World govts race to contain swine flu outbreak

By LAURAN NEERGAARD, AP Medical Writer Lauran Neergaard, Ap Medical Writer

WASHINGTON – The world's governments raced to avoid both a pandemic and global hysteria Sunday as more possible swine flu cases surfaced from Canada to New Zealand and the United States declared a public health emergency. "It's not a time to panic," the White House said.

Mexico, the outbreak's epicenter with up to 86 suspected deaths, canceled some church services and closed markets and restaurants. Few people ventured onto the streets, and some wore face masks. Canada became the third country to confirm cases, in six people, including some students who — like some New York City spring-breakers — got mildly ill in Mexico. Countries across Asia promised to quarantine feverish travelers returning from flu-affected areas.

The U.S. declared the health emergency so it could ship roughly 12 million doses of flu-fighting medications from a federal stockpile to states in case they eventually need them — although, with 20 confirmed cases of people recovering easily, they don't appear to for now.

Make no mistake: There is not a global pandemic — at least not yet. It's not clear how many people truly have this particular strain, or why all countries but Mexico are seeing mild disease. Nor is it clear if the new virus spreads easily, one milestone that distinguishes a bad flu from a global crisis. But waiting to take protective steps until after a pandemic is declared would be too late.

"We do think this will continue to spread but we are taking aggressive actions to minimize the impact on people's health," said Dr. Richard Besser, acting chief of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

President Barack Obama's administration sought to look both calm and in command, striking a balance between informing Americans without panicking them. Obama himself was playing golf while U.S. officials used a White House news conference to compare the emergency declaration with preparing for an approaching hurricane.

"Really, that's what we're doing right now. We're preparing in an environment where we really don't know ultimately what the size or seriousness of this outbreak is going to be," Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano told reporters.

Earlier, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said the outbreak was serious, but that the public should know "it's not a time to panic." He told NBC's "Meet the Press" that Obama was getting updates "every few hours" on the situation.

In Mexico, soldiers handed out 6 million surgical-style masks to deal with a deadly flu strain that officials say may have sickened 1,400 people since April 13. Special laboratory tests to confirm how many died from it — 22 have been confirmed so far out of 86 suspected deaths — are taking time.

The World Bank said it would send Mexico $25 million in loans for immediate aid and $180 million in long-term assistance to address the outbreak, along with advice on how other nations have dealt with similar crises.

The World Health Organization and the U.S. were following a playbook of precautions developed over the past five years to prepare for the next super-flu. The WHO on Saturday asked all countries to step up detection of this strain of A/H1N1 swine flu and will reconsider on Tuesday whether to raise the pandemic threat level, in turn triggering additional actions.

A potential pandemic virus is defined, among other things, as a novel strain that's not easily treated. This new strain can be treated with Tamiflu and Relenza, but not two older flu drugs. Also, the WHO wants to know if it's easily spread from one person to a second who then spreads it again — something U.S. officials suspect and are investigating.

"Right now we have cases occurring in a couple of different countries and in multiple locations, but we also know that in the modern world that cases can simply move around from single locations and not really become established," cautioned WHO flu chief Dr. Keiji Fukuda.

There is no vaccine against swine flu, but the CDC has taken the initial step necessary for producing one — creating a seed stock of the virus — should authorities decide that's necessary. Last winter's flu shot offers no cross-protection to the new virus, although it's possible that older people exposed to various Type A flu strains in the past may have some immunity, CDC officials said Sunday.

Worldwide, attention focused sharply on travelers.

"It was acquired in Mexico, brought home and spread," Nova Scotia's chief public health officer, Dr. Robert Strang, said of Canada's first four confirmed cases, in student travelers.

New Zealand said 10 students who took a school trip to Mexico probably had swine flu, and on Monday it said three students in a second group just back from Mexico probably have it as well. Spanish authorities had seven suspected cases under observation. In Brazil, a hospital said a patient who arrived from Mexico was hospitalized with some swine flu symptoms. A New York City school where eight cases are confirmed will be closed Monday and Tuesday.

China, Russia and Taiwan began planning to quarantine travelers arriving from flu-affected areas if they have symptoms. Italy, Poland and Venezuela advised citizens to postpone travel to affected parts of Mexico and the U.S.

Multiple airlines, including American, United, Continental, US Airways, Mexicana and Air Canada, are waiving their usual penalties for changing reservations for anyone traveling to, from or through Mexico, but have not canceled flights.

The U.S. hasn't advised against travel to Mexico but does urge precautions such as frequent hand-washing while there, and has begun questioning arriving travelers about flu symptoms.

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Associated Press writers Mark Stevenson and Olga R. Rodriguez in Mexico City; Frank Jordans in Geneva; Mike Stobbe in Atlanta; and Maria Cheng in London contributed to this report.

As a part of the final class on International Business (MBA), we will discuss anti-dumping and trade war. Following news would be the basis of the discussion.
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Steel Wars: Europe and the U.S. Accuse China of Dumping

Play Video Reuters – China automaker's shine at show

Reuters – An employee works at an iron and steel factory in Changzhi, Shanxi province April 24, 2009. China may …

By LEO CENDROWICZ / BRUSSELS Leo Cendrowicz / Brussels – Sat Apr 25, 1:40 am ET

Are Europe and the U.S. headed for a steel war with China? Brussels and Washington have long complained that China unfairly helps its steel makers. Now the recession - and the different way steel firms are responding to it - is adding to the angst.

In February the alliance of European steel manufacturers Eurofer accused China of systematically distorting steel markets through subsidies. The result, say Europe's steel makers, has been "irrational capacity extension." The European Commission has slapped duties on Chinese steel pipe imports, and is now threatening World Trade Organization action as well.

On April 8, the U.S. steel industry filed an antidumping suit with American authorities against Beijing, alleging that $2.7 billion of pipe steel was unfairly dumped onto the American market last year. Eurofer General Director Gordon Moffat calls it a "perfect storm" for a trade war. "Demand has fallen off a cliff since October," Moffat says. "We know China is simply waiting for demand to return before flooding the markets."

Steelmakers around the world have indeed been hit by falling demand from automakers, shipbuilders, construction and heavy engineering sectors. Tight credit and the need to generate cash flows have resulted in a massive drop in steel inventories industry-wide.

But where European and U.S. steel mills are cutting back on production, China seems to be expanding. Luxemburg-based ArcelorMittal, the world's biggest steelmaker, is slashing output by half, for instance. Yet state-supported Chinese steel companies are actually ramping up both capacity and output, according to Chinese government figures. The China Iron and Steel Association says that the production of crude steel has risen since December, from 1.2 million tons a day to 1.4 million. (China's annual excess production capacity is already about 100 million tons, more than the annual U.S. steel output.)

China's steel makers employ some 2.5 million people and Beijing is desperate to keep those jobs going. But U.S. and European rivals say China isn't playing fair and accuse Beijing of subsidizing steel companies, offering preferential tax rates, giving access to low-priced materials, and exempting steel firms from labor and environmental rules.

European and U.S. steel makers say those policies have artificially depressed steel prices and helped boost China's share of total E.U. steel imports from 2% in 2003 to 30% today and its share of U.S. imports from 4% in 2003 to 19% today. "The Chinese are in trouble and they must decide between allowing growth rates to fall - something that is politically very difficult - or annoying their trading partners by dumping their exports," says Paul Scott, managing consultant at London-based mining analysts CRU. "They are likely to choose the lesser of two evils, exporting their way out of the problem, and this could trigger a trade war."

WHO declares international concern over swine flu

By FRANK JORDANS, Associated Press Writer Frank Jordans, Associated Press Writer Sat Apr 25, 4:56 pm ET

GENEVA – The World Health Organization warned countries around the world Saturday to be on alert for any unusual flu outbreaks after a unique new swine flu virus was implicated in possibly dozens of human deaths in North America.

WHO Director-General Margaret Chan said the outbreak in Mexico and the United States constituted a "public health emergency of international concern."

The decision means countries around the world will be asked to step up reporting and surveillance of the disease, which she said had "pandemic potential" because it is an animal virus strain infecting people. But the agency cannot at this stage say "whether or not it will indeed cause a pandemic," she added.

Chan made the decision to declare public health emergency of international concern after consulting with influenza experts from around the world. The emergency committee was called together Saturday for the first time since it was created in 2007.

In theory, WHO could now recommend travel advisories, trade restrictions or border closures, none of which would be binding. So far it has refrained from doing so.

The agency also held off raising its pandemic alert level, citing the need for more information.

Earlier, Chan told reporters that "it would be prudent for health officials within countries to be alert to outbreaks of influenza-like illness or pneumonia, especially if these occur in months outside the usual peak influenza season."

"Another important signal is excess cases of severe or fatal flu-like illness in groups other than young children and the elderly, who are usually at highest risk during normal seasonal flu," she said.

Several Latin American and Asian countries have already started surveillance or screening at airports and other points of entry.

At least 62 people have died from severe pneumonia caused by a flu-like illness in Mexico, WHO says. Some of those who died are confirmed to have a unique flu type that is a combination of bird, pig and human viruses. The virus is genetically identical to one found in California.

U.S. authorities said eight people were infected with swine flu in California and Texas, and all recovered.

So far, no other countries have reported suspicious cases, according to WHO.

But the French government said suspected cases are likely to occur in the coming days because of global air travel. A French government crisis group began operating Saturday. The government has already closed the French school in Mexico City and provided French citizens there with detailed instructions on precautions.

Chilean authorities ordered a sanitary alert that included airport screening of passengers arriving from Mexico. No cases of the disease have been reported so far in the country, Deputy Health Minister Jeanette Vega said, but those showing symptoms will be sent to a hospital for tests.

In Peru, authorities will monitor travelers arriving from Mexico and the U.S. and people with flu-like symptoms will be evaluated by health teams, Peru's Health Ministry said.

Brazil will "intensify its health surveillance in all points of entry into the country," the Health Ministry's National Health Surveillance Agency said in a statement. Measures will also be put in place to inspect cargo and luggage, and to clean and disinfect aircraft and ships at ports of entry.

Some Asian nations enforced checks Saturday on passengers from Mexico.

Japan's biggest international airport stepped up health surveillance, while the Philippines said it may quarantine passengers with fevers who have been to Mexico. Health authorities in Thailand and Hong Kong said they were closely monitoring the situation.

Asia has fresh memories of an outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, which hit countries across the region and severely crippled global air travel.

Indonesia, China, Thailand, Vietnam and other countries have also seen a number of human deaths from H5N1 bird flu, the virus that researchers have until now fingered as the most likely cause of a future pandemic.

The Dutch government's Institute for Public Health and Environment has advised any traveler who returned from Mexico since April 17 and develops a fever over 101.3 degrees Fahrenheit (38.5 Celsius) within four days of arriving in the Netherlands to stay at home.

The Polish Foreign Ministry has issued a statement that recommends that Poles postpone any travel plans to regions where the outbreak has occurred until it is totally contained.

The Stockholm-based European Center for Disease Prevention and Control said earlier Saturday it shared the concerns about the swine flu cases and stood ready to lend support in any way possible.

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Associated Press Writer Maria Cheng in London, and AP writers around the world contributed to this report.

What are the common attributes among the Mega successful Entrepreneur

If you want to be an entrepreneur, you must read the following article-
Ryan Baidya
Biopreneur
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Billionaire Clusters

by Duncan Greenberg
Wednesday, April 1, 2009provided by

Want to become a billionaire? Up your chances by dropping out of college, working at Goldman Sachs or joining Skull & Bones.

Are billionaires born or made? What are the common attributes among the uber-wealthy? Are there any true secrets of the self-made?

More from Forbes.com: • In Depth: Billionaire Clusters • The 2009 Billionaire List • The Next Billionaire Boom

We get these questions a lot, and decided it was time to go beyond the broad answers of smarts, ambition and luck by sorting through our database of wealthy individuals in search of bona fide trends. We analyzed everything from the billionaires' parents' professions to where they went to school, their track records in the early stages of their careers and other experiences that may have put them on the path to extreme wealth.

Our admittedly unscientific study of the 657 self-made billionaires we counted in February for our list of the World's Billionaires yielded some interesting results.

First, a significant percentage of billionaires had parents with a high aptitude for math. The ability to crunch numbers is crucial to becoming a billionaire, and mathematical prowess is hereditary. Some of the most common professions among the parents of American billionaires (for whom we could find the information) were engineer, accountant and small-business owner.

Consistent with the rest of the population, more American billionaires were born in the fall than in any other season. However, relatively few billionaires were born in December, traditionally the month with the eighth highest birth rate. This anomaly holds true among billionaires in the U.S. and abroad.

More than 20% of the 292 of the self-made American billionaires on the most recent list of the World's Billionaires have either never started or never completed college. This is especially true of those destined for careers as technology entrepreneurs: Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Michael Dell, Larry Ellison, and Theodore Waitt.

Billionaires who derive their fortunes from finance make up one of the most highly educated sub-groups: More than 55% of them have graduate degrees. Nearly 90% of those with M.B.A.s obtained their master's degree from one of three Ivy League schools: Harvard, Columbia or U. Penn's Wharton School of Business.

Goldman Sachs has attracted a large share of hungry minds that went on to garner 10-figure fortunes. At least 11 current and recent billionaire financiers worked at Goldman early in their careers, including Edward Lampert, Daniel Och, Tom Steyer and Richard Perry.

Several billionaires suffered a bitter professional setback early in their careers that heightened their fear of failure. Pharmaceutical tycoon R.J. Kirk's first venture was a flop--an experience he regrets but appreciates. "Failure early on is a necessary condition for success, though not a sufficient one," he told Forbes in 2007.

According to a statement read by Phil Falcone during a congressional hearing in November, his botched buyout of a company in Newark in the early 1990s taught him "several valuable lessons that have had a profound impact upon my success as a hedge fund manager."

Several current and former billionaires rounded out their Yale careers as members of Skull and Bones, the secret society portrayed with enigmatic relish by Hollywood in movies like The Skulls and W. Among those who were inducted: investor Edward Lampert, Blackstone co-founder Steven Schwarzman, and FedEx founder Frederick Smith.

Parents Had Math-Related Careers

The ability to crunch numbers is normally a key to becoming a billionaire. Often, mathematical prowess is hereditary. Some of the most common professions among the parents of American billionaires for whom we could find that information were engineer, accountant and small-business owner.

September Birthdays

Of the 380 self-made American tycoons who have appeared on the Forbes list of the World's Billionaires in the past three years, 42 were born in September--more than in any other month. Maybe that's because September is the month the Forbes list of the 400 richest Americans is published.

Tech Titans Who Dropped Out of College

Forget everything your guidance counselor told you: You don't have to go to college to be successful. More than 20% of the self-made American moguls on the most recent list of the World's Billionaires never finished college. Many of them made their fortunes in tech. Among them: Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Michael Dell, Larry Ellison, (Oracle) and Theodore Waitt (Gateway).

Skull and Bones

Several current and former billionaires rounded out their Yale careers as members of Skull and Bones, the secret society portrayed with enigmatic relish by Hollywood in movies like The Skulls and W. Among those who were inducted: investor Edward Lampert, Blackstone co-founder Steven Schwarzman and FedEx founder Frederick Smith.

Goldman Sachs

A stint at investment bank Goldman Sachs is a prime credential for becoming a finance billionaire. Of the 68 self-made American billionaires that derive their fortunes from finance, at least eight cut their teeth in Goldman's investment banking, trading, or asset management divisions. The company's crown jewel: its "risk arbitrage" unit, which launched the careers of billionaires Edward Lampert and Daniel Och, as well as former billionaires Tom Steyer and Richard Perry.

Click here for the full list of billionaire clusters.

Copyrighted, Forbes.com. All rights reserved.

Best books about India

By SUDHIR KAKAR

1. Ka
By Roberto Calasso
Knopf, 1998

"Suddenly an eagle darkened the sky," begins "Ka," Roberto Calasso's vivid retelling of Indian myths. Calasso brings ancient stories as alive for a non-Indian reader as they continue to be for most Indians. For in India, tales about the origins of the world, of man and sex and death, are not cadavers on the dissecting table of mythologists. The stories are worked and reworked into modern forms -- never more captivatingly than by Calasso in "Ka" -- and they continue to be the preferred medium for the expression of metaphysical and social thought.

2. Slowly Down the Ganges
By Eric Newby
Scribner, 1966

In 1963, Eric Newby and his wife, Wanda, undertook a 1,200-mile journey by boat from the Himalayan origins of India's most sacred river, through the country's densely populous plains, to the river's terminus in the Bay of Bengal. The Newbys and their crew ran aground 63 times in the first six days, and plenty of miseries followed, but in "Slowly Down the Ganges," the laconic Newby reports every mishap, every miscommunication, with an appealing sense of humor. He is full of warmth toward India and its people, but he has a keen eye and is always conscious of his outsider status among the Hindus: "However well-intentioned he might be, and however anxious to participate, for a European to bathe in the Ganges . . . was simply for him to have a bath."

3. Autobiography of an Unknown Indian
By Nirad Chaudhuri
Macmillan, 1951

In his "Autobiography of an Unknown Indian," Nirad Chaudhuri (1897-1999) gives us a tragi-comic portrait of an Indian middle class eternally caught between the traditional and the modern. His memoir begins early in the 20th century, when he was growing up in rural Bengal; it then describes his youth in Calcutta and his life as a struggling writer in Delhi just after Indian independence in 1947. When the book was published, many Indians were outraged by Chaudhuri's paeans to the country's recently departed British rulers and by his detestation of all things Indian. With the passage of time, though, Chaudhuri's intemperate outbursts and his attacks on his countrymen's failings came to be regarded as part of his lovable eccentricity. The book remains one of the best chronicles of the Indian middle class's enduring love affair with the West, even if England has since been replaced by the U.S. as the object of desire.

4. India: A Wounded Civilization
By V.S. Naipaul
Knopf, 1977

The year is 1975, during the period known as the Emergency, when Prime Minister Indira Gandhi suspended the country's constitution and assumed dictatorial powers. Naipaul, who was born in an Indian immigrant enclave in Trinidad, recounts his travels through a "wounded" country. India "isn't my home," he notes, "and yet I cannot reject it or be indifferent to it." Instead, he is often hostile toward it, especially toward modern Indian art, architecture and literature. He does not restrict his complaints to modernity; he also rails against the dead weight of India's past. The country might have won its independence from Britain, but it is "a land of far older defeat." With the declaration of the Emergency, he writes, "it is necessary to fight against the chilling sense of a new Indian dissolution." Luckily, India survived its flirtation with dictatorship, a time that Naipaul memorably captures in this portrait of a country in distress.

5. The Collected Essays of A.K. Ramanujan
By A.K. Ramanujan
Oxford, 1999

A.K. Ramanujan (1929-93) was one of India's finest English-language poets, a devoted folklorist and a scholar of Indian literature. His essays crystallize a theme that runs through much of his work: the interplay between the India of the past -- both personal and collective -- and the Western-centric modern nation. The collection includes his classic "Is There an Indian Way of Thinking?," wherein Ramanujan argues that Indian thinking is overwhelmingly "context sensitive," in contrast to the "context free," or abstract, thinking of the West. Ramanujan was that rare writer who combined the mind of a scholar with the heart of a poet.

Mr. Kakar's books include "The Indians: Portrait of a People." His "Mad and Divine: Spirit and Psyche in the Modern World" will be published in May by the University of Chicago Press.

IBMgmt Transcripts For Week 11 - HGU

BRANDING:

To succeed in branding one must understand the needs and wants of customers and prospects. Need to do this by integrating one's brand strategies through the company at every point of public contact.A strong brand is invaluable as the battle for customers intensifies day by day. It's important to spend time investing in researching, defining, and building brand. After all brand is the source of a promise to consumer. It's a foundational piece in marketing communication and one do not want to be without.
The Objectives that a good brand will achieve include:

Delivers the message clearly
Confirms your credibility
Connects your target prospects emotionally
Motivates the buyer
Concretes User Loyalty


GLOBAL PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT:

There is a growing trend among companies to develop new products by tapping into expertise and resources in multiple countries, both within and outside their own firms. Realizing that products may be designed with the world market in mind, (Not just a region, or National markets) companies like Intel, TI, IBM, HP, Oracle, Microsoft, Pfizer, Nestle, P&G etc. are bringing personnel together, physically and/or electronically, from distant sites into global new product development teams. This global teams are a relatively new phenomenon, constituting the next wave of corporate development. A recent survey of firms found that nearly 75% are using global teams for a range of tasks, and almost two-thirds claim these teams have led to innovations in product and service offerings. Some major trends which contribute to the growing use of global teams are:

1. Increasing cost of new product development, thus favoring spreading innovation costs among several business units.
2. Shortening new product life cycles which is forcing companies to introduce innovations faster and better.
3. Rising technological competencies in countries outside the traditional triad. India is now the second largest exporter of software programs.


LOCATION OF R & D ACTIVITIES:

1. Past tendency to keep activities centrally located with parent corporation headquarters.
2. Using foreign based resources improves ability to compete successfully at international level.
3. Outsourcing shortens product development cycle time.
4. Determine by the existence of specific skills.


REASONS FOR R & D INVESTMENTS ABROAD:

1. To aid technology transfer from parent to subsidiary.
2. To develop new and improved products specifically for foreign markets.
3. To develop new products and processes for application in world markets of the firm.
4. To generate new technology.

Rural Economy in India and GDP turn-around

By HARSH JOSHI

India has long protected its farmers. Corporate India now hopes farmers will do the same for them.

As consumer confidence and retail sales tumble in India's cities, the country's villages are emerging as a bright spot.

Bloomberg News

Nearly 60% of rural workers are farmers or employed on the country's farms, the Rural Marketing Association of India says. So rural consumption is largely propped up by farm price supports and employment schemes -- political offerings worth billions of government rupees that have added to four consecutive years of farm sector growth.

It all makes the lure of this massive market -- more than 700 million Indians live in the villages -- more urgent for corporate India.

Products and marketing targeted specifically to shoppers with lighter wallets are in. And companies that have long established distribution networks in the countryside, such as Hindustan Unilever, are in a sweet spot.

Others are chasing the rural consumer with greater energy.

Godrej Consumer Products, for example, recently began selling smaller-size packages of hair dyes and soaps; it's also deploying vans and additional stockists to remote villages. Already 35% of its sales come from rural regions. Godrej says its countryside business is growing by 25% a year compared with 20% overall.

Maruti Suzuki, which makes one of two cars sold in India, has begun hawking some models at rural festivals. Rural sales rose to 8% of total sales in the year ended March 31, from 3.5% the previous year.

Profiting from the rise of rural India is, in effect, a high volume, low margin proposition. The corporate winners will be those who grasp this concept and shape their product offerings accordingly.

But they know they can count on one thing in this very political of nations: The importance of the vast rural voting bloc means the protective cosseting the countryside economy now enjoys is likely to continue for some time.

Write to Harsh Joshi at harsh.joshi@dowjones.com

Ecuador buys seven helicopters from India

www.chinaview.cn 2009-04-03 10:04:29

Print

QUITO, April 2 (Xinhua) -- The Ecuadorian Air Force said Thursday it has bought seven helicopters from India for transporting personnel and rescue operations.

Of the seven choppers, one will be exclusively used by Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa, news reports said.

Five of the seven HAL helicopters, Dhruv, are being assemble in the air base of Taura, in Guayaquil. The choppers were bought from the Indian company Hindustan Aeronautics Limited at a cost of 50 million U.S. dollars.

The helicopters have the capacity of carrying 15 passengers and can fly a maximum altitude of 21,000 feet.

The training to fly the helicopters will take some three months, and two Indian pilots will stay in Ecuador for two years to train the pilots, according to Rodrigo Bohorquez, commander of the Ecuadorian Air Force.