François Cluzet poursuivi pour "diffamation" par l'ex-policier Neyret

L'acteur François Cluzet, qui incarnait l'ex-convoyeur Toni Musulin dans le film11.6, a été mis en examen pour « diffamation » vendredi 17 janvier à Lyon après la plainte en 2013 de l'ex-commissaire lyonnais Michel Neyret, a-t-on appris auprès de son avocat. « Il conteste les faits et réserve ses déclarations au tribunal », a déclaré Me Pascal Garbarini, confirmant une information de RTL.

Lors de l'avant-première du film 11.6, en mars 2013 à Lyon, le comédien avait ironisé dans une interview accordée au quotidien Le Progrès sur l'ex-numéro deux de la police judiciaire, accusé de corruption, disant qu'il avait « peut-être piqué le butin de Toni Musulin ». Il faisait allusion aux 2,5 millions d'euros manquant sur les 11,6 millions dérobés. Michel Neyret avait alors annoncé qu'il portait plainte contre François Cluzet.

Convoqué vendredi à Lyon et « entendu brièvement » par un juge d'instruction, François Cluzet sera renvoyé devant la 6e chambre correctionnelle de Lyon, compétente en matière de presse. La date d'audience n'a pas encore été fixée.

« IL A NOURRI L'IMAGINAIRE COLLECTIF »

« J'ai porté plainte avec constitution de partie civile pour qu'il soit reconnu que je n'ai rien à voir avec cette disparition,d'autant qu'il a été établi durant le procès [(de Toni Musulin devant la cour d'appel de Lyon en septembre 2010] qu'on a retrouvé à Bron et Saint-Priest [Rhône] les emballages vides du butin manquant », a déclaré vendredi Michel Neyret. « Quel que soit le ton sur lequel François Cluzet a dit cela, il a nourri l'imaginaire collectif », a-t-il affirmé. « Combien de petits voyous que j'ai croisés sont persuadés que j'ai gardé les 2,5 millions d'euros. Les gens se disent que Cluzet, qui a interprété le rôle de Musulin, connaît toute l'histoire, alors que je n'étais même pas à Lyon au moment de la découverte du box [dans lequel avait été retrouvé l'essentiel du butin] », a ajouté l'ancien policier, qui a été« convoqué à Lyon et entendu par la juge d'instruction en octobre 2013 ».

Michel Neyret avait été mis en examen en octobre 2011 pour « corruption »,« trafic d'influence », « association de malfaiteurs » et « trafic de stupéfiants ». Il avait été remis en liberté en mai 2012 après près de huit mois de détention provisoire à la prison de la Santé à Paris, avant d'être révoqué en septembre 2012 par le ministre de l'intérieur, Manuel Valls. L'affaire Neyret est toujours à l'instruction à Paris.

Source: Le Monde

Le Medef se félicite d'avoir inspiré le pacte de responsabilité

Ravi des annonces économiques de François Hollande, Pierre Gattaz estime également en être l'inspirateur. Vendredi, le patron du Medef a assuré qu'il avait apporté le pacte de responsabilité « sur un plateau » au président de la République. Selon le patron des patrons, le chef de l'Etat s'est inspiré du « pacte de confiance » qu'il lui avait présenté en novembre.

« Nous avons salué le pacte de responsabilité que nous a servi le président de la République le 31 décembre et qui était inspiré, je ne le dis pas trop fort, du pacte de confiance que nous lui avons apporté sur un plateau », a affirmé M. Gattaz lors d'une intervention à l'occasion des vœux de l'Alliance des minerais, minéraux et métaux (A3M).

En novembre dernier, le Medef avait proposé à Hollande ce pacte dans lequel les patrons proposaient au chef de l'Etat d'ouvrir cinq chantiers prioritaires, notamment la refonte de la fiscalité. Les représentants patronaux estimaient alors que si ce pacte était mis en place, un million d'emplois pourrait être créé.

Mercredi devant la presse, M. Gattaz s'était réjoui de la fin des cotisations familiales qu'il avait décrit comme « le plus grand compromis social depuis des décennies ». « Il y a une prise de conscience de la réalité de la France », avait ajouté le patron du Medef.

Le gouvernement attend de son côté des contreparties à cette baisse de 30 milliards d'euros du coût du travail. « Nous avons besoin de faire baisserdrastiquement le chômage, d'arriver à des niveaux raisonnables de 7 %, un peu comme les Etats-Unis ou l'Allemagne », a déclaré Arnaud Montebourg, jeudi, à l'occasion de ses vœux à la presse.

Pour atteindre cet objectif, « ce sont 2 millions d'emplois auxquels il faudrait arriver à horizon de cinq ans », a-t-il ajouté. « Puisque le Medef dit qu'il est prêt à créer un million d'emplois, eh bien qu'il le fasse ! », avait de son côté lancé Pierre Moscovici, ministre de l'économie, mercredi. 

Source: Le Monde

Kaboul libère des talibans : colère de Washington

La présidence afghane a annoncé jeudi la libération prochaine de 72 combattants talibans présumés écroués à la prison de Bagram, malgré des protestations des Etats-Unis. Cette décision, prise à l'issue d'une réunion de haut niveau présidée par Hamid Karzaï, le chef de l'Etat afghan, fait suite à l'examen des dossiers de 88 détenus par les autorités afghanes, a indiqué la présidence dans un communiqué.

Seize prisonniers, contre lesquels il existe des « preuves » de leur dangerosité, resteront sous les verrous. Sur les 88 détenus concernés, « il n'existe aucune preuve contre 45 d'entre eux (...) et 27 d'entre eux ne sont cités que dans des rapports, sans preuve formelle à leur encontre », souligne le communiqué, évoquant un compte rendu d'enquête présenté lors de la réunion par le chef du renseignement afghan (NDS), Rahmatullah Nabil.

« Nous ne pouvons accepter que des citoyens afghans innocents restent sans motif et sans jugement pendant des mois ou des années en prison », a dit e porte-parole du président, Hamid Karzaï. « Malheureusement nous savons que c'est le cas, en toute illégalité et en violation de la souveraineté afghane, à Bagram, base aérienne américaine au nord de Kaboul, a-t-il ajouté. Nous ne pouvons le tolérerplus longtemps. »

ACCORD BILATÉRAL DE SÉCURITÉ EN JEU

Ce désaccord sur les prisonniers est une nouvelle source de tensions dans les relations entre l'Afghanistan et les Etats-Unis, déjà mises à mal par le refus d'Hamid Karzaï de signer un accord de sécurité bilatéral pour organiser la présence militaire américaine dans le pays après le retrait de la quasi-totalité de l'armée américaine, cette année.

Lire l'entretien : Hamid Karzaï : « Les Américains agissent en puissance coloniale »

« Ces 72 détenus sont de dangereux criminels contre lesquels existent des preuves solides les liant à des crimes terroristes, y compris l'utilisation d'engins explosifs, responsables de la plupart des meurtres de civils afghans », a dit Jen Psaki, porte-parole du département d'Etat. Interrogée pour savoir si ces possibles libérations de détenus peuvent influer sur la signature de l'accord de sécurité conclu entre les Etats-Unis et l'Afghanistan, Jen Psaki a répondu que « le temps le dira ».

Hamid Karzaï refuse pour l'instant de promulguer cet accord qui autoriserait un maintien de certaines troupes américaines en Afghanistan au-delà de la fin de l'année, date-butoir d'un retrait complet des forces combattantes de l'OTAN. Psaki a jugé qu'il était dans l'intérêt du peuple afghan et du gouvernement de Kaboul designer ce texte.

Source: Le Monde

Davos faces up to weak growth and rising inequality

More than 2,500 of globalisation's movers and shakers gather for their annual four-day mountaintop conclave this week, aware that the world is still being shaken by the events of half a decade ago.

Klaus Schwab, founder and chairman of the WEF, has told the business executives, academics and government officials attending Davos this year that much remains to be done. "Economic growth patterns, the geopolitical landscape, the social contract that binds people together, and our planet's ecosystem are all undergoing radical, simultaneous transformations, generating anxiety and, in many places, turmoil," he said.

Much also remains to be done if the WEF is to make progress on the gender quotas it set four years ago. Then it told its 100 corporate partners – attracted to the Swiss resort by the opportunities to hammer out business deals behind the scenes – that they could bring a fifth representative only if it was a woman. Yet the percentage of women attending is just 16%.

Saadia Zahidi, head of gender parity and human capital at the WEF, says efforts are being made to push gender up the agenda. This year's theme is "Reshaping the world" and Zahidi points to six sessions, including a key event with Sheryl Sandberg of Facebook and the IMF's Christine Lagarde on on 25 January – though many delegates will have left by then.

The issues most likely to crop up during the five days of formal and private sessions include:

Technology

In the year since the last Davos, the world has been convulsed by the online surveillance revelations of whistleblower Edward Snowden. The concern at the WEF is that the distrust sown by this has led to a "balkanisation" of the web, with national authorities becoming less willing to co-operate, at a time when the world is vulnerable to a systemic failure. This year's meeting will note that while scientific and technological breakthroughs have the potential to change the world for the better, there is a need to build defences against the increasingly aggressive hackers and the threat of "cybergeddon".

Inequality

Each year, the World Economic Forum surveys 700 of its members to gauge risks to global prosperity over the next decade. This year, the biggest threat was seen as the growing gap between rich and poor. Given that some of the richest people on the planet will be at Davos, meetings are likely to be long on the need to address the problem and short on practical measures, particularly ones that might affect corporate profits or low marginal tax rates for the well-off.

But Schwab says the issue cannot be ducked: "The slowdown is taking place against the backdrop of rising economic inequality, owing to the declining share of national income going to labour, a worldwide phenomenon – resulting from globalisation and technological progress – that poses a serious challenge to policymakers. Systems that propagate inequality, or that seem unable to stem its rise, contain the seeds of their own destruction. But in an interdependent world, there is no obvious solution, as the high mobility of capital fuels global tax competition."

The Global Economy

Much attention will be paid to the fact that the deepest slump in postwar history has been followed by the weakest recovery. In the past, economies have tended to be booming five years after a recession, but growth has been weak despite low interest rates and money creation programmes. Attention this year will focus on four issues. Can the US "taper" away its QE stimulus without aborting its tepid recovery and triggering a fresh crisis in one of the "fragile five" emerging countries (India, Indonesia, South Africa, Turkey and Brazil)? Can China switch to a more liberalised model without a hard landing? Will the eurozone be able to avoid Japanese-style deflation? And will 2014 be the year when Japan emerges from two decades of slow growth and falling prices? Japan's prime minister, Shinzo Abe, will give a keynote speech on 22 January, and insiders are expecting an optimistic tone following signs that his stimulus package is working.

Geopolitics

Davos likes to see itself as a mini UN, using the presence of so many leaders to seek progress in some of the world's trouble spots. This year, attention will focus on the Middle East, particularly Syria, and relations between Iran and Israel. Hassan Rouhani, Iran's president will be speaking to the WEF on 23 January. Israel's prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, and its president, Shimon Peres, will also be in Davos, but will not share a platform with Rouhani. More generally, the WEF believes there is a crisis of global governance, with countries reluctant to co-operate on issues such as climate change and an erosion of trust in politicians caused by the banking crisis.

Source: theguardian

'Living suicide bomb' rejoins al-Qaida after Saudi deprogramming

Ahmed al-Shayea was known as the "living suicide bomb" – the young Saudi driver of a fuel tanker bomb in Iraq who survived to renounce violence and warn his countrymen of the dangers of jihad.

In the process he became Saudi Arabia's poster boy for a high-profile jihadi de-programming initiative whose secondary purpose is to discourage Saudis from joining al-Qaida.

With his burned face and mangled hands, Shayea was presented as a vivid warning to young Saudis about the perils of jihad and the untrustworthiness of al-Qaida, which he claimed had tricked him into driving the tanker bomb, which killed 12 people in 2004.

That was until November. Then Shayea disappeared from Saudi Arabia, only to reappear reportedly in Syria where – his Twitter feed reveals – he has rejoined the ranks of an al-Qaida franchise, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), which is engaged in a civil war with other rebels fighting the Assad regime.

The case of Shayea raises questions about the effectiveness of the jihadi de-programming efforts, including the well-known Saudi model, which has boasted of rehabilitating and releasing several thousand former jihadis, including some returned by the US.

And Shayea is not the only prominent jihadi to have returned to al-Qaida. Despite long denials of any recidivism, four years ago it was revealed that Said Ali al-Shihri, a former inmate of Guantánamo who was also released to the Saudis under the same programme, had re-emerged as al-Qaida's deputy leader in Yemen, one of a number of graduates of the de-radicalisation programme to return to the group.

Khalid al-Suwid, who also fought in Iraq and was released under the same programme in 2012, is another who quickly resumed jihad. His death in Syria was announced in a martyrdom video on Facebook.

Hundreds of young Saudis have undergone the jihadi de-programming, being re-educated in prisons and rehabilitation centres, a scheme run by the interior ministry and available only to captured jihadis who demonstrate a desire to revoke their beliefs.

If Shayea's story is instructive, it is because so much is known about him. Held by US forces in Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq after the fuel tanker attack, he was repatriated to Ha'ir prison in Riyadh, where he told a visiting cleric he had experienced a change of heart.

In an outreach programme similar to ones run in Egypt and Yemen at the time involving psychiatrists and clerics, Shayea was persuaded to go public, appearing on television as part of a co-ordinated campaign to persuade others not to follow him.

He had been tricked, he said in his appearances. Although he had gone to fight Americans, he added, he was not told that the tanker he drove into Baghdad was a bomb.

His message was not just aimed at Saudi Arabia's jihadis; the authorities were keen to show him off to the wider world as well. In 2007 he described rejection of jihad in an interview organised by the Saudi government with western media outlets. "I realised that all along I was wrong," Shayea told the Associated Press in a two-hour interview at a Riyadh hotel before returning to an interior ministry compound that serves as a sort of halfway house for ex-jihadis rejoining Saudi society. "There is no jihad. We are just instruments of death," he said.

When he was recruited in his home town of Buraida, Shayea was 19 and jobless. "My friend started telling me about Iraq, how Muslims are getting killed there and how we should go there for jihad," said Shayea in 2007. "He told me there were fatwas and DVDs issued by Saudi and Iraqi clergymen that called for jihad."

In another interview in the same year that was broadcast by Fox News, Shayea added: "I would like to say to the American people that Islam forbids killing innocent people."

What is puzzling about Shayea's return to al-Qaida in Syria is that – by his own account – while being treated by US forces in Iraq who had saved his life, he claims that he told his American interrogators where to find a senior al-Qaida figure in Baghdad and revealed all that he knew about the group.

Noman Benotman, president of the thinktank Quilliam, which has its own de-radicalisation work, believes that, of 4,000 to 6,000 Saudis who have gone through the scheme, only 80 to 100 have either picked up arms again or drifted back into jihadi ideology.

"You have to separate the myth from the reality of this programme. It has been largely successful, but it has not – as the Saudis have tried to claim in the past – been magic, with no cases of people returning to jihad.

"Some have gone to Syria, others to Yemen, but it is still a small number," said Benotman.

He said that graduates from the de-programming initiative had been influenced by the same narrative of the war in Syria as wider Saudi society, where Salafists have used the official attitude of the ruling family to argue that the royal family has been hypocritical over events in Syria.

Source: theguardian

Brazil : 2014 The Shortest working Year on record?

After the usual extended summer holidays, we'll all be briefly back to work before clocking off again for Carnival.

Then, all too soon, the entire country will be consumed by preparations for the World Cup. The tournament itself, which Brazil will naturally win, will be mandatory time off for most. (Just ask any parent of a child at school in Brazil.)

If, heaven forbid, there's a repetition of 1950 and Brazil fail to win the World Cup on home soil, those (otherwise potentially productive) couple of months in the middle of the year will quite understandably turn into an extended period of national mourning.

September will allow a brief return to school/the office/the bank before the country's attention turns to President Dilma Rousseff's anticipated bid for re-election in October.

Sleeves rolled up in November then, all of a sudden, December comes around and we're all on holiday again!

Forgone conclusion?

The calendar is tongue-in-cheek, certainly, but there's more than a modicum of truth about the challenges facing Brazil this year.

The World Cup is, arguably, the least of this country's problems. Sporting events come and go and it is Brazil's fortune that the next two Fifa jamborees are due to be held in Russia and Qatar, where controversies over human rights, working conditions and scheduling have already diverted some attention away from the many shortcomings with Brazil 2014.

Anyway, when Brazil wins a record sixth World Cup (which most Brazilians assume is a forgone conclusion) everything else will be forgiven; the stadium overruns and the huge cost to the public purse, the absence of promised infrastructure projects in host cities and the sheer inconvenience of having to rearrange our lives just so the tournament has a chance of running smoothly.

No, it's not the World Cup that Brazil needs to be worried about in 2014, it's the economy. An economy that needs public and private sector workers to be literally working overtime rather than looking at their diaries, wondering whether it is the Maracana stadium on Tuesday and Copacabana beach on Thursday, or vice versa.

After several years of almost stellar growth in the first decade of the new millennium, economic indicators again barely stumbled forward in 2013 just as they had done in the previous two years.

At the end of 2013 the Central Bank reduced its estimate for last year's economic growth from 2.5% to 2.3%. All the while official inflation figures were creeping up towards 6%.

Millions of Brazilians have been catapulted into what can roughly be called "middle class" status thanks to public and private sector initiatives.

Dilma Rousseff's bid for re-election in October is widely anticipated

The "Bolsa Familia" (or Family Allowance), which has been outlined in this column several times before, is credited with elevating more than 30 million Brazilians out of poverty, financially empowering mothers and making impressive inroads at tackling child malnutrition.

Similarly, economic growth from home-grown Brazilian companies (and not just those exporting raw materials to China) competing in global markets has created a generation of credit card wielding, aspirational, consumer-driven shoppers... but.

But, Brazil is arguably as inefficient as ever and barriers to overseas participation in the country - on a personal and corporate level - are deeply frustrating and off-putting.

“Start Quote

Brazil is a country, a continent, of contradictions. For every negative indicator there's a positive one and for every optimist there's a pessimist”

In her end-of-year address to the nation, President Rousseff played it safe - too safe for the liking of some.

It's perhaps natural that, as she seeks to be re-elected to a second term - with a big mandate - she's not proposing any unpopular, though arguably overdue, reforms to public sector pensions, needless official red-tape and serious levels of inefficiency.

She made a point of the need to keep a lid on inflation, although few here are seriously worried about the return of double-digit figures or the kind of loss of confidence being witnessed in Venezuelan and Argentine economies.

However, keeping Brazilians in work and improving productivity is vital - vital if all those Brazilians who use their credit cards like confetti, can still keep paying their bills at the end of the month.

President Rousseff is confident that oil revenues (which should double by the end of the decade) concessions to operate roads and airports and the country's ever-impressive agricultural sector should keep Brazil's economy heading in the right direction, just about. But, so goes the counter-argument, relying on those trusty sources of income hides a multitude of sins, which will hold Brazil back in the long run.

Perhaps, by choosing not to allude to the nationwide protests that almost paralysed the country last year, Dilma Rousseff is hoping she has done enough to placate the demonstrators so that they will not return to the streets.

Many Brazilians do not share her optimism and expect some sort of disruption as worldwide television audiences tune in for the World Cup, particularly in the more politicised cities of the south.

There are many people here who are still football fans but see the World Cup as a missed opportunity.

In almost all of the 12 host cities, integrated transport and other infrastructure that had been promised in time for June's kick-off is way behind schedule or has been downgraded way beyond what was originally proposed.

The overwhelming view is that the protests will return, but perhaps not with the same intensity or nationwide participation we saw in 2013.

Brazil is a country, a continent, of contradictions. For every negative indicator there's a positive one and for every optimist there's a pessimist.

But few would disagree that if Brazil is to fulfil its goal of becoming a major global power with a genuinely diverse and integrated economy, a lot of effort and application is needed.

All of this in what could be the shortest working year on record.

Source: BBC

Dropbox Closes Roughly $250M Round At $10B Valuation, WSJ Says

Dropbox has raised a massive $250 million funding round, valuing the company at $10 billion according to the Wall Street Journal. The new funding round is led by a BlackRock fund, according to the WSJ, which cites “two people familiar with the deal” as the source of the report.

This is actually the is the 2nd time that dropbox has raised US$ 250 million: It did so in 2011 in a round that included Goldman Sachs, Sequoia, Index Ventures and Accel Partners. Back in November, a rumor about an additional $250 million raise put theput the valuation of the company to a supposed US$ 8 billion, which, based on various revenue estimates, could have been viewed as anywhere from expensive to cheap.

 Other companies in the same ball park in terms of worth pre-IPO include Twitter, which was valued at US$ 10 billion in may 2013 ; Google, which went public with a $2.7 billion valuation; and Box, which is a direct Dropbox competitor and had a valuation of US$ 2 billion when it raised $100 million late last year.

The fact that Dropbox raised at a $10 billion valuation instead of $8 billion could indicate that the round was competitive, with third parties bidding for a chance to scoop up Dropbox shares. And, naturally, at a valuation that rich, Dropbox is placing itself far up the IPO queue.

Prior to this raise, Dropbox has collected $257 million in funding. Provided that the WSJ has the new capital story correct, Dropbox will have raised a total of over half a billion dollars.

Dropbox’s new capital dwarfs the $100 million that its traditional rival Box recently absorbed, perhaps granting it a competitive edge as both companies look to expand their core business and diversify their product lines.

Also included in this round are existing investment partners, the WSJ says, but it’s unclear who exactly was involved at this stage. We’ve reached out to Dropbox to find out more about the reported funding and the backers in the round, and will update if we find out more.

Source: TechCrunch

Injected microparticles shown to greatly reduce heart attack damage

After a heart attack has occurred, inflammatory cells known as monocytes rush to the damaged tissue. This causes the heart to swell, reducing its ability to pump blood, and further damaging the tissue – a potentially lethal situation. Now, however, scientists have discovered that injectable microparticles can help stop that from happening.

Developed in a collaboration between Illinois' Northwestern University and the University of Sydney in Australia, the 500-nanometer-wide particles are made from a biocompatible, biodegradable polymer called poly (lactic-co-glycolic) acid. The substance is already approved by the FDA, for use in absorbable sutures. It's also being looked at for use in the treatment of diabetes and breast cancer .

When injected into the bloodstream within 24 hours of a heart attack, the negatively-charged microparticles attract the positively-charged monocytes, as they're on their way to the heart. When one of the monocytes bonds to a particle, a signal within the cell is triggered, telling it that it's dying. This causes it to change course and head for the spleen, the organ that disposes of dead cells.

As a result, inflammation of the heart is minimized. In animal models, this caused a 50 percent reduction in the size of heart lesions.

Lab tests have indicated that the microparticles could be also used to treat a number of other inflammatory diseases, such as West Nile virus, colitis, inflammatory bowel disease, multiple sclerosis, and peritonitis.

The particles are now being commercially developed by biotech start-up Cour Pharmaceutical Development Company, with clinical trials on heart attack victims hoped to begin with two years. A paper on the research was published this week in the journal Science Translational Medicine.

Sources: Northwestern University, Cour Pharmaceutical Development Company.

FlexFoil aims to seamlessly boost airplanes' fuel efficiency

If there's one thing that needs to be aerodynamic, it's an airplane wing. Conventional wing designs however, suffer from a glaring weakness in this respect: the joint where the main wing meets the trailing flaps. Michigan-based FlexSys has developed a way to optimize wing aerodynamics with FlexFoil, a seamless variable geometry airfoil system that could deliver fuel savings of up to 12 percent.

In development since 2001, FlexFoil is made from what is described only as "aerospace materials," and is seamlessly integrated into the trailing edge of the wing. It can be retrofitted into existing wings, or incorporated within new ones.

Based on a technology known as "distributed compliance," the morphing structure integrates actuators and sensors that, according to Flexys, results in "large deformations in shape morphing with very small strains."

According to a 2006 paper co-written by the inventor of the system, mechanical engineer Dr. Sridhar Kota, the foils are "optimized to resist deflection under significant external aerodynamic loading and are just as stiff and strong as a conventional flap."

More precisely, they can reportedly tolerate "well over" 10,000 lb (4,536 kg) in air loads. Additionally, the design is said to distribute pressure more evenly throughout the wing, resulting in less strain in any one area.

When retrofitted onto a wing, FlexFoil can reduce fuel consumption by a claimed 4 to 8 percent, with that number climbing to 12 percent for "clean sheet" builds. The system is also said to reduce wind noise by up to 40 percent on landing, and to lessen build-up of both ice and debris.

What's more, the technology could be applied to anything that moves relative to a fluid medium – that could include things like helicopter rotor blades, wind turbine blades, boat rudders, or pump impellers.

FlexFoil was officially introduced to the public this week at the AIAA (American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics) SciTech exposition in Washington, DC. Plans call for flight tests to be performed this July at NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center, where the flaps of a Gulfstream business jet will be replaced with the foils.

Source: FlexSys

Newly Chinese smartphone brand OnePlus

   OnePlus is a newly established Chinese smartphone brand officially announced today in Beijing.

It’s not just another phone brand by low-cost manufacturing China or aimed at less developed markets. OnePlus will be about high specs, comparatively low prices, selling directly online and shipping to the rest of the world, especially developed markets.

It sounds like Google Nexus model but also similar to that of Xiaomi, the rising star in China’s smartphone market. Like Xiaomi, OnePlus invites early adopters to make decisions on specs and features, using online forum or other forms of social media to engage audience. And Xiaomi is expanding to overseas markets too that has established presence in Taiwan and recently announced to enter Singapore. The latest rumor is that the company plans to ship low-cost phones in countries like Japan.

One big difference OnePlus is from Xiaomi is the former partners with CyanogenMod on a custom system while the latter has a big team working on customized Android ROM, named MIUI.

OnePlus One, the startup’s first flagship model, will be launched in the second quarter. Considering consumer preferences in some western countries, OnePlus One will come in black and white. For this year the company will be focusing on the phone. More gadgets or appcessories will be added later. OnePlus products will be sold on its own website and delivered by partner delivery companies.

OPPO

It’s not that OnePlus team started from scratch. It’s venture backed by people behind OPPO, a Chinese consumer electronics brand where the core team of OnePlus are from. Pete Lau, founder of OnePlus, was VP at OPPO in charge of Blue-ray DVD player. OnePlus will take advantage of OPPO’s smartphone manufacturing capability.

OPPO is a spinoff from BBK, one of the most famous consumer electronics makers in China in late 1990′s and early 2000′s. BBK VCD player was one of the most popular back then. The establishment of OPPO itself several years ago was for international expansion.

OPPO smartphone, positioned as a premium brand for ladies, is one of the most profitable smartphone makers (including Xiaomi ) in China. Different from Xiaomi, OPPO has a whole supply chain, from factories to R&D. The company promises to use the highest quality components and the best hardware available. It’s a smartphone brand that has been trying to be creative. OPPO Finder, launched in mid-2012, claims it’s the thinnest smartphone around the world. N1, the latest flagship model released in September 2013, has a touch panel on the back, a rotating camera, and an accompanying gadget.

OPPO phones, according to Mr. Lau, are sold well in Southeast countries such as Indonesia. But OPPO Blue-ray DVD player turned out to be a more successful product line as an international brand. OPPO’s are sold well in high-end DVD and Blue-ray player markets in the U.S.and Europe.

To design good quality Blue-ray players for international markets, Pete Lau invited designers from various countries. This time he has already had employees from 12 countries. He doesn’t think there is too big a difference between producing an international Blue-ray player brand and one for smartphone and other mobile gadgets.

But one big difference is smartphone runs an operating system that a whole software ecosystem behind it. It’s interesting that a lot of people from the traditional hardware manufacturing world don’t buy the idea of building an ecosystem and making money there, as Xiaomi has always touted. Xiaomi said again and again that MIUI is the long tail in terms of future revenue after one-time gains from smartphone sales. What’s true is Xiaomi has made a considerable number of revenues from mobile gaming, paid non-gaming apps, search, paid themes, etc. OnePlus has a reason for choosing CyanogenMod as it wants to appeal western users who, so far, prefer clean ROMs to those with more features.

It takes three years for Xiaomi to arrive where it is, with 30 million MIUI users and over 26 million phones sold as of 2013. The Xiaomi way in distribution and user engagement has been recognized by some phone makers, old or new, in China. But more than a few think Xiaomi model can be surpassed. As for OnePlus, Mr. Lau said the smartphone market is big enough to accommodate one more player. But OnePlus cannot be the only Chinese brand of this kind to emerge this year or is targeting overseas markets. Behold.

Source: TechNode

Goldcorp hostile bid for Osisko

Goldcorp’s hostile bid for Osisko – the one time darling of the Canadian exploration and development sector, but now a mid-tier gold miner in its own right – could thus just be the start of a flood of M&A moves as the gold price looks to be nearing its bottom and gold stock valuations are seen as being close to their likely lows.

While there have already been other M&A moves in the space over the past year although mostly at a much lower level – Hecla’s ‘white knight’ acquisition of Aurizon, Centamin’s Ampella transaction and Asanko’s PMI takeover all immediately spring to mind.  But none of these have had the impact of the Goldcorp bid given the sizes of the two companies involved.

The Goldcorp $2.6 billion stock and cash offer, worth around $6 per share has been described by Osisko as being opportunistic and hugely undervaluing the company being set at a 15% premium to the Osisko price the day before the bid was announced. 

Source: Seeking Alpha