Georgia Asian Times December 1-15, 2014

Covering The Multicultural Asian American Community in Georgia www.gasiantimes.com December 1-15, 2014

Let the Shopping Begins!

Publisher: Li WongAccount Manager: Adrian WestContributors: Andrian Putra, May Lee, Mark Ho

Tel: 678-971-9388Advertising: [email protected]: [email protected]: www.gasiantimes.com

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All Rights Reserved: including those to repro-duce this printing or parts thereof in any form without permission in writing from Georgia Asian Times. Established in 2004, the Georgia Asian Times is published by Asiamax Inc.

All facts, opinions, and statements appearing within this publication are those of writers and editors themseleves, and are in no way to be construed as statements, positions, endorse-ments by Georgia Asian Times or its officers.

Georgia Asian Times assumes no responsi-bility for damages from the use of information contained in this publication or the reply to any advertisement. The Publisher will not be liable for any error in advertising to greater extent than the cost of space occupied by the error and will only be made for a single publication date.

The Publisher reserves the right to reject any ad or articles submitted for publication that may not be in good taste for a free publication.

GAT Calendar of EventsGAT welcome submission of announcement pertaining to community related events.

Please email event, date, venue, and time to [email protected]. GAT does not guarantee insertion of event announcement and has the right to deny any posting.

Content Enriched Business NetworkingOrganized by Georgia Vietnamese American Chamber of CommerceDate: Thursday, Dec 4, 2014Time: 6:30 pm - 8:00 pmVenue: Chase Bank, 5252 Peachtree Parkway, Norcross

Thai Night 2014Date: Saturday, December 6, 2014Time: 6:00 pm - 11:00 pmVenue: Global Mall, 5675 Jimmy Car-ter Blvd. Norcross GA 30071For more info: www.thaiassociationof-georgia.org

2015 Symposium on Asia-USA Partnership Opportunities (SAUPO) Largest Asin business conference in the SouthDate: Friday, April 17, 2015Time: 7:00 am - 6:00 pmVenue: St. Regis Hotel, Atlanta, GAFor more info: www.kennesaw.edu/saupo/home.php

For more information:• Visit: itsmarta.com/Clifton-Corr.aspx• Email: [email protected]

Help Us Shape Clifton Corridor!

Thursday, December 4, 2014, 6-8 pmWestminster Presbyterian Church1438 Sheridan Rd. NE, Atlanta, GA 30324

Tuesday, December 9, 2014, 6-8 pmEmory Student Activity & Academic CenterRoom 3161946 Starvine Way, Decatur, GA 30033

Come to one of our Scoping meetings to:• Find out the latest developments• Learn more about the environmental study• Answer your questions about the project

CLIFTON CORRIDORTRANSIT INITIATIVE

The Clifton Corridor Transit Initiative is MARTA’s proposed light rail line linking the Lindbergh and Avondale Stations. It will provide rail service to one of the region’s most congested areas – and biggest job centers – serving Emory University & Hospital, CDC, Children’s Healthcare, and VA Hospital.

Page 2 December 1-15, 2014 Georgia Asian Times

Georgia Asian Times December 1-15, 2014 Page 3

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METRO ASIAN NEWS

Duluth, November 19, 2014 — Senior representatives from the White House Initiative on Asian American and Pacific Islanders Region 4 interagency working group conducted an informa-tion sharing meeting with members of community at the Gwinnett Chamber of Commerce.

“This meeting provides an oppor-tunity for several Federal agencies to highlight their services to the Asian American community,” said Ron Ste-phens, Executive Director of Atlanta’s Federal Executive Board in his opening remarks.

Representatives from Atlanta Feder-al Executive Board, U.S. Small Busi-ness Administration, Social Security Administration, Housing and Urban Development, U.S. Department of Ag-riculture, Dept of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families, Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, U.S. Dept of Education, FEMA, General Services Administration, and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services were part of the briefing.

“Gwinnett County reflects the demographic shifts that is happening

in the country. Gwinnett has over 40 percent of its small businesses that are non-whites. We reflect the future of America in 2040,” explains Dr. Daniel J. Kaufman, President of Gwinnett Chamber of Commerce in his remarks.

Among the topics covered includ-ed an update by Health and Human Services on the Affordable Health Care. The healthcare coverage registration is officially open from November 15, 2014 to February 15, 2015.

“Since the registration opens last Saturday, we have received over one million visits to the website. Our call center has registered over 200,000 calls. So far, we have confirmed 100,000 new applications to date,” said Stephanie Davis of Health and Human Services.

The meeting attracted about 30 attendees from the community with a majority representing social services organization.

White House AAPI Working Group host informational briefing at Gwinnett

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BUSINESS

Gwinnett commissioners approve film studio zoning request

Lawrenceville, November 18, 2014 – Gwinnett County Board of Commis-sioners voted unanimously to approve a zoning request for a 105 acre portion of OFS plant from Heavy Industry District zoning to Regional Mixed Use District zoning. The approval granted allows development of the proposed Atlanta Media Campus located at the site near I-85 and Jimmy Carter Bou-levard.

The proposed Atlanta Media Campus is a mixed used development by Jacoby Development which will house a film school, sound stages, student housing, multi-family residential development, a hotel, office spaces and film studio.

“This has been long time coming. It is a new beginning for Gwinnett’s growth into the future,” said Chuck Warbington, Executive Director, Gwin-nett Village Community Improvement District.

The sale of the property is scheduled to close by end of the year or early 2015, according to Michael Sullivan, lead attorney for Jacoby Development. Construction is expected to start short-ly after the closing.

Sound stages construction will be build to accommodate film and televi-sion productions. Movies and filming will continue on-site when construc-tion starts, he added.

The project is said to be the largest movie studio in the southeast upon completion.

Atlanta Media Campus Photo: Jacoby Development Group


FEATURE

Thanksgiving and Black Friday draws back consumers for online deals

New York, November 29, 2014 — Millions of consumers flocked to stores and retail websites on Black Friday and Thanksgiving across the US for some unprecedented shopping.

The crowds at shopping malls were relatively thin on Black Friday with the mad rush happening the night of Thanksgiving and also with more con-sumers picking up deals online.

Most of the major retailers are now open on Thursday evening and extend-ing the Thanksgiving holiday deals to the next day. The result is a quieter experience on what traditionally has been one of the busiest shopping days of the year.

The crowds normally reserved for Black Friday morning appeared on Thursday night. More than 15,000 people lined up for the opening of the flagship store of Macy’s Inc in New

York on Thursday. Retailers said they were capturing more of the holiday budget online.

Shares of Macy’s, Wal-Mart Stores Inc and Target Corp were all up from 2.2 percent to 3 percent on Friday afternoon as investors saw encourag-ing signs in the long lines on Thursday night and with executives making bull-ish comments about demand. Lower gasoline prices were also giving the shares a boost, analysts said, according to Reuters.

“It’s off to a good start,” said Char-lie O’Shea, a retail analyst at Moody’s Investors Service, after visiting nearly two dozen stores in northern New Jer-sey over the past two days.

Police arrested 11 people associat-ed with the OUR Walmart group for blocking traffic in front of a downtown Chicago Wal-Mart store. The protest

was one of 1,600 planned across the United States by the group, which is pushing for higher wages and benefits for the retailer’s employees.

By noon, online sales were up 6.4 percent over Black Friday 2013, while Thanksgiving Day website sales were up 14.3 percent over 2013, according to IBM Digital Analytics.

Sales and traffic were driven by mo-bile phones and tablet use, which ac-counted for more than half of all online traffic and nearly a third of all sales on Thursday, said USA Today.

Walmart racked up more than 500 million Thanksgiving page views, surpassed only by the retailer’s Cyber

Monday traffic last year. ChannelAdvi-sor, which tracks retail data, said Ama-zon also was a big winner, with sales up 26 percent from last year. Electronics retailer Best Buy’s website crashed for about an hour Friday morning due to a “concentrated spike in mobile traffic,” said spokesman Jeff Shelman.

In New York City’s Times Square Toys R Us, president Hank Mullany said morning shoppers were leaving the store with “bags and bags full of toys.” At Target, CEO Brian Cornell said shoppers snapped up many items beyond the door busters that may have lured them in, including apparel and home goods.


BUSINESS

Atlanta, November 25, 2014 — Ken-nesaw State University’s Asian Studies Program announced its plan to host the third Symposium on Asia-USA Partnership Opportunities (SAUPO) Conference at St. Regis Hotel on April 17, 2015.

Since its 2011 inaugural, SAUPO Conference has evolved to be the larg-est business conference in the South to focus on the Asia region.

“Overall planning for the conference has been going well. We are expect-ing over 350 speakers and attendees from around the world,” said Dr. May Gao, Chair of SAUPO and Professor of Communication and Asian Studies at KSU.

The next SAUPO conference dwells into several major topics including:building strategic partnership in

Asia-Pacific; digital economy & e-Commerce; cross-border transac-tions; crisis communication manage-ment; green energy and smart grid; global commerce and global health informatics.

“Key topics that SAUPO covers are real world business issues that have impact on daily lives. We are focus on featuring the best thinkers on these issues,” adds Dr. Gao.

Several prominent speakers includ-ing Bernie Champonx, UN Command, Korea-US Combined Forces; Shahid Charania, Managing Director, Equi-fax; Curtis Folz, Executive Director, Georgia Ports Authority; Huandong Gao, VP, Walmart e-Commerce (China); Farooq Kathwari, Chairman, Ethan Allen Global; John McDonald, Director, GE Digital Energy; Robert Petrina, Managing Director, Yingli Green Energy Americas, Barbara Reynolds, Director, Division of Public Affairs, CDC, Julia Nesheiwat, Deputy Assistant Secretary, U.S. State De-partment.

Online registration for the SAUPO 2015 are available thru SAUPO web-site. Early registration by March 15, 2015 is $199 and student registration is $69.

SAUPO 2015 to highlight US-Asia business issues

Georgia’s Vietnamese Chamber to host Black & White Ball

Norcross, November 24, 2014 — The Georgia Vietnamese-American Cham-ber of Commerce is planning to host a “Black & White Ball” on February 7, 2015 at Sonesta Gwinnett Place.

“The Ball is designed to promote networking among our members and interaction with members of the mainstream community,” said Jenny Nguyen, President of GVACC and at-torney-at-large at Nguyen Stephen, PC.

Jenny Nguyen was elected as Presi-dent of GVACC in October 2014.

“My goal at GVACC is to promote more interactions and networking among members. GVACC must also

provide business education and updat-ed information on regulations relevant to their business,” said Nguyen.

Nguyen is quick to add that GVACC hosts a monthly networking business meeting on the first Thursday of the month.

It provides an opportunity to fea-ture short educational seminar at the meetings.

“Our members are eager to keep up to date with legal, regulations, financing, and small business issues.”

GVACC membership is open to everyone and there are several tiers of memberships available.

For more information, visit GVACC website at www.gvacc.org


BUSINESS

Chinese tourism to U.S. expected to grow

San Francisco, November 27, 2014 - San Francisco is a major stop for Chinese visitors, and an agreement be-tween China and the United States, an-nounced in Beijing this month, promis-es to draw even more Chinese tourists to U.S. destinations. A day spent in the northern California city with some visitors from China shed light on some of the reasons they are coming.

Major West Coast cities are must-see destinations for Chinese tour groups, which take in sights that include San Francisco’s iconic Golden Gate Bridge.

Li Hong, who is here with her daugh-ter, is impressed, saying, “It’s beauti-ful.” She said this is her first time in the U.S.

It’s pretty, and unlike China, she said, where pollution is a problem in the major cities. Here she sees blue

skies and white clouds. She said her first impression is good.

Tourism from China is expected to grow since the announcement in early November that both countries will ex-tend their multiple-entry business and tourist visas from the current one year to a maximum of 10 years.

Harry Chen of San Francisco-based Joy Holiday takes Asian tours to U.S. cities and scenic sites, including na-tional parks. He said the visa change will help the economies of both coun-tries.

“And also I think it’s a great way to get the two cultures to learn from each other, to build friendship, understand-ing,” he said.

Three friends from China sit on a bench at one of San Francisco’s scenic

sites, the Palace of Fine Arts, with its Greek-style rotunda perched on the edge of a lagoon. Ni Xi from Shenzhen said she and her friends are at the start of their U.S. visit.

She said they will stay in San Fran-cisco for the day, then will visit Los Angeles, where they would like to go shopping, for three or four days. Then they’ll go to the Grand Canyon for the scenery, she said, and Las Vegas, to see the casinos and other sights.

It’s a common itinerary. While in San Francisco, visitors enjoy the distinc-tive neighborhoods. Tours stop in Haight-Ashbury, the psychedelic youth haven of the 1960s, and in the gay and lesbian Castro District.

Tour guide LanKun Weidner said Chinese visitors find the diversity exciting. “You get to see people from all over the place, and food and ar-chitecture, and even lifestyles,” said Weidner.

Across town, Linda Lee’s company, called All About Chinatown, offers spe-cialized walking tours. Both Western and Chinese visitors learn the history of the Chinese immigrants on the West Coast.

Some scenes are familiar, like one shop that sells traditional Chinese medicine. A man behind the counter pounds the herbs to make a powder. But some are unfamiliar - like the tiny Chinatown shop making fortune cookies, a Chinese-American dessert invented in California.

Linda Lee said the many private clubs found in Chinatown are new to the visitors from China. Some date to the 19th century and are still a haven. “All these private clubs were created by the Chinese to protect them and to make them feel at home,” she said.

It’s part of San Francisco’s story, and America’s story, which more and more visitors from China are experiencing.


FOCUS

Kuala Lumpur, November 29, 2014 — A former senior captain with a major international airline, who has flown a Boeing 777 aircraft, has debunked all the crash theories pro-posed by other experts on the Malay-sian Airlines flight MH 370 by saying that the flight is so automated that even if the flight crew left the cockpit it would have flown to its destination via the preprogrammed computer Flight Profile.

Contradicting the theory that sug-gested that the Boeing 777 aircraft could have flown on autopilot for hours and ran out of fuel before crashing, Byron Bailey said that the flight could have flown on autopilot for hours and reached its destination unless a human intervention changed the flight profile, reported The Daily Telegraph.

He explained that the aircraft has 80 computers and except for two engines, nearly every system is triplicated and the failure of even one of these systems would automatically result in a transfer to another. This means that for the Air Traffic Control (ATC) to lose control secondary radar contact with MH370, someone would have to deactivate all the three systems manually.

An analysis of Malaysian military radar had found that the flight tracked across northern Malaysia before drifting to the northwest and turning south into the southern Indian Ocean. However, the former captain said that the Boeing 777 aircraft is fairly big and it is almost impossible for it to go unnoticed on the Indonesian, Thai and then Indian military radar.

He ruled out total electricity failure too, as suggested by some theories, by saying that the flight has five gener-ators and an automatic deployment Ram Air Turbine (RAT) as a final backup which can supply hydraulic and electrical power to vital systems and still have contact with the ATC.

Bailey said that the Boeing 777 is a large aircraft and added that he believed that the MH370 is still intact and submerged under 6000m of wa-ter. He said that it will be found only if “we search long enough.”

Flight MH370 has been missing since the early hours of March 8, when it left Kuala Lumpur for Beijing with 239 passengers and crew on board.

Former pilot captain debunks all “MH 370 theories” — aircraft is too

automated to drift from course


LIFE

Building success one Lego brick at a time

London, Nov 29, 2014 — Gener-ations of children worldwide have grown up loving Lego and the popu-larity of tablets and video games will not change that, the company’s chief executive told AFP in an interview.

Joergen Vig Knudstorp said he be-lieved that the plastic, multi-colored bricks — whose name is an abbrevi-ation of the Danish words “leg godt”, meaning “play well” — would be around for “centuries”.

The company hit trouble a decade ago but is now the world’s biggest maker of toys by sales, more than quadrupling its revenues in 10 years.

Far from threatening Lego’s popu-larity, Knudstorp said the digital era offered great opportunities for the company to build its customer base even further.

“We are one of the most popular vid-eo games, we also have reached more and more customers on social media

— Lego fans are gathering like never before,” he said.

“In the past, children watched TV and then played with Lego. Now they play on tablets and play with Lego.

“The reason why they do it is that many children, and adults as well, want a real, physical experience. Even though we like to watch football or play it on a PlayStation, it’s still not the same as running on the field kick-ing the ball.”

He was speaking as Lego, whose headquarters are in Billund, Den-mark, opened a fifth “main office” in London yesterday as the company seeks global growth.

One key target is Asia. As well as offices in Shanghai and Singapore, the company started building a new factory in China’s Jianxing, south of Shanghai, earlier this year to build Lego products for sale in Asia.

Please don’t die

Such an international presence is a far cry from the company’s origins.

The company was founded in 1932 by Ole Kirk Kristiansen, the grandfa-ther of the current owner, in a small workshop in Billund, and took the name Lego two years later.

It started out making products like wooden ducks, while the iconic plastic brick in its present form dates back to 1958.

Lego became a major international brand from the 1960s and Legoland in Billund, now one of Denmark’s big-gest tourist attractions, was opened in 1968.

But the group hit trouble in 2004, announcing major losses. Knudstrop was appointed that year and recalls receiving “letters from customers saying ‘please don’t die’”.

He said that, at that stage, the com-pany had “spread ourselves over too many areas” and was poorly run.

To turn the business around, he focused on cutting manufacturing costs, releasing the right products in tighter timeframes and “reigniting the product innovation, really working with children to make products they find more appealing”.

Now the focus is on international expansion, hence the opening of the London office.

The opening coincides with the Brick 2014 fan event being held at London’s giant ExCeL exhibition centre from Thursday to tomorrow, featuring Lego sets, characters and construction zones.

For Knudstrop, despite the changes which he has brought and those in the digital world, the Lego brick is at the centre of what the company is about — and will remain so for years to come.

“I think the brick will stay with us for centuries because it is fundamental like football or reading a great book, telling stories,” he said.

“It’s something that will be around forever.”

Lego CEO Joergen Vig Knudstorp presents the company’s annual report during a press conference on March 3, 2011 in Billund. — AFP


LIFESTYLE

Climate change forces the Alps to adapt by moving villages

VIENNA, Nov 28 — With tempera-tures rising faster in the Alps than the rest of the world, alpine countries are working together to adapt to climate change and hope to set an example.

A recent Austrian climate change report found that the country’s tem-peratures had risen twice as fast as the global average since 1880, with the number of sunshine hours in the Alps increasing by 20 per cent.

While this may please holidaymakers or locals enjoying longer summers, it is also likely to cause more landslides and forest fires, affecting the agricultural sector and local economy, the Austrian Assessment Report found.

“Just imagine, you have a relatively narrow valley and in that small space, you have a street, a railway line, maybe power lines and some houses. If a land-slide hits there, there will be serious

damage,” said Georg Rebernig, man-aging director of the Austrian Environ-ment Agency.

“Preventing this is what we’re trying to do when we talk about a strategy for the Alps,” he said ahead of UN climate talks in Lima on December 1-12 meant to pave the way towards a global cli-mate pact next year.

Rebernig’s office is part of the C3-Alps project, which groups ministries and research institutes from alpine countries — mainly Italy, Switzerland, Germany, Austria and France — to dis-cuss ways to tackle climate change.

It is only one of several European initiatives promoting the sharing of information and experiences in the Alps, a mountainous region of around 200,000 square kilometres with a pop-ulation of 14 million.

“The effects of climate change can be seen and felt... we have to look ahead, take action,” said Karine Siegwart, vice director of the Swiss federal office for the environment, also part of C3-Alps.

“This is a cross-border problem and it requires cross-border collaboration.”

Climate adaptation

A UN report earlier this month warned that Earth was on a likely trajectory for at least 4°C warming over pre-industrial times by 2100 — a recipe for worsening drought, flood, rising seas and species extinctions.

Alpine countries are already shifting their focus to adaptation solutions, acknowledging that climate change will not be stopped or turned around anytime soon.

“We have to take climate change very seriously. But we also need local support and to sensitise communities and the population, because the effects of climate change will be felt at a local level,” said Siegwart.

Low-lying resorts have long invested in snow cannon to ensure white slopes during the ski season but some have radically changed their marketing strategies — like Switzerland’s Stock-horn ski region, which dismantled its ski lifts to refocus on winter hiking and snowshoeing.

Rather than building flood defences, authorities in northern Austria relo-cated some 250 households which sat close to the Danube and were badly hit by flood waters in 2002. The move cost more than €90 million (RM352 million).

“Danger zone plans” are regularly drawn up to identify no-build areas at risk of floods, landslides or erosion, while the mountainous Tirol region has invested some €125 million to build avalanche defences over 17.5 kilome-tres of roads, so they can remain open all year round.

Meanwhile, farmers in Germany are being encouraged to grow crops that are more resistant to heat and dry spells.

Shrinking glaciers

Glaciers, the most common symbol of climate change in the mountains, have shrunk by 15 per cent in Austria over the last 15-20 years, according to Andrea Fischer, a glacier expert at the Interdisciplinary Mountain Research Institute in Innsbruck.

Snow levels and flora are moving up mountains and river water is dwindling as glaciers retreat.

But regions and local communities can cope with the changes, Fischer said.

“Mankind is used to always adapt-ing and dealing with difficulties. The idea of a stationary environment is pleasant... but it’s not life. Life is about permanent adaptation,” she said.

Alpine countries are still drafting strategies to deal with climate change but they can already be a model for others, Rebernig said.

“If you look at other mountain re-gions, they’re often not strong econom-ic regions. The Alps are different,” he said.

If local authorities can work together and gather the necessary research early on, “then other regions who didn’t have these means will be able to learn from this”.


SPORTS

Lewis Hamilton wins Formula One world title

Abu Dhabi, Nov 23, 2014 — Lew-is Hamilton was crowned the 2014 world drivers’ champion today after winning the season-closing Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.

The 29-year-old Briton, who won his first title in 2008, claimed his 11th win of the Formula One season to finish on 384 points.

The title challenge of pole sitter Nico Rosberg, Hamilton’s Mercedes team-mate, petered out when he suffered engine problems with the German trailing in out of the points.

“Woooooaaahh world champion, oh my God, can’t believe it, thanks every-one,” Hamilton exclaimed after taking the chequered flag.

One of the first to congratulate him was Britain’s Prince Harry, who said from the Mercedes garage: “Well done Lewis, you are a legend.”

Hamilton won the final race of the season from Williams’s Felipe Massa with the second Williams, driven by Valtteri Bottas, third.

Rosberg, who suffered the ignominy of being lapped by Hamilton, came in 14th.

He finished second in the drivers’ race on 317 points, with Red Bull’s Daniel Ricciardo in third place.

Paris, Nov 28, 2014 - A short-list of 15 midfielders from whom three will be selected for a World XI was released by football’s world governing body FIFA today.

The World XI team, which is voted for by tens of thousands of players worldwide, is to be presented at the FIFA Ballon d’Or award ceremony on January 12th.

All of those on the list were stars of the 2014 World Cup including top scorer James Rodriguez of Colombia, plus Angel Di Maria of beaten finalists and Bastian Schweinsteiger of the champions Germany.

Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi will feature on the list of strikers to be revealed on December 1st, while

candidates for the goalkeeper posi-tion and defenders has already been released.

Midfielders shortlist:

Xabi Alonso (Esp/Bayern Munich), Angel Di Maria (Arg/Manchester United), Cesc Fabregas (Esp/Chel-sea), Eden Hazard (Bel/Chelsea), Xavi (Esp/Barcelona), Andres Iniesta (Esp/Barcelona), Toni Kroos (Ger/Real Madrid), Luka Modric (Cro/Real Madrid), Mesut Ozil (Ger/Ar-senal), Andrea Pirlo (Ita/Juventus), Paul Pogba (Fra/Juventus), James Rodriguez (Col/Real Madrid), Bastian Schweinsteiger (Ger/Bayern Munich), Yaya Toure (ICoast/Manchester City), Arturo Vidal (Chi/Juventus)

Di Maria, Schweinsteiger, Rodriguez make FIFA’s World XI


SPORTS

New Delhi, Nov 28, 2014 — India’s fledgling football league has become the fourth most popular in the world after just six weeks, surpassing Italy’s long-standing Serie A in average crowd attendance, according to the organ-isers.

The Indian Super League (ISL) has lured former international veterans such as Sweden’s Freddie Ljungberg, Frenchman Nicolas Anelka and Italian great Alessandro Del Piero for the 10-week competition.

The league, played around the coun-try, has been hit by injuries to some of its biggest stars, while some football experts have questioned the quality of the matches.

Cricket dominates on the subcon-tinent, and football at the grassroots level has long been neglected.

But organisers said more than one million fans have turned out, with an average match attendance of 24,357, making it the fourth most popular foot-ball league behind Germany’s Bunde-

sliga, the English Premier League and Spain’s La Liga and ahead of Serie A.

“We have always believed that the sport of football, if given the right plat-form, has the potential for tremendous growth in India,” an ISL spokesman said late yesterday.

Backed by some of the biggest names in business and sport, the league is modelled on cricket’s glitzy Indian Premier League.

Bollywood A-listers and cricket stars are co-owners of the eight city-based football franchises, while Rupert Murdoch’s Star TV is broadcasting the games.

India has always fared poorly in world football rankings and now stands at 159 out of 208 countries.

But FIFA chief Sepp Blatter has dubbed the world’s second most populous country the sleeping giant of football.

India’s new league says ‘sleeping giant of football’ more popular than Serie A

London, Nov 28 - You would have been hard pressed at the start of the season to find anyone to bet on Liv-erpool’s Brendan Rodgers becoming the first Premier League manager to get the sack, but he is now the bookies’ joint favourite.

After last season’s runners-up spot, a terrible start to this season has left the Reds without a win in five games, 12th in the table, flirting with an early Champions League exit and Rodgers as low as 4/1 with one bookmaker to get the sack.

That makes him joint favourite with Harry Redknapp at bottom club Queens Park Rangers and struggling Aston Villa’s Paul Lambert.

Rodgers is taking the lion’s share of the criticism for Liverpool’s poor start, with serious questions being asked about his record in the transfer market, his failure to replace Luis Suarez or sign adequate back-up for the injured Daniel Sturridge.

With goals in short supply, fans are also beginning to wonder about his ability to fix a leaky defence that argu-ably cost them the title last season.

After Suarez left for Barcelona in a £75 million deal, Liverpool signed nine players for £130 million, includ-ing big-money deals for Dejan Lovren, Lazar Markovic and Adam Lallana.

Having said previously that Liver-pool needed a few players of genuine quality that could improve the first team, the club seemed to embark on a transfer policy designed to swell an under-strength squad rather than fine-tune a title-challenging team with the best talent.

Their rivals took another tack. Arse-nal beat them to Chile’s Alexis Sanchez, who shone at the World Cup, Manches-ter United recruited high-profile names like Angel Di Maria and Radamel Falcao, while Chelsea recruited Diego Costa and Cesc Fabregas.

Of those who arrived in the wake of Suarez’s departure only Rickie Lambert, signed for £4 million, and Javier Manquillo, loaned from Atletico Madrid, started Wednesday’s crucial Champions League qualifier against Ludogorets.

It is a simple case of money wasted, according to former England and Man-chester United great Paul Scholes.

“I go back to the signings once again,” he said in the Independent.

“They weren’t good enough. A man-ager lives and dies by the players he brings in, especially when someone as big as Luis Suarez leaves.”

Liverpool’s Brendan Rodgers - a sack candidate in the Premiere League

HEALTH

Tokyo, Nov 27, 2014 — E-cigarettes contain up to 10 times the amount of cancer-causing agents as regular tobacco, Japanese scientists said today, the latest blow to an invention once heralded as less harmful than smoking.

A team of researchers commis-sioned by Japan’s Health Minis-try studied the vapor produced by e-cigarettes for signs of carcinogens, a media report said.

The electronic devices — increasing-ly popular around the world, particu-larly among young people — function by heating flavored liquid, which often contains nicotine, into a vapor that is inhaled, much like traditional ciga-rettes, but without the smoke.

Researchers found carcinogens such as formaldehyde and acetaldehyde in vapor produced by several types of e-cigarette liquid, TBS television reported.

Formaldehyde — a substance found in building materials and embalming fluids — was present at levels 10 times

those found in the smoke from regular cigarettes, TBS said.

Researcher Naoki Kunugita and his team at the National Institute of Public Health submitted their report to the ministry today, the broadcaster said.

Neither the scientist nor anyone from the health ministry were imme-diately available to confirm the report.

In common with many jurisdictions, Japan does not regulate e-cigarettes, which can be bought easily on the Internet. However, unlike in some Western countries, they are not readi-ly available in shops.

In August, the World Health Or-ganization called on governments to ban the sale of e-cigarettes to minors, warning they pose a “serious threat” to unborn babies and young people.

The UN health body also said they should be banned from indoor public spaces.

E-cigarettes contains 10 times carcinogens, according to Japanese research


Obesity linked to cancer in adults every year - latest study

Paris, Nov 26, 2014 - Overweight and obesity is now causing nearly half a million new cancer cases in adults every year, roughly 3.6 per cent of the world’s total, a study said today.

A quarter of these cases are “real-istically avoidable,” said the authors of the work published in The Lancet Oncology.

Led by scientists at the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), the paper drew on a range of sources, including a large database of cancer in-cidence and mortality for 184 countries in 2012.

In men, being overweight was blamed for 136,000 new cases, more than two-thirds of them cancers of the colon and kidney.

In women, it was linked to 345,000 cancer diagnoses, nearly three-quarters of which were post-menopausal breast, endometrial and colon cancers.

Mirroring the spread of obesity in developed countries, the tally was highest in North America, which ac-counted for nearly a quarter of all the weight-related new cancer cases.

Sub-Saharan Africa had the fewest, with 7,300 cases.

“Our findings add support for a glob-al effort to address the rising trends in obesity,” said lead researcher Melina Arnold.

“The global prevalence in adults has doubled since 1980. If this trend con-tinues, it will certainly boost the future burden of cancer, particularly in South America and North Africa, where the largest increases in the rate of obesity have been seen over the last 30 years.”

Measured as a ratio of weight in kilogram-to-height in meters squared, a body mass index (BMI) of 25 to 29.9 is considered overweight, and 30 plus as obese.

Elsewhere in The Lancet, an updated map of cancer survival shed light on a persisting gulf between rich and poor countries, as well as within advanced economies themselves.

The CONCORD-2 study looked at a key benchmark - the rate for survival five years after diagnosis - among 25.7 million patients who had had one of 10 common cancers.

For acute lymphoblastic leukaemia in children - the most common child-hood cancer - the rate ranged from 90 percent in Canada, Austria, Belgium, Germany and Norway, to just 16-50 percent in Jordan, Lesotho, central Tunisia, the Indonesian capital Jakarta and Mongolia.

In most developed countries as well as in Brazil, Colombia and Ecuador, the five-year survival from breast and colorectal cancers has increased, thanks to earlier diagnosis and better treatment.

There remains a major gap in the survival rate of cervical and ovarian cancer.

Five-year survival for these two types of cancer varies from more than 70 per cent in Mauritius, South Korea, Tai-wan, Iceland and Norway to less than 40 per cent in Libya.

Within Europe, cervical and ovarian cancer survival is 60 per cent or less in Britain, France, Ireland, Bulgaria, Latvia, Poland, Russia and Slovakia.

The study should be a barometer for national health policy, said Claudia Allemani at the London School of Hy-giene and Tropical Medicine.

“In some countries, cancer is far more lethal than in others - in the 21st century, there should not be such a dramatic gulf in survival.”


Misc Asia

Kuala Lumpur, Nov 18, 2014 — It was through a Malaysian-based server that the United States (US) and Israeli intelligence agencies operated the notorious Stuxnet computer virus four years ago, successfully ruining one-fifth of Iran’s nuclear centrifuges in an early bid to cripple the republic’s controversial nuclear program.

hackersStuxnet, according to past reports, is believed to be of Israeli origin with cyber superpower US as its leading force, and was speculated to have been designed solely to attack Iran’s nuclear facility in Natanz.

According to Israeli newspaper Haaretz in September 2010, the Stuxnet malware had sabotaged the uranium enrichment facility at Na-tanz, “where the centrifuge operational capacity has dropped over the past year by 30 per cent”.

When the virus hit the facility’s sys-tems, the centrifuges used to separate enriched uranium, which is the precur-sor to bomb-grade material, from ura-nium hexafluoride gas, began breaking down, resulting in a shutdown of some systems.

According to reports, at least 1,000 centrifuges were destroyed in the virus attack between November 2009 and January 2010.

In an article by Gabriel Schoenfeld, senior fellow at US-based non-profit think tank Hudson Institute, on the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) last week-end, it was revealed that a server based in Malaysia had acted as Stuxnet’s “command post”.

This server, Schoenfeld explained, was used to read signals from com-puters affected by the virus, which was reportedly narrowly designed to

“Hack of the century” on Iran’s nuclear program originates

from Malaysian server

only come to life when it encountered industrial programmable logic con-trollers (PLCs) operating proprietary software produced by German firm Siemens.

Schoenfeld, quoting from the book “Countdown to Zero Day” which chronicles the workings of the Stuxnet worm, noted that the PLCs running such software were installed in only one location — the heavily-fortified Iranian facility.

“The first thing Stuxnet did upon invading a computer was to ‘phone home’ — i.e., send a signal to a server (based in Malaysia) that operated as its command post.

“The signal reported key details about the computer, such as where it was located, what its IP address was and, critically, whether it contained the Siemens software.

“If it did not, the virus became inert — end of story. If the virus hit pay dirt, the fun began,” Schoenfeld explained, citing the book by Wired magazine reporter Kim Zetter.

The fun, the writer noted, includ-ed opening and closing valves on the centrifuges and adjusting their power supply. This, then caused a dangerous build-up of pressure and forced the uranium into a “dump line” where it went to waste.

“Ms Zetter suggests that Stuxnet might have also altered spin speeds, leading centrifuges to wobble, break free from their moorings and fly apart, not so quietly destroying entire pro-duction chains,” Schoenfeld said.

For whatever it did or did not accom-plish, Stuxnet, which was designed un-der the codename “Operation Olympic Games”, later came to be known as the “hack of the century”, he observed.

Other reports described the worm as the world’s first cyber weapon, and a harbinger of future state-sponsored attacks on control systems across the globe.

Schoenfeld agreed, saying: “The epoch of cyber warfare inaugurated by Stuxnet promises to be no less unnerv-ing than the nuclear-weapons age that began in 1945.”

He cited recent headlines of other viruses created by small-time hackers, some of which had wreaked havoc on financial institutions and even govern-ment systems.

In 1997, for example, a teenager hacked into a Bell Atlantic system and for six hours, tampered with the runway lights and crippled the airline’s control tower at Worcester, he recalled.

“If individuals or small groups of amateurs can perpetrate attacks of this magnitude, imagine what nation-states might do.

“With the advent of Stuxnet, state-sponsored attacks are no longer hypothetical,” Schoenfeld said.

Misc AsiaGeorgia Asian Times December 1-15, 2014 Page 17

Napoleon hat bought by South Korean

Paris, Nov 17 — A two-cornered hat that belonged to French emperor Napoleon Bonaparte was sold to a South Korean bidder for €1.9 million at auction near Paris yesterday.

napoleonJean-Pierre Osenat of the Osenat auction house in Fontaineb-leau said the buyer acquired the black “bicorne” felt hat in a sale of Napo-leon-era items from the collections of the Prince of Monaco.

The bicorne hat was a trademark of Napoleon, who wore it athwart, the two points aligned with his shoulders.

“Everybody at the time wore that kind of hat one way, but Napoleon wore it the other way so that everybody would recognise his silhouette on the battlefield,” said the auction official.

During the 15 years of his reign at the start of the 19th century, Napoleon went through about 120 hats. Osenat said only around 20 surviving items had been authenticated as belonging to the emperor, most of which are in museums.

The hat went for nearly five times the €400,000 it had been expected to fetch at the auction, where about 1,000 other pieces of Napoleon memorabilia from the Monaco collection were sold over three days.

Five years ago, the same auction house sold a sabre that had belonged to Napoleon for €4.8 million, Osenat said.

Shanghai billionaire pays US$45m for Tibetan tapestry

Hong Kong, Nov 27, 2014 — An ancient Tibetan silk tapestry has set a world record for Chinese art after it was sold to a Shanghai tycoon for US$45 million at auction in Hong Kong, according to Christie’s.

The 600-year-old artwork, called a thangka and embroidered in vivid hues of red and gold, was bought by Liu Yiqian yesterday and will be displayed at his new museum in Shanghai, the auction house said.

“I am proud to bring back to China this significant and historic 15th centu-ry thangka which will be preserved in the Long museum for years to come,” he was quoted as saying in a Christie’s press release today.

Hong Kong has emerged as one of the biggest global auction hubs along-side New York and London, fueled by China’s economic boom and demand from Chinese and other Asian collec-tors.

The sale broke the world record for any Chinese work of art sold by an international auction house.

The piece — which depicts the med-itational diety Raktayamari, known as the Red Conqueror of Death, standing stride a buffalo — was created during the Ming dynasty between 1402 and 1424.

It is one of a set of three thangkas from the Jokhang Monastery in the Tibetan capital Lhasa, according to Christie’s.

In April, Liu bought a Ming Dynas-ty wine cup which broke the world auction record for Chinese porcelain in Hong Kong for US$36.05 million.

A taxi driver-turned-financier now aged 50, Liu is one of China’s wealthi-est men and among the country’s new class of super-rich scouring the globe for artwork.

He is worth an estimated US$1.6 billion.


ENTERTAINMENT

LOS ANGELES, Nov 29 — Star Wars fans got their first glimpse today (Sat-urday) of the space saga’s long-awaited new film — including a controversial new-look lightsaber — but still have to wait a year for the movie itself.

“There has been an awakening. Have you felt it?” a gravel-voiced narrator intones in the brief trailer, before a squadron of Stormtroopers is seen prepping for action.

Studio giant Disney earlier this month revealed the name of the new episode, Star Wars: The Force Awak-ens, saying filming had been complet-ed on the movie, due in theaters on December 18, 2015.

“The dark side … and the light,” the voiceover continues, as a cloaked figure — perhaps a dark Sith Lord — bran-dishes his lightsaber in a snowy forest, before John Williams’ stirring theme plays.

Inevitably, Star Wars fans immedi-ately flooded the Internet with com-ments, observations — and specula-tion.

Many seemed split about the new design of the lightsaber, which had flaming laser beams coming out the handle in what looked like some sort of handguard.

“Stupid, stupid, STUPID!!!” said pears009 online. “This ‘New’ design (is) neither ‘‘COOL’ NOR Functional in a fight… YoU’d cut your own FREAK-ING hand off in a fight with a Tweak of the wrist!!! Uuuuggghhhh!!!”

The seventh movie in the Star Wars franchise, which was launched more than 35 years ago, benefits from far superior visual effects than those seen in the first films, though the original battleships are back.

The Millennium Falcon, the famed spaceship of smuggler Han Solo (Har-rison Ford) and his hairy first mate Chewbacca, is seen looping and skim-ming a planet, preparing for combat with the Empire’s TIE fighters.

The X-wing fighters of the Rebel Alliance are also seen.

Star Wars has attracted generations of loyal fans ever since the first film arrived in 1977 recounting the adven-tures of Luke Skywalker, Solo and Darth Vader.

Filming began in Britain in May on Episode VII.

Original cast members Ford, Carrie Fisher, Mark Hamill, Anthony Daniels, Peter Mayhew and Kenny Baker will star in the new film, along with several newcomers including Oscar winner Lupita Nyong’o.

Other cast members include veter-an actor Max von Sydow, Girls star Adam Driver, motion-capture expert Andy Serkis and Harry Potter veteran Domhnall Gleeson.

The new trailer did not include foot-age of any of the main veteran charac-ters, but did include glimpses of new British cast member John Boyega, clad as a Stormtrooper and racing across a desert landscape.

Star Wars trailer sends fans into a tizzy

Fellow Briton Daisy Ridley is also seen riding a new type of speeder vehi-cle, which one commentator said looks like a giant flash drive with engines attached. There is also a rolling R2D2-like droid.

Filming on the new movie was not without hiccups: in June, the 72-year-old Ford broke his leg on the set when a garage door fell and hit him at Pine-wood Studios outside London.

Ford is back as smuggler Solo, the 62-year-old Hamill will return as Jedi Knight Skywalker and Fisher, 57, re-prises the role of Princess Leia.

The movie’s screenplay is written by J.J. Abrams and Lawrence Kasdan, who wrote two previous Star Wars films.

The film is produced by Lucasfilm chief Kathleen Kennedy, Abrams, and Bryan Burk, while multiple Oscar-win-ner Williams returns as the soundtrack composer.

The original 1977-83 trilogy — Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi — “ was followed by a prequel trilogy between 1999 and 2005: The Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith.

The two previous trilogies inspired spin-off books, comics, toys, videog-ames and cartoons — earning U4.4 billion.

Disney shelled out US$4 billion to buy Star Wars founder George Lucas’s Lucasfilm in October 2012.

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