Bamboo Innovator

To Expand Offshore Power, Japan Builds Floating Windmills; Harnessing wind in deeper waters off Japan could generate as much as 1,570 gigawatts of electricity, roughly eight times the current capacity of all of Japan’s power companies combined

October 24, 2013

To Expand Offshore Power, Japan Builds Floating Windmills

By HIROKO TABUCHI

OFF THE COAST OF FUKUSHIMA, Japan — Twelve miles out to sea from the severely damaged and leaking nuclear reactors at Fukushima, a giant floating wind turbine signals the start of Japan’s most ambitious bet yet on clean energy. When this 350-foot-tall windmill is switched on next month, it will generate enough electricity to power 1,700 homes. Unremarkable, perhaps, but consider the goal of this offshore project: to generate over 1 gigawatt of electricity from 140 wind turbines by 2020. That is equivalent to the power generated by a nuclear reactor. Read more of this post

Abe’s Farmers Fight Fat as TPP Means Tariff Cuts in Japan

Abe’s Farmers Fight Fat as TPP Means Tariff Cuts in Japan

From rice to control blood glucose levels to soybeans that reduce fatty acids, Japan is seeking new ways to make money from agriculture as pressure mounts to cut the tariffs its farmers rely on to make a living. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s government estimates there’s a potential 600 billion yen ($6.2 billion) market for so-called functional foods, strains of mostly fruits, vegetables and grains with provable health benefits beyond regular nutrition. He’s put 2 billion yen into the agriculture ministry’s coffers for a three-year project to develop new varieties of rice, soybeans, barley, onions and buckwheat. Read more of this post

Tobacco Control Stumps Indonesia’s Health Minister; There are few places in the world where cigarettes are cheaper than in Indonesia. Indeed, they are affordable even for the poorest households and children

Tobacco Control Stumps Indonesia’s Health Minister

By Markus Junianto Sihaloho & Dina Manafe on 10:42 am October 24, 2013.
Tobacco industry lobbyists and lawmakers are rebuffing demands for stricter regulation, saying such a move would end millions of livelihoods. “Many small industries can no longer survive. We feel like we are going to get murdered and only big industry will survive,” said Hafash Gunaman, head of the Association of Kudus Cigarette Makers. Hafash was responding to renewed calls on the government to accede to the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), a treaty convened by the World Health Organization in 2003, after the world community singled out Indonesia as the only country in Asia, the Pacific or the G20 that has not attempted to pass tobacco control laws that meet even minimum international standards. Read more of this post

Jakarta Stands by Relentless Drive Against Dirty Officials

City Stands by Relentless Drive Against Dirty Officials

By Lenny Tristia Tambun on 8:45 am October 25, 2013.
Jakarta Deputy Governor Basuki Tjahaja Purnama has denied that the administration of Governor Joko Widodo is on a witch hunt against officials from the term of the previous governor, amid an antigraft crackdown on senior city bureaucrats. “No, that never crossed our minds, we never had any such thoughts,” Basuki said at City Hall on Thursday. Basuki said it was the various law enforcement agencies that had flagged the alleged corruption by the officials in question, and that the Jakarta administration, especially Joko and himself, never intervened in the investigations. Read more of this post

Record-Low H.K. Home Sales Spur Realtor Loss: Chart of the Day

Record-Low H.K. Home Sales Spur Realtor Loss: Chart of the Day

The tumble in Hong Kong’s home sales to a record low signals further declines in Midland (1200) Holdings Ltd., the city’s largest listed realtor, according to Bocom International Holdings Co. The CHART OF THE DAY shows the three-month average of residential transactions in Hong Kong fell to 3,693 units in September, the lowest since at least 1996, according to government data compiled by Bloomberg. Sales have plunged even as Centaline Property Agency Ltd.’s housing-price gauge holds within 3.1 percent of a record high. The lower panel shows Midland had 9,576 employees at the end of June, according to the latest company statement, the most ever and triple the amount a decade ago, alongside the company’s stock price. Read more of this post

Just one in six Hong Kong students who take on student loans will be able to repay the full amount within the stipulated time, a survey has found

Students with loans feel the squeeze
Hilary Wong 
Friday, October 25, 2013
Just one in six who take on student loans will be able to repay the full amount within the stipulated time, a survey has found. The Hong Kong Federation of Youth Groups said yesterday the average loan of 727 students interviewed during August and September was HK$110,000, while those on self-financed programs borrowed about HK$190,000. Only 16 percent said they would be able to pay back the loans on time, it found. According to the Student Financial Assistance Agency, students have two ways to apply for a government loan. Read more of this post

Electric car manufacturer Tesla has a higher market capitalisation than it “deserves”, its chief executive said

October 24, 2013 10:00 pm

Tesla admits market cap is supercharged

By Henry Foy in London

Electric car manufacturer Tesla has a higher market capitalisation than it “deserves”, its chief executive said. Tesla, which expects to sell just 21,000 cars this year, is worth about $22bn, roughly half the value of Ford and a third of the value of General Motors, which sold more than 9m vehicles last year. The California-based company, which counts Hollywood stars such as Cameron Diaz as customers, has seen its stock price rise about 400 per cent so far in 2013. “I think that we have quite a high valuation, and a higher valuation than we have any right to deserve,” chief executive Elon Musk said at an event to mark the opening of a new Tesla showroom in London. Read more of this post

Siam Cement Using Cash Pile to Accelerate Growth: Southeast Asia

Siam Cement Using Cash Pile to Accelerate Growth: Southeast Asia

Siam Cement Pcl (SCC), Asia’s biggest cement producer by market value, plans to buy as many as five companies in Southeast Asia as rising incomes boost demand for homes and governments increase spending on infrastructure. Bangkok-based Siam Cement is in talks with companies including a building-materials producer in Vietnam, President Kan Trakulhoon said, without naming them. The value of each deal will be between a few billion baht and 10 billion baht ($321 million), he said in an interview yesterday. Read more of this post

Korean financial authorities to build an online system to provide financial consulting services for ordinary people in April of next year

Online financial consulting system for ordinary people to be built

2013.10.24 15:03:11

Financial authorities have decided to build an online system to provide financial consulting services for ordinary people in April of next year. According to sources Thursday, the Financial Supervisory Service (FSS) recently invited industry bids to upgrade its financial consumer portal, which online financial analysis services for users are newly included.
Consumers will be allowed to choose a preferred analysis method to use services that will be offered on an independent website not through the financial consumer portal. Creation of this system will begin next month and is scheduled to be open to the public in April of next year. “Using this online system, consumers will be able to have their financial status checked and understand what they can do to increase their wealth,” said an FSS official. The decision reflects the fact that retired baby boomers pay growing attention to wealth management and investments, but appropriate financial consulting services are not available. Private banking centers run by banks and insurers are designed only for wealthy people whose assets exceed 1 billion won ($950,000).

Carmakers are rolling the dice on e-bikes in the US, fearing the death of the car

Carmakers are rolling the dice on e-bikes in the US, fearing the death of the car

By Roberto A. Ferdman @robferdman 11 hours ago

The notion of an electronic bicycle craze isn’t exactly new in bike-friendly parts of the world. But despite the many obstacles that have surfaced about taking e-biking mainstream in the US, a slew of carmakers appear determined to churn out newfangled high-concept e-bikes in the hopes of jolting demand. Take BMW’s latest offering. Its new Cruise e-Bike 2014, which weighs less than 50 pounds, comes equipped with a turbo function and will cost nearly $4,000. For now, the company is hedging its bets by restricting its initial sales to Germany, where e-bikes are gaining steam. Ford, on the other hand, is blazing straight into the US market with its new Pedego e-bike, which it intends to sell across the country starting in 2014. Audi released a prototype last year that could eventually reach the US, and Mercedes Benz launched its Smart e-bike in Canada in the spring of 2012. Read more of this post

Taiwan’s Shining, which owns the Lalu luxury hotel (涵碧樓) at Sun Moon Lake in central Taiwan, said it is aiming to establish 30 hotels and shopping centers in China over the next decade

Taiwan’s Shining Group plans to build thirty hotels in China

CNA
October 25, 2013, 12:27 am TWN

TAIPEI — The tourism and real estate development group which owns the Lalu luxury hotel (涵碧樓) at Sun Moon Lake in central Taiwan said Thursday it is aiming to establish 30 hotels and shopping centers in China over the next decade, starting with a complex that is under construction in Qingdao. The Lalu hotel and shopping mall in the northern Chinese coastal city will open in May 2014, said Shining Group (鄉林集團) Chairman Lai Cheng-i (賴正鎰) at a igning ceremony in Taipei to give space to 28 boutiques at the complex. Read more of this post

Trade: Into uncharted waters; A 30-year trend of trade growing at twice the speed of the global economy has ended

October 24, 2013 6:18 pm

Trade: Into uncharted waters

By Shawn Donnan

A 30-year trend of trade growing at twice the speed of the global economy has ended

The Tangerine Island, a bulk carrier sailing under the flag of the Marshall Islands, is moored in the Gulf of Panama after passing through the canal a few hours earlier. Off southern England, the 199-metre Turandot, a vehicle carrier, is setting a course for New York after leaving Southampton. In the Strait of Malacca off Sumatra, the Liberian-flagged Amazon River is steaming along at 16 knots. Read more of this post

Saudi Women Plan to Hit Roads in Latest Push for Right to Drive

Saudi Women Plan to Hit Roads in Latest Push for Right to Drive

A group of Saudi Arabian women plan a protest tomorrow defying the world’s only ban on female drivers.

Organizers are urging women across the country to take to the roads. The group, named the “26th October Women’s Driving Campaign,” called on the government to provide “a valid and legal justification” for maintaining the ban, and “not simply defer to social consensus,” according to its website. More than 16,000 people signed an online petition in support. Read more of this post

Puerto Rico: Greece in the Caribbean; Stuck with a real debt crisis in its back yard, America can learn from Europe’s Aegean follies; Puerto Rico’s debt crisis: Puerto Pobre; A heavily indebted island weighs on America’s municipal-bond market

Puerto Rico: Greece in the Caribbean; Stuck with a real debt crisis in its back yard, America can learn from Europe’s Aegean follies

Oct 26th 2013 |From the print edition

IT WILL not be long till Congress and the White House start squabbling again about the budget in Washington, DC. But before they create another artificial debt crisis, Barack Obama and his Republican opponents ought to pay some attention to a real one 1,500 miles to their south-east. Puerto Rico, an American territory, risks a Greek-style bust. With $70 billion of debt outstanding, the equivalent of 70% of its GDP, it is more indebted than any of America’s 50 states. (Puerto Rico is not technically a state, but its bonds are treated as if it were.) Yields on its bonds have soared as high as 10%, as investors fret it may be heading for a default. Read more of this post

Most Americans accumulating debt faster than they’re saving for retirement

Most Americans accumulating debt faster than they’re saving for retirement

By Michael A. Fletcher, Published: October 24

A majority of Americans with 401(k)-type savings accounts are accumulating debt faster than they are setting aside money for retirement, further undermining the nation’s troubled system for old-age saving, a new report has found. Three in five workers with defined contribution accounts are “debt savers,” according to the report released Thursday, meaning their increasing mortgages, credit card balances and installment loans are outpacing the amount of money they are able to save for retirement. Read more of this post

Michael Novogratz, co-chief investment officer of macro funds at the $55bn Fortress Investment Group, endorses Bitcoin

October 24, 2013 6:46 pm

Bitcoin endorsed by top hedge fund manager

By Stephen Foley in New York

Financial advisers who gathered in New York to hear leaders of the asset management industry impart their best investment ideas for the year ahead were given a surprising tip by one prominent hedge fund manager: Bitcoin. Michael Novogratz, co-chief investment officer of macro funds at the $55bn Fortress Investment Group, used a panel discussion on the prospects for emerging markets to trumpet the much-hyped digital currency, which he said could be used as a cheaper way of transferring money in countries with weak banking systems. Read more of this post

Is Funeral Home Chain SCI’s Growth Coming at the Expense of Mourners?

Is Funeral Home Chain SCI’s Growth Coming at the Expense of Mourners?

By Paul M. Barrett October 24, 2013

Steering his jet-black Cadillac CTS sedan along the streets of West Palm Beach, Fla., Brad Zahn offers a tour of the area’s cemeteries, one more tropically lush than the next. Zahn, owner of the Tillman Funeral Home & Crematory, embalms and buries people for a living. He employs his wife, Maribel, and one of their adult sons. Another son attends mortuary school. “My succession plan is in place,” Zahn says. He speaks evenly and wears muted business attire. One hand on the wheel, he seems the very picture of a confident entrepreneur. His demeanor turns anxious, however, when I ask about the funeral chain Service Corporation International (SCI). “How can you not be nervous,” he responds, “when the 1,000-pound gorilla gets even bigger?” Read more of this post