La Turquie abat un avion de chasse syrien

"La Syrie a dénoncé une « agression flagrante » après que l'armée turque a abattu dimanche 23 mars un avion de chasse syrien qui avait pénétré dans l'espace aérien de la Turquie. Il s'agit de l'incident le plus grave entre les deux pays depuis septembre 2013, quand des chasseurs turcs avaient abattu un hélicoptère syrien dans la même région".

« Un avion syrien a violé notre espace aérien. Nos F-16 ont décollé et frappé cet avion. Pourquoi ? Parce que si vous violez mon espace aérien, notre gifle, après cela, sera forte », a déclaré le premier ministre turc, Recep Erdogan, à sespartisans réunis pour un rassemblement électoral dans le nord-ouest de la Turquie en vue du scrutin municipal du 30 mars.

D'après des opposants syriens, l'incident s'est produit à proximité d'un secteur où se déroulent depuis vendredi des combats entre des rebelles syriens et les forces gouvernementales de Bachar Al-Assad pour le contrôle du poste-frontière de Kassab, entre les deux pays. Selon une source de sécurité syrienne, les insurgés ayant attaqué le poste-frontière de Kassab s'étaient infiltrés depuis la Turquie, pays résolument hostile au régime de Damas.

Selon des médias locaux, l'armée turque a lancé des avertissements à « quatre reprises » à deux avions de chasse MIG-23 syriens qui approchaient de la frontière, et a fait décoller l'un de ses F-16, lorsque un des appareils a refusé d'obtempérer. « En dépit des avertissements, le deuxième avion syrien est entré dans l'espace aérien turc à 11 h 13 GMT, a parcouru environ un kilomètre, puis a pris la direction de l'ouest et a continué sur 1,5 kilomètre dans notre espace aérien », a indiqué l'armée sur son site Web.

« L'un des avions de combat F-16 a tiré un missile sur l'avion syrien à 11 h 14 GMT, conformément aux règles d'engagement, et l'avion est tombé en territoire syrien dans la région de Kassab, à 1 200 mètres de la frontière », a-t-elle ajouté. La Turquie a modifié ses règles d'engagement après qu'un de ses avions de combat a été abattu par les forces aériennes syriennes en juin 2012.

ERDOGAN ACCUSÉ PAR DAMAS DE « SOUTIEN AU TERRORISME »

"La Syrie affirme pour sa part que l'avion a été abattu par la Turquie alors qu'il pourchassait des rebelles en territoire syrien. « Dans une agression flagrante qui met en évidence l'implication d'Erdogan dans le soutien aux groupes terroristes, ladéfense antiaérienne turque a abattu un avion militaire syrien qui pourchassait les groupes terroristes à l'intérieur du territoire syrien à Kassab », a dénoncé une source militaire syrienne. Le pilote a pu s'éjecter, a-t-elle précisé.

Avant cet incident, le ministère des affaires étrangères syrien avait d'ailleurs dénoncé dimanche « une agression militaire inédite et injustifiée commise par le gouvernement turc contre la souveraineté du territoire syrien dans la région frontalière de Kassab ». Il a demandé au gouvernement d'Erdogan de « cesser son agression et son soutien au terrorisme » et d'arrêter d'« impliquer l'armée turque dans des aventures vaines contre la Syrie (...) qui souhaite la poursuite de bonnes relations bilatérales » avec Ankara".

Source: Le Monde

Sea Shepherd tire un bilan de son activité dans l'océan Austral

L'organisation écologique Sea Shepherd a affirmé dimanche avoir sauvé 750 baleines des harponneurs japonais lors de sa campagne annuelle dans l'océan Austral.

Les navires de l'organisation, le Bob Barker et le Steve Irwin, sont arrivés à quai samedi à Wellington et Hobart (Nouvelle-Zélande et Tasmanie), après 94 jours de mer, à l'issue la dixième campagne de l'organisation démarrée le 5 janvier. Trois incidents graves ont opposé la flotte de Sea Shepherd aux baleiniers japonais. L'organisation évoque des « embuscades ».

« Bien que les braconniers de baleines n'aient pas encore annoncé le nombre de baleines tuées cette saison, nous sommes confiants dans le fait qu'ils n'ont pas atteint un quart du quota bidon qu'ils s'étaient fixé », a commenté le capitaine du Bob Barker, Peter Hammarstedt. « Nous estimons que nos efforts ont sauvé plus de 750 baleines », a-t-il ajouté, sans justifier son calcul. L'Agence japonaise des pêches n'était pas immédiatement joignable pour réagir.

Il s'agit de la plus longue campagne de Sea Shepherd dans l'océan Austral où l'organisation affirme avoir sauvé 4 500 baleines les neuf premières années. La pêche commerciale de la baleine est interdite depuis 1994 dans le Sanctuaire baleinier de l'océan Austral mais le Japon profite d'une lacune dans le texte du moratoire international de 1986 pour revendiquer des prises à but scientifique.

La chair des cétacés finit néanmoins sur les étals nippons, ce dont le Japon ne se cache pas, invoquant une tradition culturelle ancestrale. Seules la Norvège et l'Islande continuent la chasse commerciale malgré le moratoire.

L'Australie a assigné le Japon devant la Cour Internationale de Justice à La Haye, plus haute instance judiciaire des Nations unies, qui doit statuer dans le courant de l'année.

Source: Le Monde

Gannet Design's Ulfert Janssen talks sustainable urban transport of the future

   Gannet Design,founder Ulfert Janssen is one of the few automotive and transportation designers in the world who works in both the two- and four-wheeled domains. Ulfert these days works primarily in transportation and product design and development, but spent a decade at Renault’s Barcelona design studio involved in advanced concept design, with stints at Samsung in Korea and Nissan in Japan, and has been involved with a diversity of production cars from the Renault Twizy to the Infiniti FX.

Ulfert was also responsible for trend scouting in Shanghai, Tokyo and Seoul where he made multiple trips as a photographer. He is best known to auto and motorcycle enthusiasts for his designs which regularly set social media alight. He has a Bachelor of Science degree in Industrial Design from the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California, USA.

Ulfert and I have been corresponding across the last few months, discussing future sustainable transportation. The following interview is made up of excerpts from our email correspondence.

Gizmag: The world of personal transportation is changing rapidly. China is now the world's largest producer of cars, India the world's largest producer of motorcycles, the world's arterial roads are becoming clogged with traffic and the world's carpark is adding to pollution levels at an unprecedented rate. What changes to the world of personal transport do you foresee globally over the next decade or two?

Ulfert Janssen: As much as we love our automobiles, I think it is now obvious to everybody that the number of cars cannot keep growing as it has in the last few decades. The level of smog in Beijing is now so bad that it needs to be tackled swiftly. Most big cities around the globe are headed in the same unfortunate direction and the situation needs to be addressed urgently.

Most commuters drive alone in their cars and in big cities that simply does not make sense. Mega cities must enhance their public transportation, which is the key. In Tokyo you don’t need a car as public transportation is well designed and by far the quickest and best way to move around the city. London has found an effective way of reducing traffic levels with its congestion charges.

At the same time micro vehicles such as the Renault Twizy (above) or the Cityhopper concept (below) and electric scooters need to be given more benefits so people are motivated to switch to smarter personal transportation solutions and reduce their use of traditional internal combustion engine cars.

People might always have a desire for fancy cars and big SUVs, but circumstances have changed, and cars of that size will need to be enjoyed in moderation. All of the major carmakers are now introducing smaller size SUVs, and there is a clear trend of downsizing. Eco friendly micro solutions must become the SUVs of tomorrow.

Lots of people, me included, will always be fascinated by automotive culture; the speed, the aesthetic and the fascinating engineering of fast cars and motorcycles, but the needs of cities and ecological imperatives are changing fast, and they demand different solutions, which also presents the opportunity to create new type of vehicles and more relevant design concepts.

Gizmag: How will personal transportation design change to alleviate the problems of congestion and pollution? Will there be differences in the solutions for rich countries and for poorer, developing countries?

UJ: For the emerging countries it would be great to develop a special fund to catapult their infrastructure into the future, so they can avoid going through the same process and mistakes the so-called developed countries did.

As developing countries can start building from scratch, they also have the opportunity of going a step ahead, leapfrogging a generation of infrastructure, and building a transportation concept which is better suited for a sustainable future. Unfortunately, and understandably, they desire the same products as everyone else and therefore this might be difficult to change. Big cities in "rich" countries have their own quite different needs to solve out the problems of congestion and pollution, while they also have the power and influence to set new trends and standards globally. If those solutions are designed cleverly, their initiatives can look smart and cool, and people will want to be a part of it.

In Barcelona, for example, at the front of the queue at traffic lights there's a special reserved zone for scooters and all two wheelers, so they get the priority.

Barcelona combines that traffic light priority with bicycle lanes and a bicycle sharing system, like in Paris and other cities trying to promote bikes to reduce traffic in the city. These initiatives redesign people’s behaviors in personal transportation, and reduce short commuting by car without forced actions. These sorts of initiatives will influence not only the city itself, but also the mind of people elsewhere including the emerging countries, and it could bridge the gap in some ways.

Gizmag: What changes are needed to personal transportation devices to make them more attractive, safer and useful to commuters?

UJ: I think the circumstance in big cities is the main problem and it's not necessarily the product range, as there is already a diverse palette of narrow-track transportation devices available to commuters such as bicycles, electric bicycles, scooters, motorcycles, three-wheelers, micro cars, tandem four-wheelers and so on.

People are understandably afraid to ride a two-wheeler in the same traffic flow as cars. By separating the two types of traffic, you cancel the David versus Goliath situation as they do in Amsterdam where they have separate bicycle lanes.

Lightweight transportation devices need to become safer too. Bigger motorcycles now have anti-lock braking systems (ABS) and soon those and similar safety features will trickle down to smaller two-wheelers and better materials will make scooters lighter and easier to maneuver.

Source: Gizmag

China-Europe enhanced collaboration to foster investments: Dagong Europe General Manager

Europe's share in China's investment portfolio will grow and benefit from enhanced collaboration, Ulrich Bierbaum, General Manager of Dagong Europe, the European branch of Dagong Global Credit Rating, told Xinhua in an interview on Wednesday.

Ahead of Chinese President Xi Jinping's visit to Europe later this month, Bierbaum said that the presence of the Chinese president in Europe was a concrete sign of "the attention that China is giving to the European market."

In a recent report, Dagong Europe said China will retain its position among largest foreign direct investors in the world, and will deepen investments in Europe.

"The first-in-history investment agreement between China and the European Union (EU) would be extremely positive because it would contribute to an harmonization of certain rules of play across the different European countries to have a unified approach in regulation," he said.

The first round of negotiations for the agreement has started in Beijing in January with the aim to boost bilateral investment growth and strengthen comprehensive strategic partnership.

With member countries having different interests and many industries each with its own dynamic, the EU is a more fragmented market compared for example to the U.S., Bierbaum explained to Xinhua. "The agreement would help China talk to one block on the other side," he underlined.

Mutual understanding was the keyword in relations between China and Europe, which are two major civilizations and markets in today's world, he said.

One of the things where two different parts need to understand each other, Bierbaum pointed out, was "sufficient trust." "When there is a willingness to work together and see the benefits of joining forces, I think the hurdles in terms of legal and rights protection can also be overcome," he said.

In fact, Bierbaum added, there were already many positive cases of Chinese companies investing in Europe. "The way Chinese investors are approaching and acquiring stakes is a successful story, yet on small scale, but I am very convinced that there would be larger acquisitions coming in the future," he highlighted.

The general manager explained to Xinhua that Dagong Europe's mission was to assist Chinese investors to better understand the European landscape by monitoring and uncovering credit risks in European companies, banks and financial institutions.

"The problem for Chinese investors is making sure that before they make a move they have really well understood the particular situation of the market, and that is where Dagong Europe wants to come into play," he said.

In light of its fast economic, social and demographic development, China will have to provide more products and services to meet the new needs of the growing number people living on higher income levels, Bierbaum noted. Therefore, focus on high-tech and value-added sectors, from the healthcare and pharmaceutical to the automotive industries, will drive China's investments to Europe, he added.

Dagong Europe was established in Milan in 2012 as the result of a Sino-Italian joint venture between Dagong Global Credit Rating and Mandarin Capital Partners, a private equity fund by institutional investors. It was the first Asian rating company operating in the EU, under and compliant to the European framework regulated by ESMA.

Source: Xinhua

Wall Street’s Ties to Putin Threatened as Sanctions Bite

Wall Street leaders including Lloyd Blankfein and James Gorman, who have courted business in Vladimir Putin’s Russia, are facing a dilemma as tensions over Ukraine escalate.

Their scheduled attendance at Putin’s annual investor showcase in St. Petersburg in May is in doubt as sanctions imposed by the U.S. in response to Russia’s annexation of Crimea -- and retaliatory moves by Putin -- threaten the ties between Russia’s leader and businesses including Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Morgan Stanley. Spokesmen for the New York-based banks declined to comment on whether the executives will attend.

Wall Street firms that have pursued deals in Russia for years are being forced by the dispute over Ukraine to reexamine their bet on friendlier relations between Putin and the West. U.S. President Barack Obama yesterday added to the list of Russians targeted by financial sanctions and a June Group of Eight meeting in Russia was scrapped. Russia banned entry by U.S. leaders including House Speaker John Boehner.

Goldman Sachs has made at least $1 billion in investments in Russian companies and won a three-year contract last year to advise the Kremlin on improving the nation’s image overseas and to help the country attract more investors. Morgan Stanley plans to sell its oil-sales unit to OAO Rosneft, run by Putin ally Igor Sechin. Citigroup Inc. (C) has a more than 50-branch retail network on the ground.

This year’s three-day St. Petersburg International Economic Forum in Putin’s hometown runs from May 22 to May 24. The March 14 list of participants featured Deutsche Bank AG (DBK) co-Chief Executive Officer Juergen Fitschen and Zurich-based UBS AG (UBSN)’s investment-bank chiefAndrea Orcel, as well as the heads of companies such as PepsiCo Inc., ConocoPhillips, Alcoa Inc., Total SA and Glencore Xstrata Plc.

Blankfein, 59, has been courting the Kremlin since at least April 2007, when he wrote toPutin seeking a meeting to discuss expanding operations. The bank’s board of directors traveled to Russia in June 2008 for a four-day gathering split between St. Petersburg and Moscow. The trip included a tour of the State Hermitage Museum, a private session with Putin and a speech by former Russian leader Mikhail Gorbachev, according to an account in Andrew Ross Sorkin’s book “Too Big to Fail” about the 2008 global financial crisis.

Blankfein, along with JPMorgan Chase & Co. CEO Jamie Dimon, 58, is also a member of Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev’s advisory committee for turning Moscow into a financial center.

HSBC Holdings Plc (HSBA), Barclays Plc, Morgan Stanley (MS) and Banco Santander SA are among international lenders that have abandoned consumer banking in Russia in recent years in the face of dominant local banks like OAO Sberbank and VTB Group, the two largest Russian lenders.

VTB Capital on March 17 cut its 2014 Russian growth forecast to zero from 1.3 percent as “domestic demand is set to halt on the uncertainty shock and tighter financial conditions.”

If Russia’s economy stagnates, banks would face increasing bad debts and delinquencies, Natalia Berezina, a banking analyst at UralSib Financial Corp. in Moscow, said by phone. “Foreign banks may reassess their presence in Russia if it’s no longer profitable here anymore,” she said.

“At this stage only Putin’s very loyal friends will show up at the forum,” Ovanes Oganisian, a strategist at Midlincoln Research in Moscow, said by phone. “They will put on a show to try to put Ukraine behind them, but the truth is Russia is a much less important part in global emerging markets than it used to be.”

Source: Bloomberg

China struggles to tame illegal foreign laborers

China's black market of foreign labor is booming on the back of a shift in the country's own labor forces from east to west, driving human traffickers, or "traders" as they are dubbed, to transport cheap labor from abroad into the eastern areas like Guangdong, Fujian and Zhejiang.

Ah Xiang, a trader detained by police in Guangxi, said that they usually lure poverty-stricken foreigners willing to work in China with blandishments about the working opportunities, then charge "registration fees" before transporting them into Chinese factories.

"We would negotiate with the factory owners in advance to remove any possible stumbling blocks, and then the procedures would go smoothly," she said.

According to Ah Xiang, foreign laborers are becoming increasingly popular in factories in the east, as domestic workers are thin on the ground, while foreigners tend to be cheaper, more "well-behaved" and "quiet."

But the opportunities to make more money in China are often outweighed by terrible working and living conditions, Ah Xiang added, pointing out that it is hard to guarantee the rights of the illegal workers.

Experts attribute the phenomenon to a wide range of factors, including rising labor costs in China as well as loose supervision.

One of the underlying reasons for the rampant black market in foreign labor is that China's coastal cities have come under pressure from a severe shortfall in labor resources, according to Yu Yimao, captain of Baise's border control police.

In February, a survey by the Guangzhou Human Resource Market Service Center showed a shortfall of 123,300 workers in Guangzhou, capital city of Guangdong. A similar warning was issued later by the Fujian provincial government, cautioning that the province needs 80,000 laborers to fill the gap.

Meanwhile, the cost of domestic labor is on the rise.

Construction worker Li Deqin said that the daily salary for people like him used to be about 80 yuan (13 U.S. dollars), but now they command at least 180 yuan.

That is a huge contrast to many foreign workers like Mi Lenh, who barely makes 50 yuan each day in Vietnam.

"I heard that even stowaways can make more than 100 yuan a day in China," the young Vietnamese said.

While his dreams have now become castles in the air, many others are still falling for the bait, and authorities have called for a taming of the black market with a spate of proposed legal measures.

Xu Ningning, deputy secretary-general of the China-ASEAN Business Council, said that China needs to ramp up supervision to tackle the problem, for that is in the interest of both foreign workers and domestic factories.

"I think that the government could work with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations to figure out a mechanism to ease the labor pressure and guarantee the rights of workers," Xu said.

He suggested that the problem could be solved by qualifying and legalizing more foreign laborers to work in China under government supervision.

China fights to combat water pollution

China was plunged into a safe drinking water crisis this week when it was confirmed that at least 131 dead pigs had been dumped into one of the country's major rivers.

The 758-km-long Ganjiang River in east China's Jiangxi Province provides drinking water to the provincial capital of Nanchang.

Nanchang's water authority confirmed on Wednesday that it had pulled out the dead pigs from a section of the river, which is a major tributary of the Yangtze River.

The incident, which happened days before World Water Day on Saturday, has led to public concern, despite attempts by local authorities to reassure residents that drinking water was safe.

In March 2013, thousands of pig carcasses were retrieved from the Huangpu River in Shanghai, which provides 22 percent of the city's tap water.

Also last year, a leakage of aniline in Shanxi Province affected drinking water in neighboring Hebei Province.

Earlier this month, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang delivered his first government work report. In the document, the government vowed to implement a clean water action plan, strengthen the protection of drinking water sources and prevent and control water pollution in key river basins.

Over 70 billion yuan will be spent this year on major water projects.

COST OF URBANIZATION

"China's urbanization rate has exceeded 50 percent. Based on international experience this would have affected the increase in water pollution incidents," said Vice Minister of Housing and Urban-Rural Development Qiu Baoxing.

"The country will pay an extremely high cost if it does not do something," he said.

About 280 million residents in China drink unsafe water, the Ministry of Environmental Protection revealed in a report this month.

The report also said that 110 million people live less than 1 km away from at least one industrial site that may have a pollution problem.

Moreover, about 140 million people live within 50 meters of a major road, it said.

Underground water remains a serious problem for Chinese cities.

A Ministry of Land and Resources report showed that the underground water quality of 40.3 percent of 4,727 monitored sites was "bad", and that of another 14.7 percent was "extremely bad" in 2011.

The tests were conducted in 200 cities.

The State Council passed a five-year plan in 2011 aimed at ensuring the rural population has access to safe drinking water.

By the end of next year, the Chinese government hopes to have solved drinking water problems for 298 million rural residents, according to the plan.

Local governments have also realized that developing an economy can lead to heavy costs in more ways than one.

Zhejiang Province, which has a booming private sector, has realized growth has come at a cost to the environment.

The coastal province's rivers used to be well supplied with water. Now, per capita water resources are below the national average.

Last year it set up a "River Duty Officer" system, in which an officials is held accountable for pollution in a designated river.

"Three municipal leaders in Jinhua City have been removed from their posts and seven others were punished for negligence in tackling water pollution," said Xia Baolong, secretary of the provincial committee of the Communist Party of China.

As China focuses on quality growth, local magistrates will also get tough on pollution.

"Reassuringly, central and local governments are making efforts," said Ni Junhua, head of Green Zhejiang, an environmental NGO.

IMF Christine Legarde: China needs To Comprehensively Deepen Reform

Christine Legarde remarks at the China Development Forum,Beijing, March 23,2014.

   "China is about to embark on the next phase of its remarkable journey, a journey that has propelled it to the top tier of the global economy and lifted hundreds of millions of people out of poverty in a remarkably short period of time.

This new transformation will come with three key dimensions—a firm destination, a clear roadmap, and a deep sense of global responsibility. What do I mean by this?

• First, a firm destination. After showing great economic leadership, especially during the recent global financial crisis, China has its eyes fixed firmly on its next destination—aiming forhigher quality, more inclusive, and more sustainable growth.

• Second, a clear roadmap. Here, I am referring to the Third Plenum Reform Blueprint, which outlines the reforms needed to reach this destination. These reforms are ambitious. They will require hard decisions and tradeoffs, but I am confident that China will rise to the challenge—as it has always done.

• Third, deeper global responsibility. As China’s share in the global economy continues to rise, so will its responsibility in supporting the global common good—global financial stability, environmental sustainability, and the global rules of the game. The IMF will be a key forum for this kind of global cooperation, and I welcome a strengthened partnership with China.

I firmly believe that this reform program will secure the "Chinese dream" for the next generation, and in doing so, will benefit theentire global economy. I look forward to fruitful discussions surrounding this next great transformation and China’s continuedglobal economic leadership".

Qik Is Shutting Down In April, Three Years After Being Acquired By Skype

Qik, a company that was very early on in the stream-live-video-from-your-phone trend that popped up and then quickly faded around 2008-2009, is being retired by its parent company, Skype. Skype acquired Qik back in 2011 for upwards of $100 million.

Why the shutdown? To be blunt: Skype got what they wanted out of the deal, so Qik is redundant now. While Skype doesn’t make direct use of the phone-to-web broadcasting functionality that Qik focused on, they say they’ve integrated core bits of Qik’s video messaging technology into Skype.

While Qik as a service never got hugely popular (blasting videos to your friends in real-time is only really fun if all of your friends happen to all be free at the same time), the company built some damned cool technology. These guys were doing video recording on the iPhone before the iPhone even officiallysupported video recording..

If you’ve still got any videos lurking on Qik’s servers, you’ll need to get them off by April. Given that Qik pitched itself as a means of sharing things like your kid’s first steps with friends and family in real time, there’s probably quite a few precious moments still tucked away on the service.

Source: TechCrunch

Viber reports 12 million users in Vietnam, but a local rival is surprisingly close behind

Source:  TECHINASIA

Yesterday, VNG announced that it has hit over 10 million registered users on its chat app Zalo, up from three million users from July last year. In less than one year, the scrappy mobile project under the Vietnamese tech giant pulled in over seven million users. That’s in a market with about 21 million smartphone users. Zalo’s biggest chat app competitor is Viber. We couldn’t resist asking how the two stacked up against each other. Viber reports that it hit 12 million users in Vietnam this monthm, up from 8 million last November. This isn’t surprising as Viber has actually started spending money on marketing in Vietnam, something it didn’t do until last Christmas. In other words, the battle for Vietnam’s mobile users has considerably accelerated. But all this hubbub over chat apps foreshadows an incoming battle over mobile. Right now in Vietnam, we are starting to see a steady increase in mobile commerce apps, loyalty apps, mobile content distribution systems, and mobile payment models that are capturing users. Thus, this battle for mobile users could, at any time, pivot into the above juicy categories.

JD.COM Infographic (SEC PROSPECTUS)

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Despite running at a loss, JD valuation jumps to $15.7 billion ahead of US listing

JD.com (a.k.a. Jingdong) updated its SEC prospectus today, showing the company’s equity valuation nearly doubled since December to US$15.7 billion. That huge jump comes despite JD falling short of profit last year, reporting a narrow US$8.1 million operating loss in 2013. The update also shows a new ownership structure, with founder Richard Liu increasing his stake to 18.8 percent, making him the second-largest shareholder after Tiger Global Management. Once Tencent takes its stake, it will become the third-largest stakeholder. JD’s prospectus includes some out-of-the-ordinary anti-takeover measures in favor of Liu. The Financial Times notes that the board may not vote unless Liu is present, which means he could block a vote by calling in sick. Also, if for any reason Liu is sent to prison or otherwise forcibly confined, he’ll remain in control of the company.

These stipulations resemble Jack Ma’s attempts to keep a tight hold on Alibaba when courting the Hong Kong stock exchange for an IPO. His efforts eventually foundered, and Alibaba decided to file in the US where the rules on ownership structures are more lenient. JD will be the biggest Chinese tech IPO to list in the US, at least until Alibaba completes its paperwork. To avoid a conflict of interest, the two companies have prohibited any one bank from sponsoring both of them. JD hopes to raise US$1.5 billion from its public listing.

Source: TECHINASIA

World’s most popular mobile browser from China soars past the half billion user mark as it picks up steam overseas

 Source: TECHINASIA

  UC Browser,the world’s most popular third-party mobile browser made by China’s UCWeb, announced today it passed the 500 million global quarterly active user mark. UCWeb reported hitting the 400 million user threshold in May of last year, which means the browser gained an additional 100 million in less than 12 months. 300 million of its users are on Android. To put that into perspective, China’s top messaging app and social network WeChat recently reported 355 million monthly active users. UC Browser’s figure is somewhat inflated because it is using quarterly stats as opposed to monthly, but it’s an impressive figure nonetheless.
China is home to UCWeb’s largest userbase, holding 65 percent of the mobile browser market share, according to iResearch. Smartphone users in China spend twice as much time on mobile browsers as they did a year ago. In August, UC Browser overtook Opera as India’s top mobile browser, and now accounts for 32 percent market share according to StatCounter. UC Browser is available for free on Android, iOS, Symbian, Java, Windows Phone, Windows Mobile, and Blackberry. UC Browser was also released for Android-based Smart TVs earlier this month.

Tencent boosts ecommerce business yet again with $180 million stake in property portal

Source: TECHINASIA
Chinese web giant Tencent has paid US$180 million to take a 15 percent stake in a major real estate portal and ecommerce site in the country, the company said this evening. Tencent’s stake is in Leju, which is a subsidiary of E-House (NYSE:EJ). Leju is in the process of being spun off from E-House for its own US IPO, at an unscheduled point this year. Leju’s F1 filing with the US SEC is here. This new deal comes just eleven days after Tencent radically shook up its struggling ecommerce business by taking a 15 percent stake in Amazon-style estore JD. As part of that agreement, JD will run part of Tencent’s online shopping business.

Leju (pictured below) has real estate listings, a property search engine, and an ads platform to make money from property-related ads. Tencent already has its own ads-stuffed property portal at house.qq.com. The killer part of the deal for Leju is that – according to Tencent president Martin Lau – the partnership “will bring Leju’s rich real estate information to WeChat users” in China. Perhaps Chinese users of WeChat will soon be able to buy a house within the messaging app. That’s not too far fetched since they can already use it to buy stuff or book a taxi.

ICIS: Tight supply for Nigeria LNG cargoes over 2015-2016 period

"A five-year supply tender for up to 30
Nigeria LNG cargoes from October 2015
closed on 5 March attracting a wide range
of bids that can be used as a yardstick for
the global LNG forward curve.
The value of cargoes on offer from Lisbon-based
Nigerian offtaker, Galp Energia, were widely deemed to
be backwardated over the period. Most traders attached
a premium over the 2015-2016 period in accordance
with expected liquefaction delays in Australia, while the
consequent onset of export ramp-ups both in Australia
and the USA from 2017-2020 saw lower-valued cargoes
at the back end of the period.
Traders were required to submit a single bid for either
the entire 30 cargoes over the 2015-2020 period or for
specified sub-sections of the lifting period. The pricing
behind all bids had to be made at a 10.5% index to Brent
crude oil plus a constant. The constant is understood to
be Galp’s margin on its NLNG agreement.
While Galp will be keenly aware of a recent tender award
for 2014-2015 Nigeria cargoes settling at 14-14.5% Brent,
one trader said it may turn down a comparable bid for its
near-term string, preferring instead to go for a lower-value
bid that stretches over the entire period or just the back
end towards 2020.
On the sell side, Galp - which expects to receive equity LNG
from Mozambique by the end of the decade, may do well to
lock in forward value in today's relatively under-supplied
global market".
"As it becomes very difficult to assess the market
beyond 2016, the trader explained he could only put in a
conservative bid to cover cargoes from 2017-2020".

Source: ICIS

What does U.S. know about Putin's oil wealth?

The most startling part of Washington's sanctions on Russian businessmen loyal to President Vladimir Putin may be a single sentence that contains an explosive allegation: that Putin himself profits from the world's No. 4 oil trading company, Gunvor.

Among the people the United States sanctioned on Thursday as part of its drive to put pressure on Russia for its intervention in Ukraine was businessman Gennady Timchenko, a long-time acquaintance of Putin and, until this week, co-owner of Geneva-based Gunvor, which trades nearly 3 percent of the world's oil.

In announcing the sanctions, the Treasury Department went a step further, adding a single sentence that hits squarely at one of the most controversial topics that Putin has faced in 13 years as the Kremlin ruler and head of the government.

"Timchenko activities in the energy sector have been directly linked to Putin. Putin has investments in Gunvor and may have access to Gunvor funds," the statement said. 

Source: Reuters

European Union prepares for trade war with Russia over Crimea

Europe began to prepare for a possible trade war with Russia over Ukraine on Friday, with the EU executive in Brussels ordered to draft plans for much more substantive sanctions against Moscow if Vladimir Putin presses ahead with Russian territorial expansion.

But the bigger EU countries – Germany, France and Britain, all with major but very different interests at stake in Russia – split over the tactics of a new campaign with fears that a trade war would be highly risky and potentially ruinous.

A two-day summit of EU leaders dominated by the Crimea crisis ended with 12 Russian politicians and military figures being added to a list of 21 so far subjected to travel bans and asset freezes.

Unlike Washington, which on Thursday blacklisted senior Kremlin figures and oligarchs, the EU list avoided Putin's immediate entourage, instead targeting figures such as Sergei Glazyev, an economic adviser to Putin, Dmitry Rogozin, a deputy prime minister, and the heads of both houses of parliament. "The persons are not so important," said a senior EU official. "It's the climate we're creating." He denied any differences with the Americans. "It's not a beauty contest."

The summit debate, participants and witnesses said, focused on what is known as "stage 3" of a sanctions regime, meaning broader trade and economic sanctions against Russia if the Kremlin escalates operations to seize more territory in Ukraine beyond the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea, whose annexation was formally concluded on Friday in Moscow.

David Cameron reserved strong language for the Kremlin move. "A sham and illegal referendum has taken place at the barrel of a Kalashnikov," he said. "Russia has sought to annex Crimea, a flagrant breach of international law and something we will never recognise."

Moscow criticised the Foreign Office for its choice of rhetoric on the Ukraine crisis. "We are being reassured that the British government wants to maintain normal diplomatic relations with the Russian Federation. If that is the wish of our British partners, then this relationship has got to be normal and diplomatic including at the level of rhetoric. Good relations ought to be valued. The British side should mind its language. Unfortunately, that's not the case with the British Embassy in Moscow," said the Russian foreign ministry. "It seems that the harsh rhetoric, quite beyond the pale, is meant to cover up the gross inaptitude of the Brussels bureaucracy and its zero-sum motive to engineer a cold war-type geopolitical grab on Russia's borders."

Cameron pointed out that while the EU depended on Russia for a quarter of its gas supplies, the Russian gas monopoly Gazprom relied on Europe for half of its exports. "Russia needs Europe more than Europe needs Russia," he said.

The European commission in Brussels was told to draw up plans for sanctions "in a broad range of economic areas".

Such language masked differences between Britain and France on the one hand and Germany on the other. Following the summit, Germany's chancellor, Angela Merkel, failed to mention the next phase of much more serious penalties, while Cameron emphasised them.

On Thursday, the White House named metallurgy, energy, trade and other areas as possible targets for action. London and Paris wanted to echo this. "The Russians have to see where they will hurt," said one diplomat. Germany, by far Russia's biggest trade partner in the EU and the biggest buyer of Russian gas, has resisted attempts to specify what the sanctions targets might be.

Apart from its energy dependency, the Germans say they have more than 6,000 firms operating in Russia and that 300,000 jobs in Germany depend on trade with Russia.

Cameron was much more explicit on the issue and British officials admitted there were divisions. He mentioned "finance, military, energy" as areas being considered. "There's nothing left out."

That suggested equal pain for the three big countries since Britain has most to lose from financial sanctions, France has billion of euros at stake in defence contracts with Russia, while Germany suffers most from sanctions in the energy sector.

It is not clear when the European commission will deliver its battle plan for expanded sanctions but there is an acute feeling among commission officials that Brussels has been handed a poison chalice. They said as soon as the plans are published or leaked, the Russians will know what to expect or fear and will get their retaliation in pre-emptively, triggering a much bigger crisis between Europe and Russia.

The senior EU official, though, said it would be "really stupid" for the EU to reveal its hand. "The commission is keeping its cards close to its chest. We will not do this in full transparency. It will not be transparent at all."

While the Americans have been much more open in spelling out their plans, the Europeans complain that it is easier for Washington because it has much less to lose, with US-Russian trade volumes barely one-twelfth of that between the EU and Russia.

The senior official said the blacklist was not coordinated with Washington. "We are following our own course. The US is far away."

The EU and the interim Ukrainian government have now signed part of a political and trade pact, the issue that led to the crisis last November that ultimately triggered a revolution in Kiev and Russian intervention in Crimea.

The EU summit agreed to race ahead with similar pacts with Moldova and Georgia, concluding them by June.

Source: theguardian

China says plans to speed up investment, stabilise demand

Premier Li Keqiang said China will speed up investment and construction plans to ensure domestic demand expands at a stable rate - an indication authorities are considering practical measures to support slackening economic growth.

Li said at a weekly cabinet meeting that China needs to roll out approved plans for growing domestic demand to keep growth in the economy in a "reasonable range".

No further details were given in an official statement following the meeting, and it was not clear if Li had given authorities a green light to accelerate new investment, or to start work on projects that have already been approved.

But his remarks, which came after China quietly revealed last week that it had signed off on 142 billion yuan ($23 billion) worth of railway projects this year, stoked talk among analysts that Beijing is ready to stimulate the economy.

China rattled financial markets earlier this month with data showing growth in investment, retail sales and factory output plumbing multi-year lows in January and February.

Investors, multinational companies and its major trading partners fear a sharper-than-expected slowdown in China will soon drag on activity across the world.

Ramping up state investment to shore up the economy has been par for the course in China in recent years.

In 2008/09, in the face of the global financial crisis, Beijing approved a whopping 4 trillion yuan ($645 billion) of state spending funded partly by bank loans.

That spending helped China recover quickly from the crisis, but the mountain of debt incurred fed other credit problems that the government now hopes to fix, in part by abandoning its former export- and investment-driven growth model.

Stimulus measures announced in several economic soft patches since then have been more modest and more focused, such as last year's spending on social housing, infrastructure and energy-saving industries, and tax breaks for smaller firms.

The five railway projects tipped last week were approved in January and February and will get half of their funding from bank loans, according to the country's economic planner, the National Development and Reform Commission.

Some analysts cautioned investors against taking the latest projects as an indication that China is ramping up spending again, as the construction sector usually picks up in March as the weather turns warm.

They said if China does increase investment in coming months, it would be a setback for broader economic reforms, but arguably an unavoidable one as Beijing is intent on growing the economy by around 7.5 percent this year to boost incomes and employment.

"Of course it will compromise reforms, but the starting point is that the government has to seek a compromise between growth and reforms," said Tao Wang, an economist at UBS. "It was always meant to be a balance."

At a plenum meeting of the Communist Party last November, China announced ambitious reforms that signalled the shift of the world's second-biggest economy from investment- and export-fuelled growth towards a slower, more balanced and sustained expansion.

Some changes, such as government downsizing or closures of debt-laden factories, are likely to take a back seat to avoid fuelling job losses and undermining social stability, analysts have said.

China has been showing some determination to reform and few experts believe Beijing will launch another super-sized stimulus to prop up the economy.

On Thursday, the government relaxed rules to allow more foreigners to invest in its stock markets, the latest step to free its financial markets after widening the yuan's trading band at the weekend, taking it closer to turning the yuan into a convertible, global currency.

China also has lifted a ban on equity financing for listed property developers for the first time in four years, a step that could herald less government intervention in the sector and ease funding concerns as credit grows tight and the economy slows.

The approvals come amid growing fears of defaults in the property sector after the collapse of Zhejiang Xingrun Real Estate.

Some analysts believe China's central bank is engineering the recent slide in the yuan to cushion the weakening economy by making exports more competitive, and others speculate that the government may step up efforts to bolster growth in coming months.

Analysts from government-controlled think-tanks told Reuters last week that Beijing may loosen monetary policy by reducing the level of deposits commercial banks must keep at the central bank if the economic growth slips below its 7.5 percent target.

Beijing could re-energise the economy by increasing government spending, which may involve familiar themes of greater investment in railway construction, public housing and environmental projects such as water conservation.

Source:  Reuters

Russia good place to start for Dominique Strauss-Kahn's macro fund

 Finance is more forgiving than politics. Dominique Strauss-Kahn is trying to raise $2 billion to launch a macro hedge fund. The first stop on the roadshow is China. But given current events, the former French finance minister and International Monetary Fund managing director may find that his best bet is to convince his many Russian friends that he can make them money.

When DSK, as Strauss-Kahn is widely known, was arrested for sexual assault in New York in May 2011, Vladimir Putin, then Russia's prime minister, went public with his scepticism and hinted at a dark conspiracy. After Strauss-Kahn quit his IMF job and, months later, prosecutors dropped the charges, he embarked on a low-profile career as an international consultant. He soon found work in Russia.

He now sits on the board of the bank owned by Rosneft , Russia's largest oil company, whose chief executive, Igor Sechin, narrowly avoided appearing on the list of individuals hit by Western sanctions, according to news reports. Strauss-Kahn is also a director of the Kremlin-sponsored fund designed to attract foreign investment to Russia, a task that will be arduous in the months ahead.

Moscow, though, is not the only place where a chequered past as a politician is no impediment to a lucrative present in business. Nicolas Sarkozy, whom Strauss-Kahn might have challenged in the last French presidential election had his career not taken its bizarre twist, recently explored launching a private equity fund with Qatari money. Big fund management firms routinely stuff their international advisory boards with retired or outcast politicians. The idea is to turn connections into profit.

DSK will try to make successful investments, not just collect generous consulting fees like some of his former peers. That could be a tough sell, even to his Russian circle. Macro funds have disappointed hedge fund investors lately, losing money on average in all of the last three years, according to Hedge Fund Research. Successful or not, his foray into the world of two-and 20 fees will add to general voter cynicism, as public service looks more and more like just a stepping stone towards the world of real money.

Source: Reuters

Marc Faber Thoughts in Bloomberg Surveillance with Tom Keene

There are indications of a tightening of international liquidity.

Corporate profits in U.S. Companies will continue to contract.

Money has not flowed evenly to all asset classes.

And talking in terms of sectors it has flowed into financials,services and well to do people.

We are in a risk of a Systemic Crisis, and we all are going to loose no matter which asset
class we hold.

Experts: European Union divesification from Russian Gas supply post 2020, and difficult to achieve.

Russia's seizure of the Crimea and its threat to cut off gas to Ukraine, a transit route to the rest of Europe, have revived calls to reduce the EU's reliance on Moscow for energy, but the blocs options are limited and costly. [

The European Union made some progress in improving its energy security after rows over unpaid gas bills between Kiev and Moscow led to the disruption of supplies to western Europe in 2006 and 2009.

By improving its pipeline network, the EU is better prepared for a new supply disruption, but it has not managed to reduce Russia's share of European energy supplies. 

Russia today is Europe's biggest supplier of oil, coal and natural gas, meeting around a third of demand for all those fuels, according to Eurostat data, and receiving in return a thumping $250 billion a year.

European leaders said on Friday that the stand-off with Moscow over Crimea made them more determined than ever to end decades of dependence on Russian gas, but they will have to work hard to convince the sceptics.

"The curious feature of the energy policy that emerged from the middle of the last decade is just how little serious effort has been put into security - in particular Eastern security," said Dieter Helm of Oxford University in a research paper this week.

While buyers can switch oil and coal suppliers relatively quickly and easily, Europe receives most of its gas through pipelines that are fed by only one supplier, chief among them Russia's state-controlled Gazprom .

"Gazprom's market share in Europe is increasing (due to decline of European production). So the aim of diversification of our supply is not going to be achieved this side of 2020," said Thierry Bros, gas analyst at French Bank Societe Generale.

"The question of diversification of supply post 2020, what is now in discussion in Brussels, is going to be very difficult to achieve, as with (gas) prices just below $10 per million British thermal units (mmBtu), Russia is making alternative developments for Europe less profitable," he added.

Source: Reuters

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