Chủ Nhật, 30 tháng 6, 2013

Cebu airport"s 7 bidders: Who can woo more tourists, airlines and investors?

Entrepreneurs are simply those who understand that there is little difference between obstacle and opportunity and are able to turn both to their advantage. — Niccolo Machiavelli


The process of public bidding for the P17.5-billion rehabilitation and expansion of the country’s second most important airport — the Mactan-Cebu International Airport — is already in the homestretch. Who will win? This is important to the country’s global prestige. For many years we’ve been lambasted for our mediocre airports, which are the first and last places tourists and foreign investors experience of the Philippines.


Whose bid will be best for our economy in terms of welcoming more tourists and international airlines, more foreign investors and better operational efficiency?


Many top businessmen and foreign investors I’ve talked to hope that technical prowess and long-term strategic economic impact on the Philippines should be the biggest considerations, not just the magnitude of any cash bid offer.


The seven groups of Filipino and foreign firms bidding for the Cebu project include three of the world’s top 10 best airports based on the 2013 Skytrax survey and awards:


• Filinvest of the Gotianun family and the world’s No. 1 best airport operator, Changi Airports Mena Pte Ltd of Singapore.


• San Miguel Corp. led by Ramon Ang and the Lucio Tan group (joint venture), and the world’s No. 2 best airport, Incheon Airport International Corp. of South Korea.


• Henry Sy’s Premier Airport Group and the world’s No. 7 best airport, Zurich Airport International AG of Switzerland.


• Metro Pacific Investments Corp. (MPIC), led by Manny V. Pangilinan and JG Summit Holdings, Inc. of John Gokongwei Jr. (joint venture), with Aeroports de Lyon, the fourth busiest airport in France next to Charles de Gaulle, Orly and Nice.


• AAA Airport Partners (a joint venture between the Zobel family’s Ayala Land and the Aboitiz clan’s Aboitiz Equity Ventures), with ADC HAS Airports, Inc. of the US, which operates airports in Ecuador, Costa Rica, Liberia in Africa and South Korea’s Chungcheong Northern province.


• First Philippine Airports (consortium of Lopez-led First Philippine Holdings Corp. (FPHC) and Infratil Asia Ltd of New Zealand.


• Megawide Construction Corp. and GMR Infrastructure Limited of India (joint venture).


The winning bidder for this build-operate-transfer (BOT) project will be granted a 20-year concession.


Reform our Policies on Foreign investors labor


Many business organizations I’ve talked to support Speaker Feliciano “Sonny” Belmonte Jr. in seeking decisive Charter change on the restrictive economic provisions of the Philippine constitution, which is one of the major obstacles to the much-needed inflow of foreign direct investments (FDI) into our economy for more jobs.


Why not also overhaul our labor laws so that local entrepreneurs and foreign investors will not be frightened of hiring more employees and expanding businesses? In the Philippines we have a labor policy that is more communistic than those in ostensibly “communist” China or the most liberal USA. In both the US and China, businesses can fire any employee without the need for justifying the reasons as long as the terminated employees are given fair monetary compensation for every year of service, but not here.


Philippine STAR columnist Boo Chanco wrote that on June 19, former president of the Asian Institute of Management (AIM) Francis Estrada spoke before the Financial Executives Institute of the Philippines (FINEX). “Foreign direct investments — $2.8 billion in 2012 and growing at an average annual rate of 52 percent over the period of 2003 to 2012; per capita FDI has actually declined 44 percent to $19 (2011) from $23 (2006); this compares with Indonesia ($80), Thailand ($115), Malaysia ($413) and Vietnam ($85).”


4 million unregistered micro-enterprises?


Congratulations to the Philippine SME Business Expo 2013, which will open on July 12 at 10 a.m. at the SMX Taguig, third floor of SM Aura Premier. Invited to the ribbon-cutting ceremony are Planters Development Bank chairman Ambassador Jesus P. Tambunting, former International Exchange Bank CEO Ramon Y. Sy, EIB Securities, Inc. president and former Development Bank of the Philippines CEO Reynaldo David, Metrobank Group founder George S. K. Ty, Alliance Global Group chairman Andrew L. Tan and ShoeMart, Inc./BDO chairman Teresita Sy-Coson. I was also invited to speak on July 13, Saturday, from 4:30 to 5 p.m. at the same venue.


Rajan Uttamchandani, chairman of Esquire Financing, Inc., which lends to SMEs, told Philippine STAR: “There are one million businesses registered with the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), of which 99.7 percent are micro-small- and medium-scale enterprises or MSMEs. Only about 3,000 companies are large, or 0.3 percent. We should support MSMEs to grow in the Philippines.”


What about the undocumented micro-enterprises nationwide in our “underground economy”? Rajan estimates that there are three to four million unregistered micro-enterprises in the Philippines. What is his basis for this estimate? Rajan said that the biggest microfinance lender, Cardbank, has about 600,000 to 700,000 members — an estimated 25 percent of the total market.


1,000 Sindhi families 100,000 Punjabis helping our economy


The Philippine-born Rajan is part of the ethnic Indian minority’s entrepreneurial Sindhi community, which he estimates to be 1,000 families in the Philippines. They include successful businessmen in garments, eyewear, etc. They are Hindu in religion.


Based on our research, another bigger group within the Indian community are the entrepreneurial Punjabis, who are Sikh by religion and more known in the Philippines as moneylenders. There are estimated to be 50,000 Punjabis legally residing here and about 50,000 who are undocumented, or an estimated total of 100,000 nationwide. They all do an important service for small traders with their financing support.


* * *


One example of an SME that has grown in years “through perseverance, faith and dedication” is the 17-year-old Juan Carlo the Caterer, Inc. of STAR readers Engineer Alex Michael del Rosario and wife Teresita Macatangay del Rosario. The small business in Quezon City has grown and even catered such big celebrity weddings as those of Regine Velasquez and Ogie Alcasid in 2010, and Senator Bong Revilla and Lani Mercado in 1998. This year, their son, De La Salle University college student Juan Carlo del Rosario, has turned his school marketing project into a new offshoot business called “Debut by Juan Carlo,” which focuses on debuts.


Another SME that has grown in years is the Precious Heart Romances brand of Tagalog books published by Segundo “Jun” Matias Jr., now the “romance novel king of the Philippines.” Unknown to most, Jun Matias is also the Philippine licensee allowed to publish the Tagalog language versions of international bestselling books like Fifty Shades of Grey by E. L. James and other novels.


* * *


STAR reader and Federation of Filipino Chinese Chambers of Commerce and Industry, Inc. (FFCCCII) president Alfonso Siy recently received the “Gawad Lakan ng Kalakalan” Award from the Employers Confederation of the Philippines (ECOP) at the Marriott Hotel led by ECOP’s adviser Jose Pardo, chairman Miguel Varela, president Edgardo Lacson, ECOP 34th National Conference of Employers Organizing Committee chairman Francis Chua and witnessed by Labor Secretary Rosalinda Dimapilis-Baldoz. Siy is president of the Fortune Net Group of Companies and is reportedly also a major investor in the diverse ventures of insurance and realty tycoon, Ambassador Antonio Cabangon Chua.


* * *


Thanks for your feedback! E-mail willsoonflourish@gmail.com or follow WilsonLeeFlores on Twitter, Facebook and http://willsoonflourish.blogspot.com/.



Cebu airport"s 7 bidders: Who can woo more tourists, airlines and investors?

Abg Jo: A bigger BHPNC next year

Posted on July 1, 2013, Monday


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TOP THREE: AbangJohari (centre, front row), Lo (third from left, front row) and Syafiq (third right, front row) with the top three winning teams in the MPP Chairman Trophy (Open) category. The GGK team of Mohd Azuan Asmuni and Mohd Nazri Ahmad were the champion, followed by Sukan Lasak ATM GGK’s Jusery Gani and Muhaizar Mohamad (second) and Tim’s Fitness’ Guianus Salagan and Yatim Zainal Abidin (third). — Photo by Churchill Edward


PADAWAN: The State Tourism Ministry wants the Borneo Highlands Padawan Nature Challenge (BHPNC) to be a bigger event next year as it is a proven tourism attraction.


The BHPNC can be on par with the Rainforest World Music Fest (RWMF) and the ministry is willing to lend support via fund and advice to the key organiser Padawan Municipal Council (MPP) and their associates and event managers, including Borneo Highland Resorts.


Tourism Minister Datuk Amar Abang Johari Tun Openg also said major events in Sarawak could help the ministry to achieve the target of 4.2 million tourist arrivals for this year.


The figure is an increase from 3.8 million tourist arrivals in 2011 and four million in 2012, he pointed out.


“The Nature Challenge (BHPNC) has the potential to become a major tourism attraction judging from the increasing number of participants year to year. I am glad to note that the number of participants this year is 350, a marked increase by 100 from 250 in 2012,” he said.


He urged MPP to emphasise more on promoting nature tourism in Padawan starting with Annah Rais village and the Borneo Highlands.


“I think we can achieve our target this year, taking into account that this year is the state’s 50th year anniversary of progress in Malaysia. More is to come next year when we have the Visit Malaysia Year 2014 and Visit Sarawak Year 2014. The Visit Sarawak Year is going to be launched during this coming 50th anniversary celebration (Sept 16),” he added, when closing the BHPNC 2013 event in Borneo Highlands Resorts here yesterday afternoon.


Abang Johari revealed that the BHPNC 2014 will be held on June 22 next year.


“I try to get the budget for MPP for next year’s event so that it can be on par with the Rainforest World Music Fest (RWMF),” he announced while congratulating the organisers, event managers and sponsors for making BHPNC 2013 a success.


He pointed out that Kuching is close to nature and this is all the more reason for them to modernise river transportation, especially on Sungai Sarawak which passes through the city.


“Kuching is a centre of nature and it is similar to a resort city since we have the Sarawak River in the middle and the Matang range at one side and Padawan rangeat the other – all within a 45-minute drive from the city central. There is no other city like this in the world,” he said.


As for MICE (meeting, incentives, conventions and exhibitions), Kuching could provide a venue where convention participants get the chance to choose to travel from their hotels in the city to, for instance the Borneo Convention Centre Kuching (BCCK) , either by road or by river , he said.


“The boats complete with ICT facility and breakfast will be like floating hotels. Such facility will be the only one of its kind in the world. It will be the most unique. Right in Kuching we will have something better to offer,” he stressed.


When met after the prize-giving ceremony, Abang Johari explained that the ministry and organisers have to put in some kind of investment if they want to BHPNC to be held on a grand scale in the years to come.


“The marketing strategy also has to shift a bit, perhaps in the direction of Singapore. I notice that the angling event in Miri managed to attract expatriates from Singapore and Hong Kong. We have to promote the event more aggressively,” he said.


While RWMF provides music, the BHPNC could provide trekking events and nature sight-seeing, he added.


He also said he wanted Borneo Highlands to be a place for people to “re-energise and re-charge” for the sake of healthy living and not only for golf.


Abang Johari, who is Housing Minister and Satok assemblyman, gave away prizes to winners in the Padawan Nature Challenge events yesterday.


Also present during the closing ceremony were MPP chairman Lo Khere Chiang and his secretary Michael Saweng; Borneo Highlands Resort manager Muhammad Syafiq Nair; Mines Wellness Hotel operations manager Zakaria Ismail and CMS Group manager Datuk Richard A J Curtis who is also one of the participants.


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Abg Jo: A bigger BHPNC next year

Go With Green Tea in Asia



Road Warrior provides travel tips from those who know best: busy executives and other globetrotters. See previous columns


René Gross Kærskov is chief executive of Hirsch Bedner Associates, a U.S. interior design firm that works mainly with clients in the hospitality industry.


The Los Angeles-based Dane spoke to the Journal about airport design, immigration officers and outer space.


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Hirsch Bedner Associates


How often do you travel? 


I travel on one short domestic trip and one long-haul trip each month, for about 10 days every month. Most of my time is spent in Hong Kong, Shanghai and New Delhi, but I also visit Singapore, the Philippines, London and Dubai twice a year.


Design-wise, which airports rank highly? 


High ceilings and open spaces give stressed people in an already stressful atmosphere breathing space. And of course, a sense of place in the design is always appreciated. Hong Kong does very well in terms of its scale and the shops available, while Singapore and Copenhagen are also on my list because of their cleanliness.


Favorite hotel not designed by your firm? 


I really like the Upper House in Hong Kong. It is very nicely designed, with beautiful and clean interior architecture. They also have fast and efficient check in. When you’ve just come off a long-distance flight, you don’t want to have to look for the lobby or check-in counter.


Favorite carrier? 


Singapore Airlines and Emirates. By far, their service is second to none. They’re so consistent that you don’t get surprised by [their quality], you expect it.


Best coffee? 


In Asia, I stick to drinking green tea. The best coffee can be found in France; I like any cafe in Paris as long as it’s outside the airport. They all have excellent coffee and bread.


Tips for beating jet lag? 


If you land in the middle of the day, don’t go to sleep. Stay awake and drink only water. However, I like to arrive at my destination late in the evening so I can get some sleep.


How do you keep fit on the road? 


I never go to the gym at hotels because they’re a waste of time. I walk as fast as possible through airports and always take the staircase and not the elevator. I especially like Singapore and Hong Kong for walking in the evenings. In Singapore, it’s very nice to walk down by the canals near the Fullerton Hotel.


Packing tips? 


I never check in luggage, except on the way home. It takes too long to collect when you arrive and the risk of losing baggage is too high.


I carry everything in a small suitcase and I always pack in less than 30 minutes because I carry the exact same stuff for every trip. On a five-day trip that’s two suits, extra pants, underwear and one shirt for each day.


What are the differences for travelers in the U.S. and in Asia? 


The biggest difference is when going through immigration. You feel welcome when you arrive in Asia. In the U.S., the demeanor and interrogation style of the customs and immigration officers make you feel like a criminal.


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See more Road Warrior interviews


Tips for navigating language and culture barriers in Asia? 


I recommend getting the Shanghai taxi translator, which costs 99 cents. It’s getting better but if you get out of the airport late at night, there may still be no English-speaking people around.


Another tip for Shanghai is not to put your bag on the seats of taxis. The drivers don’t like it because they’re covered with white sheets.


What’s next on your travel list? 


I’ve been to both the North and South Pole and North Korea, so the next thing I would like to do is to travel to the highest volcanoes on each of the seven continents. I’m also booked on a Virgin Galactic space flight. I’m looking for the top-of-the-line, ultimate adventure.


Worst travel experience? 


Ten years ago, I was taking off on a plane in Beijing when one engine had a small explosion. We were going down the runway and there was this bump. I looked out the window and could see the engine spitting out small bits of fire. The pilot was already going at full speed up the runway but he stepped on the break and everything [in the cabin] flew. The whole thing was only about 20 seconds, but it felt like forever. And it took two hours for them to come and take us off the plane.


–Edited from an interview with Kristiano Ang




Go With Green Tea in Asia

PhuketWATCH Phuket Flyover Bids Soon; EU Anger at US Spying; Budget is ...

PHUKET: The daily wrap of Thailand news, with a Phuket perspective, plus relevant reports from national and international media. Beware of inconsistent imitations.


Phuket Update The contract for the 700-metre mangrove flyover to link Bangyai Road to Sakdiddet Road, opening access to Phuket City’s Saphan Hin park from southern Phuket, will come up for e-auction on July 5. Officials expect an increase in the budget to produce competitive bidding.


nationmultimedia.com More budget hotels are opening, with investors out to cash in on the rising number of middle-class and solo travellers, thanks to the tourism boom and economic prosperity. The cost of building budget hotels is lower, which also means a faster return.



english.ahram.org.eg On a day that organisers have called a make or break moment for President Mohamed Morsi, millions protest across Egypt calling for the ousting of the beleaguered leader.



wsj.com Vendors in Tahrir Square are taking advantage of the revolutionary moment to peddle Guy Fawkes masks – a familiar feature of Egyptian protests over the past year.



bangkokpost.com About 100 white-mask members from the anti-government V For Thailand group were forced to change their planned rally venue at the last minute after more than 500 red shirts occupied the area in Ayutthya.



smh.com.au Washington’s efforts to contain fallout from the Snowden espionage debacle unravelled dramatically as the European Union and individual European governments nations were revealed as targets of industrial-scale American snooping into government and private communications around the globe.



nytimes.com Julian Assange, the founder of the antisecrecy organisation WikiLeaks, said that even as Edward J. Snowden remained in diplomatic limbo at a Moscow airport, the disclosures from the classified documents he took as a National Security Agency contractor would continue.



nationmultimedia.com His Majesty the King granted an audience to Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra and new Cabinet members for a swearing-in ceremony.



guardian.co.uk Thousands of people joined celebrations across Croatia to mark the country’s entry into the European Union, 20 years after it won its independence in a bloody civil war that shook the continent. Croatia became the 28th EU member.



AP A year after sectarian violence tore through Burma, the fury of religious pogroms has hardened into an officially sanctioned sectarian divide, a foray into apartheid-style policies that has turned Aung Mingalar into a prison for Sittwe???s Muslims and that threatens this country’s fragile transition to democracy.



mcot Thailand will regularly report to the US on the progress of its efforts to solve human trafficking in an attempt to be removed from Tier 2 Watch List, according to a senior foreign ministry official.



independent.co.uk Migrants will be charged to go to a GP under proposals being unveiled by Britain’s Government this week. The plans, to be announced by the Health Secretary, Jeremy Hunt, are part of a crack-down on “health tourists” – those who live outside the EU but use the NHS to obtain free healthcare.



bangkokpost.com Small and new developers are facing greater difficulty getting project loans for condo developments as financial institutions become concerned about a possible oversupply in the market. Colliers’ market research shows two locations that face a condo oversupply are Sukhumvit Road between Soi 77 (Soi On Nut) and the Bang Na intersection in Bangkok and Jomtien in Pattaya.



afp Southeast Asian nations urged Indonesia quickly to ratify a treaty aimed at preventing fires in its giant rainforests that regularly inflict choking smog on its neighbors.



reuters.com Singapore is seeing a groundswell of support for same-sex rights, reflected in a record 21,000-strong ”Pink Dot” rally in the city-state, only months after its High Court rejected a petition to repeal a law which criminalises sex between men.



news.com.au The Commonwealth Bank Travel Money Card Report has found on average Australians each spent $235 more than they had set out to while on an overseas holiday – a total of more than $911 million overspent on 3.87 million international holidays.



theage.com.au Consulting group PricewaterhouseCoopers says advertising income will plunge 32 percent for newspapers and 13 percent for consumer magazines by 2017.




goal.com Gianluigi Buffon praised his side’s determination after Italy secured third place in the Confederations Cup with a 3-2 penalty shoot-out victory over Uruguay in Salvador.



reuters After all the shocks and spills of the opening week, top seed Serena Williams remained impregnable as she unleashed her full arsenal to move into the last 16 at Wimbledon with a crushing 6-2 6-0 victiroy over Japanese veran Kimiko Date-Krumm.



thecheckeredflag.co.uk Nico Rosberg crossed the line first at Silverstone to claim his second Grand Prix win of the season in a result likely to be overshadowed by a brewing storm over a Pirelli tyre shambles that punctuated much of the running with tyre failures.




July 6-7 Phuket Air Show and Family Picnic, Phuket Air Park



July 17-21 Cape Panwa Hotel Phuket Raceweek



July 22 Arsarnha Bucha Day



August 12 HM The Queen’s Birthday



October 5-13 Phuket Vegetarian Festival



October 23 Chulalongkorn Memorial Day



October 29-November 3 Womens’ volleyball, Karon beach



November 17 Loy Kratong Day



November 24-December 1 Challenge Laguna Phuket Tri-Fest. Laguna Phuket



December 5 HM The King’s birthday




January 9-12 Phuket International Boat Show, Royal Phuket Marina



November 14-21 Fourth Asia Beach Games, Phuket



PhuketWATCH Phuket Flyover Bids Soon; EU Anger at US Spying; Budget is ...

Kevin Kwan"s "Crazy Rich Asians" Depicts a Cult of Opulence


“There’s even a Matisse in the cabin!” drools Eddie Cheng, who is boastfully borrowing the plane from his friend Leo. Eddie, named Edison by his seriously Anglophile and social-climbing Hong Kong family, would be the most money-mad character in Mr. Kwan’s story if “Crazy Rich Asians” were not full of them. But Eddie’s not the one who has given the names Astor, Trump and Vanderbilt to his dogs.



“Crazy Rich Asians” offers refreshing nouveau voyeurism to readers who long ago burned out on American and English aspirational fantasies. Mr. Kwan either knows, or does a good job of pretending to know, how the very rich of Singapore, Hong Kong and Shanghai show off their lucre. Since he is not spoilsport enough to bring moralizing into such a story, readers never need worry how the king of Thailand gave two live human beings, trained as lady’s maids, to the richest old Singaporean granny in the book.



“Crazy Rich Asians” first flaunts its peacock feathers in a prologue set in London in 1986. Shabby-looking members of the Young family are treated rudely in an elite hotel. They promptly pull strings and buy the place, which may mean that the Dowager Marchioness of Uckfield, then in residence, may have to find somewhere else to stay in the future.



Flash forward to 2010, when one of the Young boys, Nicholas, has grown up to have “perfectly tousled black hair, chiseled Cantonese pop-idol features, and impossibly thick eyelashes.” He also has a career as an academic in the United States and a girlfriend named Rachel Chu.



Rachel is what is called an “ABC” (American-Born Chinese), and she is too innocent to have wondered much about Nick’s family. The plot of the book basically describes how Nick brings Rachel to Singapore to show her how eye-poppingly loaded and snobbish his relatives are. “Everyone will adore you, Rachel,” Nick promises. “I just know it.” This turns out to be hilarious, under the circumstances.



Rachel’s naïveté gives “Crazy Rich Asians” an excuse to explain all things Asian and expensive to the touristy reader. And Mr. Kwan neither has nor wants a light touch. About the wedding of Nick’s fashion-plate sister, Astrid, he writes that “there were anonymous reports that Sir Paul McCartney flew in to serenade the bride at a ceremony that was ‘exquisite beyond belief.’ ” Another character, Araminta, has a mother known as “the luxury hotel queen” and is referred to in Singapore as “our most celebrated fashion icon,” even though her mainland Chinese heritage is held against her.



There’s also a family friend who supposedly “flies all her saris back to New Delhi to be specially cleaned,” and another who “looks like a Chinese Catherine Deneuve, only more beautiful.” This book name-drops about many different Asian cultures and mixes rude slang from Malay and the Cantonese and Hokkien dialects of Chinese. It also sniffs at American culture (Stanford: “It’s that school in California for people who can’t get into Harvard”) and wears its prejudices on its designer sleeve (“Mark’s not white, he’s Jewish — that’s basically Asian.”). Words like Chuppie, for Chinese Yuppie, may be offensive, but Mr. Kwan makes the most of them.



Almost no material object appears in “Crazy Rich Asians” without an announcement of its brand name. And one of the strangest things about this book is how insecure its Asian residents seem to be. Sure, shoe designers have their place in American beach reading, but Mr. Kwan works them into dialogue, not descriptions. So we get: “Parker, put down those Pierre Hardy flats or I’ll poke your eyes out with these Nicholas Kirkwood stilettos.” And: “I wouldn’t have worn my new Roger Vivier heels if I knew we were coming to a place like this.” And, from a man unhappy with his suite at the Wynn Macau: “I’m not going to dirty my Tod’s setting foot in one of those rat holes!”There’s even a poor little rich kid who, when told to wear his Gucci loafers, asks plaintively: “Which ones?”



Obviously, the romance of Nick and Rachel is only ancillary to the real (and really crazy) concerns of “Crazy Rich Asians.” All Rachel has to do is ignore the hostility of her likely future relatives, see Nick for the nice guy he truly is and admire the excess without wondering why everyone seems so pitifully materialistic and insecure. She hits the right note as soon as she gets to the airport in Singapore and remarks that it “makes JFK look like Mogadishu.” This book is neither malicious nor imaginative enough to make Rachel a gold digger or Nick a cad. So its main objective is to provide a grand tour of a humorously grandiose and showoffy world.



Mr. Kwan knows how to deliver guilty pleasures. He keeps the repartee nicely outrageous, the excess wretched and the details wickedly delectable. Who knew that an Asian menu might boast of “Giant South Sea Scallop Consommé With Washington State Ginseng Vapors and Black Mushrooms?” (“Go figure,” writes Mr. Kwan, in a footnote about why the ginseng is imported.) Who knew that an Asian socialite might include Save the Shahtoosh among her favored fashionable causes?



And who knew that a Far Eastern fashion disaster might be described in such novel terms. “Never, ever wear green chiffon,” Mr. Kwan has one character warn, “unless you want to look like bok choy” that’s been violently abused.


03cdc meter Police busts fake visa racket, arrests two



Kevin Kwan"s "Crazy Rich Asians" Depicts a Cult of Opulence

Region 12 eyes pork exports anew

DA and DTI representatives from different parts of the country recently conducted the two-day National Meat (Fresh and Processed) Cluster Harmonization and Convergence Workshop in General Santos City to discuss strategies to penetrate the global meat market.


Amalia J. Datukan, DA-12 director, asked livestock growers, meat processors and other private organizations in the region to work closely with government agencies to reach markets abroad.



“We need to reinvigorate the standing of our products to compete in the global market by offering fresh and processed meat products that are of high quality,” Ms. Datukan said in a statement.



Davinio Catbagan, DA assistant secretary for livestock, said the agency is still in the process of reviewing the national livestock road map that will guide the development of the country’s livestock and poultry industries.



The DA regional office cited “huge export potential for pork products among Asian countries, and goat meat in Middle East countries and other Islamic states.”



Domestically, demand for beef and pork products is also increasing due to the country’s rising population, the office added.



Dr. John B. Pascual, DA-12 livestock coordinator, identified Dubai in the United Arab Emirates as a possible market for pork products. He said that consultations will be conducted with the region’s meat producers and processors in line with the agency’s meat export program.



Last year, DA-12 initially identified Dubai as the shipment destination of “pork-in-a-box” products.



The agency has already accredited some hog farms in Region 12 to supply the potential foreign shipment. These farms are located in the cities of General Santos and Koronadal, both in South Cotabato.



One farm was identified as Progressive Farms, Inc., one of the piggeries under the Lucio C. Tan Group of Companies.



In December 2008, the country would have made its first foreign pork shipment to Singapore, if not for the detection of the Reston Ebola virus in a hog farm in Luzon. Hog raisers in Mindanao, though far from Luzon and shipping from the Makar wharf in General Santos City, were all set for that shipment when the Agriculture department ordered it stopped.



Matutum Meat Packing Corp, which is based in Polomolok, South Cotabato, had been cleared by Singapore’s Agri-Food and Veterinary Authority in April 2008 to ship the pork meat products to the island-state. The company operates the only triple-A slaughterhouse in the area.



Domestically, hog farms in Region 12 supply the markets in Metro Manila, Cebu and Davao, as well as the provinces of Samar and Leyte. — Romer S. Sarmiento



Region 12 eyes pork exports anew

China Agrees to Asean Talks on Sea Spat Amid Philippine Warning

China agreed to talks with Southeast

Asian nations on a set of rules to avoid conflict in the South

China Sea, winning praise from diplomats even as the Philippines

warned of increased “militarization” of the waters.


Talks on a code of conduct between China and the 10-member
Association of Southeast Asian Nations will begin in September,

according to a joint statement released after the two sides met

in Brunei today. The move represents a reversal from a year ago,

when Asean failed to show a united front amid Chinese pressure

to avoid discussing the topic at regional meetings.


“China and Asean countries are close neighbors and we are

like members of one big family,” China Foreign Minister Wang Yi

told reporters. “We believe that a united, prosperous and

dynamic Asean that seeks greater strength through unity is in

China’s strategic interest.”


China had resisted the talks for more than two years as

competition for oil, gas and fish in the waters increased

tensions with fellow claimants including the Philippines, which

has boosted military ties with the U.S. and Japan. Secretary of

State John Kerry is set to arrive in Brunei for security

meetings tomorrow after holding talks with Palestinian and

Israel leaders in the Middle East.


The Philippines said today “the massive presence of

Chinese military and para-military ships” around two land

features it claims in the South China Sea posed “threats to

efforts to maintain maritime peace and stability in the

region.” At the same time, the country backs Asean’s bid for a

binding code of conduct, it said in a statement.


Situation ‘Stable’


Wang, in his first Asean meeting as foreign minister since

President Xi Jinping took office in March, called the overall

situation in the South China Sea “stable.” He pledged to

upgrade an Asean-China trade agreement and “push forward”

talks on the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, which

includes Asean, China and five other Asia-Pacific countries.


Two years ago, Asean and China approved guidelines to

implement the 2002 agreement that called on countries to avoid

occupying disputed islands, inform others of military exercises

and resolve territorial disputes peacefully. Since then, China

had rebuffed Asean’s efforts to start talks on a code of

conduct, saying it would only do so “when conditions are

ripe.”


‘Strategic Misjudgment’


President Benigno Aquino’s government last week said it’s

crafting an agreement that would give the U.S. military access

to Subic Bay. The Philippines needs allies to help with security

or “bigger forces will bully us,” Defense Secretary Voltaire Gazmin said on June 28.


Last week, Wang said that moves by countries to rely on

“external forces” to push territorial claims are “futile and

will eventually prove to be a strategic misjudgment where the

loss will outweigh the gain.” Today he took a softer tone,

while saying that China has abided by the provisions of the non-binding 2002 agreement to keep peace in the waters.


“China will continue to properly handle its specific

differences with some countries through friendly

consultations,” Wang said.


Speaking alongside him as Asean’s representative, Thai

Foreign Minister Surapong Tovichakchaikul hailed the bloc’s

“strong” relationship with China.


Talks on a code of conduct for the waters are “a process

that needs time, patience and prudence,” Surapong said. “I’m

confident that with the strong determination of all sides, the

negotiation process would not be prolonged.”


Start Date


Singapore Foreign Minister K. Shanmugam said that non-claimants like the city-state can’t get involved in determining

which countries own certain features. A rise in tensions

wouldn’t benefit China or Asean, he said, adding that the talks

are a positive step forward.


“This has been something that many countries have been

asking for,” Shanmugam told reporters. “Let’s not get away

with the impression that, therefore, we’re all going to have an

agreement very soon. But the important thing is we’ve agreed on

a start date, and hopefully that sets the tone.”


The U.S.’s declared interest in maintaining freedom of

navigation in the waters has irked China, which prefers solving

the disputes through direct dialogue. U.S. officials have

repeatedly called for China and Asean to agree on a code of

conduct, most recently Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel in a

visit to Singapore in early June.


China’s Map


Vietnam and the Philippines reject China’s map of the

waters as a basis for joint development, a solution pushed by

China and Malaysia. China National Offshore Oil Corp. estimates

the South China Sea may hold about five times more undiscovered

natural gas than the country’s current proved reserves,

according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.


Since 2010, China has cut the cables of survey ships

working for Vietnam, chased away an exploration vessel near the

Philippines and sent its first deep-water drilling rig to the

region. Last year, China National Offshore invited bids for

exploration blocks that Vietnam had already awarded to companies

including Exxon Mobil Corp. (XOM) and OAO Gazprom.


While the core disputes over territory remain, Asean

ministers are unified on the need for a code of conduct,

Indonesian Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa said. China prefers

to resolve the disagreements via direct negotiations, while the

Philippines seeks international arbitration.


“The common position is to try to resolve these issues

through dialogue,” Natalegawa told reporters after the meeting.

“The code of conduct will keep things orderly so that we can

have conditions conducive for these negotiations to take

place.”


To contact the reporter on this story:

Daniel Ten Kate in Bangkok at

dtenkate@bloomberg.net


To contact the editor responsible for this story:

Rosalind Mathieson at

rmathieson3@bloomberg.net



China Agrees to Asean Talks on Sea Spat Amid Philippine Warning

Singapore Charts The Next Phase of ICT Development

Jun 30 2013


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Middle East Delegates collaborate with Singapore during Asia’s largest infocomm and media platform

Singapore, 30 June 2013: As part of its strategy to drive social innovation and deepen co-creation and co-sharing efforts with citizens and international partners, the Singapore Government will be releasing more data to the public. Thiswas announced by Guest-of-honour, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Finance, Mr Tharman Shanmugaratnam at the 2013 eGov Global Exchange alongside the annual Infocomm Media Business Exchange (imbX) 2013, Asia’s largest infocomm and media platform that took place in Singapore from 17th to 20th June 2013.


The Government wants to better use data that it has to catalyse new ideas and services.OneMap, the Government’s one-stop geospatial data platform, will feature a new service – PopulationQuery. PopulationQuery gives the public free and easy access to graphic and visual representations of Singapore’s demographic landscapes by displaying Singapore’s population data on a map by residential zones or commercial areas.



The Government’s one-stop data portal – data.gov.sg – has seen a 60% increase in the number of data sets since its launch in 2011. The public can now access over 8,600 data sets from more than 60 public agencies for app development or research purposes.



With the theme “Engaging Citizens, Co-creating the Future”, this year’s eGov Global Exchange discussed how the Government can work with businesses and the public to develop public services, use technologies to promote closer collaboration with businesses and achieve new efficiencies for the public sector. Visiting delegates from the Middle East, which included the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Oman and Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, strengthened its collaboration in infocomm technology (ICT) by co-sharing and co-collaborating with Singaporean delegates during the eGov information platform.


The event saw a turnout of more than 500 delegates, comprising top industry leaders, academics and representatives from international organizations including GCC countries. Amongst the participants were 70 ministers and senior government officials from 60 countries/regions.



Having reached the mid-term mark of the five-year eGov2015 Masterplan launched two years ago, the Singapore Government shared updates on its e-Government progress as well as key highlights of its upcoming plans. As Singapore ramps up its eGov2015 Masterplan, more government and policymakers in the Middle East look at Singapore’s economic model as a blueprint to reflect in the GCC’s sectorial areas.


Furthermore whilst Singapore has grown its ICT industry over the years, the government continues leveraging on technological evolutions focusing on the convergence of ICT and media. The Information Media Masterplan Steering Committee will gear up development of the new Infocomm Media Masterplan this year.



Speaking at the imbX opening, Dr Yaacob Ibrahim, Minster for Communications and Information said: “Over the next two years, the Steering Committee will be working closely with academia, and public and private sectors to deliver a Master plan that will guide the development of Singapore’s ICT and media sectors into 2025.”



Singapore has made good progress in implementing the current “Intelligent Nation 2015 Masterplan”, iN2015. Designed to transform Singapore into a global city powered by infocomm, the Masterplan has propelled Singapore to be a leader in the infocomm sector. According to the IDA Annual Survey on Infocomm Industry,the ICT industry continues to be a key contributor to the economy, registering strong and healthy year-on-year growth of 23 per cent in 2012 to reach $102 billion of ICT revenue.



Singapore’s infocomm sector is also a strong contributor to national employment, providing jobs for more than 144,000 infocomm professionals, according to the IDA Annual Survey. Singapore will continue to improve the ICT infrastructure to increase business competitiveness and enhance the people’s quality of life.



The Masterplan facilitatesthe nation’s development of next generation ICT infrastructure whereby95 per cent of homes and businesses in Singapore are now wired up to the Next Generation Nationwide Broadband Network (Next Gen NBN). To date, more than 330,000 subscribers are served by 20 retail service providers, according to IDA’s statistics on telecom services.



At the imbX event, the telecommunication authorities of Singapore, Indonesia, Brunei, Malaysia jointly announced their commitment to align with the Asia Pacific Telecommunity 700 MHz band plan. This agreement will bring the Middle East and Asia Pacific closer to a harmonised telecommunications standard allowing GCC citizens to use 700 MHz to connect with citizens in Asia Pacific.



Furthermore, companies across industries are increasingly adopting infocomm as a means to enhance their productivity, reduce their reliance on manpower, and overcome the challenges of resource limitations.As Singapore continues to transform key economic sectors, government and society, the country will look further into collaboration with Middle East businesses and government bodies to exchange and share knowledge and experience in businesses across industries from healthcare, wholesale, retails to manufacturing and education.



Spurred by technology developers and system integrators, Singapore is working to retool the city by balancing the drive for global competitiveness with sustainable development and with newly urbanising aspirants on a global level. Singapore is working to establish the city into a Smart City whereby focusing on the development of ICT-based integrated networks, capabilities and solution for urban environments.



Mr Kevin Chan, Centre Director in the Middle East, Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore said, “In this era of a globally connected world, Governments worldwide have the universal goal of leveraging on ICT to enrich and engagethe lives of their citizens and to develop globally competitive businesses. Singapore continues to make good progress in implementing the “Intelligent Nation 2015Masterplan” and moving forward with itsICT development.At the same time, we recognise the common objectives and goals with many countries in the Middle East.We look towards greater partnerships as we continue to share knowledge and experiences to strengthen the adoption of ICT in our respective countries.”


About eGov Global Exchange
The eGov Global Exchange 2013 comprises the eGov Forum and eGov Exhibition. The eGov Forum will facilitate a more focused discussion on how infocomm technology provides governments with new possibilities and platforms for citizen engagement through Co-Creation with citizens and the private sector, so as to bring about better service delivery. The eGov Exhibition will showcase the progress and achievements of e-government initiatives by different government agencies.

About the Infocomm Media Business Exchange – imbX
imbX is Asia’s largest infocomm and media event that fortifies Singapore’s position as a leading infocomm and media hub. imbX brings together business leaders, companies and industry professionals to showcase their latest innovations, network, exchange ideas and tap new markets. Held annually in Singapore in the month of June, imbX incorporates CommunicAsia, BroadcastAsia, 2342222EnterpriseIT and inter-government meetings such as the imbX Ministerial Forum on ICT.


imbX is jointly organised by Singapore Exhibition Services and the Singapore infocomm Technology Federation, and is hosted by the Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore (iDA) and the Media Development Authority of Singapore (MDA). For more information on imbX, please visit www.visit-imbX.com.


About Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore
The Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore (IDA) is committed to growing Singapore into a dynamic global infocomm hub. IDA uses an integrated approach to developing infocommunications in Singapore. This involves nurturing a competitive telecoms market as well as a conducive business environment with programmes and schemes for both local and international companies. For more news and information, visit www.ida.gov.sg.For media clarification, please contact:


For more information, please contact:
Ms Tan Sock Gim
Manager, Corporate Marketing Communication
Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore
Email: Tan_Sock_Gim@ida.gov.sg
Tel: +65 6211 1350



Ms Julie Nguyen
Manager, Public Relations
Edelman Middle East
Email: Julie.Nguyen@edelman.com
Tel: +971 50 443 7074



© Press Release 2013



© Copyright Zawya. All Rights Reserved.




Singapore Charts The Next Phase of ICT Development

Man held for holiday scam

Central Crime Branch (CCB) of the city police on Saturday arrested a man who cheated over 300 persons of over Rs. 4 crore by promising them fancy overseas holiday packages.


CCB sources identified the suspect as Gopi alias Gopalakrishnan (44), a resident of Korukkupet, who ran a travel agency Just Fly in Nungambakkam. Gopi advertised attractive offers of holidays to countries including Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore and collected huge sums from individuals and groups.


Gopi collected Rs. 1.65 lakh from Ramasubramanium of Mylapore in May after promising him a package for Bangkok. Gopi did not arrange the trip and failed to return the money despite repeated requests.


Following a complaint lodged by Ramasubramanium with the police commissionerate, a CCB team probed the matter and arrested Gopi on Saturday afternoon.



Man held for holiday scam

SINGAPORE FOOD FESTIVAL BEGINS WITH TASTY STARTER

ASIA – The 20th Singapore Food Festival (SFF) has kicked off today [28 June] to start a month-long celebration of gourmet food activities.
 
The festival is themed ‘A Celebration of Food’ showcasing the past, present and future of the region’s culinary scene, featuring specially-crafted menus, creative cooking classes and food-themed arts and entertainment offerings.
 
“When the Singapore Food Festival first started in 1994, its main objective was to show the world that Singapore is a multi-ethnic food paradise,” said Chew Tiong Heng, executive director at the Singapore Tourist Board (STB). “Today, Singapore has become one of the hottest dining spots in the world, drawing locals and visitors alike with gourmet events and unique dining concepts.”
 
STB has worked with more than 20 dining, attractions and precinct partners creating events, menus and workshops for the event. The festival will feature a series of food-themed films alongside The Art House’s ongoing ‘Food-O-Philia’ series and the Singapore Heritage Fest from 19 to 28 July.
 
The Mount Faber Leisure Group (MFLG) has started the festival celebrations with a 10-day event at MFLG’s dining arm The Jewel Box at Mount Faber. Visitors can combine fine dining with leisure as they choose from culinary creations onboard a cable car.
 
“Our chefs are passionate about featuring Singapore dishes and infusing local flavours into our food,” said MFLG general manager, Suzanne Ho. “With food and leisure being an addictive combination, we constantly challenge ourselves to create unique experiences. We are delighted to kickstart the Singapore Food Festival this year and mark 20 delicious years.”
 
The festival runs from 28 June to 28 July.
 
In other regional news, Suntec Singapore Convention and Exhibition Centre has reopened for business, following a major renovation and upgrade programme.
 
Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/25802865@N08/
 
Do you have a news story for Exhibition World? Email abyrne@mashmedia.net



SINGAPORE FOOD FESTIVAL BEGINS WITH TASTY STARTER

Police busts fake visa racket, arrests two

(rural) SSP Manmohan Singh said, “After receiving a complaint from one Jaspal Singh that he along with 20-25 others had been duped by a travel agent in Baba Bakala, a case was registered against Balbir Singh, Rajesh Kumar and Jatinder Singh.


“When a raid was conducted, both Ranjit and Jatinder were arrested. From their office, nine fake visas of Singapore and about 75 passports of people were seized.”


The SSP claimed that the accused charged between Rs. 25,000 to Rs. 30,000 from each of their victims but stamped fake visas on their passports.




Police busts fake visa racket, arrests two

FindaHomeLoan.sg Develops First Ever Singapore “What-If” Home Loan ...


“Not only is the portal free-to-use, our mortgage consultants will understand your needs and help you in deciding the choice of home loans, without advisory fees,” said Sean Lim, Founder of FindaHomeLoan.sg.


Singapore (PRWEB) June 30, 2013


With such a healthy economic vein running the region, Singapore has become a sought-after real estate market that offers unparalleled healthcare, education, traffic system and overall infrastructure. It is no guess why many are flocking to invest in the booming real estate markets in Singapore, especially with low interest rates. However, with so many financial institutions and home loan packages to choose from, it is also a challenge for buyers to apply for suitable home loans. It is from this predicament that the founders of home loan comparison website FindaHomeLoan.sg developed a groundbreaking comparison portal for comparing the best home loan rates from Singapore-based banks for properties in Singapore, Malaysia, Australia, United Kingdom and other countries.


“We recognized the gap in the market where property buyers might not be well-served in your interests. Not only is the portal free-to-use, our mortgage consultants will understand your needs and help you in deciding the choice of home loans, without advisory fees,” said Sean Lim, Founder of FindaHomeLoan.sg.


The portal boasts the most comprehensive home loan calculators available online, comparing rates for New Home Loans, Refinancing and a first ever “What-If” calculator.


The New Home Loan calculator allows users to choose properties by type and completion status, and then filters results by floating rates, fixed rates and interest offset rates. It then calculates monthly installments according to interest rates for each year, while most available calculators apply the first year rate to all subsequent years. This is designed to cater to the unique structure of home loans provided by banks in Singapore.


The calculator then groups the interest payable into 3 groups: year 1 to 3 and 1 to 5. This caters to short, medium and long-term investors. Extracting the most attractive features of each loan package, it then publishes a list of recommended loans based on lowest interest rates and popularity.


The Refinance calculator does all of the above in addition to calculating the potential savings accumulated on the monthly installments and interest payable.


The What-If home loan calculator is a first of its kind in Singapore, allowing users to do comparative calculations around fluctuating interest rates over the course of a housing loan. What happens when interest rates rise over the next two years? What if benchmark rates such as SIBOR or SOR inflate on the third year?


“These are the what-if scenarios buyers and investors often ponder upon. The What-If calculator helps you answer these questions independently and as a result, facilitate your decision on choosing the right home loan,” Sean added.


About FindaHomeLoan.sg


FindaHomeLoan.sg, a leading home loan comparison portal in Singapore, provides a one-stop resource for homeowners who are looking for the best property loans. FindaHomeLoan.sg focuses on residential, commercial, industrial and overseas properties, and offers superior independent and free mortgage advisory and brokerage services in Singapore.





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FindaHomeLoan.sg Develops First Ever Singapore “What-If” Home Loan ...

Post-recession, higher education paths diverge

CHONGQING, China — Determined to learn their way out of the Great Recession — or eager to rise above the deprivation of developing lands — unprecedented millions of people have enrolled in colleges and universities around the world in the past five years.


What they’re finding is an educational landscape turning upside down.




In the United States — where top schools have long championed a liberal style of learning and broad education before specialization — higher education’s focus is shifting to getting students that first job in a still-shaky economy. Tuition is so high and the lingering economic distress so great that an education not directly tied to an occupation is increasingly seen as a luxury.


Elsewhere in the world, there is a growing emphasis on broader learning as an economic necessity.


Advocates hear employers demanding the “soft skills” — communication, critical thinking, and working with diverse groups — that broad-based learning more effectively instills. They want to graduate job-creators, not just job-fillers. They think the biggest innovations come from graduates who are well-rounded — from empathetic engineers, say, or tech-savvy anthropologists.


In Europe, where for centuries students have jumped straight into specialized fields and studied little else, recent changes have pushed back specialization, making more room for general education. In Africa and the Middle East, experiments are moving away from a relentlessly narrow education tradition. And on a much bigger scale, China is breaking down the rigid disciplinary walls that have long characterized its higher education system.


All of this is happening in the shadow of the Great Recession, which began in late 2007 with the near-collapse of the global financial system, depressing economies and employment worldwide. Today, some countries are recovering, but all are coming to grips with a world altered by hard times.


Higher education is widely seen — both by nations and individuals — as the way to prosperity.


Over roughly the last half-decade, according to UNESCO, enrollment in colleges and universities rose one-third in China and almost two-thirds in Saudi Arabia, nearly doubled in Pakistan, tripled in Uganda, and surged by 3 million — 18 percent — in the United States. In 2001, global enrollment first passed 100 million; a decade later, the estimated figure was 182 million.


But what kind of education will best drive economic growth?


When foreign delegations visit American campuses these days, they increasingly skip the usual research universities to scope out liberal arts colleges such as Amherst and Williams, says Patti McGill Peterson of the American Council on Education.


They’re seeking the “magic” that helped launch companies like Apple and Google. China, in particular, is recruiting disheartened American academics and putting them to work.


There’s “a weird symmetry” at work in the educational world, says Columbia University professor Andrew Delbanco, author of “College: What it Was, Is, and Should Be.”


As people in the United States “talk less and less about the value of liberal education,” he says, “our so-called economic competitors talk about it more and more.”


On the outskirts of Chongqing, a sprawling megalopolis of 29 million in southwest China, stand a pair of college campuses — one representing education’s past in the world’s most populous country, and the other, perhaps, its future.


In its mission and dreary name, the College of Mobile Telecommunications is typical of China’s hundreds of Soviet-era universities: rote learning, hyper-specialization and a lock-step course of study for all.


On a hill above it, surrounding a secluded courtyard, stands a new experiment, something very different — Yuanjing Academy. Here, college students take a broad array of subjects their first year, in small classes, learning to do things like argue about literature and play the guitar.


On a recent sunny afternoon, in the checkered shadow of a traditional Buddhist “Bodhi” tree of wisdom on campus, a visiting Dutch academic named Hans Adriaansens sat conversing with Yuanjing students about their ambitions, work and daily worries.


Adriaansens is an adviser to the school, and his journey here is a kind of microcosm of the global movement.


Early in his career, he studied at American campuses including Harvard and Smith College, falling in love with liberal arts learning. Later, he struggled for decades to bring the model to Europe, where students historically have been channeled into specialties as early as age 12.


“When I started, everybody was against it, even at my own university,” he says.


That’s changed. In recent years, he’s helped leading Dutch universities install liberal arts colleges within their campuses. Across Europe, schools have opened space during the first years for broader learning, delaying specialization.


“The Europeans won’t say this, but it’s kind of Americanizing their system,” says Philip Altbach, a Boston College expert on international higher education.


Singapore and Hong Kong have made similar changes.


The prophet of this movement, quoted often by Adriaansens and others, is Steve Jobs, the late co-founder of Apple. Jobs called the marriage of liberal arts, humanities and technology the secret to Apple products “that make our hearts sing.” Far from burying interest in broader learning, advocates say, Europe’s economic malaise has increased interest in nurturing innovative thinkers.


While the old Soviet system was a byword for rigid specialization, elite St. Petersburg State University in Russia recently opened its first liberal arts faculty. Jonathan Becker, the vice president for international affairs at Bard College in New York who has worked in Europe for decades, says it’s no accident that effort has been led by a former Russian finance minister.


“They realize,” Becker says, that “narrow boundaries of disciplines are not the answer to modern world problems.”


There are similar projects in Poland, Slovakia and elsewhere. Even in Germany, which invented the rigid disciplinary model, a first-of-its-kind four-year liberal arts college was being formally inaugurated Monday at the University of Freiburg. The reasoning is both economic and political, especially in Eastern Europe.


“There’s memory of the problems of following a rigorous ideology, and a belief that following a rigorous interdisciplinary program is a way of overcoming that legacy,” Becker says.


Now, Adriaansens has moved to the movement’s biggest stage yet: China.


“It’s new to them but, to my surprise, it’s going much faster than it went in my country,” he says.


In its once tightly planned economy, China’s universities churned out graduates for specific lines of work. Students declared their academic intentions as early as 10th grade. Universities often were overseen by a national ministry or trade agency. Their names say it all: Chongqing Nanfang Translators College, Nanjing Audit University, North China Electric Power University.


Peng Hongbin excelled in that system, studying at a prestigious university and later getting rich in the flooring business. But he doesn’t credit his education: Under the rote learning style he never learned to speak up, and he overcame his shyness only later, in the business world.


“China does not teach you how to communicate,” says Peng, who in 2007 bought the telecommunications college when it went private and, five years later, founded Yuanjing on the hill above it.


“For a country to innovate, to be creative, it needs imagination, not a knowledge and know-how from a specific field of study,” he says.


His academy picks 150 students from the freshman class of 5,000 at the telecommunications college, which also is undergoing changes, adding clubs, sports, community service and art appreciation.


Peng is not alone in his quest; China’s leaders have taken steps in the same direction. They want China to invent the next iPad, not build the last one.


The government moved toward a broader curriculum in 1995, offering electives. Recently, the movement has accelerated and spread across China’s big public universities. Hangzhou’s Zhejiang University in eastern China, for example, has reduced the number of majors from more than 200 to seven general directions.


There is no suggestion that the Chinese system yet resembles the traditional American one, or will soon.


“The 12 years of education has not given our students the habit of thinking,” says Bai Fengshan, who is leading a new liberal arts curriculum at prestigious Tsinghua University, a public school traditionally known for technology and engineering. “They simply take whatever is given. They can tell when what’s given is bad, but they don’t know why.”


Students “lack the ability to be critical,” he says, “which is different from the ability to criticize.”


Despite the obstacles, Bai is committed to the transition.


“When a person leaves the university, he or she should be a whole person,” he says.


Yuanjing students make much the same point.


“We are adults,” says Zhang Panyu, an 18-year-old student whose reading of “Jane Eyre” helped him navigate his own first romance. “We need to know something about everything,”


The University of Farmers is not like Yale or Yuanjing. In fact, it’s not officially a university, at all.


U of F is a corporate training operation of America’s Farmers Insurance, and its students are agents and adjusters. It has campuses in California and at a suburban office park beside the Grand Rapids airport in Michigan.


The University of Farmers is not a place where the works of the great philosophers are discussed; it is a place where people learn things that will help them do their jobs and jobs they hope to have some day. And in that, it reflects a major shift the Great Recession accelerated in American higher education.


Michael Hoffman, 29, started working at Farmers two years ago but hit a ceiling without a degree. He’s one of thousands of employees Farmers is helping pursue their diplomas. In Michigan, many shuttle between the Farmers training program and nearby Davenport University, which awards the degrees.


Farmers will support degrees in a range of fields, and emphasizes that specialized business degrees aren’t required to work there. But virtually all choose business. Some, including Hoffman, are in a new management program that focuses them even more narrowly: They are essentially majoring in insurance.


“I want what’s going to be specifically oriented to my career and my career goals,” says Hoffman, explaining a curriculum focused on things like underwriting regulation, ethics and licensing. And with an infant at home, “Really, that’s all I have time for.”


Davenport’s curriculum injects broad-based skill building in every course, says an associate dean at the school, Frank Novakowski. But he also calls Davenport pragmatic, noting Farmers is halfway through hiring 1,600 new workers here.


“We don’t have degrees that are just there for the fun of it or because Professor Wonderful started it 30 years ago,” he says. “People are getting really serious about `what am I getting an education for, and what am I going to do after?’ And if the kids aren’t asking, their parents are.”


Getting a job has always driven Americans to college and affected what they study, says Arthur Levine, a researcher who now leads the New Jersey-based Woodrow Wilson Foundation, which supports leadership development in education and teaching. Levine has tracked students’ attitudes toward college since the 1960s and takes an even longer view than that. Even the medieval theologians reading Latin at the first universities wanted secure work in the church, he notes.


Recently, though, he has identified a substantial shift. In the 1970s, fewer than half of U.S. college students felt increasing earnings was the chief benefit of college. Now, about two-thirds do.


A national survey of U.S. college freshmen shows a jump in such attitudes starting in 2007, when the economy turned. About three-quarters of freshmen want colleges to provide more specialized career training.


“There’s just been a lot more emphasis in the kitchen-table conversations about choosing a college and choosing a major that is a clear path to a good-paying job,” says Richard Ekman, president of America’s Council of Independent Colleges. “That has shown up in the pattern of majors and in the choice of institutions.”


Tuition list prices at American four-year colleges rose 27 percent above inflation over the last five years. Students’ combined debt now exceeds $1 trillion by some estimates. They want specialized, job-focused offerings. And colleges have obliged:


— Over the last decade, the number of academic subjects tracked by the U.S. government has expanded about one-fifth, with 354 new and increasingly specialized subjects identified since 2000. Drexel University in Philadelphia has added 20 majors in the last decade, including game and art production, culinary science and property management.


— The fastest-growing majors in the United States are mostly tied narrowly to professions, areas like homeland security, law enforcement and firefighting (up 76 percent over the last decade); health professions (up 60 percent) and parks, recreation, leisure and fitness studies (up 90 percent). The largest undergraduate major by far is business, accounting for nearly one-quarter of U.S. degrees. The field is fracturing further into sub-fields like hospitality management and insurance.


The share of four-year degrees in the general arts and sciences has held fairly constant — some fields, like psychology, have even grown. But overall, literature, philosophy and other humanities have suffered. Harvard reported this month that one-third fewer students enter planning to major in the humanities than in 2006.


And most higher education growth is happening outside traditional four-year colleges. From 2006 to 2010, enrollment at for-profit colleges — which typically focus on vocational education — grew five times faster than college enrollment overall.


Higher education’s fastest-growing segment is even more narrowly focused: certificates. These bite-sized educational credentials in narrow occupational fields — offered by community colleges, industry groups and companies — are available for everything from diesel mechanics to specific IT skills. According to the Georgetown Center on Education and the Workforce in Washington, D.C., certificates have more than tripled in roughly 15 years in the U.S., with more than 1 million awarded in 2010.


American politicians are encouraging the trend of practicality in higher education. The governors of Florida and North Carolina, for example, have pushed to shift state funding away from liberal arts subjects to programs that lead more directly to jobs.


On average, people with career-focused degrees do have higher earnings and lower unemployment — at least out of the gate, according to research by the Georgetown center. Certificates also boost earnings.


It’s been harder to pin down how majors affect careers over the long-term.


Employers who complained that millions of jobs were unfilled during the Great Recession because too few graduates had the necessary technical skills also lament that students aren’t well-rounded enough — lacking an ability to communicate and continue to learn. A recent employer survey by the Association of American Colleges and Universities found 93 percent reported that capacities to think critically, communicate clearly and solve complex problems were more important than an undergraduate major.


University of Michigan education professor Janet Lawrence says employers can’t resist hiring graduates with focused training whom they can put straight to work. Then their new hires don’t always work well in teams or grow into a job.


“They’re getting technically skilled accountants,” she says, “but they don’t know what they don’t know.”


Four thousand miles east of Michigan, high in a verdant stretch of Morocco’s remote Middle Atlas Mountains, Driss Ouaouicha is trying to persuade his skeptical country that broader learning isn’t a luxury. It’s an economic necessity.


Ouaouicha is president of the private Al-Akhawayn (Two Brothers) University, started two decades ago with support from the kings of Morocco and Saudi Arabia.


Morocco’s public universities follow the traditional French model of early and strict separation of subjects. Al-Akhawayn follows the model Ouaouicha first encountered as a student at tiny St. John’s College in New Mexico, which offers a “great books” curriculum based on the foundations of Western literature.


Outside the hard sciences and some elite specialty programs, higher education in Morocco clearly isn’t working. Here, and across the Middle East, unemployment is higher for those with college degrees than for those without. Graduates blame the government for sending too many into narrow programs not suited for the job market and not offering enough spots in science.


While Al-Akhawayn is a success (virtually all the university’s recent graduates are working or in graduate school), it is not necessarily a template for Moroccan education. Its roughly $11,000 annual cost puts the school out of reach for almost everyone in a developing country where public universities are free.


“We don’t have the financial means” to replicate Al-Akhawayn, says Lahcen Daoudi, Morocco’s minister of higher education, who sits on Al-Akhawayn’s board.


Still, Ouaouicha is trying to persuade cash-strapped educators around the Middle East that they can emulate some of what works here and turn a culture of government dependency into an entrepreneurial one.


His graduates “learn the experience of teamwork and learning,” Ouaouicha says. “They learn there are different ways … to do things.”


He sees some progress. The Moroccan system has implemented a small “common core” of general education classes, he says. And he is encouraged by similar college experiments in places like Lebanon and Saudi Arabia.


In many of the world’s worst-off countries, a tug-of-war goes on over what kind of educational system they should build. Educators who say a broad education might be the best path in the long run must contend with others who say technical skills are needed to bring their economies closer to first-world levels, especially in view of decades of underinvestment in practical training.


India’s National Skills Development Mission, a public-private partnership that is one of the country’s principal development efforts, wants to use for-profit vocational institutions to give 500 million people tangible job skills by 2022.


Yet while employers in India say they’re desperate for skilled workers, they’re not looking for one-task robots.


“We’re not asking you to train plumbers,” Manish Sabharwal, chairman of TeamLease, a giant temporary staffing company, told education leaders at a conference in Delhi last November. “We’re asking you for curious, confident risk-takers.”


Rwanda is focused on agriculture, tourism and information technology. With its history of genocide, it needs leaders who’ve wrestled with subjects like history, politics and justice. But its 12 million people, crammed into a mountainous country roughly the size of Maryland, also desperately need jobs.


“There’s a price to be paid if you let education become too focused and pragmatic,” says Bruce Krogh, an electrical engineer at Pennsylvania’s Carnegie Mellon University who currently is working in Rwanda. But, he adds, “It’s a different game when you’re trying to bootstrap an economy.”


Says Francisco Marmolejo, a Mexican educator and now the World Bank’s point person for higher education: “This is the dilemma all higher education institutions face around the world. Many times, the discourse is about getting a job, rather than creating a job.”


In fact, he and others say, countries will need both broad thinking across subjects and specialized expertise. And so will individuals.


“There is an argument for getting specific training in the active field you want,” says Marc Tucker, president and CEO of the Washington, D.C.-based National Center on Education and the Economy, a nonprofit organization that looks at the implications of changes in the international economy for American education. “But if your thinking stops there, you are going to be outcompeted in another five or six or 10 years by somebody who did that and also got a liberal education.”


Adriaansens believes the broad-based approach will eventually win the global argument.


“Who can tell what kind of job will exist four years from now for these students?” he asks.


A narrow degree may misfire, he says, but a broader degree gives graduates the tools to reinvent themselves.


“You can build a high mountain on a very broad base,” he says.



Post-recession, higher education paths diverge

NSA leaker"s dad says son would return to US

By Matthew Lee


The father of the US’ NSA leaker Edward Snowden acknowledged Friday his son broke the law but said he doesn’t think he committed treason, as the Obama administration renewed its calls to Russia to expel Snowden so he can be tried under the US Espionage Act.


Meanwhile, Ecuadorean officials say Russian authorities have stymied the country’s efforts to approve a political asylum application from the former National Security Agency systems analyst, according to government officials with direct knowledge of the case. Their accounts further complicate the already murky understanding of his current status.


In conceding his son’s guilt, Snowden’s father, Lonnie Snowden, told NBC’s Today show that his lawyer had informed US Attorney General Eric Holder that he believes his son would voluntarily return to the United States if the US Justice Department promises not to hold him before trial and not subject him to a gag order.


“If folks want to classify him as a traitor, in fact, he has betrayed his government. But I don’t believe that he’s betrayed the people of the United States,” Lonnie Snowden said. The elder Snowden hasn’t spoken to his son since April, but he said he believes he’s being manipulated by people at WikiLeaks. The anti-secrecy group has been trying to help Edward Snowden gain asylum.


“I don’t want to put him in peril, but I am concerned about those who surround him,” Lonnie Snowden told NBC. “I think WikiLeaks, if you’ve looked at past history, you know, their focus isn’t necessarily the Constitution of the United States. It’s simply to release as much information as possible.”


Lonnie Snowden declined to comment when The Associated Press reached him Friday.


US officials said their outreach to Russia, Ecuador and other countries where Snowden might travel to or seek refuge is ongoing.


“We continue to be in touch, via diplomatic and law enforcement channels, with countries through which Mr Snowden might transit or that could serve as a final destination, also in touch, clearly, with the Russian authorities,” State Department spokesman Patrick Ventrell told reporters. “We’re advising governments that Mr Snowden is wanted on felony charges and should not be allowed to proceed any further, other than necessary to return to the United States. So we continue to make that active case through diplomatic and law enforcement channels.”


Ventrell said the US message to Russia has been consistent.


“We don’t want this to negatively impact bilateral relations. It’s understandable that there are some issues raised by this, but from our perspective, based on our cooperative history of law enforcement, and especially since the Boston bombings, that there’s certainly a basis for expelling Mr Snowden,” he said, citing “the status of his travel documents and the pending charges against him.”


The State Department revoked Snowden’s visa last weekend.


Ecuadorean officials have said publicly they cannot start considering Snowden’s asylum request until he arrives either in Ecuador or in an Ecuadorean embassy.


Two government officials with direct knowledge of the negotiations said Ecuador had been making detailed plans to receive and host Snowden.


One of the officials said those plans had been thwarted by Russia’s refusal to let Snowden leave or be picked up by Ecuadorean officials. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorised to discuss the case by name.


Snowden intended to travel from Moscow with the intention of going on to the Ecuadorean capital of Quito but after he was held up in the Moscow airport, Ecuador asked Russia to let him take a commercial flight to meet Foreign Minister Ricardo Patino in Vietnam or Singapore, where Patino was on a pre-planned official trip, in order to be taken back to Quito by Patino, the official told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because the official was not authorised to speak to the press.


The Russians rejected Ecuador’s requests to let Snowden leave Moscow, or to let an Ecuadorean government plane pick him up there, the official said.


Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa told reporters on Thursday that Snowden was “in the hands of the authorities” in Russia.


But Russian authorities have said Snowden is outside Russian control in a transit area of the Moscow airport, which is technically not Russian territory.


Edward Snowden is charged with violating US espionage laws for leaking information about NSA surveillance of Internet and telephone records to detect terrorist plots.


AP



NSA leaker"s dad says son would return to US

Curbs on DIBS may be negative for developers, but little effect on banks

THE potential move to impose curbs on the Developer Interest-Bearing Scheme (DIBS) by Bank Negara may be negative for some developers in the short term and has little effect on banks.


StarBiz had reported that Bank Negara was studying the risks arising from the DIBS, with a view of potentially imposing curbs on it.


Basically, if you purchase property from a developer who offers DIBS financing packages, then the developer would bear the interest for the loan during the construction period.


In other words, you don’t have to pay anything to the bank until construction is complete. You only start paying the bank instalments after the property is fully constructed.


DIBS has become a popular and easy financing package offered in joint-promotional activities between banks and developers in recent years.


CIMB Investment Bank Bhd research head Terence Wong said if the move by the central bank were true, then it would be “negative” for developers in the short term, although not entirely unexpected, as speculation on such a move had already surfaced in May.


“Although such a policy would have a negative impact on speculative demand, we believe the impact on earnings would be muted, while creating a healthier property market led more by fundamentals,” he said, adding that he had heard whispers over the past few weeks on the possibility.


“We remain ‘overweight’ on the property sector, with Mah Sing Group Bhd as our top pick, and robust sales and earnings growth as sector catalysts. Any weakness in property stocks is an opportunity to accumulate, in our view,” Wong added. Industry players are still awaiting a formal announcement from the central bank, if any.


Mah Sing’s group managing director and chief executive Tan Sri Leong Hoy Kum pointed out that there has been no announcement on interest-bearing schemes thus far.


However, he hopes that any implementation would take into consideration the industry’s feedback and the current market condition.


In addition, Leong said the lending environment was generally still conducive, with financing liquidity still attractive and interest rates still low.


While Mah Sing offers DIBS packages for some of its projects, it does not offer the scheme for its industrial, commercial and landed residential projects.

Hong Leong Investment Bank Research, meanwhile, believes that developers with a high concentration of high-end, high-rise developments such as Eastern Oriental Bhd would be the most severely affected.


However, it reckoned that other major developers within its coverage would not be as badly affected, given their exposure to this policy shift would comprise less than 50% of their sales.


Kenanga Research analysts said there was market talk that Bank Negara might want to do without the easy financing packages as part of the property lending curb.


However, they say quick checks with developers under their coverage indicated that the developers were not extending this scheme to many projects at the moment, as banks were also discouraging developers from undertaking the scheme because of speculative activities.


“Notably, Hua Yang Bhd’s and Crescendo Corp Bhd’s projects do not use this scheme, so they would be least affected in terms of demand. So, in terms of fundamentals, it should not hurt demand too much, particularly for the bigger developers.


“It would affect stock sentiment in the short run, so do expect further sell-downs if the curb on DIBS materialises – not even the high dividend-yielding ones would be spared,” they opined.


In the medium term, Kenanga Research does not expect prolonged sell-downs, as the Government was already talking about implementing the build-then-sell model, which would restrict future supply and lend strength to demand and larger players such as SP Setia Bhd, Mah Sing, IJM Land Bhd and UEM Sunrise Bhd.


“Currently, our sector is under review. Our existing call is ‘overweight’ and we are likely to maintain this, but with a more selective or buy-on-weakness stance. We are likely to continue promoting affordable developers like Hua Yang and Crescendo due to their resilient demand-based profile. We also like Johor-based developers like UEM Sunrise, as we believe there would be more positive news flows towards the year-end, for example, the Malaysia-Singapore Rapid Transit System, the listing of Iskandar Waterfront Holdings Sdn Bhd and more strategic tie-ups,” they added.


Concurrently, Maybank Investment Bank Research said assuming DIBS packages were banned, it estimates the worst-case scenario to be a marginal 0.7 percentage point to be shaved off its 2014 industry loans growth forecast of 10.5% to 9.8%.


“We believe domestic banks have been more tempered in their exposure to the mortgage segment, and channel checks point to limited exposure at this stage. We maintain our industry loan and earnings forecasts for the individual banks for now.


“We remain ‘overweight’ on the banking sector, with our ‘buys’ being AMMB Holdings Bhd, RHB Capital Bhd, BIMB Holdings Bhd and Hong Leong Financial Group Bhd,” Maybank said.


It explained that general guidance was that such loans had made up 15%-20% of new mortgage loans over the past few years.


Thus, some dampening effect was to be expected.


“Nevertheless, we believe the impact is likely to be contained by the fact that the housing loan growth of the ‘Big Six’ banks has been measured and such loans account for less than 5% of total residential loans for the big banks.”



Curbs on DIBS may be negative for developers, but little effect on banks