Brasil: Governo revê concessão de ferrovias para privilegiar trechos cobiçados

Em agosto de 2012, a presidente Dilma Rousseff lançou projeto para conceder 10 mil quilômetros de ferrovias, prevendo ter os contratos assinados até setembro de 2013 para iniciar investimentos de R$ 91 bilhões ainda neste ano.
A ideia não deu certo. Nenhuma ferrovia foi concedida. A complexidade do modelo proposto, estudos incipientes, falta de confiança nos órgãos públicos, prazo pequeno e o gigantismo do projeto são fatores apontados dentro e fora do governo para a iniciativa ter naufragado.
 O novo ministro dos Transportes, César Borges, assumiu as rédeas do plano, montado pela gestão anterior. Decidiu, então, priorizar trechos considerados de maior viabilidade e com mais procura.

A primeira licitação será a da ferrovia entre Uruaçu (GO) e Lucas do Rio Verde (MT), a Ferrovia da Soja . Como ela tem estudos mais avançados, não há grandes dúvidas sobre custo.

Ao menos três grandes grupos manifestaram interesse pelo trecho, o melhor caminho para levar ao exterior a soja da maior região produtora.
Para reduzir a resistência do TCU (Tribunal de Contas da União) em aprovar a concessão, o governo decidiu passar à iniciativa privada apenas o trecho novo.

A ideia anterior era conceder essa linha junto com um trecho da Ferrovia Norte-Sul que está praticamente pronto. Mas o tribunal viu possíveis problemas para calcular o pagamento pelo trecho antigo, o que forçou o Planalto a desistir da proposta.

O governo ainda depende da aprovação do novo modelo para marcar o leilão.

Hoje, há estudos incompletos sobre a Ferrovia da Soja no tribunal. O governo promete entregar as últimas análises ainda neste mês.

O outro projeto priorizado é o Ferroanel de São Paulo.

A primeira ideia era conceder dois trechos novos para a iniciativa privada.

Após meses de negociação e nenhum acordo com as concessionárias privadas MRS e ALL, porém, o plano foi mudado. Trechos existentes operados pelas duas empresas na região seriam retomados em uma só concessão.

O governo ainda aposta na solução para o impasse.

Fonte : Fohla de Sao Paulo

Reform of Japan's Government Investment Fund

    According to a report from the Wall Street Journal,"Japan's Government Pension Investment Fund $1.2 trillion , the world's biggest pool of pension money, is under the control of the health ministry, resulting in an ultraconservative investment menu of stocks and bonds. The fund is also bound by strict rules that have limited direct investment to Japanese government bonds, which are currently the lowest-yielding sovereign debt in the world".
'"Since July, a government-appointed panel of seven finance and business experts has been drawing up recommendations for a major revamp to get returns up. Although the panel won't make specific asset-allocation suggestions, the panel's report, which may come out as early as Nov. 20, is seen as the first step in steering the GPIF's bond-heavy portfolio into a much wider range of investments, potentially unleashing a flood of cash into global markets.

"The GPIF making decisions would mean many other pension funds following suit and adopting similar allocations. There would be a big impact for the asset classes into which funds flow," said Takashi Hiratsuka, a trading group leader in the asset management of Resona Bank, a custodian of about ¥17 trillion ($170 billion) in assets.

Just a one percentage point move in the GPIF's allocation to domestic stocks, for instance, could send ¥1.2 trillion into the market.

Freeing the GPIF from the control of the health ministry would let the fund set its own budget, pay more for outside fund management and attract talent from brokerage firms and asset-management companies with higher pay.

Instead of targeting a set investment return, as the fund does now, the panel would likely advise the GPIF to decide how much risk it can take, and then try for the highest returns it can get". 

"We are trying to make [our proposals] more concrete," panel chairman and University of Tokyo professor Takatoshi Ito told The Wall Street Journal in a Thursday interview. "Concrete in portfolio, concrete in governance, and concrete in a road map."

Asian smartphone makers hoping to crush Samsung and Apple

Samsung is the world’s – and Asia’s, top smartphone maker. But there are a lot of rival phone-makers out there aiming to dethrone the likes of Samsung and Apple. That competition is especially strong across Asia, where a number of relatively new phone-makers are playing to their strengths in home markets, aiming to get consumers hooked on their own keenly-priced but strongly-specced devices.

Let’s look at  the strongest new contenders across Asia. They’re all – individually and collectively – keen to steal sales from more established phone-makers.                                                                                      

China

1 Xiaomi

This is perhaps the best known of any Asian startup, thanks to the fact that it’s already outselling Apple in China and is on course to sell 20 million smartphones this year.                                                                What’s Xiaomi’s secret? Its smartphones sell for about half the price of Samsung’s and HTC’s flagship phones, yet the strength and versatility of its Android skin (which it calls MIUI) makes them feel like top-quality products. Xiaomi keeps costs low by selling 70 percent of its phones online, and the rest via telco partners. It has no retail business to drain money. It also sells to Hong Kong and Taiwan, and might go global, in select countries, anyway  in 2014.

Lower down in the price range is the Xiaomi Hongmi, which we reckon is the best phone you can get for a mere US$130.

Xiaomi models itself on Amazon, according to its founder. But the company’s minimal product line-up often leads to the media comparing it with Apple. Like Apple, Xiaomi has a streaming media box, and recently adapted that software to put into its own smart TV , the MiTV.

• Flagship phone: Xiaomi Mi3 has a 5-inch 1080p HD screen, 1.8GHz NVIDIA Tegra 4 (WDCDMA version) or 2.3GHz Snapdragon 800 (TD-SCDMA version) processors; 13-megapixel back camera and a 2-megapixel front one; Android 4.2; costs $325 (16GB) or $405 (64GB) unlocked.

2. Coolpad

Here’s another newcomer now outselling Apple in China. Coolpad is China’s third biggest smartphone brand in terms of sales, according to Gartner, thanks to a broad line-up of mostly cheap Android-based smartphones, with lots of special versions made for China’s three telcos. They won’t win any design awards and won’t blow your mind, but only 13 percent of Chinese people will buy smartphones that cost over $330 (that’s the psychologically important RMB 2,000 barrier) so the low-end market is vast.

Coolpad has been an OEM for several telcos around the world (producing stuff like the MetroPCS Quatrro 4G phone for T-Mobile in the US), and that’s still part of its business. But Coolpad wants to stand on its own brand overseas, and it’s targeting Southeast Asia as a first step.

• Flagship phone: Coolpad Magview 4 has a 5.9-inch 1080p HD screen; 1.8GHz Tegra 4 processor; 13-megapixel rear camera; Android 4.2; costs a whopping $650 unlocked

India

3. Micromax

   Of all the firms on our list,Micromax is the closest to its goal of beating Samsung. Micromax shipped two million of its Android-based phones in India from April to June, out of a total of 9.3 million smartphones hitting shelves in the country in that period.

Later this year it will venture overseas by launching in Russia and Romania, two developing markets that it reckons have a strong desire for more affordable smartphones.

• Flagship phone: Micromax A250 has a 5-inch 1080p HD screen; 1.5 GHz MediaTek quad-core processor; 13-megapixel rear camera and 5-megapixel front one; Android 4.2; costs $325 unlocked.

4. Karbonn                                                                                                                                                   In India, local brands like Micromax and Karbonn shipped over half of the smartphones in the country during the second quarter of 2013, representing a massive challenge to Samsung.

Karbonn is a bit smaller than Micromax, but both are growing strongly.

• Flagship phone: Karbonn Titanium S9 has a 5.2-inch 1080p HD screen; 1.2 GHz processor; 13-megapixel rear camera; Android 4.2; costs $295 unlocked.

5. Xolo                                                                                                                                               Though smaller than its two compatriot rivals, Xolo is also keen for a slice of India’s low-end to mid-range smartphone market. Xolo looks set to be India’s first phone brand to sell  a 4G  phone  in the country.

• Flagship phone: Xolo Q900 has a 4.7-inch 720p HD screen; 1.2 GHz Mediatek processor; 8-megapixel rear camera and 2-megapixel front one; Android 4.2; costs $212 unlocked.

Indonesia

6. Smartfren

   Smartfren is different from the others in this list in that it’s a mobile telco company. It has 12.5 million subscribers, and it’s pushing forward Indonesia's shift to Android with its own competitively-priced smartphones.

In our experience, the cheap components can lead to a laggy and sub-par experience on Smarfren’s phones, but then they do cost well under $200 unlocked. Still, Xiaomi’s cheapest phone is only $130 but has much stronger specs and doesn’t feel laggy, so Smartfren (and many others on this list) have some catching up to do on their sub-$200 phones.

• Flagship phone: Smartren Andromax U 4.5 Limited has a 4.5-inch screen at just 960 x 540 pixels; 1.2 GHz Snapdragon processor; 8-megapixel rear camera and 2-megapixel front one; Android 4.1; costs $153 unlocked.

Malaysia 

7. Ninetology  

 With an emphasis on style and a bit more attention paid to design than is evident in the others on this list, Malaysia’s Ninetology is already, it claims, Malaysia’s second biggest phone-maker (behind, inevitably, Samsung).

• Flagship phone: Ninetology Z1+ has a 5-inch 720p HD screen; 1.2 GHZ quad-core Mediatek processor; 13-megapixel rear camera and 5-megapixel front one; Android 4.2; costs $410 unlocked.

Last week, this Malaysian firm launched in neighboring Indonesia.

Source: TECHINASIA

  

Berlusconi breaks away from Italian government after party splits

Silvio Berlusconi, facing expulsion from parliament over a tax conviction and a revolt which split his centre-right party, said on Saturday he may no longer back Italian Prime Minister Enrico Letta but would not be able to bring down the government.

The 77-year-old billionaire' s comments came after Friday's defection of a group led by Interior Minister Angelino Alfano, former secretary of his People of Freedom party, which defied Berlusconi and formed a group that has pledged to remain in Letta's coalition government.

Berlusconi said his impending expulsion from parliament, with the support of Letta's centre-left Democratic Party (PD), meant the left-right coalition created in the wake of February's deadlocked election could not continue.

"It's very difficult to think you can remain allies in parliament and above all seated at the same table in cabinet with someone who wants to kill your leader politically," Berlusconi said.

"At this moment, after the decision taken by 23 of our senators on October 2, we were not capable and we are not capable of bringing down the government," Berlusconi said.

He said the break with Alfano and the other rebels was down to personal differences rather than deep policy disagreements and he considered the group as potential allies in future.

After weeks of tension in the centre-right between those pressing for a break with Letta and those determined to support the government, the split underlines the instability threatening Italy as it grapples with its worst postwar recession.

Source: Reuters

Merkel ready to cede on minimum wage to secure coalition

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has signalled her readiness to accept the Social Democrats' (SPD) demand for a legal minimum wage in order to secure their agreement to form a governing coalition, as negotiations enter the final stretch.

Merkel began preparing her conservatives for a compromise by telling a Christian Democrats (CDU) youth rally late on Friday that the 8.50 euros per hour pay floor which the SPD demands "will play a role" in future.

"It won't be our vision of a minimum wage," she added, conceding her party was unlikely to get its own way over the SPD on the issue.

The SPD has given up its campaign promise to hike taxes on the rich but will not budge on the minimum wage. Nearly half a million SPD members will vote on the coalition deal by early December, injecting more uncertainty into the whole process.

Merkel's parliamentary leader Volker Kauder also prepared for a compromise by telling the mass-circulation Bild am Sonntag paper, in comments released before publication, that "growth and employment must not suffer" from its introduction. Some businessleaders are worried that it will undermine competitiveness.

Kauder said it might be wise to introduce the minimum wage more gradually in the former East Germany- where pay is lower and unemployment higher - to avoid putting jobs at risk. But trade unions who back the SPD might find that hard to accept.

Source:  Reuters

EU Comissioner Germany won't be sanctioned in surplus probe

Germany's European Commissioner Guenther Oettinger ruled out on Saturday his country being sanctioned by Brussels as a result of a new investigation into its current account surplus.

The European Union's executive body decided this week to analyse the persistently high surplus on Germany's current account - which is largely due to it exporting far more than it imports - to gauge whether criticisms from the United States and elsewhere in the EU that it causes economic imbalances are justified.

But European Energy Commissioner Oettinger, a senior figure in German Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democratic Union (CDU), told the party's youth congress in the city of Erfurt: "It certainly will not come down to sanctions."

Oettinger said the EU probe would demonstrate clearly that German exports are increasing to the rest of the world rather than Europe and that other EU manufacturers benefit when Germany sells cars to China, for example.

"This is a success for the whole EU, not for Germany at the expense of the EU," said Oettinger.

The Commission runs a scoreboard of economic indicators for member states with warning signs that include a current account deficit larger than 4 percent of GDP or a persistent surplus of over 6 percent.

But whereas there is a mechanism for fining states running excessive deficits - the penalty can be 0.1 percent of GDP - it is not currently foreseen to fine member states for a surplus.

Aid flows to typhoon survivors as Philippines struggles to rebuild

Long-delayed emergency supplies flowed into the typhoon-ravaged central Philippines on Saturday, reaching desperate families who had to fend for themselves for days, as the United Nations more than doubled its estimate of homeless to nearly two million.

The aid effort was still patchy, with relief officials reporting a surge in desperate, hungry survivors trying to leave the coastal city of Ormoc, 105 km (65 miles) west of Tacloban, the worst-affected major city.

More than a week after Typhoon Haiyan killed at least 3,633 with tree-snapping winds and tsunami-like waves, hundreds of international aid workers set up makeshift hospitals and trucked in supplies.

At least 800 people died in the district of Palo, which lies between Tanauan and Tacloban, national authorities said.

In Tacloban, work crews and heavy equipment cleared debris from roadsides, but side streets remained piled with the sodden, tangled remains of homes which city officials fear could reveal hundreds more bodies when they are eventually cleared.

There are 1,179 people missing, according to the national count. The official death toll only rose by 12 on Saturday, giving hope that initial local estimates of 10,000 dead were overblown.

The number of people made homeless by the storm rose to 1.9 million, up from 900,000, the United Nations' humanitarian agency said. In Tacloban, at least 56,000 people face unsanitary conditions, according to the United Nations' migration agency.

Source: Reuters

Jack Ma, Alibaba's culture priorities 1st Customers,2nd Employees and 3rd Shareholders

"My goal for creating a company is not for making money but to build a culture, Alibaba's
goal is to help other people.
  I run my businesses,with  different values with respect to US companies, for them
shareholders are first,customers are second and employees are last.

  Alibaba's culture priorities are,customers are number one,employees are number two and
shareholder's are number 3.
  Customers are our top priority because they pay for our products and brings us money.
  Employee's are second because they led innovation.
  And shareholders are third in our priorities,because whenever a crisis happens, they sell our shares and run away, customer's and employees's  always remain.

  XX'th century was for the big companies,   XX'st century is for small and medium sized companies.
  US is to big company driven.
 
  We focus on small business,small is beautiful.
   I have seen people making fortunes catching shrimps,but not catching sharks or whales.

   My mission from now own is not to make fortunes, but help people, encourage entrepeneurship
and build values,solve social problems

   Human brains run the machines.

   Markets drive the tech innovation, the culture to innovate".

   Source: Interview of Jack Ma by Charlie Rose





  

Southeast Asia has more than 190 million internet users

"Southeast Asia is one of the most diverse and fast changing regions in the world. It’s home to over 600 million people spread across eleven different countries. Startups from across the region are not only competing in their own local markets but also looking to the region to do battle. It’s thus more important than ever to get a good overview of the market and understand where each country is".

"Singapore, is the leader in internet penetration, but Indonesia is far and away the regional leader in number of internet users. The regional average internet penetration is 34.7 percent but the differences are so drastic that it’s not a particularly useful statistic. After all, East Timor and Myanmar’s internet penetration sit far below even the 10 percent that Laos enjoys and Singapore, Brunei, and Malaysia are above 50 percent.

Given the stats below, it’s pretty clear that Indonesia, Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, and Thailand are Southeast Asia’s most promising large internet markets, so if you’re a startup looking to attack your neighbors, look to these key markets'.

"All data for this infographic is from projections from 2012 and can be found in our Data Series tag, Wikipedia, and from Internet World Stats" .

  By

Anh-Minh Do

By 2020 we predict Internet world wide Penetration will be in the range of 75-85%, E. Argaez IWS

Only seven years from now it will be 2020, a very intertesting year because it will be the end of the twenty-tens and the start of the twenty-twenties. The big question is how many people will be online at that time?

 Eric Schmidt has boldly predicted that everyone in the world will be online by 2020. This has already caused an uproar of neysayers. I agree with Eric Schmidt, in part. He should have added the word nearly, making the frase: nearly everyone will be online in 2020. But maybe Eric Schmidt is right because he is better informed and has reasons we ignore, to back-up his bold statement.

Internet users are growing in Africa and Latin America at a fast pace with support from the local governments. Already in Colombia Internet Penetration in the larger cities (with over 200,000 population) has reached 80%.InternetWorldStats  data shows 34.3% penetration worldwide for mid-year 2012. For mid-year 2020, we predict Internet world penetration will be in the range of 75-85%. For the majority of developed countries, our forecast is a 90% Internet user penetration rate.

 by Enrique Argaez, Editor of Internet World Stats

Fluentlee: Disenchanted with web advertising, ex-Googler starts real-time language learning site Fluentlee

"For years,David Bebko, a lifetime marketer, harbored the dream of starting his own company. Yet in 2011, he ended up joining Google as the head of business marketing for Asia-Pacific, believing that if there’s one big company with an entrepreneurial spirit, it’s the search giant.

But everyone knows that in Google, engineers are king, and they do all the really fun stuff. Everyone else is secondary:

In my particular role, I came to realize that my dreams weren’t going to be fulfilled at Google. Great company, great people, but not for me.

David has a strong desire to build. As a marketer at IBM, he worked hand-in-hand with engineers to create a product roadmap. At the same time, he has also grown disenchanted with internet advertising, which has begun to dominate search engine results pages and social networks.

“I started caring more about making a difference, and I started caring less about advertising. Yes, I believe marketing has a role to play in the economy, but I wanted to do something noble,” he says.

So David left Google in 2012 to start Crowdworks, a Singapore- and Boston-based company with the long term vision of enabling real-time connections between learners and experts. Their first product isFluentlee, a pay-to-play language learning site that’s like Craigslist and Skype combined.

David picked language learning through a mix of practicality and passion. For crowdsourced, real-time video lessons to work, a platform will need to keep out the creeps and ensure users feel secure. Unfortunately, that means fewer males.

Language learning, David finds, caters to both male and female audiences, with a slant towards the latter. Other skillsets, like plumbing or changing a flat tire (insert engineering here), are more likely to be dominated by male experts.

And since learners often prefer to seek out native language speakers, that means almost all the transactions are cross-border in nature, which minimizes the harm creeps can cause.

David himself is an avid language learner. A Singapore Permanent Resident whose family resides in the island state, he is getting his two daughters to learn Mandarin. Yet, he finds the lack of opportunities to have a conversation on everyday topics is a big obstacle to language learning.

While there’s an obscene amount of language learning tools online, Fluentlee’s conversational aspect sets it apart from the field. It aims to replicate the experience of immersing oneself in a village in China or going to a foreign supermarket to purchase groceries.

   Source: TECHINASIA

EU Inflation Data behind the last cut of ECB benchmark interest rate

   According to an article published on the Wall Street Journal today,"the EU's official statistics agency said Friday consumer prices rose 0.9% in the 12 months to October, a lower annual rate of inflation than the 1.3% recorded in September, and the lowest since October 2009".

Eurostat also confirmed that the annual rate of inflation in the 17 countries that share the euro was 0.7% in October, the lowest level since November 2009. Eurostat's preliminary estimate, released Oct. 31, prompted a quick response from the European Central Bank, which cut its benchmark interest rate to a record low of 0.25% last week.

The latest figures indicate that falling inflation rates are a broader issue for economies throughout Europe, many of which are struggling to return to growth. Eurostat reported Thursday that the combined gross domestic product of the 17 euro-zone members grew by just 0.1% in the third quarter, while the combined GDP of the EU's 28 members grew by just 0.2%.

Eurostat's figures show that four EU members experienced deflation in October: Greece, Bulgaria, Cyprus and Ireland. But three other members were on the cusp, with prices flat on the year in Spain, Latvia and Portugal. Only two EU nations had an inflation rate in touching distance of the 2.0% mark that many central banks consider healthy, those being Estonia and the U.K.

The slowdown in inflation is a mixed blessing. While it should help boost real incomes at a time of weak wage growth, it also raises the specter of deflation—a sustained fall in prices that can play havoc with public and private efforts to repay debts and risks bringing consumer spending to a halt.

When prices start to fall, consumers can postpone purchases in the expectation that they will get better value for their money in the future. That can in turn weaken economic activity, and create further deflationary pressures. Following the difficulties Japan has experienced in getting out of its long period of deflation, other central banks are anxious to avoid a similar struggle.

Released Thursday, the minutes of the Czech central bank's policy meeting held last week show how concerned policy makers in many parts of Europe are about the threat of deflation. On the same day the ECB cut its benchmark rate, the Czech central bank announced it would intervene in currency markets to weaken the koruna and boost prices of imports.

"The opinion was expressed that it was necessary to react preventively and not wait until deflation occurred, and thus prevent losses in [gross domestic product] and employment," the minutes said.

How Indonesia’s PicMix grew from zero to 15 million users

"Indonesia is famously known for being one of the world’s biggest users of social networks Facebook, Twitter, and now Path. While Indonesia is definitely a huge market for anyone to be in, it’s about time that the country starts to shift away from just being users and starts being makers.

At Start-up Asia Jakarta next week, I’ll be interviewing the founder of photo social network Pic Mix, Calvin Kizana, which has become one of Indonesia’s biggest social networking apps to date. The app has impressively garnered 15 million users worldwide, with over 225 million photos posted so far. And get this: the startup has not reached its second birthday yet".

By Enricco Lukman

Source:  TECHINASIA

Tencent: WeChat now has 271.9 million monthly active users around the world

Chinese web giant Tencent revealed its Q3 2013 earnings report this evening. The figure that everyone is looking for pertains to WeChat: it now has 271.9 million monthly active users in Q3. That’s up 15.3 percent from Q2, and up 124.3 percent from the same time a year ago. That combines its Chinese and overseas users. The messaging app has 100 million registerd users outside of China, the company said in August, but most of its user-base is in mainland China. Whatsapp has a more global spread among its 350 million active users.

Tencent hailed the WeChat growth as due to games and online payments being added to the app – though only for Chinese users – earlier this summer.

Here are the main financial numbers from Tencent:

• Total revenues of $2.53 billion in Q3 this year, up 34.3 percent from same period last year.
• Revenues from value-added services and advertising were also up strongly, hitting $1.89 billion and $226 million respectively.
• Q3 profit is $630.5 million, up 19.6 percent year-on-year.
• E-commerce revenues have more than doubled in the past year as Tencent finally gets into the swing of online shopping. It hit $383.8 million in Q3.
• Source: TECHINASIA

What has been seen can be unseen: a catalog of photos censored by China’s Sina Weibo

There’s a lot that cannot be said on China’s internet. And there’s much that cannot be shown as well. That’s why US-based non-profit Pro Publica has created a catalog  of images and photos that have been censored by and removed from Sina Weibao, the country’s equivalent of Twitter.

It creates a hectic yet somehow moving mosaic of social issues, disaffection, and utterly bizarre Orwellian hyper-vigilance. Sina Weibo, being a real-time social network, is at the fore front of people's pushback against what cannot be said, shown, or shared in China.

These banished images show that what can be seen can be unseen – at least in the minds of the censors, if not in the visual cortex of the nation’s netizens.

Source: TECHINASIA

As powers push for talks, Syria balance tilts towards Assad

More than two and a half years into the civil war devastating Syria, the United States and Russia are pushing the combatants to the negotiating table in Geneva, but on terms that mark a shift in favor of Bashar al-Assad against the increasingly fragmented rebels seeking to oust him.

Since the August 21 nerve gas attacks on rebel suburbs ringing Damascus, which brought the U.S. to the brink of a missile assault on Assad's forces, the diplomatic tide has turned against the opposition, which briefly believed external intervention would enable its forces to launch a final offensive.

Instead, the combination of hesitation by President Barack Obama's administration and an 11th hour deal brokered by Russia, a key Assad ally, to decommission Syria's chemical arsenal, has wrong-footed the rebels, now under intense U.S. and European pressure to attend talks in Geneva with a vague agenda.

Syrian opposition advisers and independent analysts fear this could channel the Syrian conflict - like other intractable regional problems such as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict - into a lengthy and fruitless process.

The only diplomatic landmark in this conflict, last June's U.N.-brokered statement known as Geneva I, was vague enough.

It called for a transitional government in a way that many assumed precluded any role for the Assad family, which has ruled Syria with an iron fist since President Assad's late father, Hafez, seized absolute power in 1970.

There has been barely a flicker of agreement within Syria about its future since the country erupted in initially peaceful protests in March 2011.

A source close to the internationally recognized political opposition, the National Coalition, says it fears the U.S.-Russia deal to dismantle Syria's chemical arsenal has restored the Assad administration's legitimacy, even as it uses tactics such as the starvation of rebel areas to try to regain control.

Source: Reuters

Aircraft: Hybrid ESTOLAS aircraft combines aspects of a plane, helicopter, hovercraft and airship

As evidenced by ongoing efforts in the Philippines in the wake of Typhoon Haiyan, getting aid and support personnel in and victims out of disaster-stricken areas is a major problem when infrastructure such as runways has been rendered unusable. A new aircraft concept combining features of an airship, plane, helicopter and hovercraft that is being developed as part of the European Commission's Extremely Short Take Off and Landing On any Surface (ESTOLAS) project could help address the problem.

The hybrid ESTOLAS aircraft features a short, squat design with propeller engines mounted at the rear of a disc-shaped main body that houses a rotor like a helicopter's. The aircraft is composed almost entirely of lightweight composite materials and the body and can also be filled with helium to further reduce the aircraft's weight and provide additional lifting power. This would allow it to take off and land at lower speeds on short runways and, if no conventional runways are available, it can use its air-cushioned skirt and wheel-skis to take off and land on any natural surface, such as fields, marshes, water or snow.

The project team is examining four different ESTOLAS sizes, including small, medium, heavy and superheavy with maximum payloads ranging from under 3 tonnes (3.3 tons) to over 400 tonnes (440 tons). Project Coordinator Alexander Gamaleyev of Riga Technical University in Latvia says the superheavy ESTOLAS model would be able to take off and land at distances of 175 m (574 ft), while the small version could do so within just 75 m (246 ft).

Load ratios would also be 1.5 to 2 times higher than conventional jet or propeller planes, with reduced fuel consumption giving the aircraft the ability to deliver cargo anywhere on Earth without refueling. Gamaleyev claims the hybrid aircraft's lower fuel consumption would put it on a par with rail transport in terms of cost, while the reduced CO2 emissions should make it the world's most ecologically efficient form of air transport.

In addition to disaster relief operations, the team envisages the ESTOLAS having a wide variety of applications, including defense, business, tourism and support for the building and operation of remote oil and gas fields. It also has the potential to offer cheaper and more efficient air transport between cities with existing runways and airfields and smaller towns lacking such facilities.

Designs unveiled for proposed new London airport on artificial island

Sometimes, success brings its own problems. London’s airports may have managed to grab a considerable chunk of the passenger air market, but the result has been congestion over the south of England and a desperate clamor for new runways. This week, the Thames Estuary Research and Development Company (Testrad) consortium unveiled details of a scheme designed to take the pressure off. Its London Britannia Airport proposal involves building an artificial island in the Thames Estuary near the Isle of Sheppey to provide the capital with a larger airport, which would replace Heathrow.

Problems of building and expanding Heathrow have been around since it was expanded from a small airfield into an RAF base in 1944 and then into the main London air terminal in later decades.

As Heathrow grew into one of the busiest airports in the world, the need for expansion and renovation became paramount, but its location in the heavily built up region west of London made each proposal a hard fought contest against environmentalists, local residents, the National Trust, and even the major political parties. However, the continuing increase in air passenger travel raised the question of expanding London’s air capacity or seeing business going to French, Dutch and German competitor airports.

In 2010, Mayor of London Boris Johnson said: “As the world economy changes and global power shifts to the east, the constrictions of London’s hub airport are becoming ever more apparent and ever more damaging ... to do nothing would lead to economic stagnation … it is vital that a location for extra runway capacity is found for London to remain one of the leading world cities.”

According to the BBC, Johnson, is so outspoken an advocate in favor of an Estuary airport as opposed to expanding Heathrow that the proposed artificial island was dubbed “Boris Island.” It’s a name that has been reinforced by his founding of Testrad to prepare a feasibility of such an airport in the Thames Estuary.

Testrad funds research into the advantages and trade offs of such an airport and was established by Doug Oakervee, former chairman of Crossrail Ltd and Bridget Rosewell, former Chief Economic Adviser to the GLA at the Mayor’s behest. 

It’s part of an overall strategy to develop the Estuary and move the economic center of London eastward, which would include improvements in flood defense, the application of wind and tidal power, the development of more extensive crossings of the Estuary by road and rail, and the improvement of shipping and airport facilities.

Built behind a belt of polders to control against flooding, the London Britannia Airport would consist of six runways spreading out from an island of reclaimed land in the shallows of the Estuary. According to Testrad, it would cost £47 billion to build at £7.83 billion per runway, as opposed to £14 to 18 billion to build another runway at Heathrow, and would take seven years to construct.

Once in operation, the airport would provide 24-hour service to 172 million passengers per year, who would go through a check-in in central London before their 30-minute journey to the airport via high-speed rail lines. There would also be rail connections to Gatwick, Stansted, and Heathrow, as well as docking facilities for international and domestic ferry lines.

Inside the airport would be a multi-use terminal with conference facilities, museum outposts, sleeping pods and shopping. In addition, there would be lounges on all passenger tiers, and views of the Thames Estuary for a “resonant and memorable interior terminal environment.”

The proposal lays out the advantages of the airport as providing better connections to Europe, British regional cities, and London itself. In addition to shifting the economic center of the metropolis to the less developed east, Testrad says that it would create 200,000 new jobs through direct and indirect new employment, and service and engineering industry spin-offs.

As to the the airport itself, Testrad claims that the Estuary location would have low environmental impact as a “blue-greenfield site” that would require no land assembly, would not be subject to planning delays, would have minimal impact on birds, and wouldn't need industries or homes to move. In addition, the shift in air traffic would mean no more noisy flyovers of London or the Southeast.

Source: Gizmag

Norway should invest a fraction of its Sovereing Wealth Fund in Africa and Asia, Bill Gates.

Philanthropist and Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates called on Norway's $800 billion Oil Sovereign fund, one of the biggest investors in the world, to spend more in the poorest countries, gaining the prime minister's support with his proposal.

Gates, who runs the $37 billion Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, said Norway should set aside a portion of the fund to invest in infrastructure in sub-Saharan Africa and Asia, and buy equity in small enterprises that alleviate agricultural and medical problems.

Norway is working on a complete review of the fund, including its investment strategy. Critics say it has become too big and needs to diversify away from stocks, bonds and real estate, and may even need to be broken up into specialized vehicles.

"It is part of our platform that the oil fund should invest more in developing markets," Prime Minister Erna Solberg, who took power last month, said after meeting Gates.

Norway has amassed the world's biggest wealth fund, saving up its surplus oil revenues, and operates it as a sort of endowment, spending only its returns. It is expected to exceed $1 trillion this decade and already owns about 1.25 percent of all global equities, a huge amount for a country of 5.1 million.

Although the review may result in a new investment strategy, Norway's consensus based politics means changes are slow and often take several years.

WSJ: China to Ease One-Child Policy

    According to a report from the Wall Street Journal,"China's leaders agreed to loosen the nation's one-child policy and to give market forces a greater role in the world's No. 2 economy, according to new details of a blueprint for reform released on Friday".
"While a preliminary summary of the meeting released on Tuesday was vague, the more-detailed document released on Friday sketches an ambitious reform program designed to address problems that China faces: maturing growth, rising worries about a wide wealth gap and endemic pollution, and increasingly vocal criticism of Beijing's handling of a number of social issues.

"More attention also needs to be paid to employment, income levels, social security and people's health," the document said.

The test now for Mr. Xi and China's leaders will be how to implement many of its goals, including whether they will be introduced in coming months or will be introduced more gradually. The leadership is likely to face resistance ranging from state enterprises and the bureaucracies that oversee them to local governments, which have been frustrated by attempts at piecemeal reforms in recent years. A special leadership committee to oversee reform, which was announced previously, is supposed to address possible resistance, though the document provides few details on how it will do so.

The document said China would significantly ease its one-child policy, allowing couples to have two children if one of the parents is an only child. Currently, Chinese couples are restricted to one child except under some circumstances, such as rural dwellers, pilot programs in a number of areas and among ethnic minorities.

On economic matters, Chinese leaders said they would establish a system for insuring bank deposits, prepare a mechanism for financial bankruptcy and ease controls on prices for energy, water, telecommunications and other services. 

It also said it would ease curbs on offshore securities investments and mergers and acquisitions, without providing details.

China also plans to abolish a controversial labor camp system in what Xinhua described as "part of efforts to improve human rights and judicial procedures".

LONDON CLOSE: FED'S YELLEN SPARKS GAINS ON HOPES OF CONTINUED STIMULUS

Markets were able to shrug off some disappointing economic data on Thursday as hopes over a continuation of monetary easing by the US Federal Reserve lifted stocks.

Speaking this afternoon to the Senate Banking Committee, soon-to-be Fed Chair Janet Yellen argued that the central bank's quantitative easing (QE) programme, which has been in place since late 2008, has made a "meaningful contribution to economic growth". 

However, she said that the labour market and wider economy are still performing "far short of their potential" with unemployment still too high. As such, she assured that Fed policy is "not on a set course", raising hopes that the central bank could put off a tapering of QE until next year.

The FTSE 100 finished 36.13 points higher at 6,666.13, rebounding after hitting its lowest level in nearly four weeks on Wednesday (6,630).

Financial Sales Trader Alex Conroy from Spreadex said that Yellen's "vigorous defence of QE" led to a strong finish for markets "as investors who may have been cautious about getting into equities just before tapering occurred, get the encouragement they need". 

Stocks had pared gains this morning after a series of gloomy economic figures from this side of the Atlantic. 

UK retail sales fell by 0.7% in October, compared with a 0.6% gain the month before, disappointing analysts who had pencilled in no change month-on-month. 

Meanwhile, Eurozone gross domestic product growth eased to 0.1% in the third quarter, in line with analysts' estimates but down from the 0.3% expansion seen in the second quarter. German GDP growth slowed from 0.7% to 0.3%, as expected, while French economic activity contracted by 0.1% from 0.5% growth in the second quarter, worse than forecasts.

Source: LiveCharts

ASIA: STOCKS FINISH HIGHER ON HOPES OF CHINA REFORMS

Asian stocks rallied on expectations that China would release wide ranging reforms to boost the world's second largest economy.

Communist Party newspaper the People's Daily today cited a senior government official who said that China's reforms will be "unprecedented".

A document issued late Tuesday by the party was absent of concree reform policies following the Third Plenum, a meeting of Chinese leaders.

"Expectations for reforms have been heightened again, prompting investors to snap up stocks," Zeng Xianzhao, an analyst at Everbright Securities, told The Wall Street Journal.

The Shanghai Composite Index ended up 1.68% while Hong Kong's Hang Seng index rose 1.69%.

Bolstering stocks in Japan was a weaker yen which supported exports. The Japanese currency weakened against the US dollar as Fed Vice Chairwoman Janet Yellen said the US economy needs to improve before the central bank ends its $85bn-a-month bond-buying programme. 

Japanese finance minister Taro Aso on Thursday indicated that government would push back against strengthening of the yen.

Japan's Nikkei finished up 1.95%

Source: LiveCharts

China's CPCC far Reaching Reform on Tenure of Land

According to some market reports Beijing has just released some further details on the Communist Party Central Committee´s reform plans, as per the results of its meetings last week. 

At first glance these do indeed seem to be quite far-reaching and appear to touch upon several of the "command economy" elements remaining in China. 

In that regard, it is apparently Beijing´s intention to give collectively-owned land the same rights status as state land, for example. That is quite a far reaching reform in a country where heretofor private ownership of land was a reserve of the State. 

As well, China is to loosen its one-child policy and scrap residence restrictions in small cities. The latter measure may allow for a freer movement of labour, which has both economic and political implications in a Communist State. 

More on the financial side of things, local goverments will reportedly be allowed to broaden their financing channels and overseas investment by individuals and companies is to be encouraged. 

Price reforms in resource sectors will be pushed forward and capital account convertibility accelerated. 

Source: LiveCharts