philrealtor.com

Friday, November 9, 2007

Thursday, November 8, two trade shows, named MEDIPHAR Taipei at the Taipei World Trade Center (TWTC) and Taipei Audio Video Fair at the TWTC and The Grand Hotel, opened in Taipei, Taiwan. Some politicians and government officials chose these events as an opportunity to promote their parties and campaign-coalitions ahead of the 2008 Taiwan Presidential Elections.

From the incumbent Pan-Green Coalition, President of the Republic of China Chen Shui-bian, Premier of Republic of China Chang Chun-hsiung, and spokesman for the Executive Yuan Jung-tai Cho visited the two shows successively and were innundated by Taiwanese media. President Chen avoided answering questions on the hot topic of commodities prices, addressing only those about the medical industry development, overseen by Sheng-mao Hou, Minister of Health.

From the Pan-Blue Coalition, 2008 vice-presidential candidate, and former Premier, Vincent Siew participated the opening of the Taipei Audio Video Fair at The Grand Hotel. He criticized on the economy policy and remarked: “The ruling party [DPP] doesn’t have a good track record, and some industries weren’t be supported in timely manner so that they lost some opportunities. I sincerely hope the government can appropriately assist the audio and video industries in marketing good brands and products to the world.”

Also, current Democratic Progressive Party legislator Wang Shih-chien was invited to give a violin performance and sing a Taiwanese song. The events at the Taipei World Trade Center proved to be quite a platform for the candidates running in the 2008 Taiwan Presidential Elections.

Wednesday, March 3, 2010

Ford Motor Company said on Tuesday that its sales in the United States rose 43% in February compared to the same period last year, as the automaker outsold rivals Toyota and General Motors.

Ford said that total sales improved to 142,285 units, compared to 141,951 units sold by GM. Additionally, Ford said that its share of the total US car market rose to 17%, up from 14% a year ago. The increase was better than analysts had predicted, and Ford’s stock rose to a five-year high in morning trading, before declining later in the day. Ford’s sales were significantly influenced by a 74% increase in fleet sales to businesses. Rental car agencies alone accounted for around 30,000 units sold. Sales to retail consumers increased only 28%.

The increases were led by sales of two sedans, the Fusion and Taurus, which rose 166.5 and 93.3% respectively, although sales of other models such as SUVs and pickup trucks also increased. Both models were significantly redesigned last year, and analysts said that improved quality from such cars were driving the increases.

Other companies also reported February sales today, nearly all reporting sales gains as well, although none as large as those of Ford. Toyota was the sole exception to the sales gains, as their sales declined 8.7%, as the company was faced with a global recall during the month that led to a temporary stoppage of production for some models.

“The strength of our new products … are resonating with customers,” said Ken Czubay, Ford’s vice president of sales and marketing. However, he believed that traditional Toyota customers were not buying rival autos, but rather awaiting the results from the recalls.

Wednesday, November 1, 2006

The third and last bidder for Singapore’s Sentosa Integrated Resort (IR) project, Eighth Wonder, submitted its development plan yesterday: a SGD 5.5 billion(USD 3.52 billion) eco-friendly casino known as “Harry’s Island”.

Harry’s Island will boast 10 luxury, family-oriented hotels, a tree house with family suites, and a 7,500-seat Caldera theater which will feature nightly spectacular shows.

Eighth Wonder says it wants to make Harry’s Island a world-class, must-see tourist destination and has roped-in several big names in its tender. If selected, the resort will have spas and health centers run by health guru Deepak Chopra, Vera Wang hotels with access to her entire wedding collection, and a soccer academy with Brazilian soccer icon Pele giving his input.

Harry’s Island will create around 15,000 jobs, including 5000 in the food and beverage industry.

The company believes it can recover its investments by 2015 by generating over $5.6 billion in five years; it hopes to bring nearly 15 million visitors annually by 2014.

The Sentosa IR project is the second of two IR tenders offered by the Singapore Government: the first was located in Marina Bay.

The Singapore government is expected to announce the winner in December.

Tuesday, December 25, 2007

Last Tuesday in Taipei, Google Taiwan held an annual summary press conference named “Collective Intelligence & Innovation” (In Chinese: ?????????). With many products had already been presented to the public like wikis, blogs, and photo albums in the Web 2.0 era, Google served to provide lots of services like Google Apps, Google Maps and YouTube with suitable versions in Taiwan differing other countries this year.

Global Deputy Director of Google Kai-Fu Lee said: “The contents on the Internet were mostly limited with some copyright issue in the past, but after many products in the Web 2.0 era are presented, several contents are progressively released and opened to the public in the presence. As those factors, we [Google] hope developers in Taiwan can develop useful tools for local people to apply with people’s life.”

“In order to change minds in public, we [Google] conjoined some required elements into people’s life, and services on iGoogle in Taiwan are progressively more and newer because of the improvements of developers. We hoped a simple service can be multiplied with releases of useful and functional tools,” he also said.

Also in this conference, the Engineering Director of the Google Taiwan R&D Center Li-feng Chien also announced the achievements on the “Google Taipei Developers’ Day” and invited developers named Chi-pao Hu and Yi-ru Lin to share some actual applications on iGoogle.

Monday, September 24, 2007

Russ Aegard is running for the Green Party of Ontario in the Ontario provincial election, in the Thunder Bay-Atikokan riding. Wikinews’ Nick Moreau interviewed him regarding his values, his experience, and his campaign.

Stay tuned for further interviews; every candidate from every party is eligible, and will be contacted. Expect interviews from Liberals, Progressive Conservatives, New Democratic Party members, Ontario Greens, as well as members from the Family Coalition, Freedom, Communist, Libertarian, and Confederation of Regions parties, as well as independents.

Monday, August 21, 2006

According to published reports and information posted to the Writely.com website and blog, the service has re-opened its Writely account beta program.

The Writely beta was launched in August 2005,and Google acquired the Writely technology on March 9, 2006. The core Writely service provides a free online collaborative word processor which is widely viewed as an alternative and potential competitor to more traditional locally-run word processing software.

The service has claimed that thousands of people had previously registered for the service exclusively driven by word-of-mouth and the Writely blog. Shortly after being acquired by Google, the company greatly restricted the service and maintained a future customer sign up waiting list.

Writely re-opened its beta service on August 17, 2006. According to the company’s blog, the timing of the re-launch was due to a positive product review on CNET combined with persistent email requests asking the service to re-open. Additionally, Writely is planning to make its service available as part of the Google Account sign-in sometime on the near future.

A number of industry sources have speculated on why Google chose to issue a press release on August 17, 2006 touting its involvement in a Star Trek convention and failed to release any information on the Writely beta re-open. While Google has proven reticent to release and publish product information in the past, the lack of any published information for the Writely beta re-open has generated a greater than usual number of web posts and articles addressing the subject.

Sunday, February 20, 2005

Beijing (??; pinyin: B?ij?ng) —Chinese President Hu Jintao is stepping up a government campaign to eradicate illegal gambling in China, detaining over 4,000 gamblers in an effort to clean up the public image of the Communist party.

Cadres and officials within the party have been caught using illicit funds, sometimes embezzled from local, state-run organizations, to gamble at casinos set up in border-towns within North Korea, in Macau, and in other popular gambling resorts outside of the direct control of the mainland government.

To assuage any fears that this latest campaign extends to ordinary working-class citizens, Deputy Public Security Minister Bu Jingfu has announced that ordinary citizens need not worry about being prosecuted for “friendly” games of mahjong. He did not specifically address whether mainland citizens should reconsider visiting the numerous mahjong gaming parlors which dot urban centers throughout the country.

“The whip that is used to beat wolves should not be used to beat sheep,” stated Bu Jingfu.

China allows a “social welfare” lottery, for which citizens can purchase tickets that help to fund social programs. However, this legal form of gambling is mostly favored by lower-income players who don’t have the opportunity to travel to the lavish gaming casinos frequented by the wealthier class of businessmen and party officials who can travel across the border on easily obtained one or two-day visas.

Despite relatively harsh penalties for those who are caught participating in illegal gambling operations, a number of provinces are well-known for hosting high-stakes gamblers in illegal, underground operations that are run on the mainland under the noses of local authorities. To combat these operations on a national level, the Public Security Ministry has sent 13 “inspection teams” to these provinces in an attempt to crack down on these operations.

One historian believes that China’s government, which in its various forms has tried to stop avid gamblers for thousands of years, will have no better luck with its current campaign, than it has in the past.

“It is really hard to get rid of gambling,” said Guo Shuanglin, a professor of history at People’s University in Beijing.

Guo explained, “There were strict laws against gambling in almost every dynasty in China. Take the Song Dynasty, for example, when gamblers were sentenced to death. In the Ming Dynasty, gamblers’ hands were chopped off. Even in the period of the Republic of China, they had a very strict anti-gambling law.”

As far away as Las Vegas, casino operators are seeing a shift in demographics for their most elite players, called “whales”, who are known to bet upwards of US$50,000 a hand. Since the 1980s, Las Vegas has seen a shift from Japanese businessmen to Chinese players, who now make up over 50% of the high-end clientele at some Las Vegas casinos.

Shen Mingming, a Beijing University expert on Chinese gambling, is skeptical that China’s government can sustain a long-term campaign against gambling.

“It means long hours for the police, and it cannot be sustained,” he said. “When the campaign is over, these organizations just quietly come back to life. Can you keep doing these campaigns every few months?”

However, this time China’s government has set up a special telephone number, to encourage citizens to turn in government officials who are embezzling government funds for illicit gambling runs.

China has recently conducted a series of high-profile arrests of corrupt officials who are caught gambling with public funds, two of whom used tens of millions of dollars to fund their gambling lifestyle.

The government has also made one special arrest to show that even high-level officials are not immune to prosecution due to their party position. Cai Haowen, who had been groomed by former Chinese President Jiang Zemin, was arrested this month on an overnight train in Jilin (??; pinyin: Jílín) province, while fleeing authorities for embezzling hundreds of thousands of dollars and losing it all while gambling.

Finally, China is starting to crack down on the easy visa programs which have permitted so much traffic to gambling emporiums outside of mainland government control. The new visa program requires that records be kept of the identity of the visa holder. This new visa requirement has started to have a noticeable effect on some border-town casinos, leaving a number of properties with idle employees and few Chinese customers.