1. sports
2. boxing

mgm art
space
exhibits
old beijing
city gates
P2
4g mobile services to be
ready next year
beijing plans to slow
energy consumption
DSRT opened six tenders for the 4G
mobile network submitted by all four
current telecommunications operators
in Macau, as well as two new bidders
China plans to cap the increasing
rate at which it consumes energy
to 28 pct of seven-year period to
2020
P7
P10
THU. 20
Nov 2014
T. 19º/ 24º C
H. 55/ 85%
N.º 2195
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Founder & Publisher Kowie Geldenhuys
Editor-in-Chief Paulo Coutinho
WORLD BRIEFS
China An overloaded
makeshift school bus
collided with a truck in
eastern China yesterday,
killing 11 kindergarteners
and the bus driver, state
media reported. Three other
children were injured. The
accident happened in a rural
area of Shandong province,
the official Xinhua News
Agency said. Citing police,
Xinhua said a minibus hired
by a kindergarten as a school
bus was designed for eight
passengers, but was carrying
14 children at the time of the
collision.
INDIA At least six people die
in a standoff between police
and a religious leader who is
believed to be holed up inside
his sprawling ashram with
thousands of devotees, some
of whom are armed, police
say. The guru, Sant Rampal,
is wanted for questioning in a
2006 murder case. More on p12
NORTH KOREA The world’s
boldest effort yet to hold
North Korea and leader
Kim Jong Un accountable
for alleged crimes against
humanity moves forward at
the United Nations. The U.N.
General Assembly’s human
rights committee approved
a resolution that urges the
Security Council to refer the
country’s harsh human rights
situation to the International
Criminal Court. More on p13
ap photo
“ THE TIMES THEY ARE A-CHANGIN’ ”
Analysts
forecast
rebound
by Q3
next year
Citi predicts 20
pct drop in Nov
P4,5
PAKISTAN A Pakistani court
sentences four men to death
over the mob killing of a
woman who married against
her family’s wishes. Farzana
Perveen, who was pregnant
at the time, was beaten to
death by her father and other
relatives outside a courthouse
in the eastern city of Lahore
on May 27. The father
surrendered to police after the
killing and was among those
sentenced to death.
SOUTH KOREA launches a
new safety agency in the wake
of April’s ferry sinking that
killed more than 300 people,
mostly teenage students,
and exposed shortcomings
in disaster response. The
creation of the Ministry of
Public Safety and Security is
part of broader government
restructuring plans that center
on disbanding the coast guard
and splitting its responsibilities
between the new ministry and
the national police agency.
More on backpage
clash in cotai II
Fighters join
public workout
session, Pacquiao
back in town
P3
Hong Kong
Activists try to
storm legislature
P11
MACAU
2
20.11.2014 thu
th Anniversary
澳聞
MECC 1st anniversary
Macau and EU set to deepen cooperation
Catarina Pinto
T
he Head of the Trade Section of the EU Office to
Hong Kong and Macau, Alessandro Paolicchi, has vowed for
deeper business cooperation
between the European Union
countries and the MSAR. At a
cocktail reception to celebrate
the Macau European Chamber
of Commerce’s first anniversary, he acknowledged that bilateral trade in 2013 has “made
the EU the second largest exporter to Macau, accounting
for 23 percent of Macau’s total
imports.”
He believes that deeper business cooperation will help the
territory achieve its long-time
goal of diversifying its economy.
“A platform for regular dialogues between EU businesses
and the Macau government
should be established to better
reflect the dynamic business situation and issues,” he said.
Bilateral EU-Macau trade recorded strong growth in 2013,
the EU Office said in a statement.
Total bilateral trade increased by
28.3 percent reaching EUR656.5
million; while EU exports to
Macau rose by 37 percent to
EUR542 million last year.
Honorary chairman of the
Macau European Chamber of
Commerce (MECC) and SJM’s
CEO, Mr Ambrose So, stressed
how MECC has played a role
in strengthening cooperation
between Macau and the EU
over the past year. “MECC has
quickly established itself as the
forefront of European business
and culture in Macau in its first
year,” he said.
Mr So stated that SJM will
continue to support MECC’s
activities and its determination
to strengthen Macau-European
ties.
Speaking to reporters on the
sidelines of the event, SJM’s
CEO said he hopes the Chamber will move forward while
bringing a taste of European
culture and businesses to the
city. He stressed that SJM
likewise hopes to reinforce ties
with Europe, as the company
will be showcasing two renowned European brands in its first
Cotai resort, the Lisboa Palace.
“We are showcasing two European-style hotels in Macau,
Versace and Karl Lagerfeld.
We will keep supporting this
approach, so that entertain-
ment, design and culture are
more diversified,” he said.
MECC’s honorary chairman
and Consul General of Portugal
to Macau and Hong Kong, Mr
Vitor Sereno, also acknowledged that EU-Macau relations
have intensified. He stressed
that, “during crisis management, partnerships are one of
the most valuable assets that regions, countries, organizations
and individuals can rely on.”
He too vowed for deeper cooperation between the two re-
gions, stating MECC can play
an important role in furthering
partnerships.
The cocktail celebration for
MECC’s first anniversary took
place yesterday at Clube Militar. The Head of the EU Office
to Hong Kong and Macau, Mr
Vincent Piket, will be in Macau
on November 27 to attend a luncheon, where he’s due to highlight Europe’s Asia agenda now
that the European Parliament
and the European Commission
are headed by new teams.
MGM Art Space exhibits old Beijing city gates
Brook Yang
I
n commemoration of
the 15th anniversary
of Macau’s handover,
the MGM inaugurated
two exhibitions at its Art
Space yesterday, featuring two red sandalwood
replicas of ancient Beijing buildings and the
works of hundreds of
photographers
which
reflected changes to the
MSAR.
“This time, we want to
help people remember
that we’ve [belonged to]
China, our motherland,
Toby Leung
for fifteen years, so we’d
like to include something from Beijing,” said
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the MGM vice-president
of marketing and communications, Mr Toby
Leung, at a media preview held on Tuesday.
The two red sandalwood carvings are
miniature
landscapes
made on the scale of
1:10 by the China Red
Sandalwood Museum,
which comprises of the
Hall of Prayer for Good
Harvests in the Temple
of Heaven as well as the
main entrance of the outer city, Yongding Gate.
“They are a good representation of the old
Beijing city, a city whose planning begun 800
years ago,” explained
Mr Leung, “it’s actually
a very good example for
all cities in China to use
that imperial model for
city planning. It’s like a
tale of two cities, Beijing
and Macau.”
Red sandalwood carving craftsmen will demonstrate
traditional
carving techniques at
the exhibition, in order
to encourage the preservation of this intangible
cultural heritage.
“Unfortunately,
it’s
a dying art. If you ask
members of the younger
generation now about
Director and Editor-in-Chief_Paulo Coutinho [email protected]
Managing Editor_Paulo Barbosa [email protected]
Contributing Editors_Eric Sautedé, Leanda Lee, Severo Portela
China & foreign editor_Vanessa Moore [email protected]
Design Editor_João Jorge Magalhães [email protected] | Newsroom and Contributors_Albano
Martins, António Espadinha Soares, Brook Yang, Catarina Pinto, Cyril Law, Emilie Tran, Grace Yu, Irene Sam, Jacky I.F. Cheong, Jenny
Philips, João Pedro Lau, Joseph Cheung, Juliet Risdon, Keith Ip, Renato Marques (photographer), Richard Whitfield, Robert Carroll
(Hong Kong correspondent), Rodrigo de Matos (cartoonist), Ruan Du Toit Bester, Sandra Norte (designer), Sum Choi, Viviana Seguí
| Associate Contributors_JML Property, MacauHR, MdME Lawyers, PokerStars | News agencies_ Associated Press,
Bloomberg, Lusa News Agency, MacauHub, MacauNews, Xinhua | Secretary_Yang Dongxiao [email protected]
whether they might pursue a career as a sandalwood artist, they might not even know what
you are talking about,”
said Mr Leung, adding
that the remaining craftsmen mostly have been
working on this art form
for several decades.
Meanwhile, the photo
exhibition, titled “One
Hundred Photographers
Focus on Macao,” illustrates Macau’s development over the past 15
years. Both of the exhibitions will take place
till March 22, 2015.
A Macau Times Publications Ltd Publication
Administrator and Chief Executive Officer
Kowie Geldenhuys [email protected]
Secretary Juliana Cheang [email protected]
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ISSN 2305-4271
thu 20.11.2014
th Anniversary
澳聞
anny Pacquiao didn’t need the huge
bouquet of flowers
he was holding to
feel welcome in this gambling
enclave, where he will be fighting
at an odd hour Sunday against an
opponent who has to already feel
as though he won boxing’s biggest lottery.
Pacquiao got them anyway
Tuesday night at his official grand
entrance in the lobby of the massive Venetian hotel-casino. He
smiled and posed with them because there’s a fight with Chris Algieri to sell, something Pacquiao
seems to be taking more seriously
as his career begins heading into
the later rounds.
There are also new rumblings
along the Floyd Mayweather Jr.
front, but more on that later. For
now, Pacquiao seems re-energized as he plots what he hopes
will be a spectacular performance that might stop talk about his
declining knockout power — he
hasn’t had a stoppage in five
years now — and entice Mayweather to finally enter the ring with
him sometime next year in what
would surely be boxing’s richest
fight ever.
“I’m not predicting a knockout,
but I’m looking for a good fight
and looking to prove I can still
fight,” Pacquiao said. “I’m willing
to fight anybody. I’m not ducking
anyone.”
That includes Mayweather, of
M
ore than half of
tourists visiting Macau do not think there are
enough attractions in the
city, with touristic opportunities centered mainly
on shopping, accommodation and dining.
According to the visitors’
comments survey conducted in the third quarter
by the Statistics and Census Service (DSEC), only
47 percent of the visitors
considered Macau’s tourist attractions adequate.
3
BOXING
Tim Dahlberg, Macau
M
MACAU
Pacquiao back in town
against unbeaten Algieri
course, and promoter Bob Arum
said there have been some preliminary behind-the-scenes talks
to make the long-awaited fight finally happen. Whether it actually
takes place, though, depends largely on Mayweather, who only
recently has given indications he
may be more agreeable to make
the fight than he has in the past.
Arum said he has had recent
discussions with Leslie Moonves,
head of CBS Corp., about the fight and is somewhat optimistic
that the parent company of the
Showtime network Mayweather
is contracted to can help get it
made. “I believe they have talked
to Mayweather and that he is on
board,” Arum said. “Whether
that is true or not, I don’t know.”
Arum could be using the possibility of a Mayweather fight to
try to spark interest in Pacquiao’s
second bout in China, which will
take place about noon Sunday so
it can be sold on pay-per-view
in the United States. A Pacquiao
-Mayweather fight has been
the talk of boxing for five years
now, and nothing has come of
it, mainly because Mayweather
wants to control his own destiny
and wants nothing to do with his
Arum, his former promoter.
Pacquiao could certainly use
a fight with Mayweather to revitalize his career and possibly
cement his legacy as one of the
top pound-for-pound fighters of
his time. But if he doesn’t take
care of business against Algieri in
a fight in which he is heavily favored, boxing may never get the
Pacquiao-Mayweather fight that
is the one fans really want. “Let’s
finish this fight first,” the Filipino
congressman said Tuesday. “My
job is to fight. I’m not picking
opponents. Whoever wants to fight me, we will fight.”
In Algieri, Pacquiao has an
opponent who seems to have
everything but a big punch. Algieri is a promoter’s dream, a college
graduate with a masters in clinical
nutrition who wants to be a doctor. Algieri still lives in his parents’ basement on Long Island, but
talks confidently about not only
beating Pacquiao but making
himself into a big name.
Algieri got the fight after getting
off the canvas twice in the first
round to win a disputed decision
over Ruslan Provodnikov for a
piece of the welterweight title in
June. They will fight this bout at
a catch weight of 144 pounds.
Arum said he believes Algieri’s
story will help sell the fight, unlike Pacquiao’s first fight in Macau last November against Brandon Rios that did well at the box
office but was not a pay-per-view
smash.
“This time we’re selling Algieri
instead of trying to sell the fight
as being from China,” Arum said.
“So far it seems to be working.” AP
fighters join public
workout session
As the Clash in Cotai II world
championship boxing event fast
approaches, some of the fighters
participated in an open workout
session at the West Lobby of
The Venetian Macao yesterday,
giving fans a chance to see the
boxers up-close ahead of the
Nov. 23 Cotai Arena event.
Tourists unaware of heritage, survey says
Meanwhile, about 86
percent of visitors were
satisfied with the services and hotel facilities; 84
percent spoke positively
of travel agency services,
and 17 percent believed
that public transport services could be improved.
The DSEC also revealed yesterday that tou-
rist spending in the third
quarter of this year reached MOP15.5 billion, 5
percent more than that of
the previous year.
Visitors mainly spent
money on shopping (49
pct), accommodation (26
pct) and on food & beverages (18 pct). Per-capita
shopping spending of vi-
sitors increased slightly
by 1 percent year-on-year
to MOP921, with items
such as jewellery and watches (26 pct), local food
products (22 pct) and
handbags & shoes (18
pct) being preferred.
The total amount spent
by overnight visitors totaled MOP12.9 billion while
that of same-day visitors
was MOP2.6 billion, respectively up by 5 and 3
percent year-on-year. The
per-capita spending of the
visitors dropped slightly
by 1 percent to MOP1,878.
Visitors from mainland
China spent an average
of MOP2,220, 4 percent
less year-on-year. Howe-
ver, per-capita spending
of visitors from Japan
increased by 12 percent
to MOP1,954. Visitors
from the United Kingdom
had relatively high percapita spending among
the long-haul visitors, at
MOP1,563, representing
a 38 percent increase on
an annual basis.
ad
Q: An organization collects the non-criminal record certificates
of its employees and put them in a specific data cabinet. Does
this constitute a violation of the PDPA?
A: This practice constitutes the central register of information
of unlawful activities. Paragraph 1 of Article 8 of the PDPA
provides that “central registers relating to persons suspected
of illegal activities, criminal and administrative offences and
decisions applying penalties, security measures, fines and
additional penalties may only be created and kept by public
services vested with that specific responsibility by a legal
provision or a statutory regulation with organizational nature,
subject to observance of procedural and data protection rules in force.” Thus, an ordinary
organization cannot maintain a central register of unlawful activity information. Moreover,
central storage of the said certificates might have significant influence to the rights of the data
subjects involved, thus violating the principle of appropriateness. The GPDP considers that for
administrative purposes, the mentioned certificates should be stored in the personal files of the
employees, and should not be stored centrally.
(The above content is provided by the Office for Personal Data Protection. General Enquiry
Hotline: 2871 5666)
4
MACAU
20.11.2014 thu
th Anniversary
澳聞
GAMING
Analysts forecast VIP segment rebound by
Catarina Pinto
A
nalysts are forecasting a rebound
of Macau’s VIP segment towards the
third quarter of next year. Philip Tulk, director of equities
research, at Standard Chartered, said that the VIP market
is likely to “be down double
digits in the coming months”.
However, he suggested that
growth should return by the
third quarter of next year.
Providing a financial outlook
and discussing projected and
real gaming industry growth,
Philip Tulk and Union Gaming Research analyst, Grant
Govertsen, agreed that Macau
will see positive growth revenue in the second half of next
year.
Speaking at the Macao Gaming Summit yesterday, Philip Tulk acknowledged that
forecasting gaming revenue
in Macau is “challenging” due
to two main factors. “One of
them is the junket system and
the lack of transparency in
terms of their revenue. The se-
ad
Grant Govertsen, panel moderator Emanuel Graça and Philip Tulk
cond is the extremely fast rise
in mass tables over the past
ten years.”
He had estimated last year
that gaming revenue would
grow by 14 percent by now.
But Macau’s casino revenue
declined for a fifth consecuti-
ve month and October saw the
worst monthly revenue performance on record. Total casino revenue fell by 23.2 percent year-on-year last month.
Mr Tulk recalled that the
slowdown in Macau’s gaming
revenue does not appear to be
linked to visitation, but is rather about spending. A high
number of tourists continue
to visit Macau, but are most
likely spending less. Tulk also
thinks there is a huge challenge moving forward, while
“junkets try to recapture the
confidence of investors.”
Grant Govertsen believes
that a full smoking ban implemented in mass floors and the
Hong Kong protest might help
explain Macau’s casino revenue drop. “The smoking ban
was stricter than some casinos
thu 20.11.2014
th Anniversary
澳聞
Q3 next year
I think Steve
Wynn said
it best in a
conference call:
it was a perfect
storm of issues
affecting
Macau
Grant Govertsen
initially anticipated. And outside of Macau, you have the
protest in Hong Kong, and our
view is that the protest had a
significant impact on Macau’s
gaming market,” he said, adding that Macau was “collateral damage.”
He suggested that Hong
Kong’s occupy movement has
even influenced VIP premium
level in Macau, as some customers might have avoided this
region while the protest takes
place due to “political sensitivity.” “I think Steve Wynn said
it best in a conference call: it
was a perfect storm of issues
affecting Macau,” he added.
Mr Govertsen does not believe there’s a structural problem with demand in Macau.
“I think once some of these
issues resolve themselves, we
should see GGR begin to bounce again.”
Although
acknowledging
that positive growth revenue
will most likely be restored
by the second half of next
year, Mr Tulk said he’s mostly
iti Research yesterday cited its industry
sources indicating that
Macau table GGR for the
first 16 days in November
reached MOP12.3 billion
(or MOP12.9b, including
an estimated MOP640m
in slot-related revenue).
Total daily GGR run rate
over last week equated to
MOP760m per day, lower
than the daily run rate of
MOP846m/day in the first
nine days of November.
The research house suspects Macau suffered a
double-hit with the Grand
Prix affecting mass (particularly in Peninsula) and
bad hold affecting VIP.
Citi believes mass GGR
will recover after Grand
Prix, but it lowered its
November GGR forecast
to MOP24bn (-20% YoY),
conservatively assuming
the remainder of the mon-
on how to appeal to both the
mass-market customers and
lucrative Chinese gamblers.
Understanding how the junket
system works in China, he
said, is key.
“China has four times the population of the USA – so we
need to think about the singularity of the Chinese gamblers,” he reiterated.
He considered the locations
of wealthy Chinese people, including Beijing, Guangdong,
Shanghai, Fujian or Shandong. Mr McCartney stressed
that Macau needs to think of
strategies to attract them here
and convince them to stay
longer. Restaurants as well as
events, tournaments, royalty
T
he CEO of SJM, Ambrose So, has welcomed Macau’s ‘cautious’ budget for
next year, as he believes the government
should exercise prudence when drafting
it. “They are the government, so they need
5
cards, gifts and event marketing are tools often used by
casino resorts to VIPs draw
attention.
“Junkets have also diversified their offerings over the
past ten years,” he acknowledged.
Analyst Philip Tulk also
agreed that the non-gaming
sector has been an aspiration
for the Macau government
and its relevance might become greater when current concessions are discussed in 2015
and 2016.
The Macao Gaming Summit
program runs until today, as
part of the Macao Gaming
Show (MGS) taking place at
The Venetian Macao.
Ambrose So welcomes gov’t
‘cautious’ budget
south korea
‘could be a
significant market’
to be cautious, while entrepreneurs need
to be more aggressive, so we cannot have
a very aggressive budget,” he said.
Acknowledging that Macau’s economy
does not have a specific stimulus now, he
believes that “in the next half of next year,
the economy will rebound [sic].” He also
added that “China will come very close to
finishing the restructuring of its economic
structure and it will start growing on a
more solid basis.”
SJM’s CEO is convinced that the casino
revenue decline will not harm Macau’s
economy. “We still have a surplus. I think
we have a healthy budget, and there’s no
reason for the Macau people [to think]
that we will run into some economic trouble,” he acknowledged.
Asked whether this will be a good opportunity for Macau to further diversify its
economy, Mr So said Macau needs “space,
policy and infrastructure in order for the
economy to be diversified.” “I’ve recently
seen small and medium-sized enterprises,
especially those which are more innovative and [related to the] local culture. I hope
this [trend] remains and helps with the diversification of our economy,” he said.
Gaming analysts are
confident that Macau’s decrease
in casino revenue is not linked
to other emerging markets that
have invested in the gambling
sector. However, they acknowledged the potential of Japan as
the next big thing. Japan’s casino bill was delayed again last
month, halting progress. “It is a
very conservative country and it
is difficult to build consensus,”
said Union Gaming Research
analyst, Grant Govertsen.
Philip Tulk, director, equities
research, at Standard Chartered, said that South Korea
could also be a significant market if there is more government
support. “It’s a great market
geographically for Northeast
Chinese,” he stated. Mr Govertsen expressed his enthusiasm
to see whether Korea will move
forward and pass a gaming bill
or if it will wait for Japan to
liberalize gaming. “My gut tells
me it’s the latter,” he said.
Citi predicts 20 pct drop in November
ap photo
C
concerned about the VIP segment, and a possible lack of
trust from those investing in
junket rooms. “Junkets rely on
funding from various sources,
and a lot of that funding comes
from individuals who might be
playing in those junket rooms.
Some of these individuals have
lost confidence in the system,”
he said, adding that there have
been accounts of money disappearing from junket rooms.
“What we need is confiden-
ce in the business model,” he
said.
Analyst Grant Govertsen
thinks the VIP recovery might
take longer than mass recovery. “We might see the mass
market getting back to a positive territorial sooner” to
coincide with Galaxy Macau’s
phase three opening. “We will
probably see more liquidity
injected in the system,” he added.
Mr Govertsen believes that
the next wave of Cotai resorts
will not experience significant
delays.
Professor Glenn McCartney, from the University of
Macau’s Faculty of Business
Administration, gave a talk
MACAU
th to track at month-to-date daily run rate.
In overall, investors remain cautious about investment in Macau, after
total casino revenue fell
23.2 percent to MOP28b
(USD3.5 billion) in October, dropping for the fifth month in a row.
This week, analysts at Fitch Ratings Service predicted zero growth in Macau’s
gaming revenue by the end
of 2014 and an overall decline of 1 percent in 2015.
“Fitch’s forecast reflects
the persistent weakness in
the VIP business, which
seems to be spilling over
to the premium mass segment,” explained analyst
Michael Paladino, cited
by the Las Vegas ReviewJournal.
According to Paladino,
the market will recover
in the second half of next
year, with Galaxy Entertainment’s expansion of the
Galaxy Macau, and Melco
Crown’s opening of Studio
City. “Our 2015 forecast
may prove overly conservative if VIP bounces back to
recent historical averages,”
Paladino said.
However, the analyst remains optimistic about
long-term investment in
Macau.
“Despite these setbacks,
we do remain positive
about Macau, as we believe
that Macau and the greater China market remain
underpenetrated (…) We
expect gaming revenue
growth will be driven by
new supply and infrastructure development, and
that the Chinese economy
will continue to grow, anchoring mass-market demand.”
Cameron McKnight, gaming analyst for Wells
Fargo Securities, predicted
this week that revenue will
decrease another 18 to 21
percent during November.
“We are staying on the sidelines regarding the Macau market, as we believe
China’s policy settings are
negatively affecting growth,” he said.
David Bain, a gaming
analyst working for wealth
management and investment bank firm Sterne
Agee observed that the
“Macau Grand Prix auto
race would hurt high-end
gambling revenue during
November but could actually provide a small
boost to gaming revenue
overall.” He added that the
anti-graft campaign and
challenges facing the Chinese economy are likely to
change the market.
6
ADVERTISEMENT
20.11.2014 thu
th Anniversary
廣告
thu 20.11.2014
th Anniversary
澳聞
4G mobile
services to
be ready
next year
Brook Yang
T
he new Fourth Generation (4G) mobile
network can be built in
as soon as six months,
whereas 4G data services are
expected to be provided only by
the fourth quarter of next year.
Yesterday afternoon, the Bureau of Telecommunications
Regulation (DSRT) technicians
opened six tenders that were
submitted by all four current
telecommunications operators
in Macau, as well as two new
bidders.
China Mobile Hong Kong
Company and a local new mo-
L
awmakers
requested that the government should introduce penalties and assessment criteria to the tendering for public works,
as several construction
delays have resulted in
low execution rates of the
public investment plan
(PIDDA).
The lowest execution
rate of the 2013 budget
occurred with the construction of the Macau Prison which was lower than
17 percent; whereas the
Land, Public Works and
Transport Bureau (DSSOPT) executed less than
40 percent of its budget.
When discussing the budget situation yesterday,
bile operator founded specially
for the tender, namely U Hong
Communications Ltd, joined
the competition for the four 4G
mobile services licenses, besides CTM, China Telecom, Hutchison Macau and SmartTone.
“We’re very happy to see different operators willing to invest and develop telecommunication services in Macau. We
expect to have the tendering
result out in the first quarter of
next year,” said the DSRT deputy director, Hoi Chi Leong.
He explained that the assessment criteria covers technical
capacity, amount of investment,
the company’s financial condi-
Hoi Chi Leong
tion, plan of network coverage,
tarrif scheme, mobile data protection and safeguard measures
against malfunction.
“Our bid evaluation committee will select the investors who
can bring more benefits to Ma-
cau’s telecom market,” Mr Hoi
stated, adding that currently
the DSRT isn’t considering issuing any more 4G licenses.
According to the telecom regulator, all the bidding companies
are requested to start providing
MACAU
7
4G data services and achieve 50
percent network coverage within the next year.
Responding to the media’s inquiry on whether such a timeframe would be unfair to the
new bidders, Hoi said that all
will be treated equally.
“Basically we are looking at
the overall demand of society;
we’ve stipulated the standard
clearly in the tendering rules. If they were not confident
to achieve that, they wouldn’t
have come to bid,” he added.
“The Bureau has also formulated the penalties for failing to
meet the requirements.”
Head of U Hong Communications, Mr Patrick Yang, who is
also MASTV’s deputy director,
likewise expressed confidence
in his firm’s capabilities. “Our
company has experience in satellite communications; we are
trying to expand our business
and provide local residents with
diversified telecom services.”
“I think [the] Macau government will support local companies; as one of the two operators, we have more advantages
in building the network and
operational recources, rather
than the overseas companies,”
he added.
Lawmakers call for revision on public
work tendering guidelines
lawmakers at the Legislative Assembly (AL)’s second
standing committee indicated that PIDDA’s current
guidelines are vague and
counterintuitive, especially
concerning the fact that a
contractor’s poor performance in previous projects
won’t affect his chances in
future tendering.
“If you didn’t do a good
job, you shouldn’t win the
future bid. But currently
there’s no mechanism in
the law to roll them out,”
said the committee president, Chan Chak Mo.
“Many lawmakers questioned whether or not the
guidelines can be modified, taking into consideration the quality of
the bidder’s performance
and if they have caused
delays, disputes and fare
increases,” he added, “the
government said it will
consider [the revision].”
The Secretary for Trans-
port and Public Works,
Lau Si Io, also acknowledged that there is no
legislative material stipulating that a contractor’s
previous performance is
a key assessment factor
in public work tendering.
He responded by saying
that the government
has started studying the
enactment that will regulate the accreditation system of contractors.
Related government of-
ficials, including the Secretary for Economy and
Finance Francis Tam, also
attended the meeting.
They explained that the
low budget execution of
Macau Prison’s was due
to construction problems
and the contractor’s inadequate supervision.
Besides the new prison
project, delays have occurred in the construction
of the Light Rail Transit
(LRT), the Mong-Ha so-
cial housing project, Fai
Chi Kei public housing
project, the Taipa Ferry
Terminal, and the new
urban reclamation.
The government revealed that some of the problems that caused the
delays have now been resolved, such as requests
to conduct safety assessments for neighboring
buildings, and changes in
construction foundation
by contractors.
ad
8
BUSINESS
20.11.2014 thu
th Anniversary
分析
Narayanan Somasundaram
A
ustralia & New
Zealand Banking
Group Ltd. (ANZ)
suspended
seven
traders amid an investigation by regulators into whether market participants
tried to influence Australia’s
benchmark interest rates.
ANZ’s internal review and
the investigation by the Australian Securities & Investments Commission “may not
be complete for some time,”
the bank said in a statement
yesterday. Since mid-2012,
ASIC has inquired into possible manipulation of the bankbill swap rate, or BBSW, the
local equivalent of the London interbank offered rate,
by 14 banks that contributed
prices to the rate-setting process. ANZ didn’t name the
traders in yesterday’s statement.
Banks across the globe have
paid billions of dollars in fines and made legal provisions as regulators probed
rigging of foreign-exchange
markets and benchmark interest rates including Libor.
ASIC said in July that traders
from Royal Bank of Scotland
Group Plc sought to manipulate the Australian benchmark, and in January that
traders from BNP Paribas SA
tried to influence the French
lender’s submissions on it.
“It’s a good opportunity for
ASIC to assert its authority
given it’s been criticized for
not doing enough on market
manipulation,” said Martin Smith, a senior market
analyst with Sydney-based
bloomberg
ANZ suspends 7 traders as
regulator reviews swaps rates
VW to raise
Chinese capacity
to more than
4m cars
V
Customers use Australia & New Zealand Banking Group Ltd. automated teller machines in Sydney
research firm East & Partners Pty. “If the misconduct
is clear, ASIC needs to act
swiftly.”
Royal Bank of Scotland
agreed July 21 to make a A$1.6
million (USD1.4 million) voluntary contribution toward
financial literacy projects after acknowledging limited
instances of communications
discussing the rate setting.
UBS AG and BNP Paribas
agreed to make a A$1 million
contribution Dec. 23 and Jan.
28 respectively, according to
statements from ASIC.
“ASIC can confirm it is investigating ANZ, including
the conduct of individuals,
as part of its wider probe into
the BBSW submission process and trading in reference
bank bills,” Daniel Wright, a
Sydney based spokesman for
the commission, said in an
e-mailed statement, without
commenting further.
ANZ Chief Risk Officer Ni-
gel Williams said the bank
is “taking the precaution of
having seven staff involved
in markets trading step down
pending completion of the
investigation into practices”
over a period ending in 2013.
“We have been treating this
matter very seriously and we
are continuing to cooperate
fully with ASIC,” Williams said
in the statement. The potential
outcomes from the regulator’s
inquiries include civil and criminal penalties, ANZ said.
The Australian Financial
Markets Association shut
the rate-setting panel last
year and moved to a mechanism where the benchmark
is compiled directly using
prices from brokers and electronic markets.
At least A$350 billion of
Australian syndicated loans
and floating-rate bonds are
priced off BBSW, according
to data compiled by Bloomberg last year. Trading of
swaps, forward rate agreements and options tied to
BBSW was valued at more
than A$8.7 trillion in the
2009 financial year, according to a letter from the Australian Financial Markets Association to global banking
regulators in 2010.
BBSW rates “substantially
differed” from Libor in that
lenders were required to
make submissions based on
the average mid-rate observed on bank bills, while Libor is subjective and not tied
to observable transactions,
ASIC said yesterday.
Singapore’s central bank
said this month that it gave
back as much as S$12 billion
($9.2 billion) taken from 19
lenders last year as a penalty
for trying to manipulate benchmark rates. The lenders
took steps to prevent a recurrence of attempts to rig rates,
the Monetary Authority of
Singapore said. Bloomberg
olkswagen will expand
carmaking in China more
than planned as the German manufacturer tries to keep pace with
growth in its largest market.
Volkswagen will raise its Chinese plant capacity to more than the
previously targeted 4 million autos a year by 2018, Jochem Heizmann, head of the carmaker’s
business in the country, told reporters Tuesday. That compares
with capacity there of more than
3.1 million vehicles in 2013.
The carmaker’s sales growth in
China has slowed in recent months because it hasn’t been able
to manufacture enough vehicles,
Heizmann said at the press briefing in the southern city of Guangzhou. Volkswagen is the top foreign automaker in China, and it
builds cars in the country for its
main VW brand and the Audi and
Skoda marques with local partners FAW Car Co. and SAIC Motor Corp.
“It’s really a topic of having
no more capacity available,” he
said. Volkswagen’s Chinese plants “are at present producing on
more than 300 days per year.
We’re producing every weekend
as well.”
China is a crucial part of Wolfsburg-based Volkswagen’s plan
to surpass Toyota as the world’s
largest auto manufacturer by
2018. The German company is
poised to retain its top sales rank
in China this year with deliveries
forecast at more than 3.6 million
vehicles, about a 10 percent gain.
The company is preparing for the
opening of plants in cities such as
Changsha, Heizmann said. It started construction of a factory in
Qingdao, in eastern China, earlier
this month. Bloomberg
corporate bits
revel to use new name under brookfield ownership
While it’s unclear whether
Revel AC Inc. will ever pay a
dime to unsecured creditors,
one thing is known: The buyer,
Brookfield Property Partners
LP, won’t operate the now-shuttered Atlantic City, New Jersey, casino under its old name.
The bankruptcy court in
Camden, New Jersey, appro-
ved a USD110 million sale to
Brookfield on Oct. 7. The sale
has yet to be completed, Revel
said in a court filing.
In the course of asking court
permission to terminate a license to use the Revel trademark, the casino said Brookfield won’t be using the name
when the property reopens.
Revel filed for creditor protection in June with a proposed Chapter 11 plan contemplating a sale. The company
said this week that the plan
must be modified and asked
the bankruptcy judge to extend
its exclusive plan-filing rights
until March 16.
Before a plan can be filed,
Revel said, it must resolve disputes over real estate taxes. To
that end, the casino this week
asked the judge to abrogate a
settlement made in an earlier
bankruptcy that fixed the tax
assessment at $1.15 billion.
Revel said the property
is “grossly” over-assessed,
giving it the highest taxes
among the casinos in Atlantic
City, even though it sold for
only $110 million.
oriental inspired journey this winter at
forbes five-star spas at wynn macau
As the holiday season creeps
in, Wynn Macau is unveiling its
‘Winter Solstice Touch’, a seasonal spa treatment to keep
you warm through the coldest
days of winter.
From December 22 to March
31 guests can enjoy ‘Winter
Solstice Touch’ at both The Spa
at Wynn and The Spa at Encore. During the 90-minute treatment, master therapists take a
holistic approach by combining
Oriental techniques to detoxify and energize the body and
spirit.
The pampering begins with a
scalp massage to take stress
away and bring you into a state
of euphoria. Drawing from the
Orient’s most soothing practices, guests then enjoy an intensive full body massage that
combines stretching, chi balancing and Chinese pressure
point technique, relieving stored tension, stimulating body
circulation and promoting a
healthy energy flow along the
body’s meridians.
The final touch is a deep-tissue
massage, using a blend of warmed rosemary, ginger, lavender
and black pepper oils that rejuvenate the skin, resulting in a
feeling of uplifting energy and a
deep sense of relaxation.
thu 20.11.2014
th Anniversary
published in partnership with macauhub.com.mo
Angola
Gov’t facilitates lending
to entrepreneurs
Constraints
on private
investment
include
difficulties
in granting
work visas
to skilled
personnel
paulo barbosa
B
ureaucratic
constraints on the
financing of investment projects
in Angola are being overcome with the approval of
several orders that allow
easier access to loans, Angola’s Minister for the Economy said in Ndalatando.
Minister Abraão Gourgel
was speaking at the end of
a visit to investment projects in Kwanza Norte province funded under the
Angola Investe program,
moments after meeting
with local businessmen
who told him about constraints on private investment, especially those
related to granting work
visas to skilled personnel
and the repayment period
of credit received.
At the meeting, the businessmen said that the delay in the renewal of work
The road that leads to Luanda’s port, where about 80 percent of
cargo shipped to Angola is processed, according to Bloomberg
news agency
permits jeopardizes some
projects and the minister replied that this was a
matter “we have to solve
or at least help with,” according to Angolan news
agency Angop.
These bureaucratic processes, he said, would
also be simplified with
the approval of several
orders, one of which has
already been approved
an will reduce the cost of
founding a company, and
another, being approved
by parliament, simplifying the creation of commercial companies.
The province of Kwanza
Norte has over ten investment projects approved for funding by the
Angola Investe program.
MDT/Macauhub
中葡論壇
FORUM
9
Cape Verde to issue
new banknotes
A
new issue of banknotes approved by the government of Cape Verde is expected to go into
circulation later this year, according to pan-African
news agency Panapress.
The issue consists of new notes of 200, 500, 1,000,
2,000 and 5,000 escudos and honors Cape Verdean
figures from the world of culture and politics, including deceased songstress Cesaria Evora and the first
president of Cape Verde, Aristides Pereira.
Announcing the decision to allow the central bank
to issue new notes, the spokesman for the government and Minister of the Presidency of the Council
of Ministers, Demis Lobo said that the notes, which contain technological advances and “innovative” security features also replenish the amount of
cash in circulation, which is considered low.
According to the ordinance, the new 200-escudo note honors the physician and Cape Verdean
writer Henrique Teixeira de Sousa and his native
island, Fogo.
The poet Jorge Barbosa, one of the founders of
the Claridade literary movement, and his island,
Santiago, will be honored on the new 500-escudo
note.
The new 1000 escudo notes has a picture of musician and composer Codé di Dona, whose real name
was Gregório Vaz, one of the foremost exponents
of funaná music.
Singer Cesaria Evora’s “morna” music will be
honored on the 2,000 escudo note, while the first
President of the Republic of Cape Verde, Aristides
Maria Pereira, as well as his native island, Boa Vista, will be on the 5,000 escudo note, the highest
value. MDT/Macauhub
ad
CHINA
10
20.11.2014 thu
th Anniversary
中國
C
hina, a week after unveiling an accord aimed at limiting carbon emissions, plans
to cap the increasing rate at
which it consumes energy to 28
percent for the seven-year period to 2020.
The nation is targeting energy
use equivalent to an annual 4.8
billion metric tons of standard
coal by 2020, according to a
statement issued by the State Council yesterday. China’s
energy use surged 45 percent in
the seven years to 2013, according to data from the National
Bureau of Statistics.
The statement marks the latest attempt by China’s policy
makers to limit the nation’s
appetite for energy. Reflecting
its rapid industrialization and
economic growth, China has
become a voracious consumer of energy, changing global
energy markets and the geopolitics of energy security.
The goals set by the State Council represent a road map for
China’s energy development
strategy until 2020 and are contained in a paper dated June 7.
The document, compiled before
President Xi Jinping last week
said China will strive to double the amount of energy it gets
from zero-emission sources in
the next 16 years, aims to cut
coal consumption in Beijing,
Tianjin, Hebei and Shandong,
the Pearl River Delta and the
Yangtze Delta region.
As part of the State Council
plan, the government also tar-
smog returns to hazardous level after
days of apec blue
Smog in Beijing jumped to hazardous levels, dashing hopes the
capital would hold on to pollutionfree skies that marked last week’s
summit of world leaders. The fog
blanketing the capital was a stark
contrast to the clean air, dubbed
APEC Blue, that resulted from
smog-control efforts ahead of the
Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum. The concentration of
fine particulates known as PM2.5
was 406 micrograms per cubic
meter at 4 p.m. yesterday in downtown Beijing, the Municipal Environmental Monitoring Center said.
Yesterday’s pollution levels exceeded World Health Organization
recommendations for 24-hour
exposure by almost 16 times and
demonstrated the challenge city
leaders will face as they seek to
make good on pledges to make
“APEC Blue” permanent. The official Xinhua News Agency reported
Tuesday that Hebei province,
which surrounds Beijing and is
China’s biggest steel-producing
region, will try to shift some production abroad. Hebei will move
production of 5 million metric
tons of steel, 5 million tons of cement and about 150,000 tons of
glass overseas by 2017 and eyes a
more ambitious goal by 2023, according to Xinhua.
ap photo
Beijing plans to slow energy
consumption increase to 28pct by 2020
Birds fly as the sun sets through haze in Beijing
gets getting 15 percent of its
energy from non-fossil fuels,
more than 10 percent from
natural gas and less than 62
percent from coal. The nation
will limit coal consumption to
about 4.2 billion tons by 2020.
The targets are set against the
backdrop of increasing environmental pollution, which is
pressuring China’s authorities
to curb coal consumption and
increase the share of lower-emission technology used in
energy production.
Coal accounted for 66 percent
of China’s energy consumption
last year, according to the statistics bureau. The U.S. gets
about 30 percent of its electricity from coal, according to
Bloomberg New Energy Finance data.
Global coal demand surged by
more than 50 percent in the 10
years to 2013, with China the
principal source of the increase,
the International Energy Agency said in its most recent World
Energy Outlook. China surpassed the European Union as the
world’s largest net coal importer in 2012, the IEA said.
China aims to have coal-bed
methane output of 30 billion
cubic meters by 2020 and shale gas production of above 30
billion cubic meters, according
to the statement.
The country has said its carbon dioxide emissions will peak
in 2030 but has yet to announ-
ce at what level.
The environmental group
Greenpeace said the 2020 coal
target is too lenient, and should only allow 8 percent growth.
“That’s something we would
really like to change,” said Li
Shuo, Greenpeace East Asia’s
senior climate and energy officer. “It’s not a very progressive
situation. We have more potential to even move further down.”
The world’s second-biggest
economy also plans to install
as much as 58 gigawatts of
nuclear power by 2020, with
an additional 30 gigawatts or
more under construction by
then. China has about 15 gigawatts of nuclear power at
the moment. Bloomberg/AP
Kana Nishizawa
T
he flood of buy orders for Shanghai
shares through the Hong
Kong exchange link has
slowed to a trickle two
days after the program’s
debut.
Net purchases of mainland equities by global investors totaled 2.6 billion
yuan (USD425 million)
yesterday, down from
about 4.8 billion yuan on
Tuesday and the maximum 13 billion yuan on
Nov. 17. Hong Kong stock buying slowed 68 percent from Tuesday to 253
million yuan. The Shanghai Composite Index
bloomberg
More ‘Ghost Train’ than ‘Through Train’
as Shanghai stock link flows plunge
Charles Li, chief executive officer of Hong Kong Exchanges and
Clearing Ltd.
slipped 0.2 percent and
shares of Hong Kong Exchanges & Clearing Ltd.
posted the biggest threeday drop since 2011.
The tumble in demand
Tuesday spurred CLSA
Ltd. to call the program a
“Ghost Train,” a reference to the so-called Through Train plan to let mainland investors buy Hong
Kong shares in 2007.
That proposal sent the
Hang Seng Index surging
before being abandoned.
While CLSA analysts said
it’s too early to judge the
sustainable level of trading through the link,
they said usage so far
has been disappointing
and profit projections for
Hong Kong’s bourse may
be cut.
“While the bulls will
point to rumors that
many investors are waiting on the sidelines for
now, the bears will point
to the already huge visible
fall in demand,” Marcus
Liu, a Hong Kong-based
analyst at CLSA, wrote
in a report. “Our expectations on Stock Connect
are at the bottom end of
consensus.”
Hao Hong, a managing
director for research at
Bocom
International
Holdings Co., called the
debut an “anticlimax,”
while Yuliang Chang, the
chief China and Hong
Kong equities strategist
at Deutsche Bank AG,
said initial flows are disappointing on both sides
of the link.
One reason for the weak
demand is that share prices had already surged in
anticipation of the link,
said Wu Kan, a money
manager at Shanghai-based Dragon Life Insurance Co., which oversees
about $3.3 billion.
The Shanghai Composite reached a three-year
high on Nov. 12, while
the Hang Seng index of
Hong Kong shares traded
at the highest in almost
two months on Nov. 14.
“News of the stock connect has already been
fully digested and priced
in,” Wu said. “Investors
won’t enter the markets
to buy shares at such levels now.”Bloomberg
thu 20.11.2014
th Anniversary
中國
Hong Kong
ap photo
Bailiffs to move on
Mong Kok protest sites
after Admiralty clash
Pro-democracy protesters use a fence to break the glass window of the Legislative Council
Dominic Lau and Janet Ong
H
ong Kong will seek
to remove barricades
erected by pro-democracy protesters
in the Mong Kok district as
early as tomorrow, amid sig-
ns of escalating tension after
some demonstrators broke into
lawmakers’ offices.
A small group of protesters
smashed through a glass door
of the Legislative Council building in the Admiralty district
early yesterday using metal
barricades and concrete blocks. Police used pepper spray
to repel people who charged at
them, footage broadcast on Cable TV Hong Kong showed.
The clash yesterday morning
is another sign the movement
is splintering, with pro-demo-
cracy lawmakers and student
leaders unable to restrain the
demonstrators. The protesters
want China to reverse its decision that candidates for the
city’s 2017 leadership election
be vetted by a committee, a
process they say renders the
concept of universal suffrage
meaningless.
“We don’t understand the
point of the action,” Alex Chow,
secretary general of the Hong
Kong Federation of Students,
told reporters today, referring
to the break-in. Still, “the government in some way is pushing
citizens into action as they have
no options.”
Protesters’ options are shrinking after their attempts to negotiate with the government
failed, a trip by representatives to Beijing was thwarted
and Hong Kong courts issued
injunctions for the removal of
some barricades.
“The use of violence is definitely against the umbrella movement’s emphasis as that of using
peaceful, non-violent means to
fight for full democracy,” Alan
Leong, leader of the Civic Party, said in a briefing with other
legislators. “It seriously undermines” the movement.
“Umbrella movement” refers
to protesters’ use of umbrellas
as shields against pepper spray.
The demonstrations, in their eighth week, are the largest since
China resumed its sovereignty
over Hong Kong in 1997.
Hong Kong police condemned
yesterday’s action and reiterated that “any acts endangering
public order and public safety
will not be tolerated.” Six people were arrested and three police officers were injured, the
government said in a statement.
Court bailiffs on Tuesday removed barricades outside Citic
Tower in the Admiralty district
with little resistance from demonstrators. High Court Chief
Judge Andrew Cheung Kui
CHINA
11
-nung ruled last week that bailiffs can remove obstructions at
two protest sites in Mong Kok
on the north side of Victoria
Harbor and at Citic Tower.
Bailiffs and police may undertake the Mong Kok clearance as
early as today, the South China
Morning Post said yesterday,
citing an unidentified police
official. They may first clear
Argyle Street before moving on
to dislodge the larger crowd on
Nathan Road, a main northsouth thoroughfare in the district, the SCMP said.
At least 3,000 police officers,
more than a 10th of the city’s
force, will go to the densely populated residential, shopping
and entertainment district, the
newspaper said.
Mong Kok was the scene
of some of the most violent
clashes during the protests for
free elections.
“Some protesters have not complied with protest leaders in Mong
Kok and that’s the loose canon,”
said Michael Davis, a law professor at the University of Hong
Kong. Students would demonstrate their respect for the rule of
law by cooperating, he said.
Chiu Luen Public Light Bus
Co., a plaintiff in a civil court
case to dislodge the demonstrators, on Tuesday published a
court injunction in the Sing Tao
Daily asking protesters to stop
occupying public roads in Mong
Kok, a step toward having bailiffs enforce the court order. The
city government hasn’t yet said
when clearance will start.
The protesters are losing public support that surged in after an earlier police attempts
to disperse them by using tear
gas and pepper spray. About
67 percent of people surveyed
said the activists should give
up their street occupation immediately, a poll conducted by
the Chinese University of Hong
Kong from Nov. 5 to Nov. 11
showed. Bloomberg
C
hinese censors have
newly blocked access to
several popular websites as
they target content delivery
networks that serve much of
the Internet, according to a
U.S. Internet service company.
The action comes as China
hosts the World Internet Conference, which brings together
many of the world’s top technology companies.
EdgeCast, an affiliate of Verizon, says censors have taken
down several networks that
provide local servers to help
speed website performance.
EdgeCast provides such a network, and its clients include
software company Mozilla, publishing company The Atlantic
and content management system Drupal.
The online activist group
Greatfire.org said yesterday
that it was the target of the
Chinese action, which blocked
many other sites that use EdgeCast. The group enables Chinese Internet users to access
websites otherwise blocked by
Chinese censors. EdgeCast did
not confirm Greatfire.org’s statement.
A Greatfire.org co-founder,
who goes by the pseudonym
Charlie Smith, said they had
chosen to use several content
delivery networks knowing that
any move to take down their
site would affect others.
“We knew that ahead of time,”
he said. “It was our feeling that
bloomberg
Censors block websites as Internet meeting begins
Alibaba founder Jack Ma
the authorities would not take
that kind of action.”
China employs thousands of
censors who block hundreds of
websites and erase social media
messages dealing with sensiti-
ve political topics. At the same
time, it claims some of the world’s most popular online sites,
including e-commerce giant
Alibaba.
Alibaba founder Jack Ma told
the Internet conference yesterday that China’s online strength
is bound to transform the Web.
Outside the conference hall,
several protesters were detained after holding up a banner
demanding that China allow
access to sites such as Google,
Facebook and Twitter.
“I believe China’s Internet is
not only profoundly influencing
aspects of China’s economic development but is also participating in the development of the
Internet across the world,” Ma
told the conference. AP
12
ASIA-PACIFIC
20.11.2014 thu
th Anniversary
亞太版
India
Nirmala George, New Delhi
T
he bodies of four women
were found inside an Indian guru’s heavily fortified
ashram, police said yesterday,
a day after security forces tried
to storm the sprawling complex
and arrest the spiritual leader.
Sant Rampal, 63, is believed to
be holed up inside the compound in Haryana state, protected
by thousands of devotees, many
of them armed, according to
police. Nearly 200 people were
injured Tuesday as riot police
tried to force their way into the
ashram.
Rampal is wanted by police
for questioning in a 2006 murder case.
As of yesterday afternoon,
police had not managed to
enter the 5-hectare complex.
Shriniwas Vashisht, directorgeneral of police in Haryana,
said the bodies of four women
were handed over to authorities
from inside.
It was not clear how the women died. Autopsies were being
conducted, he said.
Vashisht said thousands of
people were pouring out of the
ashram yesterday, including
ap photo
Bodies of 4 women found after
police raid guru’s ashram
Supporters of controversial Indian guru Sant Rampal displaying his photographs, chant slogans praising him as they gather to
show support at a protest venue near the Indian Parliament in New Delhi
many who apparently had
been held against their will,
but that 5,000 to 6,000 still
remained inside.
Rampal and 38 others were
charged with murder and other
offenses after a violent clash between his supporters and ano-
Thailand
Protesters flash ‘Hunger
Games’ sign at PM
F
ive Thai university
students were detained yesterday after
giving a three-fingered
salute inspired by “The
Hunger Games” to the
army-backed prime minister in a daring protest
against the country’s
military government.
The students, wearing
T-shirts saying, “Don’t
Want a Coup,” stood up
with their backs to Gen.
Prayuth Chan-ocha while he spoke on a stage
in Khon Kaen, a city in
the northeast, an area
that is a stronghold of
former Premier Thaksin Shinawatra, who was
ousted in a 2006 coup.
They raised three fingers above their heads,
a symbol of resistance
inspired by the book
trilogy and Hollywood
blockbuster, before police escorted them out.
The five men from Khon
Kaen University were
taken to a police station
and then an army camp,
where they questioned
by soldiers, human rights lawyer Sasinan
Thamnithinan said. She
said they have not been
charged.
Thai protesters used
the salute immediately
after the May 22 coup,
but have mostly stopped
amid police crackdowns
on demonstrations.
In “The Hunger Games,” the salute symbolizes rebellion against
totalitarian rule, signifying thanks, admiration and good-bye to a
loved one. But Thai protesters have also cited
the French Revolution’s
values of liberty, equality, fraternity, while
others said it means
freedom, election and
democracy.
Prayuth, often prickly
with critics, stopped his
speech when the students stood, and smiled
calmly. “Anyone else
wants to protest? Come
quickly. Then I can continue with my speech,”
he said into the microphone as the audience
chuckled.
Since taking power
from a civilian, elected
government in May,
the military has heavily
suppressed resistance
from opposition groups
and activists. Martial
law, invoked a few days
before the coup, remains
in effect and bans political gatherings of five or
more people.
“Mockingjay,”
the
third movie in the “The
Hunger Games” series,
opens in Thai cinemas
today. AP
ther group killed one person in
July 2006. He was freed on bail,
which was canceled in July after
his followers entered a cour-
troom and threatened lawyers.
Since 2010, Rampal, an engineer-turned-guru, has ignored
43 court summonses, seeking
exemptions each time. The
court set a final deadline for
him to appear in court on Monday, which he also ignored.
Rampal’s supporters say he is
too ill to make the 250-kilometer journey from his ashram in
Haryana’s Hisar district to the
court in the state capital, Chandigarh.
Thousands of police and paramilitary troops have erected
barricades on the road leading
to the ashram. People leaving
the compound were being searched and questioned before
being dropped at bus and train
stations to return to their homes, officials said.
Several people who left the
ashram said Rampal’s armed
supporters had attempted to
stop them.
“They closed and locked the
gates inside the compound and
would not let us out,” said Birender Satya, who had traveled
from central India with his mother to listen to Rampal’s preaching.
Police said a group of armed
supporters was detaining women and children in the ashram
to act as human shields.
“They know that we will not
allow innocent women and children to be caught in the crossfire and they are taking advantage of that,” Vashisht said.
Police appealed to Rampal to
give himself up so no more lives
are lost. AP
Indonesia
Jakarta gets a Christian
governor
Niniek Karmini, Jakarta
T
he first Christian governor of
the Indonesian capital in 50
years was sworn in yesterday despite loud protests from Islamic hard-liners who insisted Jakarta’s top
political job go to a Muslim.
Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, a Protestant who is also the first ethnic
Chinese to become an Indonesian
governor, had gained a reputation
as deputy governor for being outspoken and combatting corruption and cutting red tape. He is
better known by Chinese nickname
“Ahok.”
Indonesia is the world’s most populous Muslim nation, where 87
percent of its 250 million people are
Muslim. Christians make up about
10 percent.
Purnama, 48, took the oath of office
in a ceremony presided over by President Joko Widodo — the city’s previous leader before he became president last month — at the state palace
in Jakarta, where 10,000 police and
soldiers were deployed for security.
Purnama’s term runs until 2017.
Islamic hard-liners have held
street protests against Purnama’s
installment as governor of the city
of 12 million. The Islamic Defenders
Front, a hard-line group known by
its Indonesian acronym FPI, has
vowed to stage weekly protests
against him. FPI has a long record
of vandalizing nightspots, hurling
stones at Western embassies and attacking rival religious groups.
Jakarta’s first Christian governor
was Henk Ngantung from 1964 to
1965. Christians are spread out unevenly across the Indonesian archipelago, with larger concentrations
in northern Sulawesi island and
some other eastern islands.
Born as Zhong Wan Xie off of Sumatra island, Purnama was elected
to Indonesia’s legislature in 2009,
and was installed as Jakarta deputy
governor three years later.
Ethnic Chinese make about 15 percent of the country, and were subject to government discrimination
during the dictatorship of Suharto
that ended in 1998. AP
thu 20.11.2014
th Anniversary
Cara Anna, United Nations
T
he world’s boldest
effort yet to hold
North Korea and
leader Kim Jong Un
accountable for alleged crimes against humanity moved
forward Tuesday at the United Nations, where a Pyongyang envoy threatened further nuclear tests.
The U.N. General Assembly’s human rights committee approved a resolution
that urges the Security Council to refer the country’s
harsh human rights situation
to the International Criminal Court. The non-binding
resolution now goes to the
General Assembly for a vote
in the coming weeks. China
and Russia, which hold veto
power on the council, voted
against it.
The resolution was inspired
by a groundbreaking U.N. commission of inquiry report early
this year that declared North
Korea’s human rights situation
“exceeds all others in duration,
intensity and horror.”
The U.N committee has
adopted similar resolutions
on the North’s abysmal human rights conditions in the
past. But the fact that this
year’s resolution includes the
new idea that their absolute
leader could be targeted by
prosecutors has pushed the
communist country to make
a more furious response as
that would pose a setback to
its recent efforts to improve
ties with the outside world to
lure foreign investment and
aid and revive the country’s
troubled economy. North Korean officials would also view
the resolution as a potential
embarrassment to their young leader who took power
after the death of his dictator father Kim Jong Il in late
2011.
North Korea sent a sharp
warning in comments before
the vote. Trying to punish it
over human rights “is compelling us not to refrain any
further from conducting nuclear tests,” said Choe Myong
Nam, a foreign ministry adviser for U.N. and human rights issues. His colleagues gave
no details on that threat.
Choe also accused the European Union and Japan, the
resolution’s co-sponsors, of
“subservience and sycophancy” to the United States, and
he promised “unpredictable
and serious consequences” if
the resolution went forward.
The European Union quickly issued a statement welcoming the support of 111
countries in the vote. Nineteen countries voted against,
and 55 abstained.
“It is admirable that the
member states of the United
Nations are acting to protect
the people of North Korea
when their own government
ASIA-PACIFIC
13
ap photo
亞太版
A man watches a TV news program at the Seoul Railway Station in Seoul, South Korea, showing North Korean leader Kim Jong Un
North Korea
UN human rights probe against
Kim Jon Un moves ahead
fails to do so,” the head of
the commission of inquiry,
retired Australian judge Michael Kirby, said in an email,
adding that he is confident
the Security Council will “act
responsibly.”
Human rights groups turned their attention to China and Russia, which could
block any Security Council
move. “No Security Council
country, including China,
can deny the horror endured
The mere
possibility that
its leader could
be targeted by
prosecutors
has put
North Korean
officials, once
dismissive of
human rights
issues, on edge
by so many North Koreans,”
Kenneth Roth, director of
Human Rights Watch, said
in a statement just after the
vote. “The time has come for
justice.”
North Korea and its allies
have argued that a resolution
that targets a single country
would set a dangerous precedent and that other developing countries could be singled out, too.
The resolution says the commission of inquiry report found grounds to believe that
crimes against humanity have
been committed under policies “established at the highest
level of the State for decades.”
It calls for targeted sanctions
against the people who appear
to be most responsible. The
commission of inquiry earlier
warned Kim Jong Un that could include him.
Cuba proposed an amendment that would have stripped out the tough language
on the ICC, but the committee’s member countries voted
that down earlier Tuesday.
The mere possibility that
its leader could be targeted by prosecutors has put
North Korean officials, once
dismissive of human rights issues, on edge. In recent
weeks, it dangled the possibility of a visit by the U.N.
human rights chief, among
other attempts at outreach.
“The North Koreans are
strongly responding to the
U.N. resolution because they
think it’s shaking the young
leader who’s been trying to
consolidate his power since
inheriting power only a few
years ago,” said Lim Eul Chul,
a North Korea expert at South Korea’s Kyungnam University. “They would think
their international image has
been seriously hit.”
But the North is unlikely to
make good on its threat to
conduct a nuclear test because the country knows such an
action would invite further
international condemnation.
Also, there is little chance
that Russia and China will let
the Security Council refer the
North’s human rights situation to the ICC in The Hague,
analysts said.
“North Korea’s reaction will
mostly be verbal. They may
threaten nuclear and missi-
le tests, but they probably
won’t carry them out,” said
Yang Moo-jin, a professor at
the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul.
In the chamber Tuesday, a
North Korean foreign ministry adviser, Kim Ju Song, was
witnessed trying to get a U.N.
official to eject Shin Dong
-Hyuk, a young man who fled
North Korea and has since
spoken out against the Pyongyang regime.
The commission of inquiry
report was based on interviews with dozens of people
like Shin who had fled and
detailed abuses including
starvation and a system of
harsh prison camps containing up to 120,000 people.
North Korea has accused
people who cooperated with
the commission of inquiry of
lying, and it produced a video
showing Shin’s father in North Korea condemning him.
But Shin, who bowed to Japan’s ambassador in thanks
after the vote, said North
Korea’s attempt to intimidate him and others backfired.
“This was an overwhelming
defeat,” he said. AP
WORLD
th Anniversary
分析
Islamic State
Lori Hinnant, Paris
2nd French militant seen
in beheading video
second French militant has
been identified in the video
showing a beheaded American
aid worker and the deaths of
Syrian soldiers, France’s president said yesterday, calling for
vigilance on “how these young
people can be indoctrinated.”
Speaking in Canberra, Australia, President Francois Hollande said yesterday that the roles
of the two men have yet to be
determined precisely.
“All we can say for now is
that there are two French people who have been identified,”
Hollande said.
Government officials on Monday identified 22-year-old Maxime Hauchard among the
Islamic State militants see in
the video announcing the death of aid worker Peter Kassig.
Agnes Thibault-Lecuivre of the
Paris prosecutor’s office said
there was a “strong presumption” that Michael Dos Santos,
a 22-year-old from the Paris
suburbs who like Hauchard left
for Syria in August 2013, was
among those wielding knives in
the video.
European jihadis have taken
an increasingly visible role in
propaganda by the Islamic State
group, as the militants try to de-
ap photo
A
This still image taken from an undated video published on the Internet by the Islamic State group shows a militant that the
French government says is Frenchman Maxime Hauchard
Cuba
Michael Weissenstein,
Havana
ap photo
Doctor catches Ebola
in Sierra Leone
A
member
of
the
165-member medical
team Cuba sent to fight
Ebola in Sierra Leone has
been diagnosed with the
disease, according to state media.
Dr. Felix Baez Sarria is
being treated by British
doctors in Africa but he
will be transferred to a
special unit in Geneva at
the recommendation of
the World Health Organization, Cuban state media
said, citing the island’s
Ministry of Public Health.
Cuba won global praise for sending at least
256 medical workers to
Sierra Leone, Liberia
and Guinea to help treat
Ebola patients. State officials have emphasized
the medics’ high state of
readiness for the mission,
saying the doctors, nurses
and support staff received
weeks of instruction in
protective measures and
equipment.
Once in Africa, the
Cubans got two to three
weeks
of
additional
Nurse Dalila Martinez, trainer
of the Cuban medical team to
travel to Sierra Leone, washes
her gloved hands during a
practice drill at a training camp
in Havana
training before heading
into the field. They were
to be quarantined in Africa for weeks at the end of
their six-month mission
before returning to Cuba.
State media said that
Baez, an internal medicine specialist, came down
with a fever of more than
100 degrees on Sunday
and was diagnosed with
Ebola the following day.
Cuban officials did not
say how he caught the disease or immediately release any other informa-
tion about the case, the
first reported among the
health workers the island
sent to Africa.
Early symptoms of Ebola include fever, headache, body aches, cough,
stomach pain, vomiting
and diarrhea, and patients aren’t contagious until
those begin. The virus requires close contact with
body fluids to spread so
health care workers and
family members caring
for loved ones are most at
risk.
Ebola has killed more
than 5,000 people in the
west African countries of
Liberia, Sierra Leone and
Guinea.
Cuba is one of the largest global contributors
of medical workers to
the fight against Ebola,
a commitment that has
drawn rare praise from
the U.S. and focused worldwide attention on the
island’s unique program
of medical diplomacy,
which deploys armies of
doctors to win friends
abroad and earn billions
a year in desperately needed foreign exchange. AP
monstrate a global profile. France is a significant source of its
foreign recruits, with hundreds
who have made the trip and
about 1,100 under surveillance,
officials said this week.
Western officials fear that
an Islamic militant with a European passport could return
from the war zone with dangerous skills and the means
to reach more than two dozen
countries undetected. More
than 2,000 Europeans are believed to be among an estimated
15,000 foreigners who have joined the fighting, most of them
for the Islamic State group, according to various government
and analyst estimates.
The Islamic State group has
declared a self-styled Islamic
caliphate in areas under its control, which it governs according
to its violent interpretation of
Shariah law. AP
Italy
Mobsters take secret
oath in police video
Frances D’Emilio, Rome
R
ecruits for Italy’s ‘ndrangheta
crime syndicate have been caught on video taking a loyalty oath,
swearing “under the splendor of the
moon,” in a ceremony secretly recorded by police in what investigators
called authorities’ first such glimpse
of the ritual.
Carabinieri paramilitary police in
Milan on Tuesday released video of
what they said were two “convivial”
get-togethers of suspected mobsters
at a farmhouse in Castello di Brianza, northern Italy, with one recruit as
young as 17.
The oath reminds the recruits that
traitors are expected to kill themselves and to keep an extra bullet handy
in case it comes to that.
Investigators did not explain how
they managed to film at the ceremony. Prosecutors said it was the
first time authorities have obtained
video of an ‘ndrangheta initiation ritual. The same investigation led to 38
arrests. The probe concentrated on
loans mobsters made to businesses in
northern Italy and Switzerland that
were unable to get credit otherwise.
In a separate intercepted phone call,
one suspect says to tell someone reluctant to repay money: “I will cut his
head off.’”
Milan prosecutor Ilda Boccassini
said the video shows how “the force
ap photo
14
20.11.2014 thu
In this photo taken from a video provided by the
Italian Carabinieri (paramilitary police), people
identified by police as Italian cryme sindicate
‘ndrangheta members kiss each other
of tradition” helps the ‘ndrangheta,
a global cocaine trafficking organization, to thrive.
Suspected mobsters are seen kissing
each other on the cheek in greeting.
The ‘ndrangheta, rooted in the southern Calabrian region, has spread
north as it invested illicit revenues.
In another scene, four males huddle
together as words of a loyalty oath are
repeated.
“Right in this holy evening, in the silence of the night, under the light of
the stars and under the splendor of
the moon, I create the holy chain...the
holy society,” one man says. AP
thu 20.11.2014
th Anniversary
廣告
ADVERTISEMENT
15
16
INFOTAINMENT
what’s ON
...
Communication & Media Exhibition – Saint
Joseph University
Time: 2pm-7pm (closed on Sundays)
Until: November 29, 2014
Venue: Creative Macau, G/F Macau Cultural Centre
Building, Xian Xing Hai Avenue
Admission: Free Enquiries: (853) 2875 3282
Macau Grand Prix Museum & Wine Museum
Time: 10am-8pm (Closed on Tuesdays)
Venue: Rua Luis Gonzaga Gomes, 431, basement
(Tourism Activities Centre-CAT)
Admission: Free Enquiries: (853) 8798 4108 / 2833 3000
Historical Paintings of Macau in the 19th
Century
Time: 10am-7pm (Closed on Mondays, no admission
after 6:30 pm)
Until: December 31, 2014
Venue: Macau Museum of Art, Av. Xian Xing Hai,
s/n, NAPE
Admission: MOP5 (Free on Sundays and public
holidays)
Enquiries: (853) 8791 9814
20.11.2014 thu
th Anniversary
資訊／娛樂
TV canal macau
13:00
TDM News (Repeated)
13:30
News (RTPi) Delayed Broadcast
14:30
RTPi Live
18:00
Brazil Avenue (Repeated)
19:00
Montra do Lilau (Repeated)
19:30
Soap Opera
20:30
Main News, Financial & Weather Report
21:00
TDM Talk Show
21:30
Criminal Minds S8
22:10
Brazil Avenue
23:00
TDM News
23:30
Miscellaneous
00:05
Main News, Financial & Weather Report (Repeated)
cinema
cineteatro
20 Nov -26 Nov
Grand Taipa Natural Park
Park and Sculpture Zone:24 hours
Grass-skiing field: 2:30pm-5:30 pm (Tuesdays to
Fridays)
10:30am-5:30 pm (Weekends and public holidays,
closed on Mondays)
Venue: Rampa do Observatório, Taipa
Admission: Free
Enquiries: (853) 2888 0087
Writing Macau in Portuguese - Portraits
Exhibition
Time: 10am-7pm
Until: November 23, 2014
Venue: Old Court Building, Avenida da Praia Grande
no.459
Admission: Free
The hunger games: mockinjay - part 1_
room 1
2.30, 4.45, 7.15, 9.30 pm
Director: Francis Lawrence
Starring: Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, Liam
Hemsworth
Language: English (Chinese)
Duration: 123min
don’t go breaking my heart 2_
room 2
4.30, 7.30, 9.30 pm
Director: Johnnie To
Starring: Louis Koo, Miriam Yeung, Gao Yuanyuan
Language: Cantonese (English and Chinese)
Duration: 115min
Offbeat
Ireland’s
gay bull Benjy saved
from slaughterhouse
the snow white murder case_
room 2
7.45 pm
Director: Yoshihiro Nakamura
Starring: Mao Inoue, Go Ayano, Nobuaki Kaneko
Language: Cantonese (English and Chinese)
Duration: 126min
before i go to sleep_
room 3
2.30, 4.30, 7.30, 9.30 pm
Director: Rowan Joffe
Starring: Nicole Kidman, Colin Firth, Mark Strong
Language: English (Chinese)
Duration: 92min
He faced execution for failure to perform. But Benjy, the
gay bull of Ireland, has been saved following a worldwide
appeal backed by “The Simpsons” co-creator Sam Simon.
Ireland’s Animal Rights Action Network said earlier this week
that Simon is paying for Benjy’s transportation to an animal
sanctuary in England. Simon, who is battling colon cancer,
has been giving away much of the fortune from his television
career and is a leading donor to animal welfare causes.
Benjy, a Charlerois bull, failed this year to impregnate any
heifers at a County Mayo farm in western Ireland. Veterinarians determined he was fertile, but was more attracted to
the bull that replaced him.
After the farmer announced he planned to send Benjy
to an abattoir, activists last week launched a social media
campaign seeking 5,000 pounds (USD7,825) to send the
bull to the Hillside Animal Sanctuary in Norfolk, England,
which is home for about 2,000 unwanted farm animals and
horses. About 300 donors contributed 4,000 British pounds ($6,200) to an ongoing fundraising drive organized by
the British online magazine TheGayUK.
macau tower
6 Nov - 26 Nov
interstellar_
2.30, 5.30, 8.30 pm
Director: Christopher Nolan
Starring: Matthew McConaughey, Anne Hathaway,
Jessica Chastain
Language: English (Chinese)
Duration: 169min
this day in history
1975 Spanish dictator
Franco dies
General Francisco Franco, who ruled Spain with an authoritarian hand for 39 years, has died at the age of 82.
He had been ill for five weeks and died early this morning at
La Paz hospital, Madrid. Doctors said the cause of death was
heart failure aggravated by peritonitis.
Flags all around the country are at half-mast and the general’s body is now lying in state at the El Pardo Palace.
Franco, also know as the Generalissimo, will be buried next
week at the Valley of the Fallen mausoleum.
The Prime Minister, Carlos Arias Navarro, his voice trembling with emotion, announced the death at 1000 local time
on radio.
He said that on his deathbed General Franco had asked his
enemies to forgive him.
“I ask pardon of all my enemies, as I pardon with all my heart
all those who declared themselves my enemy, although I did
not consider them to be so,” the general had said.
He also asked the Spanish people to remain loyal to Prince
Juan Carlos, his designated successor who will be sworn in
as king tomorrow.
In a veiled warning to resist separatist movements such as
the Basque nationalist group ETA, he advised the nation to
“keep the lands of Spain united”.
General Franco successfully led the Nationalist armies
against the Loyalists during the Spanish Civil War in the late
1930s, with support from Hitler’s Germany and Italy under
Mussolini.
Franco allowed Hitler to use Spain’s naval bases during
World War II, then declared Spain neutral in 1943 when it
looked like the Allies would win.
Under Franco Spain has enjoyed stability and relative prosperity, especially after reforms introduced since 1959 that modernised administration and industry.
His regime has also been deeply reactionary, with political
parties and non-government trade unions banned, and separatists and communists repressed.
Leaders of European countries have been guarded in their
reaction the dictator’s death and expressed hope that the new
king would introduce modern democracy to Spain.
The European Commission expressed “sympathy and
friendship for the people of Spain” and condolences to General Franco’s widow.
No western European nation will be sending a head of state
to the funeral apart from Monaco.
But staunch supporters in South America, such as President
Pinochet of Chile and Bolivia’s President Banzer will attend.
In Britain, Labour backbenchers are furious that the government is sending a representative - Lord Shepherd, the Lord
Privy Seal and Leader of the House of Lords - to the funeral.
Stanley Newens, MP for Harlow, said the decision was “an
affront to those who fought and died in the Civil War in Spain
in the 1930s”.
Courtesy BBC News
In context
Prince Juan Carlos was sworn in as King of Spain on 22 November 1975.
His speech hinted at democratic reform and tolerance for other
cultures within Spain.
The following day thousands joined the new king for General Franco’s funeral. He was buried at the Valley of the Fallen mausoleum
that was built on his orders by prisoners of the Spanish Civil War.
King Juan Carlos led Spain to democracy and in 1977 for the first
time in four decades free and fair elections were held.
In 1978 a new constitution confirmed Spain as parliamentary monarchy.
The king won further respect from liberals after he helped to crush
a military coup in 1981.
Some regions such as the Basque Country, Catalonia, Galicia and
Andalusia were given a great deal of autonomy, which was then
extended to all Spanish regions.
But Spain was dogged by separatist violence in a long-running
campaign by the Basque Fatherland and Liberty (ETA) to promote
Basque independence. The group declared a permanent ceasefire in
March 2006.
The Franco years left the country alienated internationally but after
Franco’s death Spain won European support and became a member
of the EC, now the EU, in 1986.
thu 20.11.2014
th Anniversary
資訊／娛樂
Taurus
Mar. 21-Apr. 19
April 20-May 20
An uncomfortable social situation
awaits — and you may know full well
what’s happening even before it hits.
That doesn’t mean you can avoid it,
though. Just suffer through it and try
to learn something.
You aren’t always jealous — but
when you are, things heat up fast!
You may feel like asking more of
your partner or best friend, but
make sure that you’re not just testing
them. Who likes that?
Gemini
Cancer
May 21-Jun. 21
Jun. 22-Jul. 22
Your backbone is unbendable today
— metaphorically speaking! You can
stand up to almost any pressure and
make sure that your people are on
your side when the chips are finally
down.
You trust your intuition more than
most — and with good reason!
Today, though, you need to make
sure that you’re giving it even more
attention, as it’s the only part of you
that knows what’s really going on.
Leo
Virgo
Jul. 23-Aug. 22
Aug. 23-Sept. 22
A family member needs you — and
that could work both ways. See if you
can get your people to help out, even
if they don’t know this distant cousin
or far-away grandparent. It takes a
village!
You’ve been ignoring someone lately
— but now it’s time to pay attention.
Even if they are profoundly
annoying, you should do what you
can to force yourself to hear them
out.
Libra
SUDOKU
Weather
Easy
Sep.23-Oct. 22
Oct. 23 - Nov. 21
Strength of vision and purpose are
yours today, so lead the way toward
something truly special. If your
people aren’t paying attention, you
can make them by sheer force of will.
Go for it!
Capricorn
Nov. 22-Dec. 21
Dec. 22-Jan. 19
You need to ask yourself some tough
questions today — why are you
feeling what you’re feeling? Can you
make any changes to improve your
life? These need answering, and you
are sure to surprise yourself.
A friend calls on you for some serious
help — and that’s the kind you’re
best at! You may need to give them
advice, or they may need assistance
in settling a big family dispute. Your
wisdom shines through!
Aquarius
Pisces
Jan. 20-Feb. 18
Feb.19-Mar. 20
You may be frustrated with career
advancement or other long-range
goals, but now is not the time to give
up. If anything, you need to rethink
and retool your plans so they are a
bit more realistic.
You make up your mind — and then
almost immediately switch back. It’s
hard to move forward on a day like
today, but that could be a good thing.
More information is sure to come in
tomorrow.
Medium
Hard
Crossword puzzles provided by BestCrosswords.com
Down: 1- ___ Camera; 2- Deli side; 3- Ripped; 4- Exterior; 5- Sailor; 6- Meanies; 7Posed; 8- Lyric poems; 9- Jeer or deride;
10- Sent out; 11- Golden; 12- “Hard ___!”
Yesterday’s solution
(sailor’s yell); 13- Dweeb; 21- Wagner
work; 23- Florence’s ___ Vecchio; 25Methods; 27- Less loony; 28- Utah’s ___
Mountains; 29- Sleep images; 31- Pale;
32- Keep an ___ the ground; 33- Aviator;
34- Pine; 36- Needy; 40- Norse god of
winds; 41- Role for Clark; 44- Naming;
47- Leading; 49- Imperfect; 50- Baby’s
napkin; 53- Funny Anne; 54- German
river; 55- Sicilian resort; 56- Capital of
Calvados, in NW France; 57- French
summers; 59- Sever with the teeth; 60Traditional knowledge; 61- Slaughter of
baseball; 64- Deli bread;
Max
Beijing
-1
13
clear
Harbin
-11
2
clear
Tianjin
1
14
clear
Condition
Urumqi
-3
7
cloudy/clear
Xi’an
3
12
clear/cloudy
Lhasa
-1
17
clear/cloudy
Chengdu
9
16
drizzle/overcast
Chongqing
12
16
overcast
Kunming
10
19
drizzle/cloudy
Nanjing
4
15
cloudy/clear
Shanghai
9
16
cloudy
clear/cloudy
Wuhan
6
16
Hangzhou
8
16
clear/cloudy
Taipei
19
20
moderate rain/drizzle
Guangzhou
16
22
clear
Hong Kong
20
23
clear
Moscow
1
-1
drizzle
Frankfurt
6
9
drizzle
Paris
8
9
drizzle
London
10
10
drizzle
New York
1
14
drizzle/clear
world
Crosswords
Across: 1- Ratio words; 5- Fair; 9- Started; 14- Baseball family name; 15Old-fashioned exclamation of surprise; 16- Author Zola; 17- Trading center;
18- Commedia dell’___; 19- Distance runner; 20- Inspiring awe; 22- Blemished;
24- Bridge declaration; 26- Fall mo.; 27- Abrupt; 30- Cause to abandon the Mets;
35- Broadcaster; 36- Hey, you!; 37- Roy’s “singin’ pardner”; 38- Vane dir.; 39- One
more; 42- Narrow inlet; 43- Coup d’___; 45- Young kangaroo; 46- Misanthrope; 48Branchlike; 50- Remove the antlers; 51- Paving material; 52- Strike; 54- Isolate; 58OK to consume; 62- For want of ___...; 63- Snare; 65- “My Heart Will Go On” singer;
66- Concerning; 67- Fictional Jane; 68- Other, in Oaxaca; 69- Slender; 70- Scorch;
71- Professional charges;
Min
China
Easy+
Scorpio
Is it time for a garage sale? Well, the
weather may not be quite right for
it, depending on where you live, but
it’s still a great time to clear out your
storage space and make way for new
stuff.
Sagittarius
17
The Born Loser by Chip Sansom
YOUR STARS
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INFOTAINMENT
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體育
S
aying the NFL is
“making things up as
they go along,” players’
union chief DeMaurice Smith wants the league and
its owners to take disciplining
players out of the hands of
Commissioner Roger Goodell.
Already at odds over the process used to punish Ray Rice,
the dispute heightened yesterday when the league suspended Minnesota Vikings running
back Adrian Peterson for the
rest of the season for using a
branch to discipline his 4-year
-old son.
The central issue remains the
same for both sides: Finding a
way to fairly hold players accountable for transgressions
that damage the credibility
and image of the league and its
players. The union wants disciplinary power transferred from
Goodell to a neutral arbitrator. The league, so far, doesn’t
agree.
And while the league and the
NFL Players Association want
to change the personal conduct
policy, the sides disagree on
how to do it. The union wants
to bargain for changes to the
policy, while the NFL wants to
implement changes with union
input the same way it changes
rules on the field, like when it
moved kickoffs to the 35-yard
line.
Smith told The Associated
Press in an email that the league indicated it was open to
discussing the policy as recently
as two months ago, but didn’t
follow through in coming to the
table. He said those discussions
were distinct from the union representing Peterson in his case,
though on a parallel track.
“There is one fact that does
make those things similar though, and that is the NFL is clear-
19
Union, NFL at odds over
personal conduct policy
ap photo
Rob Maaddi
Pro Football Writer
SPORTS
Minnesota Vikings running back Adrian Peterson
ly making things up as they go
along,” Smith said. “Our goal is
to pursue a new personal conduct policy that is fair, transparent and consistent. The only
way that happens is if the NFL
and the owners commit to collective bargaining.”
Troy Vincent, the NFL’s executive vice president of football operations, countered that
Goodell’s authority was collectively bargained with the union
in 2011, while the personal conduct policy in place for nearly
20 years has never been part of
contract negotiations.
“The union agreed to the commissioner maintaining authority to discipline. The league believes it is in the best interest of
football to retain that authority,” Vincent said. “The league is
following the process dictated
by the CBA.”
The union and players helped
to revise the personal conduct
policy in 2007, Vincent said.
He said the league has had multiple meetings with the union
this year on revising the policy
using the same approach.
The rules in place have some
players and agents wondering
if the NFL has too much power
and whether the union fell
short by agreeing to give Goodell central power over discipline in 2011.
Agent Jerrold Colton, who
represents New Orleans tackle
Jahri Evans, Pittsburgh cornerback William Gay and six-time
Pro Bowl kicker David Akers,
said the union’s failure to negotiate changes to the personal
conduct policy in 2011 was a
“tremendous oversight.”
“I felt strongly at the time that
it was a mistake and clearly it’s
turned out to be one for the
players the way it’s played out,
and we’re stuck with it for another six years,” said Colton, who
said the players and league absolutely need an independent,
third-party arbitrator. “Due
process exists in most places in
the United States except in the
NFL.”
Pittsburgh safety Mike Mitchell said the personal conduct
policy needs more well-defined
terms and clear guidelines based on precedent.
“Right now it’s kind of you
know, one man has all the
power, and I don’t know if
that’s ever really a good thing.
Roger does his best but he’s got
a lot on his plate that he has to
control,” Mitchell said. “I’m not
just trying to bash him or come
down on him, but players would feel better if he wasn’t just judge, jury and executioner.”
Peterson pleaded no contest
on Nov. 4 to misdemeanor re-
ckless assault in Texas for injuries to his 4-year-old son with a
branch. He said he intended no
harm, only discipline.
Goodell told Peterson he will
not be considered for reinstatement before April 15 for his violation of the personal conduct
policy — the first example of a
crackdown on players involved
with domestic violence since
stricter rules were put in place
earlier this season.
The union, which announced
it plans an appeal on behalf of
Peterson, is demanding a neutral arbitrator to oversee the
hearing in the same way Rice’s
case was handled. Rice is waiting for an arbitrator to decide
whether his indefinite suspension should be upheld or overturned. Goodell made Rice’s
suspension more severe when
video of Rice hitting his thenfiancee was released online.
Goodell has said he hopes to
have a new personal conduct
policy ready before the Super
Bowl.
Vincent said the league’s internal process — including investigation, consulting independent experts, suspending
players with pay and ultimately
determining discipline — has
been fair and transparent while following the collective bargaining agreement.
“In reality, those who are most
upset with the personal conduct policy are those who violate it,” Vincent said. “The vast
majority of players do not come
into contact with the discipline
process.” AP
Golf
A
dam Scott will attempt to win his third
Australian Masters title in a
row on yet another renowned Melbourne sand-belt
course, and with a tryout
caddie on his bag.
Scott went close to
winning Australian golf’s
so-called “Triple Crown”
last year but Rory McIlroy’s
birdie on the 18th hole at
the Australian Open relegated Scott to second place
at that tournament.
Today, Scott begins play
at Metropolitan, which is
hosting the Masters for
the first time. Last year,
Scott beat American Matt
Kuchar by two strokes at
Royal Melbourne, success-
ap photo
Scott begins defense of Australian Masters title
Adam Scott
fully defending the Australian Masters title he won at
Kingston Heath in 2012.
No. 2-ranked Scott, with
U.S.-based
Englishman
David Clark as caddie, will
then renew his rivalry with
No. 1 McIlroy in the Australian Open next week at
Sydney.
Scott will also aim to defend his Australian PGA
title next month at Royal
Pines in Queensland state.
“I am very happy with
where my game is coming
in,” Scott said yesterday. “I
had a good summer here
last year, so to keep that
momentum would be great.
I’m hoping to make it three
in a row.”
Scott said he always intended to play in Australia’s
three biggest tournaments
of the year. The only other
event that attracts international players in Australia
is the Perth International, a
joint European Tour event
which was held in October.
“If all I have to do to help
the game in Australia is
play these events, then it is
a pretty easy role for me,”
he said.
Others in the Australian
Masters field include Americans Kyle Stanley and
Boo Weekley. Weekley is
also entered in next week’s
Open at Sydney, joining
Scott, McIlroy and Jordan
Spieth at The Australian
Golf Club. McIlroy won by
a stroke last year at Royal
Sydney.
The Masters’ first appearance at Metropolitan,
which hosted the world
match play in 2001, comes
with some controversy. Recently, a betting agency was
confirmed as the primary
sponsor of the event, which
was first played at nearby
Huntingdale in 1979.
At the same time, the
word “Australian” was deleted from the tournament
masthead and replaced
with the betting agency
name, a move that didn’t
sit well with anti-gambling groups. It was also
too much, it seems, for the
website of the century-old
Metropolitan club, which
continues to refer to the
tournament as the Australian Masters and makes no
mention of the new sponsor on its site.
The Australian PGA, scheduled for Dec. 11-14, will
include Scott, Weekley and
former champion Robert
Allenby, who is the only
golfer to win Australia’s
Triple Crown in 2005. AP
Prague wall dedicated to
BUZZ John Lennon painted over
THE
opinion
HK Observer
Robert Carroll
ght candles and lay flowers. After the 1989 anticommunist Velvet Revolution, it turned into a
tourist attraction.
Recently, messages in support of democracy
protests in Hong Kong appeared on the wall,
while another Lennon wall sprang up in Hong
Kong itself.
A group of art students claimed responsibility for painting the wall white and leaving the
message, an apparent play on the words of the
Lennon hit “Happy Xmas (War is Over).”
Air quality
Roadside
120-150
Bad
High
Density
95-125
Residental Moderate
Area
source: dsmg
Prague’s colorful wall dedicated to the memory of John Lennon has been painted over,
leaving just a single message: “Wall is over!”
The wall, located at the heart of the Czech
capital in the picturesque Little Quarter neighborhood, began to be painted with Lennon’s
images and related graffiti after the Beatle’s assassination in 1980.
Under the communist regime, it became a
symbol of freedom and opposition to communism and young people used to meet there to li-
Station
Ambient
95-125
Moderate
WORLD BRIEFS
Leading again. First crony
Digital art detective
A watermark depicting a foolscap, upper right center, is seen faintly, on
the etching, The Small Lion Hunt (with Two Lions), ca. 1641, by famed
Dutch artist, Rembrandt Harmensz van Rijn
Michael Hill, Ithaca (NY)
R
ichard Johnson can
see right through the masterpieces of Rembrandt and
Van Gogh.
The Cornell University electrical and computer engineering professor is a digital art
detective, able to unlock the
mysteries of a work’s age and
authenticity by analyzing its
underlying canvas or paper.
Using high-resolution X-ray
images, the 64-year-old academic can actually determine if
paintings came from the same
bolt of hand-loomed canvas,
each of which has a varying
thread density pattern that can
be as unique as a fingerprint.
Linking multiple pieces of canvas to the same bolt can shore
up arguments for authenticity
and even put works in chronological order.
It’s a valuable service to worldclass museums that comes
through the unlikely crosspollinating of traditional art
history and contemporary
computer science.
“By mixing the two groups
we’ve been able to do more
than either group had been
able to do separately studying
the paintings,” Johnson said in
a room full of Dutch paintings
at Cornell’s Johnson Museum.
“We’re not trying to replace
the art historian, we’re trying
to extend their reach.”
Johnson is a tech whiz and
an art lover — the rare person
able to speak with authority about Rembrandt’s brush
strokes and adaptive feedback
systems theory.
Although he didn’t make his
first visit to an art museum
until he was a student on
We’re not
trying to
replace the
art historian,
we’re trying
to extend
their reach
Prof. Richard Johnson
Cornell University
fellowship in Germany, the
rooms full of Rembrandts left
him thunderstruck.
Johnson melded the two
worlds in 2007 with a stint
as an adjunct research fellow
at the Van Gogh Museum in
Amsterdam. He began examining high-resolution X-ray
images of the canvases used by
the 19th century master.
Eventually, Johnson and
Rice University professor Don
Johnson (no relation) developed digital “weave density
maps” of canvases that added
computational power to what
had been a painstaking process that required scholars to
study small samples with magnifying glasses.
“It turns out with the eye, you
make mistakes,” said Louis
van Tilborgh, senior researcher at the Van Gogh museum.
Van Tilborgh sees the weave
maps as an important tool in
the ongoing work of precisely
dating and ordering all of Vincent Van Gogh’s paintings.
The technique has also provided evidence to date Diego Velazquez’s “Sebastian de
Morra.” A separate analysis of
24 Johannes Vermeer canvases supported the sometimes
doubted attribution of one
painting and provided fresh
evidence to link two paintings
at the National Gallery in London as complementary works.
“It’s one more technical tool
in the box of studying pictures,” said Walter Liedtke,
curator of European paintings
at The Metropolitan Museum
of Art in Manhattan, who
worked with Johnson on the
Vermeers.
“You take this added evidence and you join it with — in the
case of the two Vermeers in
London — pigment analysis,
the iconography of the pictures, whether they were together in their history at earlier
dates. “
Researchers have been conducting science-based analyses of artworks for some
time. But it has become more
common to use computers to
analyze large amounts of digital data. It’s sometimes called
computational art history and
also includes assessing brushstrokes for distinctive patterns.
Johnson in recent years has
left the canvas to other researchers as he focuses on paper.
He’s been analyzing the oldfashioned paper used by Rembrandt for his prints, which
was made by laying pulp on
screens. Scholars know the
dates when Rembrandt etched
the copper plates to make the
prints, but they are often less
sure when an individual print
was made. Was it one of the
initial prints or did it come
years later after the artist’s
death?
Johnson is using high-resolution digital images of
Rembrandt prints owned by
Cornell’s museum to try to discern patterns that the screens
impressed on the back of the
prints. Separate prints cut
from the same larger sheet
of paper could be matched to
provide the same sort of contextual information revealed
by studying canvas.
The details are different, but
the idea of searching for useful
patterns is the same, as is the
idea of bridging the gap between art and tech.
“My philosophy all along has
been to convince both sides
that this is worth doing and
they should be talking to each
other,” Johnson said. AP
AUSTRALIA-FRANCE The
French president tells
Australia’s prime minister
that countries should make
their own decisions on how
to achieve any binding
greenhouse gas reduction
targets that emerge from
a United Nations climate
change conference in
Paris next year. The
Australian government
has been widely criticized
for repealing a 2-yearold carbon tax levied on
Australia’s worst industrial
carbon gas polluters aimed
at reducing greenhouse
emissions.
ap photo
ap photo
In April, the Economist magazine placed
Hong Kong at the top of the world rankings
for crony capitalism. Crony capitalism is where the government and businesses collude or
turn a blind eye to allow unfair advantages;
to distort or control markets; or to discourage
or eliminate competition. Academic research in Australia has now resulted in another
accolade for local business leaders, finding
that a pair of Hong Kong CEOs had the highest individual rankings compared to peers
in New York, London and Sydney. However,
on average the leaders of the territory’s listed
firms were equal with New York. Phew! So on
average our leaders are not worse than the
self-proclaimed “Masters of the Universe”.
The point of the exercise was to see whether
there is a link between reporting inflated profits and high narcissism among CEOs. Well, in
New York, the higher the narcissism level the
more likely company leaders were to cook the
books, amending accounting records to show
higher profits. Whether that link can be proven in Hong Kong is still a work in progress
for the research team at Macquarie Graduate
School of Management.
It may be fine and perfectly legal to glorify a
company’s performance but the findings noted that the infamous jailed head of Enron whose questionable actions left many ordinary investors deprived of much of their life’s
savings - had one of the highest narcissism
scores among CEOs of firms listed in the New
York stock exchange.
Leaving the Enron-type rogue captains of
industry aside, does it matter whether or not
business chiefs are highly narcissistic? In addition to this, how do we define a high degree
of narcissism? According to business psychologists and academics, personality traits are
important to identify in order to find the right
mix of traits which will culminate in managerial success. Likewise, negative personality
features need screening out when so much
is at stake. One of the traits studied is narcissism, particularly in the context of whether
modest narcissism is a good attribute for a
CEO and of the effects high levels of narcissism can have on an individual’s colleagues
and company.
Healthy narcissism is considered to be selfconfidence, which in turn can be interpreted
as charisma, authority and innovation; think
Steve Jobs. This impresses boards and singles out individuals for the top jobs. However,
research is confirming that CEOs and senior
management personnel may be domineering,
with, as one definition has it: a sense of entitlement, grandiosity and low empathy. Essentially, they may not perform as effectively
in the workplace as it might seem.
In fact a recent study at Stanford University demonstrated that among 32 leading
US high tech companies, overly narcissistic
CEOs, identifiable based on their extraordinarily high compensation packages, were not
consistently successful.
Once again, Hong Kong is leading, first
in crony capitalism and now in narcissistic
CEOs.
One of the two leaders in the narcissism
survey was a Hong Kong CEO based in the
property field. Do the big property developers
not show an overt sense of self-entitlement,
love of grandiose schemes, and with their
squeezing of the market also not show low
empathy?
AFGHANISTAN A report
says half of all medicine
available on the Afghan
market has either been
smuggled into the country
or made under substandard conditions in
neighboring Pakistan. It
says up to 300 companies
in Pakistan are producing
poor quality drugs
exclusively for Afghanistan
because their products
do not meet Pakistani
government standards.
Cornell professor unlocks
mysteries of paintings
capitalism now most
narcissistic CEOs
Iraq A suicide car
bomber struck in the
heart of the northern
Iraqi Kurdish city of Irbil,
killing at least four people,
according to initial reports
in local Kurdish media.
The blast in Irbil, capital
of the semi-autonomous
Kurdish region in
northern Iraq, took place
near the city’s historic
citadel. Mayor Nawzad
Hadi told the state-run
Rudaw TV channel that
there were casualties,
although the number
was not immediately
known. Rudaw reported
separately that at least
four people were killed in
the blast, including two
police officers. The Iraqi
Kurdish health ministry
reported at least 22 were
wounded.
ISRAELI forces demolish
the east Jerusalem home
of a Palestinian who carried
out a deadly October
attack after Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu
promised strict measures
to deal with a rising wave of
violence in the area.
USA The Senate on Tuesday
blocked a bill to end bulk
collection of Americans’
phone records by the
National Security Agency,
dealing a blow to President
Barack Obama’s primary
proposal to rein in domestic
surveillance.