Isnin, 3 Disember 2012

NST Online Business Times : latest

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Country Garden buys Danga Bay land

Posted: 03 Dec 2012 05:11 PM PST

China-based property developer, Country Garden Holdings Co Ltd, has acquired 11 hectares of prime waterfront land in Danga Bay, Johor Baharu, for almost RM1 billion from Iskandar Waterfront
Holdings Sdn Bhd.

"The land purchase is the first and biggest investment to date by an investor from mainland China within Flagship 'A' of Iskandar Malaysia," said Country Garden and Iskandar Waterfront in a joint statement.

The prime site would be developed for an integrated development project with a gross development value of RM18 billion, it said.

"We are confident and upbeat about the business outlook in Iskandar Malaysia and are very happy to be one of the first from China to invest in a big way in the southern growth corridor," Country Garden President/Executive Director Mo Bin was quoted as saying in the statement.


The project, spanning three development phases, will begin with the construction of a luxury clubhouse, commercial tower, shopping mall, high-end condominium and serviced apartments.

Country Garden's, which is one of the top 10 developers in China, was acknowledged as Forbes Asia's FAB 30 Companies, with an estimated market value of US$7.6 billion (US$1.00=RM3.04).

Its maiden projects in Malaysia are two township developments in Kajang and Rawang, Selangor. -- Bernama

KL shares open lower in early trade

Posted: 03 Dec 2012 05:48 PM PST

Share prices on Bursa Malaysia traded lower,in early session today, tracking losses in selected bluechips and in line
with other regional markets, dealers said.

After 20 minutes of trading, the barometer FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) was 1.54 point lower at 1,605.81 after opening 0.66 of a point higher at 1,608.01.

HwangDBS Vicker Research said major equity indices on Wall Street slid between 0.3 per cent and 0.5 per cent at the closing bell last night.

This was due to weak manufacturing data and slow progress in the US Congress on budget negotiations, it added.


"Hence, we reckon the benchmark FBM KLCI could face renewed downward pressures, possibly testing the psychological support mark of 1,600 ahead.

"In essence, for trading activity, which came in at just 729 million shares traded yesterday, the figure may remain slow in view of a dearth of fresh market developments," said the research house.

The Finance Index declined 2.76 points to 14,959.42, the Industrial Index lost 6.94 points to 2,655.77 and the Plantation Index fell 39.12 points to 7,886.17.

The Ace Index decreased 3.76 points to 4,167.58, FBMT100 lost 8.51 points to 10,806.74, FBM Emas slipped 8.88 points to 10,955.50 while the FBM Mid 70 index declined 0.82 of a point to 12,082.18.

There were 84 losers and 84 gainers while 157 counters were unchanged, 1,314 counters untraded and 22 others were suspended. Volume stood at 56.128 million shares worth RM38.678 million.

Actives, Takaso Resources added one sen to 27 sen, PNE PCB rose 1.5 sen to 32.5 sen and Takaso Res-Warr was flat at 15 sen.

Heavyweights, Maybank and CIMB earned one sen each to RM9.03 and RM7.49, respectively, Sime Darby shed one sen to RM8.95 and Axiata Group rose four sen to RM5.94. -- Bernama

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Prince William and Kate expecting a baby - CBS News

Posted: 03 Dec 2012 08:41 AM PST

There's a royal baby on the way.

37 Photos

Prince William and Kate

Palace officials announced Monday that Prince William and Kate are expecting their first child.

"Their Royal Highnesses The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge are very pleased to announce that The Duchess of Cambridge is expecting a baby," the announcement said. "The Queen, The Duke of Edinburgh, The Prince of Wales, The Duchess of Cornwall and Prince Harry and members of both families are delighted with the news."

17 Photos

Baby bumps

The announcement added that Kate was admitted to King Edward VII Hospital in London on Monday with Hyperemesis Gravidarum, a severe form of morning sickness. William is at his wife's side.

The palace said that since the pregnancy is in its "very early stages," the 30-year-old duchess is expected to stay in the hospital for several days and will require a period of rest afterward.

William is second in line to the throne after his father, Prince Charles, so the couple's first child would normally become monarch in due course.

In recent days, Kate has kept up royal appearances -- recently playing field hockey with schoolchildren at her former prep school and paying an official visit to Cambridge with her husband.

The confirmation of her pregnancy caps a jam-packed year of highs and lows for the young royals, who were married in a lavish ceremony at Westminster Abbey last year.

They have traveled the world extensively as part of Queen Elizabeth II's Diamond Jubilee celebrations and weathered the embarrassment of a nude photo scandal, after a tabloid snapper published topless images of the duchess.

Joe Little, managing editor of Majesty magazine, said the news bookended a year that saw the royal family riding high in popular esteem after celebrations of Queen Elizabeth II's 60 years on the throne.

"We're riding on a royal high at the moment at the end of the diamond jubilee year," he said. "People enjoyed the royal romance last year and now there's this. It's just a good news story amid all the doom and gloom."

Speculation about when William and his bride would start a family has been rife since their wedding.

William's mother -- the late Princess Diana -- got pregnant just four months after her wedding in 1981. Like Kate, Diana reportedly suffered from morning sickness for months and complained of constant media attention.

"The whole world is watching my stomach," Diana once said.

American tabloid speculation of the pregnancy has been rampant for months. One newspaper even cited anonymous sources talking about Kate's hormone levels. Others have focused on the first signs of the royal bump.

News of the pregnancy drew congratulations from across the U.K. establishment. The palace said the royal family was "delighted" by the news, while Prime Minister David Cameron wrote on Twitter that the royals "will make wonderful parents."

Not only are the attractive young couple popular -- with William's easy common touch reminding many of his mother -- but their child is expected to play an important role in British national life for decades to come.

Whether boy or girl, the child will be behind William in the line of succession to the throne, Cabinet Office officials said.

Leaders of Britain and the 15 former colonies that have the monarch as their head of state agreed in 2011 to new rules which give females equal status with males in the order of succession.

Although none of the nations had legislated to make the change as of September 2012, the British Cabinet Office confirmed that this is now the de-facto rule.

On the couple's tour of Malaysia, Singapore, the Solomon Islands and Tuvalu in September, William reportedly said he hoped he and Kate would have two children.

Fiscal cliff talks settle into standoff as both sides sour on compromise - The Guardian

Posted: 03 Dec 2012 09:19 AM PST

House Speaker Boehner
John Boehner speaks during a news conference Friday on Capitol Hill in Washington DC. Photograph: Alex Wong/Getty Images

Talks between the White House and congressional Republican leaders over the pending fiscal crisis have hit the buffers, with no sign of compromise on either side and with just 29 days to go before the advent of automatic spending cuts and tax increases that economists say could propel the US into another recession.

The negotiations over avoiding the fiscal cliff, in which in the absence of agreement a $607bn package of spending cuts and tax rises would take effect on 1 January, now look certain to enter a nail-biting game of call-my-bluff. With so much riding on the outcome, the two main parties appear to have hardened their positions, guaranteeing a period of stalemate.

Lindsey Graham, the Republican senator of South Carolina, has put it most bluntly: "I think we're going over the cliff," he told CBS.

The most striking aspect of the current standoff is the unbending stance that President Obama is adopting over the talks in stark contrast to his much more flexible approach during his first term in office. White House aides have been briefing that he will not again allow the fiasco of last year's clash over the US borrowing ceiling in which Obama attempted to find a compromise with the Republican leadership only to have his fingers burned.

The White House is clearly entering the fiscal cliff talks with the bullish attitude that Obama's victory in the presidential election last month, albeit narrow, has given him a mandate to stand firm on his vision of how to solve the current fiscal crisis. For now at least, he is sticking with his proposal of $4tn in deficit reduction over 10 years which includes cuts to Medicare and Medicaid and military spending, but also crucially involves a $1.6tn increase in revenue achieved by taxing top income earners more.

The tax increases would allow the top tax band to rise back to the level that was in place under Bill Clinton: 39.6%.

Jim Manley, a Democratic strategist who was an adviser to Harry Reid, the party's leader in the Senate, told Bloomberg News that the president and his inner circle had radically revised their negotiating position towards the Republicans after they concluded in the wake of the failed 2011 talks that attempts at bipartisan compromise were self-defeating. "They took that lesson to heart and they're not going to allow themselves to get suckered into reaching bad agreements to get a deal," he said.

Both as a symbol of his new more assertive stance, and as a tactical gambit designed to increase his leverage with Congress, Obama has continued to hit the campaign trail even beyond election day to underline his electoral mandate for tax increases on the rich. He has attended a rally in Pennsylvania, and he is sustaining an aggressive outreach campaign through Twitter and his massive database of email addresses encouraging his supporters to raise their voices and make their views known about the fiscal cliff.

But, so far, the Republicans are also holding firm, appearing to be as averse to compromise as the White House. Leaders John Boehner in the House and Mitch McConnell in the Senate are maintaining their hostility towards any tax increases for top earners, while deriding the president for failing to offer any new ideas about how to deal with the rising burden of so-called "entitlements" – Medicare, Medicaid and social security.

"The administration has put something out that polls well: taxing the wealthy. What they haven't done is anything to deal with entitlements, which is painful, and you're not going to have a deal until that happens," said Bob Corker, a Republican US senator from Tennessee.

Amid such dogged grandstanding as the clock ticks, there are a few isolated voices of optimism. Richard Blumenthal, a Democratic House representative in Connecticut, said that he saw evidence of a sea change among Republicans on the vital issue of tax rises for the rich. He told CNN on Monday: "There is a growing group of Republicans who say we really need to raise revenue, not just talk about revenue, but also increase taxes on the wealthiest 2% and they're willing to consider those kinds of taxes that the president's proposed so that middle class Americans, the 98%, will not see any taxes increases."

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