4/29/2012
4/24/2012
4/23/2012
The 101 year-old marathon runner
Do you remember the Indian-born runner Fauja Singh? (click HERE to go to the article)
The oldest marathon runner in the world, Britain-based Fauja Singh, completed the 42-kilometer Virgin London Marathon on Sunday in a record time of seven hours and 49 minutes.
He announced the London Marathon was his last full marathon because he wants to concentrate on shorter distances and faster times.
The spirited Fauja, originally from India and now settled in London, is not giving up his "only passion left" - running.
"Hats off to the man. I salute the 'Fauja Spirit'. He is an icon! I kept track of him during the London Marathon on Sunday. He got huge attention during the event," said Khushwant, who wrote Fauja's biography "Turbaned Tornado" last year.
Sporting a light-yellow tee shirt of the London-based Sikh organization and wearing contestant vest number 27507, Fauja improved his own time of the 2011 Toronto Marathon, which he finished in over 8 hours.
The London marathon saw Kenya's Wilson Kipsang take the title of the men's elite race with a timing of two hours, four minutes and 44 seconds (2:04:44 hours).
The event, considered the world's largest fundraising event, became tragic when a 30-year-old woman marathoner, Claire Squires collapsed and died after completing 25 miles of the 26-mile race.
In all, Fauja, who turned 101 on April 1, has run eleven full marathons in the last 12 years.
Fauja Singh will probably be part of celebrations to mark 101 years of Taipei in June this year. Sources close to him say if he goes there, he might attempt doing the 'vertical marathon' by climbing 'Taipei 101', one of the tallest buildings in the world.
Born April 1, 1911, age has not been a barrier for him. Fauja, whose name means "soldier", is a one-man army who wants to keep running till he drops.
"I won't stop running till I die. I want to be remembered as the person who ran till the end," Fauja, who has been living in London for the last 16 years, said.
Edited from IBNLive
4/22/2012
Research paper saves scientist from $400 traffic fine
Thanks to a “very unusual combination of circumstances” and a quick set of calculations, a UC San Diego scientist successfully fought a $400 traffic ticket with a four-page research paper.
Dmitri Krioukov, a senior research scientist at UCSD, successfully appealed his failure-to-stop ticket using a physics and math argument that ultimately swayed a San Diego judge.
In the paper, entitled “The Proof of Innocence,” Krioukov offered a series of equations and graphs to show that it was physically impossible for him to have broken the law, as an officer claimed.
The judge was “very, very smart,” Krioukov told The Times. “She got my point, I think, very precisely.”
Krioukov compared the problem to the way a person sees a train approaching from the platform and thinks it is moving slowly, when in fact it is barreling down the track. Using math and physics, Krioukov determined that a car moving at a constant speed can appear to move in the same way as a car that is moving fast but stops for a short time and then accelerates again.
In other words, a car that appears to be moving at a constant speed through a stop sign could have actually stopped at the stop sign, before speeding up again.These calculations, combined with a UCSD building that obstructed the officer’s view of the incident, created what Krioukov diplomatically wrote was an “unfortunate coincidence” in which the officer’s “perception of reality did not properly reflect reality.”
In his interview with The Times, he called the calculations “very simple,” adding that this is “particular physics and math that you can study in high school.”
“All you need to know is classical mechanics and a little bit of geometry,” Krioukov said.
He said the calculations took him about five to 10 minutes but writing the paper took a few hours. Krioukov joked that it was much faster and less expensive to write up the paper and defend himself than to find and pay for a lawyer.
Since the news broke last week, Krioukov has posted his paper online for any motorists who find themselves wrongly accused of failing to stop.
The paper’s abstract reads: “A way to fight your traffic tickets. The paper was awarded a special prize of $400 that the author did not have to pay to the state of California.”
If you want to read Krioukov's paper THE PROOF OF INNOCENCE please click HERE or on the title
4/17/2012
Spain’s Repsol blasts Argentina on oil nationalization plan
MADRID (AP) — Shares of Spanish energy firm Repsol …………….. (fall) sharply Tuesday after Argentina ……………. (unveil) plans to nationalize the company's extensive Argentine oil operations.
Repsol YPF SA president Antonio Brufau ……………. (tell) reporters that the company will mount a legal fight against the plan to seize control of YPF and ……………. (accuse) the Argentine government of ……………. (launch) the move in order to quell rising unrest at home.
Argentine President Cristina Fernandez "……………. (carry) out an unlawful act and ……………. (make) unlawful charges after a campaign aimed at ……………. (knock) down YPF shares and ……………. (allow) expropriation at a bargain price," Brufau ……………. (tell) reporters.
Repsol YPF SA shares ……………. (sink) 4.7 percent Tuesday morning in Madrid to €16.66 each, underperforming the benchmark Ibex index, which was up 1.4 percent.
Spain's government ……………. (back) Repsol in its fight amid deteriorating relations with Argentina, and ……………. (seek) to line up allies to contest the move and possibly isolate Argentina economically.
In her national address Monday, Fernandez ……………. (say) the legislation put to congress ……………. (give) Argentina a majority stake in YPF — Argentina's largest company — by ……………. (take) control of 51 percent of its shares held by Repsol.
YPF ……………. (be) vital for Argentina's energy future, especially after a recent find of huge unconventional oil and natural gas reserves.
Argentina this year ……………. (expect) to import more than $10 billion worth of gas and natural liquid gas to address an energy crisis even though it is an oil-producing nation, according to estimates from the hydrocarbon sector.
Spain strongly ……………. (oppose) the nationalization plan and ……………. (warn) that it ……………. (turn) Argentina into an international pariah. The country ……………. (be) the largest foreign investor in Argentina, ahead of the United States.
Brufau ……………. (tell) reporters that YPF ……………. (be) worth $18.3 billion, and he ……………. (value) Repsol's stake at $10.5 billion.
YPF shares ……………. (plunge) in value since February, when Fernandez' administration ……………. (mount) the campaign that ……………. (lead) to Monday's nationalization announcement.
The decision by Fernandez "……………. (be) only a way of covering up the social and economic crisis Argentina ……………. (face)" amid high inflation and energy prices, Brufau said.
Brufau also ……………. (accuse) Fernandez of ……………. (be) "an expert manipulator" in her accusations that YPF had underfunded the unit, saying that Repsol ……………. (invest) $20 million in Argentina since it ……………. (buy) YPF in 1999.
Associated Press writer Jorge Sainz contributed from Madrid.
4/16/2012
Argentina to seize oil company YPF from Spanish hands
Argentina’s president, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, announced on Monday that the government would seize a majority stake in YPF, the nation’s largest oil company.
The expropriation would reassert state control over an important pillar of Argentina’s economy, but it has already increased diplomatic tensions with Spain and the European Union. Mrs. Kirchner quickly ousted Sebastián Eskenazi as YPF’s chief executive, naming two top aides, Julio de Vido and Axel Kicillof, to run the company.
Under Mrs. Kirchner’s plan, which she announced on national television, Argentina’s government would take a 51 percent controlling stake in YPF, which is now majority-owned by a Spanish energy company, Repsol YPF. Of that new stake, Argentina’s central government would get 51 percent and the country’s provinces 49 percent. The plan is part of a bill submitted to Argentina’s Congress that is widely expected to be approved.
The Spanish government repeated its earlier pledge to retaliate, though it did not specify how. Following an emergency cabinet meeting in Madrid on Monday evening, José Manuel GarcÃa Margallo, the Spanish foreign minister, said that Madrid “condemned with the utmost energy” Argentina’s move, adding that it “broke the climate of cordiality and friendship that presided over relations between Spain and Argentina.” The European Union also criticized the plan.
Repsol owns 57 percent of YPF and said Monday that it would study “all legal options available” to defend its interests and those of shareholders against a forced sale. It was not immediately clear how YPF’s shareholders, which include Argentina’s Eskenazi family, would be affected by the takeover. A tribunal would determine how much compensation that Repsol and other shareholders would receive for their YPF shares.
YPF’s shares have fallen in recent days as investors considered the likelihood of a government takeover. Its stock plunged again on Monday after Mrs. Kirchner delivered her remarks and was down about 11 percent when trading was halted. The current stock-market value of the entire company is about $7.7 billion.
Mrs. Kirchner said that the expropriation of YPF, a company founded by Argentina’s government in the 1920s and privatized in the 1990s, was a “recovery of sovereignty and control.” She said the move would allow Argentina to raise production, after the country recently became an energy importer.
For months, the central government and provincial officials have pressured YPF to raise its investments in Argentine production. The government’s tactics had included revoking concessions for coveted fields.
Antonio Brufau, the chief executive of Repsol, Spain’s largest company, had been trying for days to meet personally in Buenos Aires with Mrs. Kirchner but was rebuffed.
Seizing YPF appears to be a popular move in Argentina, where caps on residential energy prices and a growing economy have helped push energy demand to new highs. Argentina’s oil production has declined in the last decade as regulatory uncertainty persisted over price caps and the policies over profit remittances. Many Argentines still resent the privatization of state-owned companies in the 1990s, so taking on YPF gives Mrs. Kirchner the opportunity to go after a symbol of that time.
“This is Malvinas two,” said Federico Thomsen, an independent economist in Buenos Aires, referring to Argentina’s claims of sovereignty over the Falkland Islands, which are controlled by Britain and called the Malvinas in Spanish. “Everything that was done in the 1990s is viewed with suspicion. For most people, it is easier to blame the decline in oil and gas production on YPF than on the government’s policies and low prices.”
Mrs. Kirchner has already nationalized Argentine Airlines and pension funds, while also pressuring companies here to repatriate export proceeds in an effort to slow capital flight. Seizing control of YPF sends a new signal about Argentina’s policies toward foreign investment, especially in the energy sector.
Huge discoveries of shale oil resources were made in the last year in Argentina. The French oil giant Total and the American companies Exxon Mobil and Apache are among those making investments in Argentine shale fields.
Energy experts warned that the expropriation of YPF could curb the activities of companies seeking to replicate in Argentina the rapid increase in shale oil production that is happening in the United States.
Fadel Gheit, a senior oil analyst at Oppenheimer & Company in New York, said the perception of financial risk associated with Argentina had increased considerably after Mrs. Kirchner’s move to take over YPF, particularly in comparison with other countries where companies are pursuing shale deposits.
“I worry less about Apache’s operations in Egypt than in Argentina,” Mr. Gheit said. “The oil industry in Argentina is just getting ready to take off, but this may be a way to kill it in its infancy.”
The takeover of YPF in 1999 by Repsol, Spain’s former national oil company, helped turn Repsol into a sizable international player. While Repsol subsequently made investments in other emerging markets, it also sold part of its Brazilian business to Sinopec of China in 2010. Over all, YPF accounts for about two-fifths of Repsol’s estimated reserves of crude oil and one-third of the company’s profits.
The tussle with Buenos Aires comes at a bad economic time for Repsol and Spain more broadly. The Madrid government is already desperately fighting to blunt the impact of Spain’s second recession in three years and it faces soaring borrowing costs amid investor concerns about whether Spain will be the next euro economy to require a bailout.
Any attack on Repsol is also likely to raise alarm bells for Telefónica, the telecommunications operator, and other Spanish companies that have invested significantly in Argentina and rely on their Latin American assets to offset dwindling revenue at home.
Beyond Spain’s concerns, analysts tried to gauge how the expropriation will affect private investment in general. Despite the move against YPF and more government intervention, Argentina still has a diversified market economy with far fewer nationalizations than in Venezuela, where authorities have also expropriated energy concerns.
“You have to be clever to do business in Argentina,” said Federico MacDougall, an economist at the University of Belgrano in Buenos Aires. “It was hard to do business in Argentina before. Now it is even harder.”
Still, the street-level appeal of the move by Mrs. Kirchner, who sailed to re-election last October, was clear. “This is a company that has been incredibly profitable and yet none of the profits have stayed in this country,” said Gustavo Vásquez, a 31-year-old metalworker in Buenos Aires. “Now they will"
By SIMON ROMERO and RAPHAEL MINDER
from The New York Times
4/15/2012
IMF view of the world economy (video)
You can also watch this video by clicking HERE or on the Play Button
After watching the video at least twice and once you have understood the main ideas, get ready for the following activities
(1) Which of the following adjectives describe the International Monetary Fund managing director Christine Lagarde's view of the world economy? Account for your choice
absolutely worrying
completely downbeat
excessively hopeful
extremely depressing
fairly prudent
moderately confident
quite cautious
rather realistic
slightly optimistic
slightly pessimist
too cheerful
too confident
very gloomy
very upbeat
(2) Please check how the following words are pronounced
this year
Greece's
hard-pressed
workers
mostly calm
backed
international
world leaders
(Christine Lagarde)
biggest risks
threat
debt crisis
Italy
scheduled
meetings
Washington
20 or 21
urges
(Christine Lagarde)
throughout
debt woes
International Monetary Fund
resources
nations
future economic crises
far higher than
Unlimited vacation policy
Netflix delivers movies to people’s homes, and has led the last two revolutions in that field. First it pioneered the DVD-by-mail business that forced thousands of local video stores to close down.
Then the company became a high-flier of Silicon Valley and a business-school lesson in how to make a smooth transition from old technology (sending out DVDs by mail) to new (delivering streams of movies and shows on the Internet). Since then, Netflix has changed the way tens of millions of people watch films and television shows.
Netflix co-founder Reed Hastings recently told Bloomberg Businessweek that Netflix has an unlimited vacation policy.
In an effort to separate itself from bureaucratic corporations, Netflix, with its 900 employees, abandoned the typical vacation allotment and opted for a sky’s-the-limit plan. However, Netflix isn’t the only company that has jumped on the all-you-want vacation bandwagon. IBM has a famously flexible time-off policy — letting employees leave early and take a day off on short notice, as long as they have a handle on their workloads. Numerous innovative companies are beginning to see the benefits of ditching vacation limits and promoting personal responsibility.
This is what Hasting, co-founder and CEO of Netflix, told BusinessWeek
We call Netflix’s corporate culture the “freedom and responsibility culture.” We want responsible people who are self-motivating and self-disciplined, and we reward them with freedom. The best example is our vacation policy. It’s simple and understandable: We don’t have one. We focus on what people get done, not on how many days they worked. Prior to 2004 we had the standard vacation model, until we realized no one was tracking how many hours in a day they worked. Why were we tracking whether someone takes two weeks or four weeks of vacation? It was an industrial era habit. I make sure to take lots of vacation to set a good example, and I do some of my creative thinking on vacation.
My first company, Pure Software, was exciting and innovative in the first few years and bureaucratic and painful in the last few before it got acquired. The problem was we tried to systemize everything and set up perfect procedures. We thought that was a good thing, but it killed freedom and responsibility. After the company was acquired, I reflected on what went wrong.
In 2009 we posted my thoughts on Netflix culture and it resonated widely. It was a letter to myself 20 years ago about everything I wished I had known in 1991. I was 30 then, and there are many 30-year-old entrepreneurs who are trying to figure out these same issues I was struggling with, so it’s a little bit of a contribution to the community.
At Netflix, we think you have to build a sense of responsibility where people care about the enterprise. Hard work, like long hours at the office, doesn’t matter as much to us. We care about great work. This requires thoughtful, mature high-performance employees. One way we attract top talent is with top-of-the-market compensation. We do no stock vesting or delayed compensation. Many firms give a bonus or stock grants that vest over a number of years. That’s sometimes called “golden handcuffs.” I’ve always been put off by the handcuffs part of that. It’s the wrong imagery. We want people who want to work here because they are well paid, challenged, and excited. Employees can leave here at any time without losing compensation.
During the trying time for Netflix last year, our culture helped us hold everything together. When we moved too quickly for our customers and the backlash hit, there was a lot of strength and resilience on the management team.
We’ve gotten through it, and we are back to growing and doing great again. Now we’re thinking about how to evolve our business in a way that doesn’t alienate current customers who don’t like rapid change, but in a way that attracts future customers who might benefit. We need to do both. That is where we missed. — As told to Brad Stone
edited from Mashable and Bloomberg-BusinessWeek
4/13/2012
Starbucks Moves to the Express(o) Lane in China
According to a report from the company newsroom, Starbucks plans to go from around 500 stores to at least 1,500 stores over the next three years, and predicts that its operations in China will be its second largest, outside of the U.S., by 2014. Starbucks coffee stores are currently located in 48 Chinese cities.
The company has had mixed success with expansion. Although it has strongly rebounded from flat sales in the U.S., it faces continuing resistance in Europe — where regional palates and a sagging economy have weighed down performance. Starbucks has yet to make a profit in France and, even in the parts of Europe where the company makes money, sales and profit growth lag far behind results in the Americas and Asia.
Given this uneven track record, and continuing uncertainty over the global economy, how successful will Starbucks be in China?
“There is a segment of consumers willing to buy premium coffee – given the huge success that Starbucks enjoys in big cities of China,” says Wharton marketing professor Qiaowei Shen. “In recent years, the number of coffee shops – national chain stores or local independently owned stores – that target high-income white collar consumers has been increasing dramatically. This is another piece of evidence to show that there is demand for high quality premium coffee, and the potential demand is likely to grow in the future.”
Also, according to Shen, the assumption that Chinese consumers tend to favor tea over coffee “may not be true for the young generation in China who grew up with Western food and drinks — such as McDonalds, KFC and Pepsi.”
Wharton management professor Lawrence Hrebiniak is enthusiastic about the expansion. “China looks very good for Starbucks. Coffee sales are up significantly as traditional tea drinkers opt for the newer form of caffeine. Sales are booming — revenue is up 38% — and margins are high, 35% versus 22% in the U.S. When the company raised prices last year in China, demand actually went up, a sign of a luxury good. Chinese customers enjoy the socializing at Starbucks’ sites. In addition, coffee sales forecasts show predicted increases of more than 50% by 2015.”
So, is there anything at all to be concerned about? “Perhaps,” he says. "While the projected rate of growth is very robust — 200% in only three years — not all cities in China are alike. Smaller cities with lower income levels may not react as strongly as their larger counterparts. Lower economic growth may affect the smaller markets more than the larger ones.”
Given the size of the Chinese market and the projected high growth rate — 7% to 8% — for the coming decade, some investors question why the company does not aim to grow faster. For instance, KFC already has more than 3,000 restaurants in 650 cities in China and is adding a new one every day.
As for the competition that Starbucks faces in China, Shen cites McDonald’s as one candidate, “but probably not the major one because McDonalds’ coffee is much cheaper and attracts different segments of consumers…. Currently, major competition comes from similar coffee chain stores from Taiwan and Japan, with some well-known brands. Competitors also include bakery stores that serve high-quality coffee. Many independently owned local coffee shops also are starting to populate the large cities. They typically have a very unique style and beautiful atmosphere,” attracting the same type of consumer that Starbucks is targeting. “The local competition,” Shen adds, “is intensifying.”
adapted from Knowledge@Wharton
4/12/2012
4/08/2012
New South China Mall (video)
You can also watch this video by clicking HERE or on the Play Button
(A) Read the following sentences and make the necessary changes so as to be able to use these words at least once
Although - However -
In spite of - In spite of the fact that -
Since -
Due to - Due to the fact that
- The Chinese love shopping, they love brands, and they love international products. The average income is low.
- New shoppers are born everyday. China won’t run out of them.
- Largely empty megamalls are an increasingly common sight in cities around China. More are being built.
- Many megamalls have expensive stores. They are located near low-income populations.
- Many shopping centers in China are "ghost malls" with empty wings, bored shopkeepers and a lack of shoppers. Experts have attributed the problem to inexperience in management. Most mall managers are the same developers who built them.
- The New South China Mall features a roller coaster, a Venetian canal and a replica of the Arc de Triomphe. The mega project has only a few retail merchants and remains 99% vacant.
- The Golden Resources Mall was the world’s largest when it opened seven years ago in a Beijing suburb, and yet it has always drawn a small number of shoppers. It has performed better than the New South China Mall, in Dongguan, which succeeded Golden Resources as the world’s largest mall in 2005. Designed for 2,350 tenants, New South China Mall now has about a dozen.
- “There are empty malls all over China,” said Vernon Martin, the principal of American Property Research, a Los Angeles appraisal firm with clients in the U.S. and Asia. “We are dealing with a country whose median income is about 10 percent of the United States. But the developers give them malls full of upscale stores. It doesn’t seem rational.”
- Successful malls can be found. Some developers have done well through their careful planning and sound management. But many less-experienced companies have lost uncounted millions.
In New Delhi. India, six malls opened in the last quarter of 2011. Five of them are nearly empty, with occupancy rates of only 7 to 10 percent, according to Jones Lang LaSalle Meghraj. Nationwide, some 17.3 million square feet of mall space opened in 2010, but only 9.3 million square feet of that is leased.
So bad is the leasing environment that the two-year-old Mallum Mall, in Mumbai, was demolished in June 2011 to make way for a residential and office project. The small center’s owners failed to find a single tenant.
“As of now there are close to 225 shopping centers across the country,” said Amanpreet Singh Banga, manager of retail agency for the Knight Frank India brokerage, in Delhi. “There are just a dozen or 15 which are actually surviving well.”
Industry observers say poor location is among the biggest reasons for the failed malls in China and India. A good example is New South China Mall, which is connected to neither train nor subway lines and is in a pedestrian-unfriendly neighborhood.
- In the last quarter of 2011
- 7 to 10%
- in Mumbai
- a residential and office project
- not even one tenant
- about 225
- because it is not connected to train or subway lines
4/06/2012
4/02/2012
World's largest lottery (video)
You can also watch this video by clicking HERE or on the Play Button
If you won 10 million dollars, what would you do?
Would you buy a house?
Car?
Private jet?
Yacht?
Island?
Log cabin in the mountains?
Would you travel all along the country? Or all over the world?
Would you take all the money or get an annual payment for 26 years?
Would you invest all the money?
Would you hire your favorite singer or band to play for you?
Would you give some money to local churches and charities?
Would you help out your family?
What else would you do? And what wouldn't you do?
30 years after the war
WHEN Adrian Mole, a fictional teenage diarist of the early 1980s, tells his father that the Falkland Islands have been invaded, Mr Mole shoots out of bed. He “thought the Falklands lay off the coast of Scotland”.
That Britain still had sovereignty over some islands in the South Atlantic seemed strange. Sending a naval task force 8,000 miles to fight for a thinly inhabited imperial relic seemed even stranger. In some ways the conflict has come to seem even stranger since 1982. However, the Falklands campaign still shapes the politics of Britain.
As Hew Strachan of Oxford University puts it, America’s experience in Vietnam had made war seem messy and unpredictable. Lady Thatcher’s victory suggested that war could achieve political ends quickly and efficiently. Britain’s armed forces came to seem noble and professional: the “best in the world”.
In retrospect, observes Mr Strachan, it was the first in a series of short, sharp, expeditionary wars that Britain fought: later came the first Gulf war, Kosovo and the intervention in Sierra Leone. Consciously or not, the triumph in the South Atlantic may have affected Britain’s appetite for those engagements.
It all ended in Afghanistan and Iraq—missions that have involved elusive opponents, changing rationales and disappointingly uncertain outco
mes. But the Falklands war—which was fought against a state, for a simple cause and ended in an absolute victory—still inspires pride and nostalgia in Britain.
Because of the war, the navy was protected from cuts. Today the government estimates the cost of its commitment to the islands, including its garrison and air and sea links to Britain, as £200m ($318m) a year.
Sir Lawrence Freedman, the war’s official historian, claims that Argentina does not want to repeat the war, which triggered the end of military dictatorship and the advent of democracy. Subsequent governments have, however, retained their country’s claim to what Argentines call “Las Malvinas”. Cristina Fernández, Argentina’s president, has energetically pressed the case by other means (in a bid, some argue, to distract voters’ attention from high inflation and other economic woes).
Recent steps by her administration have been designed to impede tourism along with fishing, and even Argentina’s overall trade with Britain.
“Everything they’ve done makes us deeply suspicious of everything they’ve offered us,” says Dick Sawle, a member of the Falklands’ legislative assembly.
Ms Fernández has tried to enlist other governments in the region to her campaign—likely to intensify if oil is produced in the islands’ waters. Rockhopper, an energy firm, found oil offshore in 2010, and says it expects to start production in 2016.
For its part, the British government says it is absolutely committed to the islanders’ right of self-determination. They overwhelmingly wish to stay British, a desire that is the basis of the British claim to sovereignty. Compromise would anyway be impossible while the war is a living memory: polls suggest that public opinion in mainland Britain is firmly against any concession.
Jeremy Browne, the Foreign Office minister responsible for Falklands policy, observes that tension over the Falklands is worse now than it was 15 years ago. The war’s impact on Argentina was much more dramatic. However, quietly and enduringly, it left its mark on Britain, too.
adapted from The Economist