Khamis, 7 November 2013

The Star Online: Metro: Sunday Metro

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The Star Online: Metro: Sunday Metro

World's strongest typhoon swirls towards Philippines
Japan putting missiles on Pacific gateway island
Russian boy seventh victim of Thai ferry accident

World's strongest typhoon swirls towards Philippines

Posted:

MANILA: The world's most powerful typhoon of the year gained strength on Thursday as it swirled towards the Philippines, forcing mass evacuations, flight cancellations and school suspensions across the disaster-weary nation.

President Benigno Aquino called on his countrymen to make all possible preparations for Typhoon Haiyan, which was generating wind gusts exceeding 330 kilometres (200 miles) an hour and set to hit on Friday morning.

"To our local officials, your constituents are facing a serious peril. Let us do all we can while (Haiyan) has not yet hit land," Aquino said in a nationally televised address.

"We can minimise the effects of this typhoon if we help each other. Let us remain calm, especially in buying our primary needs, and in moving to safer places."

Aquino warned areas within the expected 600-kilometre typhoon front would be exposed to severe flooding as well as devastating winds, while coastal areas may see waves six metres (20 feet) high.

Haiyan was expected make landfall on Samar island, about 600 kilometres southeast of Manila, then cut across the central and southern Philippines before exiting into the South China Sea late on Saturday.

State weather forecaster Glaize Escullar said Haiyan was expected to hit areas still recovering from a devastating storm in 2011 and from a 7.1-magnitude quake last month.

They include the central island of Bohol, the epicentre of the earthquake that killed 222 people, where at least 5,000 survivors are still living in tents while waiting for new homes.

"The provincial governor has ordered local disaster officials to ensure that pre-emptive evacuations are done, both for those living in tents as well as those in flood-prone areas," Bohol provincial administrator Alfonso Damalerio told AFP.

Other vulnerable areas are the port cities of Cagayan de Oro and Iligan on the southern island of Mindanao, where flash floods induced by Tropical Storm Washi killed more than 1,000 people in December 2011.

Authorities said evacuations were taking place in many other towns and villages in Haiyan's path, while schools were closed, ferry services suspended and fishermen ordered to secure their vessels.

Philippine Airlines, Cebu Pacific and other carriers announced the suspension of hundreds of flights, mostly domestic but also some international.

Haiyan had maximum sustained winds on Thursday afternoon of 278 kilometres an hour, and gusts of 333 kilometres an hour, according to the US Navy's Joint Typhoon Warning Centre.

This made it the world's strongest typhoon this year, according to David Michael Padua, a meteorologist with the Weather Philippines Foundation, a storm monitoring organisation that runs the www.weather.com.ph website.

The Philippines is battered by an average of 20 major storms or typhoons each year, many of them deadly, but scientists have said climate change may be increasing their ferocity and frequency.

The Philippines endured the world's strongest storm of 2012, when Typhoon Bopha left about 2,000 people dead or missing on Mindanao island in December.

The Global Disaster Alert and Coordination System, jointly run by the United Nations and the European Commission, said nearly 16 million people, including more than 12 million from the Philippines, were at risk from Haiyan.

The others were in Laos and Vietnam, which are forecast to be hit on Sunday, it said on its website.

"Haiyan can have a high humanitarian impact," it said. -AFP

Japan putting missiles on Pacific gateway island

Posted:

TOKYO: Japan's military is to station four unarmed missiles on an island that sits on the gateway to the Pacific, officials said Thursday, for a major drill that has made China nervous.

The exercise, aimed at bolstering defence of Japan's southern islands, has already seen a launching system and a loader for Type-88 surface-to-ship missiles installed on Miyako island.

"This is the first time" that missile systems have been taken to Miyako, said a spokesman for the Joint Staff of the Self Defence Forces, adding that the missiles could not be fired in their present state.

"The drill is designed for the defence of islands," he said.

While the Japanese military makes no secret of the fact these missiles are not operable, observers say their deployment serves to remind anyone watching of Japan's capabilities.

The missiles were expected to arrive later Thursday and it was not clear how long they would stay for.

The Self Defense Forces began their 18 days of war games on November 1, with 34,000 military personnel, six vessels and 360 aircraft.

The exercise comes amid growing nervousness in Japan and other parts of Asia over China's surging military might, which has seen it expand its naval reach into the Pacific Ocean as it squabbles with Tokyo over the ownership of islands in the East China Sea.

It also has separate disputes with numerous countries over competing claims to territories in the South China Sea, which China claims as virtually all its own.

Chinese naval assets stationed in the north of the country are somewhat hemmed in by the chain of Japanese islands that separate the East China Sea and the Pacific. The strait between Miyako and the main island of Okinawa offers one of the few direct access points.

Tokyo has officially said the drill is not aimed at any specific nation, but Japanese leaders have openly expressed their disquiet as China escalates its territorial claims.

The Self Defence Force is also preparing to form a special amphibious unit, much like the US Marine Corps, whose remit would be to defend small islands and to take them back in case of enemy attacks.

Beijing has routinely sent government vessels to disputed islands in the East China Sea, staging dangerous face-offs between the two nations' coastguards.

The ongoing Japanese drill has irritated Beijing, where local media said there was no doubt it was targeting China.

The Global Times newspaper, which is close to the ruling Communist Party, reported on its front page Thursday that Japan's decision to bring the missiles to Miyako was "an unprecedented move that experts say is targeted at blocking the Chinese navy".

"The missile deployment is mainly set against China and it can pose real threats to the Chinese navy," Li Jie, an expert on China's navy, told the paper.

Beijing's military, through state media, has accused Tokyo of interfering in Chinese live-fire drills in the Pacific last month, an allegation that Japan denied.

Ties between Japan and China, which are routinely strained by unresolved historical grievances, have deteriorated in recent years, with emotional nationalism fanning the flames of the territorial dispute. -AFP

Russian boy seventh victim of Thai ferry accident

Posted:

BANGKOK: A 12-year-old Russian boy died Thursday from injuries sustained in a Thai tourist ferry disaster, raising the death toll to seven, police said.

The double-decker boat went down on Sunday near the popular coastal resort of Pattaya, around 150 kilometres (100 miles) southeast of Bangkok.

A Polish couple, a man from Hong Kong and three Thai passengers also died.

The Russian boy, who had been in critical condition, died in a hospital in the nearby city of Si Racha on Thursday, Pattaya police commander Colonel Suwarn Chiewnawintawat said by telephone.

"There are three other people in hospital but they are out of danger," he added.

Staff at the hospital where the boy was being treated said he never regained consciousness and developed respiratory problems and swelling of the brain.

Survivors recounted scrambling for life jackets as water poured on board, forcing them to the upper deck where the boat became unstable before sinking rapidly.

The cause of the accident remains unknown but the co-owner of the boat's operator has said the ferry might have hit a rock or other object, ripping a hole in its hull.

The boat captain has been charged with causing death through negligence. The incident has revived fears over safety standards in the kingdom, which drew a record 22 million tourists last year. -AFP

Kredit: www.thestar.com.my

The Star Online: World Updates

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The Star Online: World Updates

Radical reds upset South Africa's political colour balance
South Koreans cram for dream jobs at Samsung
Police detain man over bombings in north China city

Radical reds upset South Africa's political colour balance

Posted:

BEKKERSDAL, South Africa (Reuters) - Colour has always been central to South African politics, but now, nearly 20 years after the end of apartheid, the tint of your T-shirt matters as much as that of your skin.

While the yellow, green and black of the ruling African National Congress (ANC) remains dominant, it is the bright red of an ultra-leftist party founded by expelled ANC youth leader Julius Malema that is making the big splash.

With the silver-tongued Malema's Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) only 100 days old and untested by any opinion poll, it is hard to say precisely how much impact they will have on next year's elections in Africa's biggest economy.

But the garish shirts and red Che Guevara-style berets popping up in the sprawling townships and shanty towns of Johannesburg and Pretoria suggest the Fighters, as they like to be known, will make their mark in the first election for the 'Born Free' generation - voters born after apartheid ended in 1994.

The anger of the millions of blacks for whom life has changed little in the two decades since the end of white-minority rule has provide fertile hunting ground, and any EFF success is almost certain to be at the expense of the ANC, which won two thirds of the vote in the last election in 2009.

"We are recruiting people every day," said Happy Lefekane, a 39-year-old EFF activist in Bekkersdal, a run-down township 40 km (25 miles) west of Johannesburg which experienced a week of rioting last month over shoddy public services.

Although township riots are common - one major "service delivery protest" happens every two days, according to monitoring group Municipal IQ - the Bekkersdal uprising was notable for its intensity and explicit rejection of the ANC.

When provincial premier Nomvula Mokonyane went to try and calm the crowd, she made matters worse by telling them the ANC did not need Bekkersdal's "dirty votes". She had to be rescued from the mob and drive out in a police armoured vehicle.

To the EFF activists feeding off the public frustration at the ANC's perceived failings - corruption, inefficiency and arrogance - it was a gift.

"Nomvula has opened up a can of worms. She is the best recruiting agent we've got," Lefekane told Reuters. "We don't want her apology. We want radical change."

Ominously, at the height of the unrest 20-year-old EFF activist Themba Khumalo was shot dead outside his tin shack by unknown gunmen. No arrests have been made but Khumalo's friends are in little doubt he died because of the colour of his beret.

"The ANC people are the ones who started this," said EFF activist Ruth Mogatwe, 30, at a wake held for Khumalo a week later. "There's no proof but I think they're the ones who killed the guy."

The ANC denies it resorts to political violence and has called for tolerance and "good behaviour" from its members.

MALEMA THE MILITANT

Malema, who holds up Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe as a political model for his seizure of white-owned farms, was kicked out of the ANC 18 months ago, officially for ill-discipline - unofficially for challenging President Jacob Zuma.

The 32-year-old quickly found a political lifeline in the police killing of 34 strikers at Lonmin's Marikana mine in August last year, an incident that brought comparisons with the Sharpeville massacre by apartheid security forces in 1960.

Cashing in on simmering worker discontent in the mines, which are still overwhelmingly owned and run by whites, and on public outrage at the shootings, Malema formed a party with an unashamedly populist message to take on the ANC from the left.

It formally launched - at Marikana - on October 13.

"The Economic Freedom Fighters is a radical and militant economic emancipation movement," its website declares, outlining expropriation of land and nationalisation of the mines and banks without compensation as central policies.

It says it has no major financial backers and funds itself through small donations and wholesaling party regalia. It also declines to release membership numbers.

The mainstream dismisses the EFF as sloganeers, but the raw promise of change - irrespective of the ability to deliver it - has struck a chord with blacks fed up with waiting in dead-end townships for houses, jobs and sewers that never arrive.

"The EFF will take voters from the ANC's populist flank," said political analyst William Gumede of Wits Business School in Johannesburg. "On a very good day, if they can get their voters out, they might get 8 percent nationally. But it could be anywhere from 1 percent to 8 percent."

Independent political consultant Nic Borain also admits that forecasting the EFF vote is pure conjecture, but his estimates are rising and now stand at 3-5 percent.

More social unrest and they could rise further.

"Malema et al are preternaturally good at identifying issues to maximise mobilisation and are excellent at 'flying picket' type organisation," Borain said.

"If they get moving, they might just take off."

ANC FACES PRESSURE

Having won nearly 66 percent of the vote in the last elections in 2009, there seems no prospect of the ANC losing its majority next year after two decades of a steady hand on the economic tiller and a broadly pro-business policy agenda.

However, its share has been waning ever since the euphoria of Nelson Mandela's accession to power in 1994, and if it polls below 60 percent, the knives will be out for Zuma, whose five years in office have been marked by scandal, feeble growth and a good deal of social unrest.

The broadening appeal of the Democratic Alliance (DA), the main opposition party, has been nibbling at the ANC in the centre, but it is the sudden arrival of the EFF on the left flank that has ramped up the chances of an ANC bloody nose.

Whereas frustrated blacks have always moaned about the ANC in the run-up to previous elections, on voting day it has always been a leap too far to vote for the DA, still seen as the party of white privilege.

The EFF carries no such race-tinged baggage, and at Bekkersdal and other protests it has demonstrated a canny knack for grass-roots organisation and keeping itself in the limelight.

This week's defection to the Fighters of high-profile ANC lawyer Dali Mpofu has even stirred speculation the EFF might lure "Mother of the Nation" Winnie Mandela, former wife of Nelson. She emerged as a heavy-hitting Malema backer in his internal party struggle with Zuma.

But the ANC denies it fears bleeding votes or members to the EFF, saying other new parties have come and gone since the advent of democracy with no meaningful dent to its popularity.

"When people vote, they vote for physical change, for improvement of their lives," spokesman Keith Khoza said. "They don't vote for people who just shout slogans. They vote for people who have what it takes to change their lives."

(Editing by Alastair Macdonald)

South Koreans cram for dream jobs at Samsung

Posted:

BUSAN, South Korea (Reuters) - In a cram school in the South Korean port city of Busan, 70 college students packed into a classroom, chanting "We can do it!" as they studied for an exam they hope will guarantee them a job for life with Samsung Group.

The promise of Samsung, whose sprawling business empire spans consumer electronics to ships, offers not only a good salary and benefits but also holds the key to a good marriage in this Asian country where Confucian traditions run deep.

The twice-a-year recruitment rounds by the "chaebol", conglomerates such as Samsung and Hyundai, have spawned a cottage industry worth millions of dollars as young Koreans do what they have done from the age of 5 - cram to get ahead.

"I came here at 10 this morning and will be preparing for the interview until 8 p.m.," said 25-year-old Shin Seong-hwan, whose father is a Samsung employee near Busan.

Shin has already passed the company's aptitude test and now faces gruelling interviews that end late in November.

In its current recruitment round, Samsung will hire 5,500 young people from more than 100,000 applicants, adding to the pressure cooker environment.

"Jobs at conglomerates can save face for you and your parents," said Hur Jai-joon, a senior researcher at the Korea Labor Institute, a government-funded research body.

It is an impossible dream for most to achieve as the top 30 conglomerates employ just 6.8 percent of the total workforce, the Federation of Korean Industries says.

Samsung has not always used such rigorous tests. Thirty years ago, according to former employees, a fortune teller who specialised in reading faces sat in on the interviews.

Now, spots at the top conglomerate are so coveted that students spend heavily on cram schools, workbooks and online lectures. The phrase "Samsung Gosi" describes the arduous process, borrowing from the term "gosi" that refers to public service exams that South Koreans study for years to pass.

"If you don't come here, you won't have the right information," said Im Chan-soo, head of LCS Communication, which runs private classes for Samsung job interviews in Busan.

'SOCIAL AND FINANCIAL COSTS'

Aptitude test workbooks cost around $20 each and figure prominently in every bookstore in South Korea. Private tutoring costs can run into thousands of dollars.

"I had doubts about going to cram school. It wasn't cheap but they are professional and I am learning a lot," said Han Nam-gyu, a 27-year-old engineering graduate who paid 280,000 won ($260) to LCS Communication.

Critics of the system say it adds yet another layer of misery for graduates, who have crammed from pre-school all the way through high school to try to get into a top university.

In South Korea, 65 percent of those in the 25 to 34 age group went to university, the highest rate among the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development's 34 member states.

That is a huge shift in a generation. Just 13 percent of people in the 55 to 64 age group went to university.

Samsung appears to recognise that the super-competitive process may not be healthy for the country's young people, warning recently of rising "social and financial costs" of the recruitment system. Still, it did not identify a solution.

For many students like Han the engineer, "Plan B" is to come back again next year for another shot at Samsung.

"My mother cried after I passed the second stage. She was really happy," said Han, who applied to Samsung C&T Corp, the group firm that handles engineering, construction, trading and investment.

"I want to get into Samsung so my mother will be able to boast about her son." ($1=1,060.75 Korean won)

(Editing by David Chance and John O'Callaghan and Clarence Fernandez)

Police detain man over bombings in north China city

Posted:

BEIJING (Reuters) - Chinese police have detained a man in connection with several small bombs that exploded in front of a Communist Party building in the northern Chinese city of Taiyuan earlier this week, state media reported on Friday.

The suspect is Feng Zhijun, 41, who had previously spent nine years in prison for theft, according to state media.

"Police found home-made explosive devices at his residence, and a large amount of evidence of his crimes," state television said on its official microblog. "Feng Zhijun fully confessed to the evidence of his crimes."

Police caught him early on Friday, it added, without providing other details.

Wednesday's bombings killed one person and wounded eight, according to state media reports.

Such incidents are not uncommon in China and underscore the government's worries about stability in the world's second-largest economy, with a widening gap between rich and poor and growing anger at corruption and environmental issues.

The Chinese government blamed Islamists for an attack in central Beijing last week when a car ploughed through bystanders on the edge of Tiananmen Square and burst into flames, killing three people in the car and two bystanders.

The incidents come as China ramps up security before top leaders gather on Saturday for a plenum meeting in Beijing to discuss key reforms.

In 2011, a farmer bombed three government buildings in Fuzhou city in Jiangxi province after failing to get redress over seizure of his land. Two people and the farmer were killed.

A 42-year-old farmer with terminal lung cancer detonated a home-made device aboard a bus in Fujian province in 2005, wounding 31 and killing himself, possibly to protest prohibitive healthcare costs.

(Reporting by Adam Rose; Editing by Ben Blanchard and Jeremy Laurence)

Kredit: www.thestar.com.my

The Star Online: Business

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The Star Online: Business

All that Twitter is gold or tech bubble?
Twitter and the coming crisis
China's troubled solar panel makers see the light, on farms

All that Twitter is gold or tech bubble?

Posted:

NEW YORK/SAN FRANCISCO: Twitter Inc shares jumped 73% in a frenzied trading debut that drove the seven-year-old company's market value to around US$25bil and evoked the heady days of the dot-com bubble.

The strong performance on Thursday is encouraging for the venture capitalists who have backed other consumer Web startups, such as Square or Pinterest, though it sounded alarm bells for some investors.

"@twitter opening at $45/share? Almost 50x revenues! We are officially in another tech bubble," tweeted financier and investment advisor Steve Rattner.

The stock closed its first day of trade on the New York Stock Exchange at US$44.90 a share after hitting a session-high of US$50, nearly double the initial public offering price of US$26 set late on Wednesday.

Twitter could raise US$2.1bil if an underwriters' over-allotment is exercised, as expected, making it the second largest Internet offering in the US behind Facebook Inc's US$16bil IPO last year and ahead of Google Inc's 2004 IPO, according to Thomson Reuters data.

Fans believe that Twitter, which has 230 million users, has established itself as an indispensable Internet utility alongside Google and Facebook, and that it has only scratched the surface of its potential as a global advertising medium.

"When people use Twitter they are following certain people, they're searching for specific information," said Mark Mahaney, an analyst at RBC Capital Markets. "There are powerful marketing signals that are almost Google-esque, something that Facebook doesn't really have."

The IPO was shadowed for months by Facebook's troubled 2012 debut, in which the shares quickly fell below their offering price amid trading glitches and subjected the company and its lead banker, Morgan Stanley, to accusations that they had been greedy in pricing the deal.

Twitter's opening appeared to go off without a hitch, prompting Anthony Noto, the Goldman Sachs banker who led the IPO, to write a simple Tweet: "Phew!"

Still, Twitter may find itself subject to the opposite criticism, that it had priced the shares too low and left more than a billion dollars on the table.

"In my mind they certainly could've raised the price on this thing and gone into the low 30s," said Ken Polcari, director of the NYSE floor division at O'Neil Securities. "From an outsider looking in, I would say they were overly cautious because they didn't want a disaster on their hands ... I'm sure the company didn't want a Facebook debacle. I get that, but I think they were overly cautious and it cost them some money."

The 70 million IPO shares represent about 13% of the company's common shares. Twitter was the most actively traded stock on Thursday, with around 117 million shares changing hands.

Heavy demand for the IPO was apparent before the final pricing. Twitter was able to price the IPO above an already raised indicative range, and the deal still attracted investor subscriptions that totaled 30 times the number of shares on offer, according to market sources.

IN SAN FRANCISCO

At Twitter's headquarters in San Francisco, offices opened early and hundreds of employees flocked to the 9th floor cafeteria to watch the festivities on TV while eating "cronuts," a croissant-donut hybrid, made by Twitter's resident chef, Lance Holton.

The IPO is the latest milestone for a service that was born out of a nearly-defunct startup in 2006 and was derided by many in its early years as a silly fad dominated by people talking about what they had for breakfast.

But Twitter quickly began to penetrate popular culture in unexpected ways, with its open design and broadcasting format attracting celebrities, athletes, politicians and anybody who wanted to share short, punchy thoughts with a digital audience.

Its business potential developed more slowly, and the company appeared to be floundering as recently as three years ago, when it was riven by management turmoil and frequently crippled by service outages.

Under Dick Costolo, who took over as CEO in October 2010, Twitter has rapidly ramped up its money-making engine by selling "promoted tweets," messages from marketers that are distributed to a wide-ranging but targeted group of users. In the third quarter, Twitter had US$168 million in revenue, it said, more than double from a year prior.

The NYSE, which snatched the listing away from its tech-focused rival, Nasdaq, marked Twitter's debut with an enormous banner with the company's blue bird logo along its Broad Street facade.

British actor Patrick Stewart, of Star Trek fame, rang the opening bell at the Big Board together with nine-year-old Vivienne Harr, who started a charity to end childhood slavery using the microblogging site.

"I guess I represent the poster boy for Twitter," Stewart said, who had only been tweeting for about a year.

Costolo and Twitter's three co-founders – Evan Williams, Biz Stone and Jack Dorsey – appeared on the packed exchange floor.

At current valuations, the stakes owned by Williams and Dorsey would be worth around US$2.7bil and US$1.1bil, respectively. Costolo, who invested US$25,000 in the fledgling company in 2007, holds a 1.4% stake worth about US$360mil.

SELL RATING

Investor enthusiasm for the microblogging company defied traditional valuation analyses. The shares traded at about 22 times forecast 2014 sales, nearly double the multiple at social media rivals Facebook and LinkedIn Corp, even though Twitter is far from turning a profit and posted a loss of almost US$70 million for its most recent quarter.

The hefty valuations were cause for celebration for Twitter insiders and venture capital backers, such as Union Square Ventures, Spark Capital and Benchmark Capital.

But some analysts warned that a correction may be in store.

"With a price that pushes into the high 30s and beyond, Twitter is simply too expensive," Pivotal Research's Brian Wieser wrote in a note cutting his rating on the stock to "sell" from "buy".

"One way to justify a US$45 price in our model would involve presuming that Twitter could generate more than US$6bn in annual revenue by 2018. However, we think that would seem overly optimistic."

Fund managers who got small allocations at the IPO were hopeful the stock would trade down after Thursday's pop.

"We have a target of $40 and we won't buy more as long as it is trading above that," said Mark Hawtin, portfolio manager of the GAM Star Technology Strategy.

Jerry Jordan, manager of the US$48.6mil Jordan Opportunity Fund, who got a small allocation, said he would buy more of Twitter if it trades down around US$30-US$35.

"A lot of these sexy IPOs have a big pop on the first day and then they grind sideways," Jordan said.

INTERNATIONAL GROWTH

As Twitter's stock soared after the opening, the company's market value, including restricted share units and other securities that could be exercised in the coming months, was over $28 billion.

The company said in its investor prospectus that more than three-quarters of its users are outside the US. Some of its most active markets now include Japan, Indonesia, Brazil and Saudi Arabia.

The fast-moving, mobile service was credited with fuelling popular protests that upended the Arab world in 2011. It served as a lifeline to the outside world for its users during natural disasters like Hurricane Sandy, and also instantly relayed news such as early rumblings of the 2011 US raid on Osama bin Laden's compound in Pakistan.

"Twitter has, when coupled with the increasing distribution of smartphones and reach of the Internet, an impact on global connectivity and transparency," said P.J. Crowley, the former US State Department spokesman. "It has definitely contributed to the acceleration of the news process and helped to expand the availability of information sources to a wide range of people."

The three most-followed accounts belong to a trio of pop stars: Katy Perry, Justin Bieber and Lady Gaga. U.S. President Barack Obama comes in fourth.

The 140-character messages have spawned an Internet culture of its own. The "hashtag," a pound symbol devised by early Twitter users to denote the topic of a conversation, has became ubiquitous, with the word even becoming an ironic expression parodied by the likes of Saturday Night Live.

Twitter's successful debut is likely to stoke interest in other up-and-coming consumer Internet companies such as ride service Uber, scrapbooking site Pinterest, accommodation service Airbnb and the payment start-up Square, all of which boast private-market valuations well north of a billion dollars and could go public in the coming years.

Kevin Hartz, CEO of Eventbrite and an early investor in Pinterest and Airbnb, said the IPO floodgates might open now.

"The pendulum is swinging back in a surprising way," Hartz said. "There's a pent-up supply of a lot of quality companies."

Still, two early social media success stories, Groupon Inc and Zynga Inc, have suffered major reversals since going public. Groupon, despite big gains in its shares this year, still trades at less than half its 2011 IPO price. Zynga is worth about a third of its 2012 IPO price.

And first-generation social media firms such as MySpace have all but vanished as fickle users moved on to the next big thing – Reuters.

Twitter and the coming crisis

Posted:

NEW YORK: The bad news is: we are going to have another crisis.

The good news is that by then promoted messages on Twitter will make it easy to find bankruptcy attorneys.

Yes, this was the week that Twitter went public at a stratospheric valuation and the Federal Reserve, in two papers, set the stage for yet more aggressive monetary policy.

Those events are linked, of course, and though it may take a while, both will bear some bitter fruit.

Twitter, a great but overvalued company, is likely to ultimately disappoint investors. That may well happen when an overly confident and aggressive Fed finally gets its comeuppance. Or rather gets the latest in a repeating series of comeuppances.

First, let's look at Twitter, which opened at US$45.10 per share, 73% above its IPO price. That put its market cap at about US$32bil, or 53 times sales, making it the most expensive single technology stock on a price-to-sales basis.

Even if we forecast stupendous growth, this is a stock which will struggle in the next couple of years to produce sufficient profit to justify even current pricing.

Not only is it considerably more expensive than Facebook and Linkedin, for the US$32bil you could buy cereal maker Kellogg and semiconductor company Advanced Micro Devices, and have another $10 billion or so to play with.

I can't shake the feeling that technology shares are suffering from, for want of a better phrase, irrational exuberance.

You never get a bubble without a good story, and rarely without some earth-shaking change in technology, but it also helps if you have one more thing: loose monetary policy.

That we have, in abundance. Judging from the noises coming out of the Fed, we may well soon be about to make a great leap forward in radical monetary policy.

FORWARD GUIDANCE AND TOTAL CREDIBILITY

Two significant papers by Fed economists were released in conjunction with a conference this week.

The one which got the most attention, by William B. English, J. David Lopez-Salido and Robert J. Tetlow, argued that the Fed can cause unemployment to drop more quickly by pledging to hold interest rates pinned to zero for longer than they do now. (http://www.federalreserve.gov/pubs/feds/2013/201376/201376abs.html)

Called forward guidance, this is a policy under which the Fed simply tells the market what it will do and waits for the market to duly reprice credit in response.

The paper argues that the Fed could use a lower unemployment threshold for rate rises than its current 6.5%, perhaps 5.5%.

But will investors genuinely believe a forward commitment by the Fed, or any other central bank, for that matter?

"Forward guidance is a stupid academic fantasy grabbed by those who wish to escape making real policy," former Bank of England policymaker Adam Posen said on Twitter.

"Cheap talk is not credible, especially given uncertainty and committees."

(Yes, I do see how perfect it is that policy is being panned on the genuinely wonderful but overpriced Twitter on the day of its IPO, which Fed policy helped make so successful.)

And though markets are not behaving as if the Fed will be looser for longer, I have my doubts about how much they will believe it when they pledge to become less loose.

The second paper, by David Reifschneider, William W. Wascher and David Wilcox, posits that following a damaging crisis, a central bank might do less damage to the economy by fomenting a second crisis by holding rates low than by raising them to avoid a bubble and bust. (http://www.imf.org/external/np/res/seminars/2013/arc/pdf/wilcox.pdf)

This paper centres on the concept of "optimal control" – essentially specifying what you will tolerate as a central banker in terms of inflation, unemployment and other variables, and then making assumptions about how policy and the economy will interact.

This is, significantly, a technique which has been approvingly cited by Fed chief-to-be Janet Yellen in the past.

Again, this only works if, first, people believe the Fed will do what it says it will, and, second, that the Fed is actually good at forecasting and understands how the economy works.

Neither point is believable.

It is impossible to know if this is simply musing, or if this represents an evolution of thought at the center of the Fed. Nor can we know how successful Yellen might be at pushing forward guidance and lower target unemployment as policy.

What seems clear – and you only need look at Twitter to see it – is that the markets believe that monetary policy will be good for risk assets.

Two financial busts in 13 years apparently aren't enough – Reuters.

China's troubled solar panel makers see the light, on farms

Posted:

HONG KONG: China's loss-making solar panel makers believe they may have found a way out of their nightmare – by becoming one-stop renewable energy shops with their own solar farms.

Manufacturers of solar panels, hit hard by the scaling back of solar-power subsidies in Europe, are taking advantage of a new package of government subsidies at home and diversifying into solar-power generation.

In an apparent bid to prop up its ailing solar panel sector that has been hit by overcapacity, as well as price and trade wars, Beijing unveiled a plan in July to quadruple solar generating capacity to 35 gigawatts (GW) by 2015. Construction costs are estimated at US$50bil.

Spurred by a package of initiatives from tariffs to tax breaks, and continued low panel prices due to global oversupply, many of the country's panel makers are now looking to invest in solar farms to help return to profitability, industry officials say.

"Definitely the trend is Chinese manufacturers will make more downstream investment," said a senior official at Chinese solar panel maker Canadian Solar. "Now the domestic market seems to be particularly exciting."

For manufacturers, generating projects mean a predictable source of demand for their panels. Manufacturers are still mostly losing money, although panel shipment has improved this year on orders from China, Japan and the US.

Solar plant development is a more lucrative business. They offer an annual gross return of around 10%, depending on the proportion of debt financing and project location.

As solar panel prices tumbled following the 2008 global financial crisis, many Chinese wafer, cell or modules makers, like GCL Poly, Canadian Solar and Hareon ventured into solar power generation projects at home or abroad to offset manufacturing losses.

Overseas rivals such as SunPower and First Solar Inc, have also diversified into the higher-margin business as solar panel prices remain weak.

SHUNFENG EXPANDS CAPACITY

China's panel makers, among the world's biggest producers, were lured back home this year by the government's plans to expand the solar power producing industry. The policies have set off a scramble by the likes of state power producers China Huaneng Group and China Merchants New Energy Group as well as manufacturers like Shunfeng, Yingli Green and JA Solar .

JA Solar said in August it planned to develop 300MW of generating projects in northern China's Hebei province, in what its CEO Jin Baofang said was a major step "to increase the role project development plays in our overall revenue mix".

Shunfeng Photovoltaic, a small Chinese solar cell maker listed in Hong Kong, has said it will enter agreements to develop 1,079MW of solar power projects and have 600MW in operation or under construction by the end of 2013.

To ramp up its own manufacturing capacity aimed at catering for the expansion of its solar generation business, Shunfeng last week announced a plan to purchase the main unit of Chinese solar maker Suntech Power.

Shunfeng has offered 3 billion yuan (US$492mil) to take over bigger rival Wuxi Suntech, the bankrupt unit of Suntech Power. Wuxi Suntech filed for bankruptcy protection in March, after its parent defaulted on a US$541mil convertible bond – one of the biggest defaults by a Chinese company.

The deal could increase Shunfeng's solar cell capacity by five times to over 2,000MW.

Analysts warn of financial, regulatory and technical risks. Previous investments in Chinese projects have been hurt by issues like delays in subsidy payments and poor infrastructure.

Like their overseas peers, Chinese panel makers may eventually spin off their power plants by listing them or selling them to funds and insurers to take profit and alleviate potential funding strains, analysts say. China's top 10 solar makers have 100 billion yuan in debt, with an asset to debt ratio above 70% on average, state media say.

"What we may see is an increased level of listings and spin-offs into Hong Kong and elsewhere to try to build up some sort of vehicles to house these type of assets," said an energy banker at an international bank – Reuters.

Kredit: www.thestar.com.my

The Star Online: Entertainment: Movies

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The Star Online: Entertainment: Movies

The Desolation Of Smaug has a song
War is child’s play
People's Choice Awards nominees

The Desolation Of Smaug has a song

Posted:

Peter Jackson reveals a track from his upcoming film, written and sung by Ed Sheeran.

OVER the past few weeks, New Zealand filmmaker Peter Jackson has been pretty busy releasing posters, trailers, exclusive behind-the-scenes clips and pictures of his upcoming movie, The Hobbit: The Desolation Of Smaug.

Some days ago, he introduced seven character posters of Bilbo, Thranduil, Thorin, Gandalf, Legolas, Tauriel and Bard.

Early yesterday, Jackson and a few cast members – namely Richard Armitage, Orlando Bloom, Evangeline Lilly, Lee Pace, Luke Evans and Andy Serkis – held a live online presentation that took place simultaneously in London, New York, Los Angeles and Wellington (New Zealand), where he resides.

A few hours after that, he put up this new poster (pic) on his Facebook and Twitter pages, which sees all the seven characters in one frame.

And then, early this morning, Jackson gave fans a chance to listen to a brand new track By Ed Sheeran that will be played as the end credits roll in the movie. There's no official word yet whether the song, I See Fire, will be deemed the movie's theme song, but in his Facebook post, Jackson says this: "We have a tradition in our Tolkien films of having a song over the closing credits.

"It's very important that the song feels right for the world of the movie – and also carries the emotional resonance of the end of that particular film. The Desolation Of Smaug is no different. The ending of this film requires a voice and sensibility that will allow an viewer to process what they have just experienced."

Jackson also talks about how his daughter Katie introduced him to the music of talented young British singer-songwriter Ed Sheeran earlier in the year.

Then, a few weeks ago, while trying to figure out who best to commission for the end credit track, Katie suggested Sheeran, to which Jackson and his wife/producing partner Fran Walsh agreed.

"Ed watched the movie at Park Road Post, immediately went into a room, and started writing and singing. Much of what you will hear on this song was recorded that same day, with a few overdubs and tweaks the following day," shares Jackson of the rough-cut video.

He adds that Sheeran also played the violin in the video, "despite having never played the violin in his life," says the director. The Hobbit: The Desolation Of Smaug music engineer Pete Cobbin coincidentally was around to finish up on Howard Shore's musical scores, so he lent a hand in mixing Sheeran's song.

"It was a great experience, and what you will see in this video are moments captured by our behind the scenes team during the creation of the song. But the images are only supporting Ed's wonderful song. This is his direct emotional response to seeing The Desolation Of Smaug, written and performed on the same day he saw the movie," Jackson concludes.

> I See Fire is now available for pre-order on iTunes

Related story:

New 'Desolation Of Smaug' posters

War is child’s play

Posted:

A boy with a brilliant mind learns to lead an army in Ender's Game.

WRITTEN almost three decades ago, Ender's Game remains ever relevant today to both adults and children. Author Orson Scott Card uses science fiction and fantasy as a platform to write about issues on two ends of the spectrum (bullying and leadership), while never letting his readers forget the ultimate issue, the consequences of war.

Now, the book – which has captured the hearts and imagination of millions of readers around the world – has been made into a movie starring Asa Butterfield, Harrison Ford, Hailee Steinfeld and Viola Davis. In the film, the story is told from the point of view of 12-year-old Ender Wiggins (Asa) who was conceived to serve in an impending war with an alien nation that tried to conquer Earth before. (In the book he is much younger; in the film Asa looks older than 12.)

Once Ender is recognised as possessing the qualities the military requires – a brilliant tactical mind and an extraordinary gift for calculating winning outcomes – he must attend Battle School, which is located in space.

There, he must hone his skills so he can become Earth's ultimate leader and warrior. Since he and his fellow soldiers are all children, the training mostly has them playing different kinds of games, including one in a giant zero-gravity space.

Ender soon learns that his lesson never stops even for a moment as he often finds himself in a corner, no thanks to his colleagues or his superiors; and even in the games he must constantly persevere and find a way out.

What makes this character so enduring is perhaps how he reacts to these tough situations. What also puts him above his peers is his preternatural understanding of his enemies.

With so many levels of psychological and physical elements in the book – not to mention the sci-fi – the material is definitely ripe for film.

In the production notes of the film, provided by GSC Movies, Linda McDonough – one of the producers – said that she was struck by the intelligence and perceptiveness of a story about a gifted boy thrust into the single-minded world of military training. "It's a compelling story that inspires important discussions about leadership, conflict, resolution and empathy."

For director Gavin Hood, the story of Ender's Game provided him with a chance to transport audiences to a future world that asks questions our present selves are grappling with. Hood elaborated on one of the questions: "Is real leadership the exercise of brutal authority in order to get people to do what you want, or is it more about drawing them in to get the best out of them? Ender is struggling with these questions throughout the film."

Since the core of the film revolves around an extraordinary young boy, it was crucial to find an actor who could convey the weight that Ender is carrying and all the inner conflict he is feeling. Producer Lynn Hendee noted: "The book's millions of fans have been projecting themselves into the character for years. People who love the book see themselves in him and it was crucial for the story that we allow them to continue to do that."

A worldwide search found Asa, who has appeared in films like Hugo, The Boy In The Striped Pajamas and Son Of Rainbow. Hood said of Asa: "When we found Asa, it was like a light bulb went on. Asa is mature beyond his years, genuinely kind, compassionate, intelligent and everything else we needed for Ender.

"The character is amazingly complicated in terms of both intellect and empathy. The biggest challenge was how to preserve his spirit. Asa does that superbly."

Asa Butterfield in Ender's Game.

According to Asa, Ender's Game was his favourite script among the scripts he received. The now 16-year-old actor said: "Kid saves the world and fights in zero-gravity – what more could you want? I knew it would be an exciting and fun shoot."

Another plus to Ender's Game is that it has put Harrison Ford back in outer space. He plays Colonel Hyrum Graff, the commander of the Battle School, the man who recruited Ender into the programme. Ford was intrigued by the complexity of the character and the responsibilities he bears.

"His job is to win this war for humanity. Failure is not an option. Graff uses extremely young people to fight the war because their minds operate at a higher speed and deal with a tremendous amount of technology and input without getting frazzled."

Despite all the heavy themes, Hood said Ender's Game has a good balance between the entertainment value and moral issues of the story. The director concluded: "One of the great things about Ender's Game is its amazing ability to feed you both visually and emotionally."

> Ender's Game opens in cinemas nationwide tomorrow.

People's Choice Awards nominees

Posted:

Glee, Sandra Bullock and Katy Perry among those with most nominations.

Television musical series Glee led the nominees for the annual fan-voted People's Choice Awards, while actress Sandra Bullock and pop singers Katy Perry and Justin Timberlake each scored five nominations.

Fox's Glee picked up eight nominations for the only Hollywood awards show covering film, music and television that is voted solely by the public. The People's Choice Awards ceremony, set for Jan 8 in Los Angeles, kicks off the Hollywood awards season, which culminates with the coveted Academy Awards – or Oscars – on March 2 next year.

The People's Choice winners are chosen by fans, who can vote online across 58 categories spanning film, TV and music starting this Thursday through Dec 5.

Glee scored nominations for best network TV comedy, while its stars Chris Colfer, Darren Criss, Jane Lynch and Lea Michele each won nominations in the comedy acting categories.

Fan recognition for Glee comes four months after series star Cory Monteith died from a heroin and alcohol overdose in Vancouver, Canada, causing a delay in production. Glee bid farewell to Monteith and his character in a sombre episode last month.

The series also picked up nominations for the awards show's more off-beat accolades, including favourite TV "bromance", favourite TV "gal pals" and favourite on-screen chemistry.

Bullock won nominations for best movie actress, best dramatic actress, best comedic actress as well as two nominations for top movie duo for her roles in outer-space drama Gravity with George Clooney and buddy-cop comedy The Heat with Melissa McCarthy.

Justin Timberlake (right) with Ben Affleck in Runner, Runner. Timberlake has five nominations in the People's Choice Awards.

Perry picked up her nods for best female music artiste, pop artiste, and favourite music fan following. Her song Roar was nominated for best song and music video. Pop singer Justin Timberlake, who released his album The 20/20 Experience in two instalments this year after a five-year music hiatus, also earned five nods including top male music artiste, pop artiste, R&B artiste, best album and best song for Mirrors.

Action films Fast & Furious 6, Iron Man 3 and Star Trek Into Darkness along with animated features Despicable Me 2 and Monsters University were nominated for favourite movie. Jennifer Aniston, Robert Downey Jr, Hugh Jackman, Melissa McCarthy and Channing Tatum each picked up three nods in the acting categories.

The awards show will be broadcast on CBS in the United States and hosted by Beth Behrs and Kat Dennings, stars of the CBS comedy series 2 Broke Girls. Organisers said more than 160 million votes were cast to select this year's nominees for the awards, which is in its 40th year. — Reuters

Kredit: www.thestar.com.my

The Star Online: Lifestyle: Bookshelf

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The Star Online: Lifestyle: Bookshelf

Mastering the Art of Soviet Cooking

Posted:

A masterful look at Soviet history through a cook's eyes.

FOR more than 30 years, I have had the honour of baking with many Russians. Of the many cultures I've worked with, no group has been more connected to their food. Since the fall of the Soviet Union, several cookbooks have been released that illustrate how to prepare Russian fare, but until now there has not been a volume that captures the spirit of the people who do the cooking.

Anya von Bremzen

Anya von Bremzen has done that with Mastering the Art of Soviet Cooking: A Memoir of Food and Longing. Though she has written numerous books, this current work serves as a companion to her 1990 award-winning cookbook, Please to the Table, an almanac-sized resource that contains hundreds of recipes spanning 11 time zones and 15 former Soviet Republics. For those of us immersed in Russian cuisine (at Saint Agnes Bakery in St. Paul, Minnesota, where I work, we prepare all manner of Russian breads and pastries), this recent project makes her Russia's answer to Betty Crocker.

Mastering the Art of Soviet Cooking is presented as a tragi-comic memoir of feasts, famines and three generations, but for me it's more like a collection of fantastic stories that you hear only when sitting on a bar stool or in a church pew.

The template for her latest work is unorthodox. Each chapter starts off with Von Bremzen and her mother in a small apartment kitchen, trying to replicate meals that pay tribute to the memories of the Soviet era, decade by decade. They long ago emigrated from the Soviet Union to the United States. In most instances, these kitchen sessions segue into accounts of Soviet history, where Von Bremzen uses her family as ambassadors who walk us across a time line that spans an entire century. We hear stories about crowded communal apartments and kitchens, about drinking rituals and the nation's cookbook, The Book of Tasty and Healthy Food. And we hear about food shortages and famine.

Her mother, Larisa, sets a dark tone when describing Stalinist Moscow in the 30s. By the 70s, we visit the Ministry of Health's Mausoleum Research lab, where Von Bremzen's father worked with a team of 150, whose sole responsibility was to keep Lenin looking immortal in his tomb.

For the historian, Von Bremzen offers remarkable – and personal – insight about the Cold War, its politics, military strategy and the human suffering that accompanied it. "As the first Soviet generation to grow up without ruptures and trauma – no purges, no war, no cathartic de-Stalinization, we belonged to an age when even cats on the street recognized the State's epic utopian project as farce. We, Brezhnev's grandchildren, played hopscotch on the ruins of idealism," she writes.

Her analysis is enlightening, including one comparing the lines of people at the Lenin mausoleum, at Stalin's funeral and at the American National Exhibit in Sokolniki Park, where babushkas wait for free samples from Pepsi.

In one touching moment, a ban on former citizens is lifted and Von Bremzen and her mother are finally allowed to return home for a visit. Over a dozen years have passed since either of the women has seen Anya's father. The trio's reunion is bittersweet as a new character surfaces.

Her father, Sergei, has taken a new wife, and the conversations that filled his tiny apartment had me smiling at one moment, choked up at the next.

"My insipid childhood watercolours were up on Sergei's walls as if they were Matisses. I noted one particularly anaemic still life. The faux-rustic vase filled with bluebells had been painted by Mom. 'I think he constructed a cult of us after we left,' she hissed in my ear."

Von Bremzen discovered she had become an outsider as she walked through Moscow's most elite financial district and realized her former countrymen were looking at her differently.

Her selection of footwear had given her away. Apparently Moscow might be the one city where Adidas flip-flops don't hold sway.

At the end of the memoir, Von Bremzen takes us back to her kitchen and offers a few recipes from each decade. Russian food preparation is notorious for utilizing multiple stages, techniques and tools in its makeup, and Von Bremzen's notes offer us a taste of history.

There are no recipes for the 1940s, however. In its place is an image of a ration card from Leningrad, where the terrible siege lasted 900 days and claimed a million lives. By the end of that siege, rations were down to 125g a day for citizens and 250g for industrial workers.

"An image like this calls for a moment of silence," Von Bremzen writes. – Star Tribune (Minneapolis) MCT Information Services

Danny Klecko McGleno is CEO of the Saint Agnes Baking Co. in St. Paul. Over the years he has baked and lectured across Russia, from the northern regions of Siberia, to the southern shores of the Black Sea, and many places in between.

Kredit: www.thestar.com.my

The Star Online: Nation

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The Star Online: Nation

Suspected car thief rams police vehicle
Baby in terror ride comes out of coma
PR1MA for more but only in KL

Suspected car thief rams police vehicle

Posted:

IPOH: A suspected car thief rammed into a police car to avoid arrest near a hotel in Jalan Raja DiHilir here.

The suspect, in his 30s, deliberately crashed the Toyota Camry he was driving into the police car and managed to flee from the scene at about 11.30pm on Tuesday.

Police had earlier received a tip-off on a car theft syndicate and sent a team from the Criminal Investigation Department to check, said Perak police chief Senior Deputy Comm Datuk Acryl Sani Abdullah Sani.

"We found four luxury cars, including the Toyota Camry, a Toyota Mark X, a Toyota Vellfire and a BMW 3 Series parked outside the hotel.

Wanted: Lee (left) and Ng.

"Minutes later, a man dashed into the Camry, started the car engine and rammed the vehicle into the police car," he told a press conference here yesterday.

SDCP Acryl Sani said the police fired several shots at the car in an attempt to stop the suspect from fleeing.

The Camry was found in Jalan Yang Kalsom at about 1am yesterday, he said.

At the hotel, the police also found three women from Johor, aged between 24 and 53, in a room.

"They confessed to following several men to Ipoh in the four cars," he said.

SDCP Acryl Sani said all four vehicles were reported stolen and had fake registration number plates.

"We believe the cars were to be shipped out illegally to neighbouring countries," he said, adding that the syndicate had been active since 2010.

The police are looking for Lee Woon Fong, 32, from Pengkalan Indah here and Ng Chee Kuan, 26, from Taman Ungku Tun Aminah, Skudai Johor, to facilitate investigations.

Baby in terror ride comes out of coma

Posted:

KUALA TERENGGANU: The baby who was the victim of a terror ride by a mentally unstable teenager has come out of his coma.

Abdul Pirhat Karim said his son, nine-month-old Ashraf Ikhwan, was in stable condition.

"Thankfully, my son is showing positive signs such as being able to respond and cry. He is also able to drink milk, although the doctor says he can only do so via a tube for now," said Abdul Pirhat, 34.

He added that Ashraf had been in a coma for two days and was transferred from the Intensive Care Unit to the children's ward at the Sultanah Nur Zahirah hospital here.

Ashraf was flung out of the family's MPV which had been taken over by the teenager, who crashed the vehicle along the East Coast Highway here on Monday evening.

Abdul Pirhat sustained a fractured right shoulder while his wife Che Mastura Che Awang, 31, suffered a broken rib.

PR1MA for more but only in KL

Posted:

KUALA LUMPUR: The 1Malaysia Housing Programme (PR1MA) will allow application for its houses to those who already own a house – but only if the buyer is looking for a second one in the city.

Minister in the Prime Minister's Department Datuk Seri Shahidan Kassim said the decision to expand the eligibility to apply for PR1MA houses to such applicants was expected to increase the online application to one million from the current 250,000 applications.

He told reporters at Parliament lobby yesterday that the application would be opened especially to those who already own a house in their states of origin, but had to work in the capital. Before this, PR1MA was for first-time buyers. – Bernama

Kredit: www.thestar.com.my

The Star Online: Metro: Central

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