(Reuters) - Two Chinese nationals were accused by
the U.S. Securities Exchange Commission of insider trading in
Chinese classified advertising website 58.com Inc
through their "remarkably timed" purchases of call options.
The SEC said Xiaoyu Xia and Yanting Hu made more than $2
million by investing in the call options just before it was
revealed this month that 58.com agreed to buy a 43.2 percent
stake in rival Ganji.com, and Tencent Holdings Ltd
would invest $400 million in 58.com. This news
caused 58.com's share price to rise by about one-third.
The SEC is seeking an asset freeze, to recoup illegal profit
and to impose civil fines.
By Stephanie Chao, The China Post chinapost
April 30, 2015, 12:00 am TWN TAIPEI, Taiwan -- May 1 marks a grand
day for the container shipping industry, as the transportation prices
for each 20-foot equivalent unit will go up from US$700 to US$1,300 in
the Asia-Europe shipping line, according to reports yesterday. Evergreen
Marine Corp. (長榮) and YangMing Marine Transport (陽明) are the major
benefactors in this wave of price increases.
The Asia-Europe shipping route prices slid in March, and once the
industry realized it was not performing well, companies cut down their
shipping schedules and increased the cargo capacity of each transport.
The industry saw the beginnings of a positive shift for two weeks in
April. The next recent two weeks will bring a continuous 10 percent
growth with Europe implementing quantitative easing and a recent rise in
consumer spending.
Businesses are confident that money will come
rolling in this year as long as the European shipping line prices rise,
along with a positive performance from the U.S and near-sea shipping
line.
Baltimore mom who smacked son during riots: "I don't want him to be a Freddie Gray"
The Baltimore mother caught on video repeatedly smacking her son after catching him participating in rioting in Baltimore told CBS News that she was only concerned about protecting him.
"He gave me eye contact. And at that point, you know, not even
thinking about cameras or anything like that. That's my only son and at
the end of the day I don't want him to be a Freddie Gray," Toya Graham
said, referencing the 25-year-old man who died after mysteriously
sustaining severe spinal injuries in police custody earlier in the
month. His death has sparked protests throughout the city, with tensions boiling over Monday.
Graham
told CBS News she launched into action after spotting her 16-year-old
son Michael wearing a hoodie and mask amid the protesters.
"At
that point, I just lost it," said Graham. "I was shocked, I was angry,
because you never want to see your child out there doing that."
Graham,
a single mom with six children, denounced the vandalism and violence
against police officers. She said rioting in Baltimore is no way to go
about getting justice for Freddie Gray and that she doesn't want that
life for her son.
Toya Graham lays into her son Michael after seeing him with the protesters.
Under 2km of tunnels remain of the 42km needed for the £14.8bn infrastructure project, due to be finished in 2017 theguardian
A workman is seen through a drill after the Crossrail breakthrough into
the east-end of Crossrail's Liverpool Street station in London.
Photograph: Anthony Devlin/PA
Elizabeth, one of the last tag team of Crossrail
tunnelling machines, has made the first breakthrough into the City of
London, 40 metres below ground under Liverpool Street. The moment when
the 6.2 metre-wide drill head cut through the wall into the hollowed-out
future station marked the start of the final phase of excavation for
the £14.8bn project, with just under 2km remaining of the 42km of
tunnels to be dug under the capital. The final link-up of all the
tunnels will be achieved in the spring, fittingly, by sister machine
Victoria at Farringdon: the destination of the world’s very first
underground train in the last queen’s reign, 152 years ago.
theguardian
In
just 20 minutes the New York Stock Exchange had witnessed it’s biggest
stock plunge in decades, all traced to one gargantuan sell order
Traders at the New York Stock Exchange, during the flash crash of 2010. Photograph: Henny Ray Abrams/AP
It was 6 May 2010. In the UK it was general election day, in the
US,Wall Street was gripped by mounting anxiety about the Greek debt
crisis. The euro was falling against the dollar and the yen, but despite
the turbulent start to the trading day, no one had expected the near
1,000-point dive in share prices.
In a matter of minutes the Dow Jones index lost almost 9% of its
value – in a sequences of events that quickly became known as “flash
crash” . Hundreds of billions of dollars were wiped off the share prices
of household name companies like Proctor & Gamble and General
Electric. But the carnage , which took place at a speed never before
witnessed, did not last long. The market rapidly regained its composure
and eventually closed 3% lower.
Chinese authorities on Wednesday published mug shots of 100 economic fugitives they are seeking globally, a roster that deepens the government’s long-running assertion that a bevy of its most wanted are hiding out in the U.S.
Bringing more fugitives to justice continues to be a high international diplomatic priority of Xi Jinping’s
administration as his anticorruption crusade goes global, with
particular attention focused on scoring success in the U.S. where
politicians have long been distrustful of China’s justice system and
therefore reluctant to act on its extradition requests.
Chinese
authorities have dispatched specialists to embassies around the world to
focus on cases involving absconded government officials and others who
the government says have for years too easily won haven abroad. The Wall
Street Journal recently profiled an accused official sought by Chinese authorities.
He is right about respecting objective economic reality. ............................................................................................. brookings
Interest rates around the world, both short-term and long-term, are
exceptionally low these days. The U.S. government can borrow for ten
years at a rate of about 1.9 percent, and for thirty years at about 2.5
percent. Rates in other industrial countries are even lower: For
example, the yield on ten-year government bonds is now around 0.2
percent in Germany, 0.3 percent in Japan, and 1.6 percent in the United
Kingdom. In Switzerland, the ten-year yield is currently slightly
negative, meaning that lenders must pay the Swiss government to hold
their money! The interest rates paid by businesses and households are
relatively higher, primarily because of credit risk, but are still very
low on an historical basis.
Low interest rates are not a short-term aberration, but part of a
long-term trend. As the figure below shows, ten-year government bond
yields in the United States were relatively low in the 1960s, rose to a
peak above 15 percent in 1981, and have been declining ever since. That
pattern is partly explained by the rise and fall of inflation, also
shown in the figure. All else equal, investors demand higher yields when
inflation is high to compensate them for the declining purchasing power
of the dollars with which they expect to be repaid. But yields on
inflation-protected bonds are also very low today; the real or
inflation-adjusted return on lending to the U.S. government for five
years is currently about minus 0.1 percent.
Why are interest rates so low? Will they remain low? What are the implications for the economy of low interest rates?
No more wires: Ikea unveils furniture with built-in wireless device charging
Absent-minded smartphone enthusiasts rejoice: The
Swedish furniture behemoth has launched a new line of furniture fitted
with wireless charging spots for mobile devices. IKEA has partnered with
Qi to produce desks, tables and lamps capable of charging smart
phones and tablets. The wireless charging pads are integrated
directly into the furniture. The company will also sell
stand-alone charging pads that people can tack on to existing
furniture.
Ikea debuted the new “Home Smart” collection at the
Mobile World Congress tradeshow currently under way in Barcelona.
Home Smart will use Qi, one of the leading global wireless
charging standards, to charge devices placed on or near the
furniture.
“Through research and home visits, we know that people hate
cable mess,” said Jeanette Skjelmose, a corporate manager at
IKEA. “They worry about not finding the charger and running
out of power. Our new innovative solutions, which integrate
wireless charging into home furnishings, will make life at home
simpler.”
This post describes our analysis of China’s “Great Cannon,” our
term for an attack tool that we identify as separate from, but
co-located with, the Great Firewall of China. The first known usage of
the Great Cannon is in the recent large-scale novel DDoS attack on both
GitHub and servers used by GreatFire.org. Authors: Bill Marczak1,2,3 (Lead), Nicholas Weaver2,3 (Lead), Jakub Dalek,1 Roya Ensafi,4 David Fifield,2 Sarah McKune,1 Arn Rey, John Scott-Railton,1 Ronald Deibert,1 Vern Paxson.2,3 Affiliations: (1) Citizen Lab, Munk School of Global
Affairs, University of Toronto; (2) International Computer Science
Institute; (3) University of California, Berkeley; (4) Princeton
University
nasdaq
MOSCOW--Russian state-controlled telecommunications company Rostelecom said Google Inc. has moved some servers to
Russian data centers to comply with a controversial law that mandates that Internet companies store Russians' personal
data within the country's borders, a person familiar with the matter said Friday.
A representative of Rostelecom told a meeting with the communications ministry and data centers that Google has
begun placing some of its servers at Rostelecom's data centers, said a person who was at the meeting, confirming a
report by the RBC news website.
Another person who works in the industry also said Google has begun moving some of its servers to Russia.
Google'sRussia office declined to comment but its spokeswoman said the company is studying the law. A Rostelecom
spokesman declined to comment.
Russian officials say the law, which comes into effect on Sept. 1, is a security measure to protect against foreign
threats. But rights advocates describe it as part of a drive to increase scrutiny of the Internet and cut freedom of
information. Social networks including
, Twitter and Google+ are one of the country's few remaining spaces for
dissent.
Online marketplace eBay Inc. said the company is working "to determine an optimal solution that balances legal and
regulatory requirements with the interests of our customers."
Some analysts have said the law will be difficult to implement, as global Internet companies will have to track
which data come from Russia.
The cost for Google to comply with the law may be only from tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of dollars,
as they will use their own servers and only need to hire data centers' racks and space, said Karen Kazaryan, chief
analyst at the Russian Association for Electronic Communications, a trade body representing the Internet industry.
2015-04-02 03:00
By Shelley Shan and Shih Hsiu-chuan / Staff reporters, with CNA
Two
US F/A-18s landed at an air force base in Tainan yesterday after one of
the planes encountered mechanical problems, the Ministry of National
Defense said.
One of two US F/A-18s that landed at Tainan Air Force Base yesterday,
because of a mechanical problem with one of the aircraft, is seen in a
photograph taken by an aviation enthusiast.
Photo copied by Wang Chun-chung, Taipei Times
The pilots landed at Tainan Air Force Base at 1:19pm after
requesting permission to land because of a mechanical glitch in one of
the aircraft, the ministry said.
The Civil Aeronautics Administration also confirmed that it had received distress signals from the F/A-18s.