The Star Online: Business
The Star Online: Business |
- Swiss solar plane team eyes Mediterranean flight
- New York lawmakers seek most English business signs
- US stocks: Pullback could be on the table this week
| Swiss solar plane team eyes Mediterranean flight Posted: 03 Jul 2011 05:39 PM PDT GENEVA: The pilot at the helm of the world's most advanced solar-powered plane said Sunday he hopes to take the prototype across the Mediterranean next year before attempting a round-the-world flight in 2014. Andre Borschberg said the plane's recent round trip to Belgium and France had encouraged the Solar Impulse team to consider flying the aircraft to Morocco in 2012. "We'd like to be able to do flights of a duration of two days, two nights, which is a big challenge for only one person on board," he told The Associated Press by satellite linkup while flying back from Paris to the plane's home base in Payerne, Switzerland. Last year, Borschberg completed a marathon 26-hour nonstop test to demonstrate that the 12,000 solar cells attached to its 63-meter (207-foot) wingspan can soak up enough sunlight to keep the four-engine plane airborne through the night. The Mediterranean flights will be a major challenge for the engineers and the pilot, as the lightweight design is very sensitive to air turbulence. If the 1,200-mile (1931-kilometer) journey from Switzerland to Morocco is successful, the team will attempt to fly the prototype onward to Turkey before returning home, Borschberg said. Meanwhile, a second, sturdier aircraft is already in the works. The second plane will begin flight testing in 2013 in preparation for its planned circumnavigation of the globe a year later. Again, there will be no passengers on board, Borschberg said. The ultra-efficient design of the aircraft, which has a top speed of only 75 mph (120 kph), means all additional ballast needs to be avoided. "People understand that we are not going to fly solar and be able to transport passengers using solar energy collected by the airplane anytime soon," said Borschberg, as he circled Lake Neuchatel and the Jura mountains on the French-Swiss border before his descent to Payerne. Still, the insights gained from designing and flying an aircraft that could stay in the air indefinitely - were it not for the needs of its human pilot - are significant, Borschberg said. "There is definitely a need for the technology to reduce the energy consumption" of planes, cars and other means of transportation, he said. - AP Online: http://www.solarimpulse.com Full Feed Generated by Get Full RSS, sponsored by USA Best Price. |
| New York lawmakers seek most English business signs Posted: 03 Jul 2011 05:29 PM PDT NEW YORK: The teeming streets of Flushing, Queens, can feel like a different country. A booming Chinese population exists alongside a longtime Korean enclave in the New York City borough. On a recent afternoon, the sidewalks were jammed with shoppers browsing and haggling in stores offering everything from iPhones to herbal remedies. Stalls selling fragrant dumplings and tea shops did a brisk business. Day trippers from Manhattan or the suburbs often come to eat and shop here on weekends, savoring the broad array of foods and products available. But to some, the area can feel a little too foreign. City Councilmen Dan Halloran and Peter Koo are drafting legislation that would require store signs in the city to be mostly in English. They say police officers and firefighters need to be able to quickly identify stores. The change also would protect consumers and allow local shops to expand outside their traditional customer base, the council members argue. But merchants say it would be an unnecessary and costly burden on small businesses and would homogenize diverse pockets of the city that cater mostly to immigrant residents. "People must respect that this is a special area and please respect the Asian culture," said Peter Tu, executive director of the Flushing Chinese Business Association. "They have their own life in this area. When you walk in the street, you don't feel like you are in America." Two bills are pending in the council to change the language on store signs. One, introduced in May, would authorize inspectors with the city Department of Consumer Affairs to enforce a little-known state law that requires businesses to display their names in English. The second bill, which will be introduced later this summer, would stipulate that the sign should be at least 60 percent English. Businesses would have four years to comply, after which they'd face fines starting at $150. "This is designed for public safety, consumer protection and to start increasing the foot traffic into the stores," Halloran said. The law on the books - passed in 1933 and dubbed the true name bill - classifies a violation as a misdemeanor but is not enforced. Its primary intent was to protect creditors and consumers from fraud by informal stores that popped up during the Great Depression. The president of the Flushing on the Hill Civic Association, David Kulick, said store signs provoke different concerns these days, mostly from longtime residents who find it insulting or off-putting when they can't read them. Assemblywoman Grace Meng said she's heard many of those complaints. She started a task force on the issue last year and supports the council legislation. "The heart of the issue is not just about an English sign," Meng said. "They don't feel like they can communicate in their own neighborhoods." The issue has cropped up before in the district. Similar legislation was proposed in the 1980s by former Councilwoman Julia Harrison. Her successor, John Liu, now city comptroller, commissioned a survey eight years ago and found only a small percentage of signs did not include English. A spokesman for Liu said the legislation was probably unnecessary. "In an ever-changing global city, this issue has surfaced for the past 100 years in different parts of New York, involving a panoply of languages from Yiddish to Spanish to Greek and now Chinese and Korean," Liu spokesman Matthew Sweeney said in a statement. Koo, who currently represents Flushing in the council, owns five local pharmacies with signs in English and Chinese. He said he would change his own signs to comply with the law. "This is America, right? English is the main language," Koo said. "If I go to a Spanish or Polish neighborhood I would like the sign to at least be in English so I can understand." Dian Yu, executive director of the Flushing Business Improvement District, said most stores in Flushing would have to change their signs to comply with the law because they include English but not enough of it. Yu added that there was a misperception that local merchants don't want non-Asian customers. Many shops simply cater to Asian customers because they make the bulk of the purchases, he said. The bills' prospects remain unclear. Councilwoman Diana Reyna, chair of the small business committee, said in a statement it would strain relationships between immigrant entrepreneurs and the government. Councilman Peter Vallone, chair of the public safety committee, said there are unresolved questions about how the legislation would work, such as whether the size of the lettering would matter. The Department of Consumer Affairs referred questions to the mayor's office, which declined to comment. A police spokeswoman, Detective Cheryl Crispin, said in an email the department was "not aware of this arising as a police issue." Meng said the bill was part of a wider strategy to encourage interaction between different groups in her district. "My goal in bringing up this whole issue a year ago was to bridge the gap between cultures," she said. "This is not going to solve it. But it's part of the resolution." - AP Latest business news from AP-Wire Full Feed Generated by Get Full RSS, sponsored by USA Best Price. |
| US stocks: Pullback could be on the table this week Posted: 03 Jul 2011 05:24 PM PDT NEW YORK: A pullback could be on the table this week for US stocks after their best weekly performance in two years, especially if a raft of data headlined by the June jobs report doesn't bolster the argument of a strengthening economy. Stocks rose for five straight days as the fog of the Greek debt crisis appeared to once again be lifted while better-than-anticipated economic numbers such as Friday's manufacturing data gave weight to the belief the US economy was starting to recover from a soft patch. "What we are looking at is a market that is going to focus on the economic numbers," said Peter Cardillo, chief market economist at Avalon Partners in New York. "We had real good gains towards the end of the quarter so it wouldn't surprise me to see a little bit of profit-taking before we get those numbers out during the course of the week." Data expected this week includes factory orders for May, the ISM services index and several indicators on the labour market, including Friday's report. "It is a little bit early to declare victory over the mid-cycle slowdown we've had," said Tim Ghriskey, chief investment officer of Solaris Asset Management in Bedford Hills, New York. Even with the economic data on the docket this week, volume is expected to remain light due to the US market holiday on July 4, which could exacerbate swings in the market. Aside from the additional spike in volume brought about by the final reconstitution of Russell Investments by its indexes on June 24, average weekly volume has been among the lowest of the year for several weeks. The light volume may prove to be an advantage for the bulls, however, especially after the S&P 500 successfully bounced off the 200-day moving average, a key technical support level, and jumped back over the 50-day moving average, which represented a resistance point. Last week the Dow Jones industrial average rose 5.4%, the S&P 500 gained 5.6% and the Nasdaq Composite Index climbed 6.2% marking their biggest weekly percentage gains since July 2009. With Greece and the European debt crisis once again pushed to the back burner in the minds of investors, the focus has shifted to the rapidly approaching deadline for Congress to reach an agreement on the debt limit, presenting another headwind for stocks. The US Treasury on Friday kept up the pressure on Congress to strike a deal to raise the debt ceiling and prevent a default, repeating that it would run out of legal room to borrow on Aug 2. "The big thing on the horizon is now back to the US deficit issues," said Rick Meckler, president of LibertyView Capital Management in New York. "The Greek (debt) situation was an appetiser for that, and I think you're going to see a lot of back and forth as people wonder how much brinkmanship is actually going to be played with the budget deficit." Another overhang could be evident in the pre-announcement of corporate profits before earnings season begins with Alcoa Inc's earnings on July 11. The global slowdown in the second quarter may result in some disappointing outlooks. - Reuters
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