Sinobest Technology Holdings, a supplier of building automation systems, needs to secure new contracts that are more profitbale to continue as a going concern, auditors Nexia TS Public Accounting Corp. said in a statement. Sinobest had negative cash flow and posted a loss last year, Nexia said in a statement today.
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Delong Holdings, the Chinese steelmaker, faces “material uncertainty which may cast significant doubt about the group’s ability to continue”, independent auditors PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP said.
The company had net liabilities as of Dec 31, PwC said in a statement today released through the stock exchange in Singapore. While the company’s annual financial statements met with local requirements, PwC wanted to “draw attention” to one of the mill’s notes that accompanied the full-year financial report, it said.
Pteris Global says it has been awarded a baggage handling system project for Chennai International Airport, India. The project is scheduled to complete in June 2011.
The company also says it has received the Letter of Award for the Changsha Huanghua International Airport baggage handling system project announced on March 9.
The aggregate contract value for these two projects is $28 million.
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We’ve heard of some pretty quirky celebrity demands over the years. There’s Jennifer Lopez, who allegedly demands a dressing room replete with “All White Everything” before she can be expected to perform. Then there’s Britney Spears, who demands a medley of breakfast foods be delivered to her dressing rooms before performances. And if you want [...]
Director of Humanitarian Law Fund (FHP) NataÅ¡a Kandić says the Srebrenica declaration “would in due time contribute to reduced tensions in Bosnia-Herzegovinaâ€. “A positive side to the adoption of the declaration is that it will in due time influence a reduction of tensions in Bosnia-Herzegovina and change of opinion of the citizens of Republic of Srpska regarding Srebrenica,†she said.
Controversial businessman Ratko Knežević has filed slander charges against Montenegrin Prime Minister Milo Äukanović. Knežević’s attorney ÄŒedo Prodanović filed the charges to the Zagreb Municipal Court, stating that the Montenegrin PM should be found guilty and fined up to “150 daily wages†for the comments he made about Knežević in an interview with TV Nova, daily Vijesti writes.
The world’s most wanted man and Al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden’s favourite son, Omar, has described his father as a ‘lost’ man and a ‘fanatical father’.
Omar, the fourth among Osama’s 11 sons, was the Al-Qaeda chieftain’s favourite as he had been chosen his father’s successor, and meant to lead the terror outfit and carry on [...]
No, this isn’t just Jessica Simpson being weird again – it’s actually a legit beauty treatment. But if you’re one of the six people actually tuning in to her VH1 reality soap, The Price of Beauty, you probably already knew that.
As part of her new show, Jessica traveled to Mumbai with BFFs Ken Paves and [...]
Radon, a radioactive, colourless, odourless, tasteless noble gas present in residential buildings, has been found to contribute to the deaths of patients suffering from lung cancer.
Klaus Schmid of the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg and his co-authors say that about 1900 deaths from lung cancer per year in Germany are due to radon within residential buildings.
The authors [...]
Activists of a regional political party in Coimbatore on Wednesday held a protest against the much-speculated marriage of Indian tennis sensation Sania Mirza with Pakistani cricketer Shoaib Malik.
The marriage was announced on Tuesday and will take place in April.
The protestors condemned Mirza’’s decision to marry a Pakistani cricketer and raised slogans against her, the Central [...]
Hey music fans, did you know that today, March 31, marks the 15th anniversary of the death of ’80s-’90s Tejano superstar Selena Quintanilla-Perez?
Selena was one of music’s brightest rising young stars when she was tragically murdered by her fan club president in Texas on March 31, 1995. Two years later, her life story would become [...]
Congress President Sonia Gandhi on Wednesday met veteran freedom fighter Gaya Prasad Shukla’’s family on her one-day visit to parliamentary constituency in Rae Bareilly.
After arriving at the Fursatganj airstrip and after a brief halt at ITI, Gandhi drove straight to the Central office of the district Congress where the veteran freedom fighter lived along with [...]
Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee has called for an all-party meeting over the Women’’s Reservation Bill on April 5 before it is tabled in the upcoming session of the Parliament.
Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati has called for countrywide protests against the Bill next month, saying that the legislation was against Dalit icon Bhim Rao Ambedkar’’s ideology [...]
One of the biggest bandwagons that has rolled through the self-help community in recent years is the so-called Law of Attraction (LoA). This claims that you attract into your life whatever you think about. Before I explain why I believe that this is not a law, not true, and not helpful, let me differentiate the LoA from some associated but different self-help concepts that actually do work.
1. Positive Thinking. There is considerable evidence that having a positive, optimistic, can-do frame of mind will lead to much better outcomes in many circumstances than having a negative, pessimistic or cynical approach. Studies show that positive thinkers generally do better, live longer, and are healthier and happier than negative thinkers.
2. Focus, Goal Setting and Planning. There are many benefits in having a clear focus on what you want to achieve, in setting goals, in measuring progress against those goals and in taking corrective actions when you fall short. Many successful people base their day on having an action plan that they work through.
3. Visualization. Visualising a successful action can assist you to achieve it. If you are nervous about making a speech then visualizing yourself giving a confident, dynamic performance will help you to do just that. Visualising a great golf swing or a good tennis backhand stroke can help supplement your training and practice.
4. Self-Belief. Most successful people have enormous self-belief. They know that they have something special to offer and that they can achieve great things. They use this self-belief as the basis on which to build the plans, improvements, learnings and actions that lead to success.
5. An Attitude of Gratitude. Most of us have a great deal to be thankful for. Counting our blessings and giving thanks help us to get our difficulties into perspective and engender a positive frame of mind.
So having listed those self-help mantras that actually work let us turn to the big idea that does not. The Law of Attraction as expounded by Bob Proctor, by Rhonda Byrne in her best-selling book, The Secret, and by her many followers claims that all you need to do is to think about the things that you want in your life and the ‘Universe’ will supply them in abundance – whether they are positive or negative.  So if you think about money you will get money; if you focus on your debts you will stay in debt.  If you think about being slim you will become slim whereas if you constantly worry about how fat you are you will stay fat.  Unfortunately for the proponents of this ‘law’ there is no scientific evidence to support it. There are plenty of anecdotes from people who believe the law worked for them but for each of these stories there are many other possible explanations.  No one has carried out a controlled experiment showing that the so-called law actually works.
Furthermore the law runs up against some very practical difficulties. What if several people all want the same promotion and think about it furiously? How can they all get the same post? The law implies that whatever difficulties you have in life are the result of you thinking the wrong thoughts. So it appears that an abused child, a rape victim or a prisoner in a concentration camp was somehow to blame because they thought negative thoughts. This is offensive to victims and flies in the face of common sense.
According to the LoA if I want to win the gold medal in the 100 metres in the next Olympic Games or become President of the USA or get Jennifer Lopez as my girlfriend then all I have to do is think about my goal and it will come to me. If we want a cure for cancer then we should stop spending money on research and just think about it instead.
The appeal of the LoA lies in its lazy proposition. You do not need hard work and discipline to lose weight or get rich – you can do it by thinking. Unfortunately this just is not true.  The LoA is delusional. It is dangerous because it misleads people into believing that imagery alone will work without action.   To succeed in life you need things like talent, diligence, persistence, skills, hard-work and maybe a little luck. You can achieve great things – but in order to do so you have to do a lot more than just think about them.
Paul Sloane is an author and speaker on leadership, innovation and lateral thinking. His most recent book is The Innovative Leader. He helps organizations improve innovation, creativity and leadership. He is the founder of Destination Innovation. He has written 15 books of lateral thinking puzzles and hosts the lateral puzzles forum.Follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/PaulSloane.
One of the biggest bandwagons that has rolled through the self-help community in recent years is the so-called Law of Attraction (LoA). This claims that you attract into your life whatever you think about. Before I explain why I believe that this is not a law, not true, and not helpful, let me differentiate the LoA from some associated but different self-help concepts that actually do work.
1. Positive Thinking. There is considerable evidence that having a positive, optimistic, can-do frame of mind will lead to much better outcomes in many circumstances than having a negative, pessimistic or cynical approach. Studies show that positive thinkers generally do better, live longer, and are healthier and happier than negative thinkers.
2. Focus, Goal Setting and Planning. There are many benefits in having a clear focus on what you want to achieve, in setting goals, in measuring progress against those goals and in taking corrective actions when you fall short. Many successful people base their day on having an action plan that they work through.
3. Visualization. Visualising a successful action can assist you to achieve it. If you are nervous about making a speech then visualizing yourself giving a confident, dynamic performance will help you to do just that. Visualising a great golf swing or a good tennis backhand stroke can help supplement your training and practice.
4. Self-Belief. Most successful people have enormous self-belief. They know that they have something special to offer and that they can achieve great things. They use this self-belief as the basis on which to build the plans, improvements, learnings and actions that lead to success.
5. An Attitude of Gratitude. Most of us have a great deal to be thankful for. Counting our blessings and giving thanks help us to get our difficulties into perspective and engender a positive frame of mind.
So having listed those self-help mantras that actually work let us turn to the big idea that does not. The Law of Attraction as expounded by Bob Proctor, by Rhonda Byrne in her best-selling book, The Secret, and by her many followers claims that all you need to do is to think about the things that you want in your life and the ‘Universe’ will supply them in abundance – whether they are positive or negative.  So if you think about money you will get money; if you focus on your debts you will stay in debt.  If you think about being slim you will become slim whereas if you constantly worry about how fat you are you will stay fat.  Unfortunately for the proponents of this ‘law’ there is no scientific evidence to support it. There are plenty of anecdotes from people who believe the law worked for them but for each of these stories there are many other possible explanations.  No one has carried out a controlled experiment showing that the so-called law actually works.
Furthermore the law runs up against some very practical difficulties. What if several people all want the same promotion and think about it furiously? How can they all get the same post? The law implies that whatever difficulties you have in life are the result of you thinking the wrong thoughts. So it appears that an abused child, a rape victim or a prisoner in a concentration camp was somehow to blame because they thought negative thoughts. This is offensive to victims and flies in the face of common sense.
According to the LoA if I want to win the gold medal in the 100 metres in the next Olympic Games or become President of the USA or get Jennifer Lopez as my girlfriend then all I have to do is think about my goal and it will come to me. If we want a cure for cancer then we should stop spending money on research and just think about it instead.
The appeal of the LoA lies in its lazy proposition. You do not need hard work and discipline to lose weight or get rich – you can do it by thinking. Unfortunately this just is not true.  The LoA is delusional. It is dangerous because it misleads people into believing that imagery alone will work without action.   To succeed in life you need things like talent, diligence, persistence, skills, hard-work and maybe a little luck. You can achieve great things – but in order to do so you have to do a lot more than just think about them.
Paul Sloane is an author and speaker on leadership, innovation and lateral thinking. His most recent book is The Innovative Leader. He helps organizations improve innovation, creativity and leadership. He is the founder of Destination Innovation. He has written 15 books of lateral thinking puzzles and hosts the lateral puzzles forum.Follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/PaulSloane.
Stressing that his country is fighting a war for its survival against extremists, Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari has ruled out any cut in the nation’s defence expenditure.
Speaking during a function at the National Defence University (NDU), Zardari, however, said the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) led government is focussing on the policy of reconciliation and [...]
If Apple is indeed at work on a CDMA-based iPhone for Verizon Wireless, the move appears certain to benefit both partners. For Motorola, RIM, Palm, Samsung and LG, however, a new iPhone would mean a new challenge to raise the bar.
– Apple is said to be at work on two new iPhones its
annually updated version for AT amp;T, which is based on GSM technology, and a
CDMA-based model for Verizon Wireless according to a March 29 report from
the Wall Street Journal.
Rumors of a Verizon iPhone have been circulating for some time…
Governments oblige manufacturers to take back used goods for disposal
FOR seasoned shoppers, “buyer’s remorse” is a familiar feeling. “Seller’s remorse” may also become common soon, as ever more governments order manufacturers to assume the cost of disposing of their products after consumers are done with them. Until recently, most laws on “extended producer responsibility” (EPR) or “product stewardship” applied only to specific types of goods, such as car tyres or electronics. But in late March Maine, following the lead of several Canadian provinces, became the first American state to enact a blanket EPR law, which could in principle cover any product.
Governments are eager to unload some responsibility for waste management onto manufacturers, especially for products that are hard to recycle or may be toxic, such as electronics, batteries, paint, car parts and pesticide containers. It helps them cut costs, for one thing—handy for local authorities short of cash in the recession. In Maine, which has had an EPR law for electronic waste since 2004, municipalities save $1.5m-3m annually because manufacturers have picked up the cost of collection, according to the Natural Resources Council of Maine. Governments also hope that EPR laws will encourage firms to rethink the way they make products, designing them for longevity and recyclability rather than for the landfill. …
A resource-rich government takes on foreign mining firms
BRITISH colonialists called Ghana the Gold Coast. To this day it remains Africa’s second-biggest producer of the metal, after South Africa, and the world’s ninth-biggest. Five foreign mining firms are digging huge open pits to get at the gold, encouraged by recent record prices. But the country, once seen as one of Africa’s most welcoming jurisdictions for mining firms, is now becoming more exacting.
Ghana’s parliament has voted to increase royalties from 3% to 5%, although the president has yet to sign the bill. In February the country’s environmental regulator suspended production at AngloGold Ashanti’s Iduapriem mine because the mine’s tailings dam, which stores cyanide-laced waste, was almost full. Last year the agency prevented Golden Star Resources, a Canadian firm, from expanding a mine where it had failed to fill an abandoned pit. Most notably, earlier this year it fined Newmont, the world’s second-biggest goldmining firm, $4.9m over a cyanide spill at its Ahafo mine. …
