. European Union consumer protection officials are meeting in Beijing this week with their Chinese counterparts. U.S. officials are slated to visit China next week to discuss the same topic: how China intends to prevent recurrences.

The scandals exposed flaws in China's regulation of exports and holes in import controls in many nations. On Monday, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and the World Health Organization jointly recommend all nations "fill safety gaps" in their import oversight, Food Production Daily reported.

The two U.N. bodies said that they had investigated up to 200 unsafe food import incidents a month in the past year. "Such food safety incidents are often caused by lack of knowledge of food safety requirements and of their implications, or by the illegal and fraudulent use of ingredients including unauthorized food additives or veterinary drugs," they said.

Also on Monday, White House spokesman Tony Snow announced the formation of a cabinet-level "Working Group on Import Safety," ordered by President Bush to report within 60 days on recommendations to improve the safety of food and other imports. Mr. Snow said the move was "not a slap at China," which has complained at being singled out and has placed bans on American imports in a clear tit-for-tat response. But "of all the countries in the Asia-Pacific region, China presents the most diverse set of challenges" to the Food and Drug Administration, its deputy commissioner for international programs, Dr. Murray Lumpkin, told the Senate Commerce Committee on Monday.

Chinese officials insist that 99 percent of the goods China exports meet quality standards, and say foreign media are exaggerating the extent of the problem, The New York Times reported.

But on Monday, the E.U.'s Commissioner for Consumer Protection, Meglena Kuneva, visiting Beijing, rightly said even if only one percent of Chinese consumer exports prove unsafe, "this is still dangerous," according to Forbes Online.

China can only achieve a reputation for reliable consumer products by participating much more actively than it has in international efforts to prevent traffic in unsafe products. Until then, this nation and others absolutely must do what they can to protect their citizens against unsafe imports.

Pakistan imported 4.8mn bales to meet textile demand

2007-07-02T02:45:00.002-07:00

KARACHI: The millers, spinning and private sector commercial companies imported around 4.8 million cotton bales from USA, India, Brazil and central Asian countries during the last fiscal July-June 2007, the traders and importers said on Saturday.

The country produced around 12.5 million cotton bales during July-June 2007 while the demand by textile sector stood around 15.5 million bales. The shortfall was met by the imports.

Keeping the past experience, the economic managers of the country on repeated calls by the Ministry of Textile Industry (MINTEX) and local textile industry allowed import of cotton through land route from neighbouring countries including India to reduce the cost of production and cost of import. With the issuance of notification the actual imports would take place and much cheaper cotton would be available to the industry for its consumption.

Ministry of Commerce (MoC) in May 2007 allows import of long staple cotton through land route from India and Uzbekistan. The import of long staple cotton through land route from India would reduce the cost of import and would help local textile industry to enhance its production and its value addition for increase in textile exports.

Long staple cotton will be importable through land route as well. Earlier government has allowed the import of cotton and cotton yarn from India through seas or air. Cotton imported through these means was expensive for the local industry, a senior trader Ghulam Rabbani said. The lint imported from India and United States dominated the cotton market’s volumes during last fiscal year.

“This is not an end to import and we must be ready for a good quantity still to arrive in the country, around 45,000 cotton bales kept arriving,” he added. The country imported around Rs 30 billion worth cotton bales during same period from the foreign buyers.

Mr Rabbani said the federal government has fixed the cotton production target at 14.14 million bales for the new crop.

He said the federal government has fixed cotton sowing target at 8.031 million acres, 6.326 million acres for Punjab and 1.581 million acres for Sindh. NWFP and Balochistan will share the remaining 0.14 million area for cotton production. He said Punjab is likely to produce 11 million bales while Sindh will produce three million bales. Despite the government’s target for the crop season 2007-08, there would be a shortfall of around 3.4 million bales.

During July-June 2007, the cotton yarn exports stood around 619,400 metric tonnes as against 609,680 metric tonnes in the same period last year, cotton cloth export stood around 2036,770 (in thousand square metres) as compared to 2406,594, Bedwear exports stood around 333,895 metric tonnes as compared to 338,686 metric tonnes.

The export of readymade garment stood around 37,496 (in thousand dozen) as compared to 34,045 in same period last year.

Informa economics projected that USDA raised old crop world ending stocks for 06/07 by 980,000 bales to 56.39 million bales. World production for 07/08 was lowered to 115.89 million bales down 110,000 bales from May. World consumption was increased to 127.41 million bales up 410,000 bales from a month earlier.

The unaccounted was left at 5.84 million bales. World ending stocks increased 520,000 bales to 51.23 million bales.

The beginning stocks were 56.39 million bales and the ending stocks are forecast to be 51.23 million bales, which translates to a draw down of 5.16 million bales, normally a bullish omen.

Cotlook reported that at the biennial China international cotton conference, a senior Chinese official indicated that the 06-07 lint outturn may be close to 7.1 million tonnes (32.6 million bales) or larger. This compares to the June USDA estimate of 30.90 million bales. China import activity is expected to jump over the near-term as the trade sees extremely tight stocks in China and a strong world demand for China textiles.

China’s national bureau of statistics released its cotton planting intention survey in 2007. The report showed a small increase over 2006. Xinjiang, which is one-third of china’s total acreage was up 11 percent or 140,000 hectares from 2006.

Soccer is fighting an uphill battle with America's homegrown sports

2007-07-02T02:45:00.001-07:00

I participated in The Chronicle Sports Section's Great Debate about pro soccer's survivability in the United States. I took the viewpoint that Major League Soccer still has a tough road ahead of it -- and that for a team such as Real Salt Lake to survive, Utah will need to experience a soccer revolution.
In poured the hate mail.
One online reader said my column made no sense. He said that U.S. soccer has already secured a firm foothold, and concluded his statement with, "You'll understand one day when you actually open your eyes to more than your little corner of the world."
Another said that my argument was so bad that he wouldn't waste his time explaining to me why soccer would be one of the country's three most popular sports "at the expense of either baseball or basketball" within the next 20 years.
What these folks don't realize is that soccer is one of my favorite sports. In fact, I'm such a fan that I went to the World Cup in Germany last year and attended two matches -- including USA/Ghana, the game in which America was eliminated from the tournament.
A few weeks ago, I was in Holland where the European Under-21 Championship was being held and I had the opportunity to witness a nil-nil draw between England and Czech Republic.
Trust me, I know how big soccer is around the world.
But I've also seen how soccer is regarded in is this country.
If you've ever listened to the Jim Rome Show or heard Sports Illustrated writer Frank DeFord go off on one of his anti-soccer tirades, you know how disrespected soccer is in the U.S.
But why do we have these attitudes? What keeps us from enjoying soccer like the rest of the world?
I think the USA's soccer apathy can be linked to a few deeply ingrained beliefs that many Americans share.
Belief No. 1: If there is no scoring, then nothing is happening.
While the rest of the world might exit the stadium after a 0-0 draw believing the match was fraught with tension and drama, Americans often leave feeling gypped, like some sort of refund is in order.
Belief No. 2: There needs to be a winner and a loser.
Soccer, with its low-scoring nature, is prone to end in ties.
To Americans, a tie is like kissing your sister. We'd rather lose than leave the field of play without one side conquering the other.
Belief No. 3: We'd rather do our own thing.
Let's face it -- we're culturally isolated. In other parts of the world, the 6 p.m. news offers a global perspective. In Utah, our local news features a laughably brief "World In a Minute" segment in which a guy who sounds like an auctioneer or the Micro Machines spokesman rattles off the world's news in 60 seconds -- probably without taking a breath. The focus immediately shifts back to domestic issues.
America is a world in itself. It's an arrogant viewpoint, no doubt, but that's exactly how we feel. Over the years, Americans have collectively said to the world, "Keep your silly cricket and boring soccer -- we'll make up our own sports." This attitude ushered in what we Americans call the big three: football, baseball and basketball -- all American-made.
Because of these beliefs -- and the stubbornness that sustains them -- pro soccer in America might survive as a niche sport, but it'll never go mainstream.

U.S. asks WTO to review EU's banana import regime

2007-07-02T02:43:00.002-07:00

WASHINGTON, June 29 (Reuters) - The United States asked the World Trade Organization on Friday to investigate the European Union's apparent failure to comply with previous rulings against its banana import regime.

"We share the concern of Ecuador and several other Latin American banana exporters regarding the continued existence of a discriminatory tariff rate quota in the EU's current banana regime," U.S. Trade Representative Susan Schwab said in a statement.

"We are hopeful that this formal step will facilitate the removal of that discrimination."

Schwab's office said the U.S. request stemmed from "the EU's apparent failure to implement the WTO rulings in a 1996 proceeding initiated by Ecuador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico and the United States.

"That ruling said the EU's banana regime discriminates against bananas originating in Latin American countries and against distributors of such bananas, including several U.S. companies."

The dispute dates back to the creation of the European Union's single market in 1993, when the EU implemented a single banana import regime as part of its effort to eliminate trade barriers between member states.

However, the United States complained the new system created new barriers to bananas exported from Latin America and marketed by U.S. companies such as Chiquita.

Washington brought a WTO complaint and prevailed, eventually winning the right to impose $191 million in retaliatory duties on EU products. It terminated those duties after Brussels committed to shifting to a tariff-only import regime for bananas no later than January 1, 2006.

But the EU adopted a system that allows African, Caribbean, and Pacific countries to export a certain amount of bananas to the EU without paying paying duties, USTR said.

Bananas from Latin American do not have access to this duty-free tariff rate quota and are subject instead to a 176 euro per ton duty, USTR said.

"We regret that efforts between the EU and its Latin American trading partners to negotiate a solution to the banana issue have not been successful," Schwab said.

((Reporting by Doug Palmer; Editing by Chris Wilson; Reuters Messaging: doug.palmer.reuters.com@reuters.net; e-mail: doug.palmer@reuters.com; +1-202-898-8341)) Keywords: USA EU/TRADE BANANAS

(C) Reuters 2007. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution ofReuters content, including by caching, framing or similar means, is expresslyprohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters. Reuters and the Reuterssphere logo are registered trademarks and trademarks of the Reuters group ofcompanies around the world.nN29408630

China bans production and import of ozone depleting substances

2007-07-02T02:43:00.001-07:00

Beijing, July. 1 (PTI): China today banned the production and import of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) and halon, two ozone depleting substances (ODS) with immediate effect, honouring its promise to phase out the substances two-and-a-half-years ahead of schedule.

As the biggest producer and consumer of CFCs and halon among developing nations, China had disposed of about 100,000 tonnes of CFCs and about 80,000 tonnes of halon since it signed up the Montreal Protocol in 1991, deputy director of the State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA), Zhang Lijun said.

At the end of June, eight industries related to the use and production of CFCs and halon had banned the two substances.

The last six Chinese factories to produce CFCs agreed to stop production in a deal with the SEPA in Changshu, east Jiangsu Province on yesterday, Xinhua news agency reported.

A total production capacity of 122,000 tonnes will be phased out according to the deal signed by the SEPA, China National Chemical Construction Company and the six factories, including two in Jiangsu Province and four in neighbouring Zhejiang Province.

Interestingly, the deal has been signed soon after the Dutch government's environment agency declared that China has overtaken the United States to be the world's No one top emitter of carbon dioxide. But China has rejected the report.

CFCs are used in refrigeration and air conditioning systems, and halon is used in fire extinguishers. The two have been identified as the main substances damaging the earth's ozone layer.

Ozone shields the planet from the harmful ultraviolet-B radiation of the sun. It also completely screens out lethal UV-C radiation.

Under the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer, which was signed by 24 nations in 1987, developed countries agreed to phase out the chemicals by January 1, 2005, while developing countries have a January 1, 2015, deadline.

China signed the protocol in 1991 and pledged to phase out major ODS production and consumption by 2010.

Nation/World Briefs

2007-07-02T02:42:00.001-07:00

WASHINGTON -- Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois reported Sunday raising at least $32.5 million for his presidential campaign from April through June, a record for a Democratic candidate. That is about $5 million more than Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, Obama's main Democratic rival, has said she would raise for the reporting period that ended Saturday.

N.Y. senator pushes for import czar

WASHINGTON -- Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., called Sunday for the creation of a federal import czar, blaming heightened concerns over the safety and quality of Chinese imports on what he called a lapse in import product safety caused by unexacting inspections and a bureaucratic morass. "Neither the Chinese or American government is doing their job," he said. He criticized the Bush administration for cutting funds needed to carry out proper inspections.

Agencies slow with FOIA responses

WASHINGTON -- The Freedom of Information Act requires a federal agency to provide an initial response to a request within 20 days. But the oldest pending request uncovered in a new survey has been awaiting a response for 20 years. The survey, to be released today, is the latest proof of a fact well-known to historians and journalists: Agencies often take months or years to respond to requests for information under the law, known as FOIA.

No set agenda in Putin's U.S. visit

KENNEBUNKPORT, Maine -- Although relations are rocky between President Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin, Bush knows what he wants from Putin's U.S. visit: To convince him that a U.S. missile defense system in Eastern Europe would not threaten Russia; bring the Kremlin behind tough new penalties aimed at Iran's suspected nuclear weapons program; and generally defrost relations. What the Russian president seeks is less clear. Both sides insisted there was no set agenda.

AT&T: iPhone problems improved

SAN FRANCISCO -- While blogs continue to simmer with complaints from people who waited months to buy an iPhone and now are experiencing problems activating it, AT&T Inc. said Sunday that the situation has improved. The high volume of activation requests was taxing the company's computer servers. Nearly all customers have been able to activate their phones within five to eight minutes, said a spokesman for AT&T, the iPhone's exclusive carrier.

Amazon to sell HD DVD indie films

SEATTLE -- Amazon.com Inc. will begin selling high-definition independent films in the HD DVD format through its on-demand DVD printing service, the company said late Sunday. The Web retailer currently offers more than 300 HD DVD titles for sale on its site, and more than 400 that use the competing Blu-ray DVD format. In June, Blockbuster Inc. decided it will rent the Blu-ray format in 1,450 stores, dealing a blow to the HD DVD camp.

In other headlines

Carlyle Group discusses acquiring Virgin Media: U.S. firm The Carlyle Group is in discussions with Virgin Media, the British cable company, over a potential bid worth around $20 billion, a person familiar with the negotiations said Sunday.

Iraqi civilian death toll down

BAGHDAD -- Iraqi civilian deaths dropped to their lowest level since the start of the Baghdad security operation, government figures showed Sunday, suggesting signs of progress in tamping down violence in the capital. But American casualties are running high as U.S. forces try to quell sectarian violence around Baghdad. Also Sunday, a dump truck laden with explosives detonated on a bridge over the Euphrates River, injuring two civilians, according to U.S. military officials.

U.S. general criticizes missile test

SEOUL, South Korea -- The top U.S. military commander in South Korea criticized last week's missile test launches by North Korea, saying the country remains a threat despite its recent moves toward dismantling its nuclear program. Gen. B.B. Bell said today he welcomed Pyongyang's efforts to live up to a February commitment to shut down its Yongbyon nuclear reactor.

Silvertips Select Karamnov in CHL Import Draft

2007-06-28T03:05:00.000-07:00

Everett, WA - June 27, 2007: Everett Silvertips VP/General Manager, Doug Soetaert, has selected Vitali Karamnov in the 1st round (60th overall) in the 2007 CHL Import Draft on Wednesday afternoon. The Moscow, Russia native was the captain for Team Russia at the 2007 Under-18 World Championships and the 2006 World Junior-A Challenge
During the 2006-2007 season, Karamnov recorded 27 goals and 26 assists for 53 points in 50 games for Dynamo Moscow. At the Under-18 World Championships in Finland, the 6'1, 180 pound center tallied 3 assists in 7 games to help Russia win the gold medal. At the 2006 World Junior-A Challenge in Yorkton, SK, Karamnov posted 2 goals and 2 assists in 4 games to help Russia win the bronze medal.
NHL Central Scouting had Vitali ranked 19th among all European Skaters in their final rankings but was not drafted in the 2007 NHL Entry Draft. According to Central Scouting, Karamnov is a skilled two-way center with good skating skills and soft hands. He has a good hockey sense and passes the puck well. Vitali is very defensively reliable and does what it takes for the team to win.
Karamnov's father, Vitali Karamnov Sr. played in 92 career NHL games with the St. Louis Blues and tallied 32 points. He was a 3rd round pick (62nd overall) of the Blues in the 1992 NHL Entry Draft.
The CHL, which governs the three Major Junior leagues, (WHL, OHL, QMJHL) annually, holds an Import Draft. This draft allows Major Junior teams to select players who are of junior age (17-20) and are playing outside of North America, and are thereby given an opportunity to play in the CHL. Each junior team is allowed only two import players per year on their active rosters.

Japan, U.S. begin talks on easing beef restrictions

2007-06-28T03:04:00.000-07:00

Japan and the United States began two-days of working-level talks Wednesday in Tokyo to discuss import restrictions on U.S. beef.
The focus is whether Japan will consider easing the limit on beef from cattle aged 20 months old or younger, a measure stemming from concern about mad cow disease.
Officials and experts from both sides will use scientific data to examine whether it is safe to import meat from older American cattle, including cattle under 30 months old. The two countries plan to compile a report as early as next month based on the results of their discussions, the officials said.
The meeting comes after the World Organization for Animal Health, which is known as the OIE and deals with safety standards for preventing mad cow disease, gave the green light last month for the U.S. to export beef regardless of the age of the cattle.
Japanese officials have said any possibility of Japan's easing the age limit would be based on scientific study and in response to public health concerns.
The Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Ministry and the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry are taking part in the talks with representatives of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Japan banned U.S. beef after the first U.S. case of mad cow disease, the brain-wasting condition also known as bovine spongiform encephalopathy, was discovered in America in December 2003. The ban was briefly lifted in 2005, and finally removed last July.

Japan, U.S. hold beef import talks

2007-06-28T03:00:00.000-07:00

TOKYO - Japan and the U.S. began a two-day meeting on U.S. beef imports Wednesday to exchange views as the U.S. calls for an easing of Japan‘s tough import restrictions.
In May, the World Organization for Animal Health ruled that the United States was a "controlled risk nation" — a country that can export beef from cattle of any age. The U.S. has cited that report in urging Japan to review its policy.
Japan is also expected to submit an interim report on its own study of mad cow disease detected in cows 21 and 23 months old in the meeting of agriculture officials of both countries, according to Katagai. Japanese foreign ministry and health officials also take part.
Japan banned American beef imports in December 2003 after the first case of mad cow disease — or bovine spongiform encephalopathy — was found in the U.S.
Tokyo eased the restrictions again last July, but allowed only meat from cows 20 months old or younger to enter Japan. Japan also bans meat with certain bone or spinal material attached.

Dogs Pick Highly-touted Swiss Goalie In Import Draft

2007-06-28T02:59:00.000-07:00

SAINT JOHN, June 27, 2007 - A top-ranked goaltender which one respected scouting organization describes as an NHL star in the making became the Saint John Sea Dogs choice at the Canadian Hockey League (CHL) import draft today.
Swiss backstop Robert Mayer, 6'0 and 189 pounds, played last season at both the junior and professional levels for EHC Kloten Flyers in Switzerland. The 17-year-old's star rose significantly at the Under-18 World Championships this past April in Finland where he was named the best goaltender in the tournament.
The Sea Dogs had the 3rd pick overall in the import draft.
Jacques Beaulieu, general manager and head coach of the Sea Dogs, said he is thrilled to have Mayer in the fold.
"We worked very hard for this pick," he said. "We actually brought Robert in to see the city and to see the organization. We have added a lot of depth in our goaltending and we feel strongly that Robert is going to be a high NHL pick and is going to play a lot of games for us over the next couple of years."
Mayer's agent, Scott Russell, said his client is "extremely excited" about coming to both the CHL and the Sea Dogs, particularly with 2007-2008 being his NHL draft year.
"He's a very unique, special player," said Russell. "The fans are going to absolutely love this kid. He's highly-focused and he knows what he has to do this coming year."
At the World Under-18's, Mayer turned heads with a stunning 92.41 save percentage and a goals against average of 2.17 in five games played. He was named player of the game in a win against Sweden and was selected most valuable player of the tournament for Team Switzerland.
The scouting review, Red Line Report, is eloquent in its praise of Mayer, using such phrases as "very complete" and "very composed."
"This fabulous underage goaltender was easily the best goalie at the World U-18s and would be a top eight overall pick if available to the NHL this year (2007 NHL entry draft)," stated Red Line.
The addition of Mayer to the Sea Dogs goaltending tandem comes in the wake of several other high-profile off-season signings. Defenceman Simon Despr�s and forward Steven Anthony were considered the top-two picks at the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League (QMJHL) draft held earlier this month in Drummondville, QC.
Wayne Long, president of the Sea Dogs, said the adding of Mayer to the hockey club "shows our commitment to winning. The excitement in the city continues to build which is being demonstrated by the growing interest in season tickets for next year."

Rockets Announce First Round Pick in 2007 CHL Import Draft

2007-06-28T02:56:00.002-07:00

Kelowna, BC: With the seventh overall selection in the 2007 CHL Import Draft, the Kelowna Rockets have chosen forward MILAN KYTNAR of Slovakia.
Kytnar, 6'0" 183, is a native of Topolcany, Slovakia and was picked by the Edmonton Oilers in the 5th round, 127th overall, in this past weekend's NHL Draft. A centerman, Kytnar is described by NHL Central Scouting as "... a hardworking, 2-way player with good hands that are particularly quick in the face-off circle."
This past season, Kytnar scored 91 points in 53 games in the Slovakian Junior League while posting an eye-popping +78 rating. Later in the season he also played 26 games in the Slovakian Senior League (second division) where he scored 5 goals and 13 points.
As well, he was the Captain of Team Slovakia at the recently completed World Under-18 Championships held in Finland. He was also the tournament's second leading scorer. It was in Finland where Rockets' President and General Manager, Bruce Hamilton, saw Kytnar perform.
"Certainly, in my mind, he was the best player on the Slovakian team," said Hamilton. "He reminds me a bit of Tyler Spurgeon with his style only he's probably a better skater than Tyler. He works the puck down low in the offensive end very effectively and he loves to take the puck to the net and make plays."
"When the Oilers took him in the NHL Draft, I was afraid that might tip off some other teams and we wouldn't get him," continued Hamilton. "We were watching anxiously and hoping he'd slide to us and he did."
"Today's a good day for our organization. We got the guy we targeted. And, I've seen him play so he's not an unknown commodity."
The Rockets next selection in the Import Draft (43rd overall) will take place at 1:30 PDT this afternoon.

Mooseheads take Czech forward Knotek in import draft

2007-06-28T02:56:00.001-07:00

The Halifax Mooseheads got their man in the Canadian Hockey League import draft on Wednesday.
The Mooseheads selected 17-year-old Czech forward Tomas Knotek sixth overall, giving them yet another offensive threat to bolster their hopes for a championship next season.
"We identified him a while ago, with our scouts in the Czech Republic, as the player we wanted and we’re glad we got him," said Mooseheads general manager Marcel Patenaude.
"He’s a very talented centre that is able to create a lot on offence. He’s a good passer (with) good skill. He’s that type of player; very intelligent."
Knotek played for HC Kladno in the Czech Under-20 (Junior) Extraliga last season, leading his team in scoring with 20 goals and 49 points in 38 games. He was also a member of the Czech team at the 2007 World Under-18 Championship in Finland in May where he scored one goal in six games.
The six-foot-one, 170-pound Knotek is also a former teammate and from the same city in the Czech Republic as Halifax star forward Jakub Voracek. Voracek gave his countryman a solid endorsement.
"Jakub knows him pretty well and his family knows him well. He had a lot of good things to say about the way he plays," Patenaude said. "He’s a Kladno kid and they have a great program there. A lot of great players have come out of Kladno so we’re very happy. Our scout put him first for Czech players."
Patenaude hopes Knotek will compete for a spot on one of the team’s scoring lines but didn’t want to project too much because the team already has a wealth of high-end forwards returning. But with that said, as long as the reports about Knotek are accurate, he should be able to step in and contribute right away.
"That’s always hard to establish but what I hear from our scouts, his agent (Allan Walsh) and from Jakub, he’s very talented and let’s hope he’ll shine here in Halifax," Patenaude said.
The Mooseheads have a long relationship with Walsh, who always delivers when he promises that his player will report. Patenaude said Walsh has arranged for Knotek to spend the summer in Montreal training as well.
"He’s serious about being a hockey player and that’s a good sign," Patenaude said. "He’ll be here for sure."
Kladno is currently rated 57th by Red Line Report for players eligible for the 2008 NHL draft.
The Cape Breton Screaming Eagles grabbed goaltender Marek Benda from the Czech Republic with their first pick in the draft (30th overall) and took Czech defenceman Jan Piscacek with their second pick (51st overall). Benda was rated as the ninth-best goaltender (130th overall) by Red Line Report for the 2007 NHL draft but was passed over. He played for HC Karlovy Vary of the Czech Under-20 Extraliga last season. Piscacek, a six-foot, 190-pound 18-year-old, played for HC Kladno last year.
The Screaming Eagles traded their second-round import pick (111th overall) and a fourth-round pick in the 2008 QMJHL draft to the Quebec Remparts for the 30th overall pick. The Remparts also scrambled to acquire another second-round import pick from the Rimouski Oceanic after Russian twins Ruslan and Roman Bashkirov informed them on Tuesday they would not return for a second season.

Mideast giants mulling coal import for power

2007-06-28T02:54:00.000-07:00

DUBAI/LONDON: They hold over 30% of global oil and nearly 8% of gas reserves, but at least four Gulf Arab states are considering importing coal for power generation as they struggle to meet domestic demand.Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Oman and Bahrain are all looking at the possibility of building coal-fired power plants, analysts and industry sources said. The region’s electricity needs are soaring as petrodollars feed rapid economic expansion.“It’s absurd in a way but there is not enough gas,” said Mark Lewis, Managing Director of Energy Market Consultants.“They have a serious problem in power generation and are having difficulties balancing their systems. Coal is a well known technology and could be built fairly quickly. It’s probably quicker than the lead times for importing gas.”Coal was unlikely ever to make up a large part of power generation capacity in the Gulf, but it may help meet some of the rocketing demand, analysts said.It would also make commercial sense if producers can export the oil they might otherwise burn for power and import coal more cheaply, analyst said.“This merely reflects the existing commercial realities,” said one analyst. “Oil is more expensive than coal. It’s a kind of carbon-arbitrage.”The Middle East’s coal reserves are negligible, according to the BP Statistical Review. Coal traders and producers said South Africa was the most economic source of coal for the Gulf.According to data from the World Coal Institute, benchmark London Brent light crude cost five times more than coal last year. Gas was about four times the price of coal. Even adjusting for the lower amount of energy in coal, coal is still far cheaper a fuel source than oil.Gulf countries have other motives for limiting the burning of gas in power plants. In their drive to diversify economies and create jobs, the region’s oil and gas producers have encouraged the growth of energy-intensive industries such as petrochemicals and aluminium.The high cost of bringing shipping into the Gulf, due to the war-risk premium for insurance in the volatile region, would make coal plants outside the Gulf more economic than any inside it, industry sources said.Oman was the most likely of the four countries to actually build a coal-fired plant, they said. It is mulling a plant at Raysut, on the Gulf of Oman and outside of the Strait of Hormuz.Fujairah would be the top site for a UAE coal-fired power plant, as it too lies outside the Strait, sources said.The Paris-based International Energy Agency, adviser to 26 oil consuming countries, said in a report earlier this month that Saudi Arabia was looking at building a plant on its west coast, on the Red Sea.Saudi Electricity discounted coal as one of the fuels it would use to boost generation capacity in the world’s largest oil exporter to 54,000 megawatts by 2015, up from 36,000MW at the end of last year.Still, industry sources said the Saudi government, like its neighbours, would consider all options including coal to avoid a power supply crunch.Saudi Electricity has asked industrial users to change working shifts to non-peak power demand hours as it looks to avoid a repeat of last year’s blackouts.The Gulf states’ move to coal-fired generation echoes a process already underway in Russia.Russia is a major exporter of oil, gas and coal to the Atlantic and Pacific markets. Russia has for many years relied on gas for the bulk of its power generation but this year the government announced that it would shift to predominantly coal-fired generation over the next several years.This will enable Russia to increase its generation capacity substantially and maximise exports of gas which is more expensive than coal.Tight gas supplies have already led some of the Middle East’s cement producers to turn to coal to fire furnaces.In the UAE’s northern emirates of Fujairah and Ras al-Khaimah, cement makers are expected to import around 500,000 tonnes of South African coal during the next six months, up from almost nothing during the past several years.

T-Birds Select Finnish Goalie In Import Draft

2007-06-28T02:52:00.000-07:00

Seattle, June 27, 2007 - The Seattle Thunderbirds selected goalie Riku Helenius with the 46th overall selection in the 2007 CHL Import Draft Wednesday afternoon.
Helenius was selected by the Tampa Bay Lightning in the first round, 15th overall, of the 2006 NHL Entry Draft. He signed a professional contract with the Lightning at the conclusion of his 2006-07 season.
"We spoke to Tampa Bay a year ago about adding Helenius to our team but the player was not ready to come at that time," said T-Birds General Manager Russ Farwell. "There is a good chance this year he could come over and we felt we would take that chance because this combination would give us the best 1-2 goalie combination in our division."
"Our division has very strong goaltending again this year, but this would set us up perfectly," continued Farwell. "Jacob DeSerres has taken a step towards being one of the top goaltenders in his age group and Riku will give us the perfect starter for Jacob to develop with."
"If we are able to recruit Helenius he will probably play in the world junior tournament and we will have quality goaltending right through that period."
The Western Hockey League (WHL), along with the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League (QMJHL) and the Ontario Hockey League (OHL), are the three leagues that take part in the CHL Import Draft.
An Import Player is defined as a player whose parent (s) do not reside in Canada or the United States as of January 11 preceding that year's CHL Import Draft. If a CHL club has no Import Players, they are eligible to draft two Import Players, if they have one import, they are allowed to draft one, and if they have two Import Players they are not eligible to participate in the draft.
T-Birds Training Camp starts August 26 at Kingsgate Ice Arena in Kirkland.
Season tickets are currently on sale for 2007-08 at KeyArena. Fans purchasing 2007-08 season tickets will have the highest seating priority for the 2008-09 season as the Thunderbirds open the new Amiga Center at Kent. Priority can be established right now by calling 206-448-PUCK (7825) or for more information go to www.seattlethunderbirds.com.

Wheat Kings Opt For Russian

2007-06-28T02:51:00.000-07:00

Toronto, Ontario -- The Western Hockey League's Brandon Wheat Kings used their first round selection (49th overall) to select highly touted Russian defenceman Nikolai Lukyanchikov in Wednesday's Canadian Hockey League Import Draft.
A 5'11" 185 lb. blueliner, the undrafted Lukyanchikov is expected to join left-winger Daniel Bartek on this year's roster.
As a member of Kapitan Stupino of the Russian Senior Hockey League this past season, Lukyanchikov scored four goals and nine points in 36 regular season games. As well, he had one goal and recorded a +4 ranking at this year's World Under 18 Championships in Finland.
"Nikolai is a good offensive defenceman," Brandon Wheat Kings' coach and general manager Kelly McCrimmon said after making the selection. "He moves the puck well and has good hockey sense."
Lukyanchikov is only the third Russian to be chosen by the Wheat Kings in the history of the Import draft. Brandon drafted Oleg Tverdovsky in 1994, before taking a chance on Igor Musatov last June.
Recent first round import picks of the Wheat Kings have included the likes of Norwegian blueliner Ole-Kristian Tollefsen, Finnish forward Sami Sandell, Jakub Sindel of the Czech Republic and Swiss sniper Juraj Simek, who scored 28 goals and 57 points in 58 games for Brandon last season.
The WHL's newest team, the Edmonton Oil Kings, had the first pick in today's proceedings and used it to select 6'2" 198 lb. center Tomas Vincour of the Czech Republic. The Ontario Hockey League's Erie Otters and the Saint John Sea Dogs of the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League used the second and third picks overall to grab goalkeepers. While Erie opted for 18-year old Jaroslav Janus of Slovakia, the Sea Dogs selected 18-year old Robert Mayer of the Kloten Flyers.
What made this year's draft interesting is the fact that only 45 European players were chosen at this year's NHL Entry Draft in Columbus. That was well down from the record 123 picked by NHL teams in 2000. Of that total, only nine Russians were selected.

Kings of the imports

2007-06-28T02:50:00.000-07:00

The Edmonton Oil Kings have the pick of the litter heading into this morning's CHL Import Draft.
But there's more to the draft than just taking the best European hockey player available.
"We talk to their agents as to whether their client is willing to come over and play," said Oil Kings general manager Bob Green. "We also sometimes have agents submit a list of kids to us that are willing to come over. It can be quite a process."
The Oil Kings have the top pick in the draft this morning.
Green would not divulge who the team was going to select, but he did indicate it will be a forward and a younger one at that.
"Because we're looking at a younger guy, it's tough to say if he's going to impact our lineup right away," Green said.
"Like a lot of Europeans there's an adjustment period for them to learn a new language, learn a new lifestyle, all those things. That sometimes affects them on the ice at times early in their career.
"We think the younger guy we're looking at is a high-end talent. He'll have the ability to grow into our team a little bit and certainly be a really good player in a year or so."
As an expansion team who'll begin play in the Western Hockey League this season, the Oil Kings were awarded the first pick over the rest of the major junior hockey teams in the country.
All teams are allowed to have two European players on their roster. However with the Oil Kings having selected Robin Figren in the WHL expansion draft, they are only interested in taking one European player this morning.
Figren, 19, a native of Stockholm, Sweden, played with the Calgary Hitmen last season, scoring 10 goals and adding 17 assists in 62 games.
There has been some interest from other CHL teams in the top pick and have approached the Oil Kings about a trade. But the Oil Kings plan on keeping their spot in the draft.
"Certainly from our standpoint we want to get a real good player and we want to take advantage of having the first pick overall," Green said.
"Having the first pick overall is the only way you can guarantee you're going to get the guy that you want. That's probably the way we're looking at it and we'll probably stay with it."
One of the players mentioned as a possibility to be taken by the Oil Kings is Milan Kytnar, 20, whom the Edmonton Oilers selected in the fifth round (127th overall) in last weekend's NHL Entry Draft. However, he doesn't really fit into the Oil Kings plans.
"Certainly he was someone that came up on our radar a little bit," Green said.
"But in the end we were probably looking at someone a little younger than he is and probably more poised to be a factor three years down the road, because of where our team is going to be at."
Another top player is Mikhail Stefanovich of Belarus. He had four goals and an assist at the 2007 World Junior Hockey championships.
However, unlike other drafts, there is no consensus top pick when it comes to the European draft.
"It really depends on how you key with that. Some teams that are looking at being really good next year are probably looking at an older guy," Green said.
"Teams that are building are probably looking at younger guys. I think you're trying to get the best player that fits where you're at with your team right now."

Storm Select Swiss Winger In CHL Import Draft

2007-06-28T02:48:00.000-07:00

(Guelph) The Guelph Storm Hockey Club announced today that they have selected Swiss forward Denis Hollenstein with the 32nd overall pick in Wednesday's Canadian Hockey League Import Draft.
The 18 year-old left winger played for Team Switzerland at the 2007 World Under-18 Division I Championship, where he picked up four points, two goals and two assists, in six games. For the past two seasons, Hollenstein has played for the EHC Kloten Jrs. of the Elite Jr. A League in Switzerland.
In April Storm Assistant GM/Assistant Coach Jason Brooks and General Manager/Head Coach Dave Barr traveled to Finland to watch some Under-18 Tournament Action. There they had the opportunity to watch Hollenstein play. Barr described the 6'0, 176 lbs forward as "a player who is easily identifiable because of his work ethic and skill level". The Storm GM/Head Coach expects him to play on the top two lines.
Rafael Rotter will be returning to the Royal City to fill the second import spot for the Storm. Rotter, a second round Import Pick in the 2005 CHL Import Draft, has played the previous two seasons in Guelph. In 123 games the Austrian native has recorded 27 goals and 82 assists for 109 points. He currently holds the Storm records for most career assists and points scored by a European born player. Last season, Rotter placed third in the Hardest Worker category of the OHL Coaches Poll.

High price of the free trade fantasy

2007-06-28T02:47:00.000-07:00

SHEILA and I are just back from a refreshing trip to Europe. Sheila is "my Sheila of 58 years". The trip was refreshing because we tend to accept local views as though they were as white as the driven snow. Yet they are usually a little coloured. That is what these notes are about.
First port of call was Vienna, the place of my birth. Our daughter, Melita, who had been travelling with her husband, joined us and wanted to see where my family had lived and where I went to school. We took a taxi and, surprisingly, the driver had been to the same school as I, only decades later. The school looked the same to me, though it has been rebuilt. Vienna is full of tourists and has been a boom town since World War II.
Next were Salzburg, Paris and the Loire Valley. All doing well, but France has 10 per cent unemployment. A lot, but no more than we have when you count our category of "not in the workforce" and allow for our definition of "employment" as meaning just one hour of paid work per week.
The most interesting country for me was Ireland, never having been there before and having heard so much about its economic success over the past decade or so. Surely, here was a country that could afford to be a free trader and show us how it's done. Ireland used to be poor but managed to become highly successful in a short time and is now extremely competitive within the European Union.
Of course, living within Fortress Europe and being part of CAP (the Common Agricultural Policy) makes it easier to balance, or nearly balance, the current account (meaning, broadly, exports minus imports). Ireland's latest result is -0.8 per cent of gross domestic product, pretty good when measured against Australia's -6.3 per cent. How do they do it? Simple. Like the other countries in the EU, they control their imports. You can't import without a licence.
And another thing, I used to get red faced when having to admit to foreigners that Australia charged an import duty of 57.5 per cent on cars. Obviously, we were incompetent manufacturers. But it meant we made 80 per cent of our cars and imported 20 per cent.
Now our import duty has dropped to 10 per cent and we import 80 per cent of our cars. In spite of that, we are planning to drop the import duty to 5 per cent. Do we have suicidal tendencies? Do our politicians understand what is going on in the world?
I asked the Irish what import duty they levied on passenger cars. Would you believe 50 per cent? And the import duty on wine is 72 per cent. Are they ashamed of being such terrible protectionists? I found no trace of it. The same with other countries within Fortress Europe.

While we are at it, Australians pay 6.25 per cent interest, the Irish 4.2 per cent. Would you like to save 2 per cent on your mortgage? Do you think our runaway current account has something to do with it?
If in doubt, study the figures in the table, taken from The Economist magazine's Pocket World in Figures 2007 edition.
As a child I was told the fable of the wolf who said he did not like the taste of fruit, because it was too high for him to reach. We are like that because we keep losing mountains of money "on current account" and are saying it does not matter because the world's accounts will never balance.
Therefore, some countries must lose money. True enough. But why should we have to be the champion long-term losers? Would it not be better to be champion winners?
It is not that we are finding it hard to sell goods or services abroad. On the contrary, we are champion exporters. Especially lately, with the phenomenal demand from China and with India following suit.
But somehow we are determined to prove to the world that we are "free traders", even if it sends us broke. Very commendable, but is it sensible? Is it looking after the interests of our children and grandchildren? And in the midst of an unprecedented export boom, should we not be putting some export money aside for a rainy day?
History shows that excess demand is in time replaced by excess supply, because higher world prices stimulate more research and more production. Then, we will need all our export earnings to pay for essential imports because new substitute goods and extra supplies eventually reverse the market. Then, it will not help to control imports because we will need all our export earnings to pay for essential imports. Too late, then, to control imports.
It seems that in their endeavour to make us world competitive, our leaders ignore the effect of "purchasing power parity". That is the result of having exchange rates that are completely out of kilter. To have an Australian citizen working for you in Australia for a day costs about $100, including on costs. But you can buy a day's work from an able-bodied Chinese citizen in China for about $6. So the Australian would have to produce in 3½ minutes what the Chinese produces in an hour. Silly, isn't it?
Ernest Rodeck is patron of the Society for Australian Industry and Employment, a former national president of the Australian Institute of Management, and chief executive of Fler Co Ltd.

US pressures Japan to relax beef import restrictions

2007-06-28T02:46:00.000-07:00

The United States will push Japan to further ease its restrictions on beef imports when talks begin today in Tokyo.
Japan ended all reinspections of US beef shipments two weeks ago after officials visited 28 meat packing plants and announced they were BSE compliant.
United States Agriculture secretary Mike Johanns is demanding Japan set a clear and aggressive timeline for the full re-entry of beef, after the World Organisation for Animal Health declared America's BSE risk under control.

Giants Acquire Import Defenseman

2007-06-28T02:45:00.002-07:00

The Vancouver Giants have acquired Slovakian Defenseman JURAJ VALACH from the Tri-City Americans in exchange for the Giants' First Round Selection (55th overall) in today's Canadian Hockey League Import Draft.
The 6'6", 210 lbs, right-hand shot blueliner just completed his rookie season with the Americans, registering 7 goals and 23 assists in 58 regular season games to lead Tri-City's defense corp in scoring. Valach also represented his country at the most recent IIHF World Junior Championships in Sweden.

Winter Hawks select Czech Republic forward in import draft

2007-06-28T02:45:00.001-07:00

The Portland Winter Hawks today selected 18 year-old forward Radim Valchar from the Czech Republic with the fourth overall selection in the first round of today's Canadian Hockey League Import Draft.
Valchar, 6-0, 180, had 19 goals and 23 assists equaling 42 points in 41 games playing junior hockey, leading his H.C. Vitkovice team in scoring in the Czech Republic last season. He added five goals and three assists in six playoff games. He played in the World Under-18 Championships for the Czech Republic, posting three goals in six games, leading his team in goals in the tournament. Valchar was rated as the # 70 European skater eligible for last weekend's NHL draft in Central Scouting Service's final draft rankings, but was not chosen in the draft.
"From the scouting reports, we felt Radim was our best chance at getting a player that could impact our team this coming season," said Winter Hawks' GM Ken Hodge. "His agent has indicated he is very interested in coming to North America to play. Since he is an 18 year-old, there is the opportunity for him to grow with us and impact us in 2008-09 as well."
The Winter Hawks also hold the 64th pick in the second round of today's draft, but have decided not to use that choice as they have now secured a commitment from Swedish forward Viktor Sjodin to return to the Hawks for the 2007-08 season. Sjodin, who will be a 19 year-old next season, had 13 goals and 12 assists with 79 penalty minutes in 68 games for Portland last year. He showed some character throughout the season with his willingness to play physical and battle through some nagging injuries. Sjodin was a seventh round draft pick of the Nashville Predators in 2006.
The Hawks will attempt to trade their later pick to another WHL team

Vietnamese break Qatari laws, jeopardize labor export

2007-06-21T06:05:00.001-07:00

Around 600 Vietnamese guest laborers are now jailed in Qatar for fighting, theft, drinking and distilling wine, Vietnamese newspaper Nguoi Lao Dong Friday quoted an official as saying.
Of the 7,000 migrant workers Vietnam has sent to Qatar since late last year, around 400 of them have been expelled by Qatari authorities for crime, said head of the state labor export company Sovilaco’s Middle East department Pham Anh Thang.
Thang said that Vietnamese workers were involved in a slew of fights with their Nepalese colleagues.
Qatari police also caught a group of Vietnamese distilling 60 liters of liquor last April. Drinking is a serious problem for most of Vietnamese laborers, according to Thang.
Additionally, many Vietnamese have also been caught stealing bronze wires and other materials from construction sites.
Though striking is illegal in Qatar, strikes by Vietnamese factory and construction workers have also occurred.
Consequences
Due to the Vietnamese’s legal problems, employers in Qatar are hesitating to receive Vietnamese workers. But the same employers have also admitted that Vietnamese workers post some advantages over laborers from other countries, such as high-level compulsory education, quick wits, and easy adaptability to working conditions.
Last March and April, Qatari firms canceled two 200-man contracts with Sovilaco, said Thang. He predicted that losing the Qatari market would be inevitable if no appropriate measures are taken to tackle the problem.
Qatar is a profitable environment for Vietnamese, as skilled workers are paid salary rates of US$375 - $625 a month and $250 - $375 for normal labor.
Close co-ordination among state agencies, diplomatic missions abroad and labor export companies will be needed to manage the situation. Labor export firms also need to train and consult their workers in line with the new countries’ laws and customs to make for smother transition.
The
Around 600 Vietnamese guest laborers are now jailed in Qatar for fighting, theft, drinking and distilling wine, Vietnamese newspaper Nguoi Lao Dong Friday quoted an official as saying.
Of the 7,000 migrant workers Vietnam has sent to Qatar since late last year, around 400 of them have been expelled by Qatari authorities for crime, said head of the state labor export company Sovilaco’s Middle East department Pham Anh Thang.
Thang said that Vietnamese workers were involved in a slew of fights with their Nepalese colleagues.
Qatari police also caught a group of Vietnamese distilling 60 liters of liquor last April. Drinking is a serious problem for most of Vietnamese laborers, according to Thang.
Additionally, many Vietnamese have also been caught stealing bronze wires and other materials from construction sites.
Though striking is illegal in Qatar, strikes by Vietnamese factory and construction workers have also occurred.
Consequences
Due to the Vietnamese’s legal problems, employers in Qatar are hesitating to receive Vietnamese workers. But the same employers have also admitted that Vietnamese workers post some advantages over laborers from other countries, such as high-level compulsory education, quick wits, and easy adaptability to working conditions.
Last March and April, Qatari firms canceled two 200-man contracts with Sovilaco, said Thang. He predicted that losing the Qatari market would be inevitable if no appropriate measures are taken to tackle the problem.
Qatar is a profitable environment for Vietnamese, as skilled workers are paid salary rates of US$375 - $625 a month and $250 - $375 for normal labor.
Close co-ordination among state agencies, diplomatic missions abroad and labor export companies will be needed to manage the situation. Labor export firms also need to train and consult their workers in line with the new countries’ laws and customs to make for smother transition.
The Vietnam’s Overseas Labor Management Department will compile regulations demanding that labor companies have permanent representatives in destination countries to mediate such matters.
Vietnam is now considering cutting its 50 labor export companies down to 30 for easier management.
Vietnam is now considering cutting its 50 labor export companies down to 30 for easier management