Home prices in China, Hong Kong and Singapore have risen sharply over the past year, sparking fears of property bubbles in some Asian cities. But CapitaLand said it was confident strong economic growth would lend support to regional property prices.
Home prices in China, Hong Kong and Singapore have risen sharply over the past year, sparking fears of property bubbles in some Asian cities. But CapitaLand said it was confident strong economic growth would lend support to regional property prices.
Revenue in 1Q2010 grew 41% to $687.3 million largely from residential development projects in Singapore, China and Vietnam, as well as increased contribution from serviced residences operations.
Minister of State for External Affairs Shashi Tharoor Friday said India’s improving relations with countries of South Asia and South East Asia will accelerate development in the landlocked northeastern states.
“I see an opportunity for India to advance its national priorities in this region and its foreign policy in the wider region in one seamless approach,” [...]
The Vietnamese government refuted charges of a cyber-attack targeting opponents of a Chinese-backed mining operation, calling Google’s comments groundless. According to McAfee, the attack created a botnet of infected Windows PCs and launched distributed denial-of-service attacks against certain political blogs.
– The Vietnamese government rebuffed charges by Google that Vietnamese PC
owners were being targeted
by attackers.
The comments, posted online Saturday, were in response to a blog post by a
member of Googles security team outlining a malware attack. According to
Googles Neel Mehta, the infected …
Google and McAfee have traced widespread malware attacks back to a dispute over a mining operation in Vietnam backed by China. Infected machines have been used to spy on their owners as well as launch distributed denial of service attacks against the mining operation’s critics.
– Google and McAfee have uncovered evidence that a campaign of politically-motivated cyber-attacks are targeting critics of a Chinese-backed mining operation in Vietnam.
In a blog post, Neel Mehta of Googles security team noted the cyber-assault on Vietnamese activists is separate from the Aurora …
How to build ethical understanding into pilotless war planes
WHAT the helicopter was to the Vietnam war, the drone is becoming to the Afghan conflict: both a crucial weapon in the American armoury and a symbol of technological might pitted against stubborn resistance. Pilotless aircraft such as the Predator and the Reaper, armed with Hellfire missiles, can hit targets without placing a pilot in harm’s way. They have proved particularly useful for assassinations. On February 17th, for example, Sheikh Mansoor, an al-Qaeda leader in the Pakistani district of North Waziristan, was killed by a drone-borne Hellfire. In consequence of this and actions like it, America wants to increase drone operations.
Assassinating “high value targets”, such as Mr Mansoor, often involves a moral quandary. A certain amount of collateral damage has always been accepted in the rough-and-tumble of the battlefield, but direct attacks on civilian sites, even if they have been commandeered for military use, causes queasiness in thoughtful soldiers. If they have not been so commandeered, attacks on such sites may constitute war crimes. And drone attacks often kill civilians. On June 23rd 2009, for example, an attack on a funeral in South Waziristan killed 80 non-combatants. …
This list included to Britain, the United States, Italy, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, China, Hong Kong and Japan. The one destination where it was not No. 1 was to New Zealand, as its flights are operated by Air New Zealand (AIR.NZ).
CapitaLand’s wholly-owned serviced residence business unit, The Ascott Limited, has been awarded a contract to manage a serviced residence in Danang, the fourth largest city in Vietnam, by Korea Investment & Development Co. The latter is an established real-estate consortium that specialises in commercial and residential developments across major cities in Vietnam.
Global deforestation decreases, but still remains high
THE pace at which the world’s forests are vanishing has slackened over the past decade but it is still alarming, according to the Food and Agriculture Organisation, a UN agency. Between 2000 and 2010, the net loss of forest was 5.2m hectares per year, compared with 8.3m in the previous decade. South America and Africa had the biggest net annual decrease over the past decade—at 4m and 3.4m hectares respectively. But tree-planting programmes in China, India, Vietnam and the United States helped to offset this. Most of these programmes are due to end in 2020, and the current situation is at best a “short window of opportunity” to stop the disappearance of forests, says the co-ordinator of this year’s quin-annual assessment.
…
Avian influenza remains a threat to human health despite a decline in cases since a peak in 2006, the World Health Organisation (WHO) warned Wednesday.
WHO noted that so far this year, 21 human cases of H5N1, including seven deaths, have been reported.
“Sixteen of those were in Egypt, including five deaths, four in Vietnam, including one [...]
New pictures of John Lennon and his wife Yoko Ono, clicked during their famous Bed-in for Peace in Montreal in 1969, have surfaced.
The pictures, snapped by Life photographer Gerry Deiter, are being showcased in an exhibition in Coventry Cathedral, West Mids.
Deiter was the only photojournalist who was permitted to capture the couple for the full [...]
Ryobi Kiso Holdings, the ground engineering and piling solutions provider, says its wholly-owned subsidiary Raffles Piling Vietnam Co. and Vietnamese contractor Binh Dinh Construction Co., a unit of Duc Khai Joint-Stock Company, has won a bored piling contract in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, worth over $7 million.
Ntegrator International, the communications network specialist and systems integrator, announced a 46.5% increase in net profit of $0.9 million for the full year ended December 31, 2009 (FY2009).
Revenue increased by 16.7% from $47.9 million the previous year (FY2008) to $55.9 million in FY2009. The timely completion of several major projects in Vietnam contributed to the majority of the increase. Revenue was also boosted by project completion in Singapore.
Koon Holdings, the civil engineering group specialising in reclamation and shore protection, says its subsidiary, M/s Koon – Top Pave Joint Venture, has been awarded a US$160 million ($226 million) contract for the turnkey design and construction of Sao Bien International Port in Ba Ria, Vung Tau, Vietnam.
Colin Firth and Carey Mulligan have been named Best British Actor and Actress at the 30th annual London Film Critics’ Circle Awards.
Firth, 49, was honoured for his role as a gay professor in Tom Ford’s directorial debut ‘A Single Man’, while Mulligan, 24, received the award for her part in ‘An Education’, written by Nick [...]
Words by: Sam Libby | Images by: Joshua Elioseff/Dancerproductions.com
Buffalo Heart Project Benefit :: 02.05.10 :: Boulder Theater :: Boulder, CO
 Plenty Wolf Singers :: 02.05 :: Boulder, CO |
Elephant Revival was the featured band at the Buffalo Heart Project (B.H.P.) Benefit at the Boulder Theater, which raised thousands of dollars for emergency heating assistance for people living on the Pine Ridge and Rose Bud Reservations of the Lakota people during this particularly cold and trying winter. The concert was in all ways a major, defining event for Elephant Revival, which is on the cusp of a major breakout into the greater national music scene. It also defined the band’s unique social activism.
All proceeds from the evening directly benefited non-profit organization
Conscious Alliance‘s “Art that Feeds” program in partnership with The Buffalo Heart Project to provide fuel and firewood for emergency heating assistance on the Pine Ridge Reservation. Marquee Magazine, ElephantJournal.com and Lyons Compassionate Care, as well as major Colorado Front Range musicians, contributed to the evening’s musical celebration and awareness raising about the continued plight of the Lakota.
Elephant Revival is a leader in the emerging, influential musical genre being called “Transcendental Folk.” All the musical artists who joined Elephant Revival for the benefit concert contribute in some way to the defining of this new genre.
 Jim Page :: 02.05 :: Boulder, CO |
The Plenty Wolf Singers, a traditional Lakota drumming society, initiated the concert with prayer and invocation to the Great Spirit/Creator with sad yet triumphant traditional drumming and singing. The music of the Plenty Wolf Singers is the song of our shared American landscape/topography, a sad, primal lamentation of dispossession and attempted genocide where economically worthless badlands become Indian Reservations forming new frontiers of despair, hopelessness and oppression.
With attendees gathered around the mother drum, the intention of the evening pulsed forth and gained cadence as the drum, the living heartbeat of the American landscape, inaugurated and invoked the evening’s magical unfolding.
The Plenty Wolf Singers were joined by surprise special guest Silent Bear, a fellow resident and musician from the Rose Bud Reservation. Silent Bear received permission from Pete Seeger to alter the words to Seeger’s famous Vietnam protest song, “Bring Them Home.” Silent Bear’s adaptation, entitled “Bring Him Home,” is reference and homage to Leonard Peltier who has spent 34 years wrongly imprisoned for a crime he did not commit. The song became a shared, heartfelt prayer for justice to come to those in need.
The Plenty Wolf Singers were a persistent presence during the concert, providing a focus to the show as the bands were setting up, as well as ending the concert with ceremony and prayer.
Jim Page was another major presence during the show, acting as master of ceremony and providing historical context and demonstrating why he is one of the most notable, worthy American songwriters plying his craft today. Page played his haunting, signature song, “The Wind Did Blow” (accompanied by Elephant Revival), about the wind that blew and froze the corpses of the men, women, children and old folks murdered by the U.S. 7th Cavalry at Wounded Knee, South Dakota on December 29, 1890.
 Boulder Acoustic Society :: 02.05 :: Boulder, CO |
As emcee, Page wove his own songs in between the other band’s sets throughout the evening. Page included his own verse of Woody Guthrie’s “This Land is Your Land” and a current protest song penned about the war in Iraq called “Collateral Damage.” His song “Heroes & Survivors” referenced the overpowering will of humanity to carry on through oppression and persecution. Page sang of ‘Anna Mae’ Aquash, a member of the American Indian Movement (A.I.M.) who was found murdered on the Pine Ridge Reservation in 1976.
As the late great folk legend Utah Phillips stated, “Jim Page is one of the great songwriters of our times. He is a master of the songwriting craft. Jim Page’s songs get right to the point. He looks at the world clearly and reports what he sees with compassion, humor and a biting sense of irony.”
The Buffalo Heart Project Benefit was a night which invited all participants to breakout their best protest songs, and The Boulder Acoustic Society accepted the invitation. They took the posture of rabble-rousers and ended their set by going into the audience. They sang the timeless protest song “Lift Every Voice” and Steve Earle’s “Oxycontin Blues.”
 Laura Goldhamer :: 02.05 :: Boulder, CO |
Reed Foehl stood before the packed theater with nothing but his harmonica and acoustic guitar evoking a young Bob Dylan in his early Greenwich Village days. And like young Dylan, his songs were sad laments of isolation and alienation. He also covered Dylan’s “Visions of Johanna” beautifully.
Laura Goldhamer & The Silver Nail also sang songs of isolation and alienation, and the hope of transcending and rising above one’s woes. The band’s songs were illustrated by an onstage slide show projected on a bed sheet.
Many sad songs were sung. Many angry songs of protest were sung. However, in the end, Elephant Revival’s songs of hope and grace transcended all the anger and sadness.
A magic moment occurred when ER took the stage, stood silently posed in the moment and then charged into the savage blood rhythm of their Celtic battle song, with the unlikely title “Single Beds Were Made for One.” The quintet’s fusion of Scottish/Celtic fiddle tunes, original folk pieces, traditional ballads, psychedelic country, indie rock and powerful reggae grooves has such a beautiful animal/creature vitality that it made the dancers move in new archaic ways.
 Elephant Revival :: 02.05 :: Boulder, CO |
Some Elephant Revival songs spoke to the delusion of alienation and separation, while others spoke to the power we all have to make the world anew. A great highlight of the night occurred when the entire audience joined the band on the chorus of “Sing to the Mountain”: “Go and sing to the mountain/ Go and sing to the moon/ Go and sing to just about everything/ Because everything is you.”
Elephant Revival hails from Nederland, Colorado – a place whose precious minerals have been mined out, yet Nederland is amazingly rich in its abundance of musical talent. Bands and talents such as Stephen Stills, Dan Fogelberg, Joe Walsh, Leftover Salmon, The String Cheese Incident, and Yonder Mountain String Band have emerged from this part of the Colorado Front Range to take their place in the greater national musical scene. The unanimous, local folk wisdom is that Elephant Revival is next.
The kind of social activism that was showcased at the Buffalo Heart Project Benefit comes natural to Elephant Revival band members. Bonnie May Paine (vocals, washboard, djembe, musical saw) is tribal Cherokee from the capital of the Oklahoma Cherokee – Tahlequah, Oklahoma. Most of the rest of the band members have some connection to the Indian Territories of Oklahoma. From there springs forth their song of hope, comfort and transcendence.
Continue reading for more pics of the Buffalo Heart Project Benefit…
 Plenty Wolf Singers
| |
 Silent Bear
| |
 Jim Page
| |
 Reed Foehl
| |
 Boulder Acoustic Society
| |
 Bridget Law – Elephant Revival
|
Elephant Revival tour dates available here.
JamBase | Transcendentally Folky
Go See Live Music!
Angelina Jolie has debunked claims that she’s shopping around the earthquake-devastated nation of Haiti for a new adoptee.
The humanitarian baby collector is in Haiti this week touring refugee camps as part of her UN ambassador role, and according to The Sun she’s already spoken to the country’s president about providing more relief aid and about [...]
Shia LaBeouf will support U.S.VETS by racing in the Los Angeles Marathon on Sunday March, 21.
The Wall Street 2 actor will join thousands of L.A. joggers to help bring attention to the nation’s lead nonprofit organization providing services to veterans in need.
The race begins at Dodgers Stadium and winds for 26.2 miles through the city, [...]
