A New Start

BT: Riding a maritime growth wave

              

Published February 27, 2008

ASIA PACIFIC MARITIME 2008

Riding a maritime growth wave Singapore has the reputation, infrastructure and the right policies to tap the Asian shipping boom, reports VINCENT WEE           Email this article Print article Feedback WITH the Asia-Pacific region accounting for almost 40 per cent of the global maritime market, according to a recent survey by business intelligence consultancy Fusion Consulting, Asia, there is little doubt that the region plays a prominent part in the industry, and this is set to grow in the years ahead. Fusion also forecasts the market will grow at an annual rate of 7 per cent till 2010.       Leading the way: The Port of Singapore maintained its place as the top transhipment port, handling some 27.9 million TEUs last year The boom in Asian shipping has also drawn attention to the Asia-Pacific. Fusion estimates that merchant shipping in the region accounted for 39 per cent of the global total in 2006 and is set to grow at 8 per cent a year till 2010. The maritime engineering, ports and terminals and offshore businesses are also huge, making up 63 per cent, 42 per cent and 23 per cent of the global market respectively. The offshore market especially is set to grow at 8 per cent annually. Countries like China are starting to see more investments and business in industries like shipbuilding and repair as ship owners seek to take advantage of still available building slots and labour costs 10 to 20 times lower than traditional powerhouses Japan and South Korea. China plans to boost its shipbuilding capacity to 40 million tonnes by 2010, a three-fold increase over 2005, the Fusion report said. Asia's rising prominence has also led to an increasing realisation among shipping companies outside Asia that they need to have a presence here and a separate strategy for the region as well.     Busy shipyards Overall, the Asia-Pacific's US$43 billion shipbuilding industry enjoys a 66 per cent global market share, the consultancy's estimates show. The key beneficiary of the current boom has been South Korea (with over 40 per cent of global market share), which has orders worth over US$12 billion placed in the first quarter of last year alone and has yards full till 2010. However China (15 per cent) is fast catching up with Korea and has secured 56.6 per cent of the total contracts in the same period for bulk carriers and smaller tankers to be delivered by 2009. Growth for port operations and services is expected to be widespread in the region as well with a 6 per cent annual growth rate expected to take its share of the global pie up to 44 per cent or US$54 billion by 2010, Fusion said. The main areas of growth in ports and terminals are expected in China, India and Korea. By 2011, Asia is expected to handle 206 million twenty-foot units (TEU) including 64 million TEUs in transhipment. Singapore, in particular, has benefited from the growth in the industry. The Republic is home to more than 4,400 shipping and maritime-related companies employing some 100,000 people, offering a full range of services. The Port of Singapore maintained its place as top transhipment port, handling some 27.9 million TEUs last year. Singapore was also the leading bunker port, with bunker sales passing the 30 million tonnes mark to hit 31.5 million tonnes. Announcing the 2007 port figures at a Singapore Maritime Foundation function earlier this year, Transport Minister Raymond Lim said: '2007 was also a good year of growth for the rest of Singapore's maritime cluster, bolstering Singapore's reputation as an International Maritime Centre.' The Singapore Registry of Ships grew by 13.8 per cent to hit 39.6 million gross tonnes while the Approved International Shipping Enterprise (AIS) scheme attracted 18 new international shipping companies during the year, bringing the total number operating here to nearly 100, he said. Mr Lim added that the year also saw new listings of foreign shipping companies as well as two new shipping trusts on the stock exchange. Companies like North of England P&I Club, Scorpio Ship Management and HypoVereinsbank are either establishing new offices or substantially expanding their operations here. Asia's rising prominence has also led to an increasing realisation among shipping companies outside Asia that they need to have a presence here and a separate strategy for the region as well. Singapore is well positioned to take advantage of this with its established status as a global port along with all the other supporting infrastructure in the maritime cluster. The government is also supportive of the industry with several measures introduced to support the maritime cluster. A favourable tax regime is in place to provide incentives for companies to locate here - the AIS and Approved Shipping Logistics Enterprise Scheme and double tax, bilateral shipping and free trade agreements all help reduce costs for companies. Looking into the future, further support has been offered in the current Budget. The Maritime Finance Incentive will be enhanced from April 1 to include container leasing activity and to allow partnerships also to enjoy the incentive. Container investment enterprises will enjoy a concessionary tax rate of either 5 per cent or 10 per cent on all onshore and offshore container leasing income, depending on their commitments. A container investment manager will enjoy a 10 per cent concessionary tax rate on its management fee income. The Maritime Finance Incentive (MFI) scheme was introduced in February 2006 to promote alternative ship finance structures, such as ship leasing companies and shipping trusts, by providing tax exemption for ship investment vehicles and a concessionary tax rate. Tax certainty was also extended for another five years to shipping companies on gains from the disposal of their vessels and with the inclusion of forex and hedging gains as qualifying income under the Singapore flag or AIS schemes. The growth of the maritime industry in the region is undeniable and Singapore, with its established reputation as a maritime centre and its modern infrastructure, is taking full advantage of it.

BT: He'll release your mind from captivity

   

Profile

Published February 29, 2008

He'll release your mind from captivity In the wake of Ah Meng's death, CHEAH UI-HOON catches up with Bernard Harrison to find out what the former zoo chief has been up to         Email this article Print article Feedback THE Night Safari might be 12 years old, but former zoo chief Bernard Harrison's execution of the idea - the first of its kind in the world - still resonates in creative circles. That, and his championing of creativity.       Mr Harrison: Since leaving the zoo in 2002, he has been advocating creativity through talks, workshops and articles It certainly clicked with the American Creative Association (ACA), which is presenting him with the David Tanner Champion of Creativity Award tonight. The Association is holding its conference outside the US for the first time, in Singapore no less. Mr Harrison and N Varaprasad, CEO of the National Library Board, will be the first Asians to receive the award. 'The award is given to individuals who not only show creativity in their own work but, more essentially, are able to see creativity in others . . . and to champion these individuals especially in environments where such championing is tough,' says Kirpal Singh, associate professor of Literature and Creative Thinking at Singapore Management University. Mr Singh is also the first non-American elected to the ACA's board of directors. 'Creativity and Design' is cited as Mr Harrison's job scope in his business card for his company, Bernard Harrison and Friends (BH&F). Since leaving the zoo in 2002, the renowned non-conformist has been advocating creativity through talks, workshops and articles - partly through his zoo consultancy, and partly through his use of his workshop technique in other non-zoology related industries, such as tourism. His sudden departure from the zoo - where he'd been working for 29 years - launched him into the world of managing his own business, which he'll admit he isn't very good at. 'My principle partner (his wife) and the general manager don't allow me to talk money with my clients, in fact,' he quips, 'So I hide behind my creativity.' On the topic of venturing out on his own, Mr Harrison reveals that finally, BH&F is on stable ground with projects and consultancy work in India, Morocco, Pakistan, the Philippines, Zimbabwe and even Bulgaria. The business had faltered in the beginning, he admits. 'The problem is, you don't get people building a zoo every day,' he says frankly. And then there was Rimba, the business venture that didn't work out. The proposal was for a safari-style restaurant on Sentosa, planned as a $15 million joint venture between BH&F and Sentosa Leisure Group. That was scuppered at the last minute when the group decided not to go ahead. A consulting project in Chiang Mai, Thailand, incidentally, where Mr Harrison drew up the master plan for the city's night safari, had helped keep BH&F afloat. 'And the lucky thing is that I had a good network of contacts, globally, as I used to attend conferences and so on,' says Mr Harrison, who also sits on several international boards related to zoos and wildlife. Now though, projects are coming in, as zoos look set to continue to be chief attractions in the major cities even if there was previously a debate on their relevance in the 21st century. 'Ninety per cent are miserable though, with horrible conditions for the animals,' admits Mr Harrison, citing Singapore, North America, Northern Europe and Australia as having the best zoos. 'A good zoo will be like Club Med, and a bad zoo like a prison, for the animals,' he says. But perhaps soon, the situation could change for the better, especially in Asia. The two projects in India he's consulting for, a zoo in Delhi and another in Maharashtra state, could well signal a positive change in how zoos are built. In China too, authorities are moving on the path of enlightenment, as Mr Harrison has been asked to give a workshop on master planning for zoos this year. The reason why BH&F is called the way it is, is that Mr Harrison works only with friends - people he knows - which is a network of some 60 consultants around the world, all of whom are specialists in their own field, from IT designers to landscape architects. 'We are the epitome of a global company . . . I'll tender for a job, and put together a team for it, and if we get it, we'll come together in that city where the job is to brainstorm,' he explains. 'Business and design workshops are held simultaneously, and we also engage the local government to come up with a final business plan and concept.' And if you'd like to know, managing a group of consultants isn't an easy task, he adds. Creativity for Mr Harrison - who has a masters in design, incidentally - was first expressed through Singapore's Zoo and Night Safari. The Night Safari idea, in fact, he credits to the late Lyn de Alwis, the former director of Sri Lanka's Colombo Zoo, who had come up with the idea, and who had helped Singapore design it. Now, Mr Harrison is making a natural progression from creating great environments for animals in captivity to creating environments where human minds can be freer to roam. And in case you want to know which animal he's rooting for to become Singapore Zoo's next mascot, it'll be an orang utan; even if he and Ah Meng didn't really get along, he divulges.

BT: Draw of the artistic dollar

           

Business Times - 29 Feb 2008   Draw of the artistic dollar Regional auction houses make beeline for Singapore as market for contemporary South-east Asian art grows, reports PARVATHI NAYAR     CAN Singapore become the hub for South-east Asian (SEA) art? It's almost a redundant question. Many regional auction houses already view Singapore as the key centre for contemporary SEA art, and are setting up auctions here. The bullish sentiment is bolstered by this weekend's art offerings, when Jakarta-based Masterpiece Auction House will hold its inaugural SEA art auctions in Singapore. It is one of three contemporary art auctions being held here by Masterpiece - the others being Indonesian and Chinese - where about 400 artworks will go under the hammer, with an estimated $10 million to $20 million worth of sales. Masterpiece follows in the footsteps of two other auction houses which have set up offices here, Larasati Auctioneers (2003) and Borobudur Auction (2005). 'Today, Singapore is not just the marketplace for SEA art, it's also the market,' says Valentine Willie, adviser to Borobudur. He put together one of Singapore's largest auctions of SEA contemporary art last year for Borobudur; it included new media like photography, and netted about $2.8 million in sales. 'The market in Singapore has changed,' asserts Benny Oenardi Raharjo, Masterpiece president and director. 'I have been studying the SEA art auction market here for the past four years. Initially, the interest was in the old Dutch and Indonesian masters, and 70 per cent of the buyers were from Indonesia. Today, around 60 per cent of the buyers are from Singapore - and includes Indonesians based here, expats and Singaporeans.' Daniel Komala, Larasati president-director, puts it this way: 'For contemporary SEA art auctions, Singapore is the stage, and the region is the audience - just like a Michael Jackson concert that is staged here, with ticket buyers from countries round the region.' Big boys' exit All of which suggests a healthy market here, but clouding the rosy picture is the fact that the big boys have stopped holding their SEA art auctions in Singapore. Sotheby's and Christie's have consolidated their sales of SEA contemporary and modern art with their other Asian sales in Hong Kong. Both, however, continue to have offices and previews in Singapore. But 'we aren't moving to Hong Kong because there aren't enough collectors here, but because it fits with our corporate strategy', says Hong Kong-based Quek Chin Yeow, deputy chairman of Sotheby's Asia. He points to how well sales have grown since SEA contemporary art was first introduced in their Singapore auctions, from $75,000 in 1996 to $1.1 million in 2005 to $3 million in 2007. The move to Hong Kong gives SEA contemporary art a global platform, and allows for more cross-selling opportunities. 'Our slogan is that we source globally and sell centrally,' says Mr Quek, giving an example from the 1980s, when the Japanese were the largest buyers of Impressionist art but the auctions stayed in New York and London. Globalisation is so prevalent that Mr Quek is 'sure the serious Singapore-based buyers of South-east Asian art will come to Hong Kong for the auctions'. The litmus test will be Sotheby's first SEA pictures auction there - the Spring Sale in April 2008 - where the contemporary SEA paintings account for 94 lots, and is expected to fetch more than HK$7.81 million (S$1.4 million). As for Christie's, specialist of SEA pictures Keong Ruoh Ling says that since the move to Hong Kong, sales for the SEA category has appreciated steadily and the market expanded beyond its immediate region. For the larger cause of contemporary SEA art, the move to Hong Kong by the big players is no bad thing, for it introduces the art to a very different clientele. As Mr Willie observes, these collectors may have come to look at Chinese contemporary or jewels or watches, but could pop into the SEA auctions and think, 'Not bad lah - and quite cheap also!' Meanwhile, back in Singapore, Ms Keong says that the influx of regional houses conducting SEA contemporary auctions 'is a direct result of the vacuum that resulted' with the exit of Christie's six years ago and Sotheby's last year. Sophisticated market Ironically, it was Christie's and Sotheby's that educated the market here about auctions and SEA art. When they left, they left behind a sophisticated market. And let's face it, says Mr Willie, 'their moving out has freed up the market here'. Mr Komala sees in this situation an opportunity to take on the big boys for a healthy slice of the market. He grins: 'You can't win the war but you can win some battles.' SEA art collectors here such as Ong Say How are delighted that more contemporary SEA art auctions will happen locally. Dr Ong - who has been buying contemporary Indonesian art from regional auction houses since 2006 - says that the entry of Masterpiece into the SEA contemporary art market here will 'inject healthy and positive competition in the local auction scene'. Henry Nangoy, a Singapore-based businessman in the chemical industry, says: 'With auction houses like Masterpiece coming to Singapore, it is easier and more accessible for us Singapore-based collectors to see the artworks and attend the auctions first-hand. It's definitely preferable to bidding over the phone.' It is because he has found similar grassroots support in Singapore that Mr Komala set up offices here. 'Initially, I needed the Indonesian buyers here, but the past few auctions have seen only 30 per cent Indonesians in my sales rooms.' But it's not just Singapore collectors, 'the growing expat community makes Singapore more interesting, especially as a gateway to a bigger market'. Mr Willie says that, at their inaugural SEA contemporary art auction last year, the most expensive lot was bought by a Singaporean collector, and that overall, 35 per cent of the buyers were Singaporean. With the arts infrastructure here improving, thanks to specialist art storage facilities and art movers, not to mention Singapore's moves to increase its population, or initiatives such as the F1 races and the integrated resorts, the market can only get bigger. SEA contemporary art is a late entrant to the booming market that has grown for Asian contemporary art, with the Chinese and Indians already achieving high price points. But the latter could work well for SEA contemporary, as collectors are always looking for other, cheaper entry points into the market. 'It will be our time soon,' says Mr Willie confidently. For sure, the SEA market is catching up. I Nyoman Masriadi's Jangan Tanya Saya Tanya Presiden set a world auction record for a contemporary SEA painting, when it sold for $360,000 at the Sotheby's auction here in September 2007. Borobudur director John Andreas says that in the immediate future, 'the SEA contemporary scene will be dominated by artists like Agus Suwage, Handiwirman, Putu Sutawijaya and Masriadi from Indonesia; Nona Garcia and Winner Jumalon from Philippines, and Ahmad Zaki Anwar from Malaysia'. So how do contemporary Singapore artists fare in the auctions? They have yet to become a dominant force, though the upcoming Masterpiece auction does feature a few such as Jensen Ee, Chua Boon Kee and Yeo Chee Kiong. Mr Komala says: 'The problem that Singapore artists face is that they get too little exposure. You have to be seen, to get a following and collector base.' In this respect, the greater number of SEA auctions here might well provide a platform for local artists. As for the auction houses themselves, the increasing competition is good for business, say the players, in a mixture of truth and diplomacy. Mr Komala's dream, for example, is to build Larasati into an Asian equivalent of Christie's and Sotheby's, and he already has expansion plans into Amsterdam, Australia and Hong Kong. 'I can't do it alone. For the industry to become a strong one, you need good healthy competition and more people coming into the industry.' The auction houses do try and differentiate themselves, based on the connoisseurship of their panel of experts in selecting the works for auctions. Mr Willie, for instance, says that he curated last year's auction in a way that was 'thematic, that gave audiences a sense of the issues that artists are dealing with here'. 'In our auctions, we don't emphasise the specific SEA country that the artist comes from, collectors focus on the art, and in this way, we encourage cross-buying.' Increasing value Sub-prime and liquidity crises don't appear to faze the auctioneers. Irrespective of how Masterpiece's debut auctions fare, then, all three auction houses currently conducting SEA contemporary art auctions here, plan to continue with two auctions each over the course of the year. Mr Raharjo says: 'Investors here now have diversified portfolios to include art. The value of SEA contemporary is only going up. Take, say, a Ugo Untoro work that sold for $5,000 two months ago; now - within a span of two months - it is fetching 10 times that amount in the auctions.' Mr Komala says that in terms of market sustainability in tighter financial conditions, 'it's not the number of auction houses entering the market that matters, it's the number of sales you do'. 'You have to be realistic, and not exhaust the market beyond its capacity.' As Singapore-based collector Dr Ong sums it up, art is increasingly seen here as an investment opportunity and a viable option to stocks. With SEA art riding on the wave of global popularity for contemporary Asian art, and given Singapore's fantastic economic infrastructure, it seems likely that the market here for SEA contemporary can only grow. Previews for the Masterpiece auction, today, 11am to 8pm, Ballroom at Sheraton Towers, Scotts Road. The Indonesian and Chinese contemporary art auctions will be held tomorrow (March 1), 11am and 1.30pm respectively; the South-east Asian modern & contemporary art auction on March 2, 11am; at the Ballroom, Sheraton Towers                Copyright © 2007 Singapore Press Holdings Ltd. All rights reserved.

 

BT: More to Zouk than young revellers

              

Published February 29, 2008

NIGHT OUT

More to Zouk than young revellers     By CHRISTOPHER LIM            Email this article Print article Feedback AT lunchtime on Monday, party club Zouk was alive and buzzing, which is unusual in itself. But every Chinese New Year for the past 13 years, the established nightlife joint has thrown a reunion lunch for the old people from Tanjong Pagar GRC, including those from the Tiong Bahru Befriender Service.       Nightspot with a difference: The more than a hundred elderly people present loved every minute of Zouk's Chinese New Year reunion meal this year  The sight of the main Zouk dancefloor decked out for Chinese New Year is a sight to behold. It's also something many people will never get to see, which is a shame, because it shows a very warm and welcoming side of the club. It's not just a place for dancing deliriously and drinking copiously, though that's undeniably its forte. And this annual occasion also showed that Zouk has a great team of staff. The way everyone pitched in enthusiastically for entertainment and organisation demonstrated that this wasn't some fiat imposed from lofty upper management. Night staff like bouncers and managers who wouldn't have reported to work for many more hours were on stage singing and dancing. It will be hard to look at the Zouk staff the same way ever again, which is far from a bad thing, because it's always gratifying to be able to humanise people you'd otherwise only deal with in crowded quarters, at the admission queue or squeezing towards the bar to place an order. The more than a hundred elderly people present loved every minute of the attention and entertainment. These were folk used to living alone in one-room government flats and subsisting on public subsidies, so the eight-course reunion lunch probably felt to them like the equivalent of splashing out on a night of wining and dining in private banquet rooms with vintage champagne. On top of that, cheques totalling $60,000 were presented, which will go towards the meals of the old people for the whole year. And Zouk's staff took out from their own pockets to fill red packets for the elderly, along with goody bags filled with treats and daily necessities. 'I always look forward to go to Zouk because I feel very happy there,' says 96-year-old Mdm Lim Hup. 'I even danced there six years ago when I was 90. As long as I can walk I will never miss it.' When was the last time you heard anyone talk about Zouk, or any other nightspot, in terms as unguardedly blissful? It's safe to say that Zouk has earned its right to let its hair down and return to its normal partying mode. And you can help the club welcome the weekend with a bang by swinging by its Facebook-themed Very Poked party tonight, named after the propensity of members of the social networking site to poke each other - virtually speaking, of course. Social networking sites started as cyber spaces for the physical world to spill over into the virtual realm, so it's always amusing to see the traffic flow the other way, and have things that never existed in the real world suddenly pop up in the middle of a party. A prime example of this is the nonsensical Facebook practice of throwing sheep at your friends on the website. In a tribute to the now infamous application, Zouk will have stuffed sheep at the Poked party, which you can count on to provoke more than a little hilarity. The Facebook theming won't stop there. Drinks will be served Booze Mail style, for those familiar with the Web application used for sending your friends virtual drinks. Strike your pose for the real-life version of the Hotness application, nominate your friends for a SingTel popularity contest, and decorate a Subaru car in imitation of Facebook's Car Enthusiast application. Sounds like a hoot!

FT: Arctic vault to protect world seed collection

Arctic vault to protect world seed collection

By Fiona Harvey in London Environment Correspondent, FT.com site
Published: Jun 18, 2006

Work begins on Monday on a vault in the frozen earth of an Arctic mountain, off northern Norway, that will safeguard a vast collection of the world's seeds.

The vault will eventually hold 3m seed samples from every known variety of food crop, ranging from common staples such as wheat and potatoes to exotic specimens whose existence is endangered in the wild.

The collection will provide a seed collection of last resort - should a disaster such as an asteroid strike or extreme climate change result in mass crop extinctions, humans will be able to resurrect a species. It will focus initially on food crops, but not to the exclusion of other seeds.

Nicknamed the "doomsday vault ", the Svalbard International Seed Vault is the creation of the Global Crop Diversity Trust, a charity set up to protect plants, with the aid of the Norwegian government.

Conditions in Svalbard, within the Arctic circle, are considered ideal for preserving seeds, which will be kept behind blast-proof doors in watertight foil containers behind concrete walls a metre thick.

Some samples held in "black boxes " will be released only in the event that all other sources have been destroyed or exhausted.

However, Cary Fowler, executive secretary of the trust, said: "Crop diversity is imperilled not just by a cataclysmic event, such as a nuclear war, but also by natural disasters, accidents, mismanagement, and short-sighted budget cuts. "

Access to a diversity of plants was essential to the future of agriculture, because combining the genes of one plant with another gave rise to new varieties, he said. But many plant varieties are neglected and at risk of being lost, as farmers no longer grow them and the world's existing seed banks are not managed in a co-ordinated fashion.

Mr Cary said most seed banks were maintained by governments or research institutions that frequently reappraised budgets, putting them at risk of closure. There was insufficient international co-operation to save seeds, and many collections faced an uncertain future without Svalbard.

For instance, the potato blight that led to more than 1m deaths in Ireland in the 19th century still poses a problem, with recent outbreaks in Alaska and Bangladesh. The solution may lie in the seed banks in South America which could be used to develop blight-resistant varieties. But one of these gene banks nearly lost its entire potato collection recently when its refrigeration system broke down. Such seeds can now be held in Svalbard.

A study found that under conditions in Svalbard, for most food crops could remain viable for hundreds of years, while others, including grains, could survive for thousands of years.

NY Times: Birds Do It. Bees Do It. Dragons Don’t Need To.

Unfortunately, humans seem to forget this fact when we find ourselves turning to nature to guide us through difficult choices, such as arguments about whether life begins at conception, or over the proper structure of the family. Or, more recently, regarding the morality of cloning. Whether we’re talking about raising bigger cattle or growing life-saving organs or trying to “live forever,” both sides like to stress their abilities to judge what is “natural.” Judging from Komodo dragons, lizards and sharks, the answer seems to be that for reproduction, almost anything goes.

And that is the point. Biology is about variation. Without variation, the world would be static and unchangeable, and species would gradually disappear as they failed to meet challenges like changing climates and environments. So as we continue our very necessary debates over ethical issues, let’s bear in mind that morality is a concept limited to our species. The natural world is a fuzzy place that doesn’t always accommodate our decidedly human need to find cut-and-dried categories.

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Op-Ed Contributor

Birds Do It. Bees Do It. Dragons Don’t Need To.

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                                                              E

 

By NEIL SHUBIN

Published: February 24, 2008

 

Chicago

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Katherine Streeter

 

     

DRAGONS and virgin births are the stuff of myth and religion. Except, that is, in Kansas, where they have recently come together in a way that should alter the way many of us look at nature and demonstrate the risks in our habit of using it to help us make ethical decisions.

Keepers at Wichita’s zoo got a surprise last year when they found developing eggs inside the Komodo dragon compound. Komodos are large rapacious lizards naturally found in Indonesia, but increasingly populating zoos around the world. Finding fertile embryos of dragons is a joyous occasion — there are only a few thousand of the lizards in the wild and captive breeding may be the only way to keep the species around.

But these eggs — two of which hatched a few weeks ago — were unusual: they developed from a female that had had no male of the species in close proximity for more than a decade. Judging from similar occurrences over the past two years in Britain, it appears that these lizards sometimes use a form of virgin birth in which eggs hatch without conception. The embryos are genetic clones of the mother.

Komodos — like many fish, amphibians and reptiles — have lots of reproductive tricks. For example, females can store sperm for a long time, tiding them over when conditions may be poor for reproduction. It’s possible that the Wichita dragon eggs could have been fertilized by the sperm from a male that was on site a long time ago. But DNA analysis of the “miracle embryos” from Britain showed that every bit of their DNA came from the females, and nobody should be surprised if this is also true of the Kansas dragons.

Virgin birth, known to biologists as parthenogenesis (from the Greek, “parthen” meaning virgin or maiden and “genesis,” beginning), has been seen in other species over the years. Some lizards occasionally produce offspring in this way. So do several species of fish, including a female hammerhead shark at the Henry Doorly Zoo in Omaha that produced offspring without a male last year.

The shark example is particularly striking because sharks are very primitive living fish, having shared a common ancestor with us over 400 million years ago. Biological cloning is not a recent invention of scientists; it is an ancient ability. And sharks, fish and lizards are probably only the tip of the iceberg. We know of virgin birth only in those rare instances when we’ve been lucky enough to see it. Nobody knows how common it is because there has been no systematic search for the phenomenon.

The big question these virgin births raise is this: If some females can get along without males, why does any species have males? The reason is simple. With virgin birth, hatchlings are simply genetic duplicates of the mother. In a world of clones, there would not be enough variation for populations to adapt. Virgin birth, then, is a great stopgap measure to ensure the survival of a species, but works against it in the long haul.

Cloning is one of many mechanisms species use to survive in a dangerous world. Indeed, the diversity of reproductive strategies seen in animals staggers the imagination. Some reptiles do not determine sexes genetically, but rely on different incubation temperatures to determine the development of males and females. Other creatures can actually switch sexes during their lifetimes, being born male and developing as females. Still others can switch sexes based on behavioral cues in the social group. There is no one way that creatures start development, grow and form sexes — there are many varied ways.

Unfortunately, humans seem to forget this fact when we find ourselves turning to nature to guide us through difficult choices, such as arguments about whether life begins at conception, or over the proper structure of the family. Or, more recently, regarding the morality of cloning. Whether we’re talking about raising bigger cattle or growing life-saving organs or trying to “live forever,” both sides like to stress their abilities to judge what is “natural.” Judging from Komodo dragons, lizards and sharks, the answer seems to be that for reproduction, almost anything goes.

And that is the point. Biology is about variation. Without variation, the world would be static and unchangeable, and species would gradually disappear as they failed to meet challenges like changing climates and environments. So as we continue our very necessary debates over ethical issues, let’s bear in mind that morality is a concept limited to our species. The natural world is a fuzzy place that doesn’t always accommodate our decidedly human need to find cut-and-dried categories.

Neil Shubin, an associate dean at the University of Chicago and the provost of the Field Museum, is the author of “Your Inner Fish: A Journey Into the 3.5-Billion-Year History of the Human Body.”

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Utada Hikaru - Boku wa kuma - I am A Bear

                                                                                                                                                       

I am a Bear
2006/ Japan                       / Colour / Animation / Comedy / Beta SP/ 3 min/ G                                Directed by: Tsuneo Goda

A day of "a pillow bear" starts. He wakes up to find that "she" is gone. Waiting for her alone, he reads a book, skateboards on a toy car, waters a plant and plays the guitar. Lonely, he says to himself, "I wonder if she is coming home…" and when she is home, he rushes to bed and turns into a pillow again.

               

                 

		Tsuneo Goda Tsuneo Goda started his directing career in TV commercials. Developing DOMO-KUN, the station identity character for Japan Broadcasting Corporation, led him to move onto the field of animation. Goda is also know for his talent in illustration and children's books. By reflecting his feelings and experiences in every day's life, the titles all have a touch of reality.

English:

I'm a bear, bear, bear, bear
Not a car, a bear, bear, bear
I can't walk, but I can dance
I can't talk, but I can sing
I'm a bear, bear, bear, bear

I'm a bear, bear, bear, bear
I hate fighting, bear, bear, bear
My rivals are fried shrimps
I bet I was chocolate in my past life
I'm a bear, bear, bear, bear

Bonjour! Je m' appelle kuma.
Comment ca va?

I'm a bear, bear, bear, bear
I get sleepy in the winter, bear, bear, bear
At night I say "Goodnight, Mr Pillow"
In the morning I say "Good morning, Mr Pillow"
I'm a bear, bear, bear, bear

At night I say "Goodnight, Mr Pillow"
In the morning I say "Good morning, Mr Pillow"
I'm a bear, be, be, bear
Ar, ar, bear, bear

Romaji:

Boku wa kuma kuma kuma kuma
Kuruma ja nai yo kuma kuma kuma
Arukenai kedo odoreru yo
Shaberenai kedo utaeru yo
Boku wa kuma kuma kuma kuma

Boku wa kuma kuma kuma kuma
Kenka wa yada yo kuma kuma kuma
Raibaru wa ebi furai da yo
Zense wa kitto chokoreeto
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NY Times: Making Economics Relevant Again

 

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http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/20/business/20leonhardt.html?_r=2&sq=leonhardt&st=nyt&oref=slogin&scp=2&pagewanted=print

 

 

 

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February 20, 2008

Economic Scene

Making Economics Relevant Again

It was only a decade ago that economics seemed to be an old and tired discipline. The field no longer had intellectual giants like John Maynard Keynes or Milton Friedman who were shaping public policy by the sheer force of their ideas. Instead, it was devolving into a technical discipline that was even less comprehensible than it was relevant.

Some Wall Street firms had become hesitant to hire Ph.D. economists, and the number of undergraduates majoring in the subject was plummeting. “A good deal of modern economic theory,” John Cassidy wrote in an article titled “The Decline of Economics” that appeared in The New Yorker in 1996, “simply doesn’t matter much.”

Over the last decade, however, economics has begun to get its groove back. Armed with newly powerful tools for analyzing data, economists have dug into real-world matters and tried to understand human behavior. Economists have again become storytellers, and, again, they matter.

They have explained why Americans don’t save enough money — and come up with clever ideas to increase savings. They have discovered that modest increases in the minimum wage don’t actually destroy many jobs — and thus made possible the recent state-by-state push to raise minimum wages. Since the mid-1990s, the number of undergraduates majoring in economics has risen sharply.

But there are more than a few economists who believe that the renaissance has come with a big downside. They argue that the new research often consists of cute findings — which inevitably get covered in the press — about trivial subjects, like game shows, violent movies or sports gambling. Economics may be popular again, but there still is no one like a modern-day Milton Friedman or John Maynard Keynes.

So when I recently set out to conduct my second annual survey of economists, I decided to try to uncover the next best thing. In its first incarnation, the survey simply asked for the names of the next generation of stars specializing in the economics of everyday life. This year, though, I went the other way — toward the big picture — and asked which economists were managing to do influential work on the crucial questions facing modern society.

Who, in other words, was using economics to make the world a better place?

I received dozens of diverse responses, but there was still a runaway winner. The small group of economists who work at the Jameel Poverty Action Lab at M.I.T., led by Esther Duflo and Abhijit Banerjee, were mentioned far more often than anyone else.

Ms. Duflo, Mr. Banerjee and their colleagues have a simple, if radical, goal. They want to overhaul development aid so that more of it is spent on programs that actually make a difference. And they are trying to do so in a way that skirts the long-running ideological debate between aid groups and their critics.

“Surely the most important societal question economics can help answer is why so many people are crushingly poor and what can be done about it,” David Romer, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, said. The macro issues (like how to build a democracy) remain maddeningly complex, Mr. Romer noted. But thanks in part to the poverty lab, we now know much more about how to improve daily life in the world’s poorest countries.

The basic idea behind the lab is to rely on randomized trials — similar to the ones used in medical research — to study antipoverty programs. This helps avoid the classic problem with the evaluation of aid programs: it’s often impossible to separate cause and effect. If aid workers start supplying textbooks to schools in one town and the students there start doing better, it could be because of the textbooks. Or it could be that the town also happened to hire a new school administrator.

In a randomized trial, researchers would choose a set of schools and then separate into them two groups. The groups would be similar in every respect except for the fact that one would receive new textbooks and one wouldn’t. With a test like this, as Vinod Thomas, the head of independent evaluation at the World Bank, says, “You can be much more accurate and much more clear about the effect of a program.”

The approach can sound cruel, because researchers knowingly deny help to some of the people they’re studying. But what, really, is the alternative? It’s not as if someone has offered to buy new textbooks for every child in the world. With a randomized study, you at least learn whether your aid money is well spent.

Ms. Duflo, who’s 35, and Mr. Banerjee, 46, came to economics from opposite ends of the intellectual spectrum. She was studying history at the École Normale Supérieure, one of the most prestigious colleges in

France

, when she decided that the more scientific approach of economics offered a better way to address global poverty. He dropped out of the similarly prestigious Indian Statistical Institute after two and a half months of studying math; he found the subject too abstract.

By 2003, they were both working on development at M.I.T. At the time, randomized trials were becoming more popular in the

United States

, but they were still fairly rare in the developing world. So along with Sendhil Mullainathan, a colleague, Ms. Duflo and Mr. Banerjee founded the lab. (It’s named for the father of an M.I.T. alumnus, who owned the exclusive right to sell Toyotas in

Saudi Arabia

.) Day to day, the lab is now run by Rachel Glennerster, who came from the International Monetary Fund, and it has become a magnet for some of the world’s best development economists, including Marianne Bertrand, Michael Kremer and Edward Miguel.

Mr. Kremer and two other economists, in fact, did the textbook experiment — and found that textbooks didn’t improve test scores or graduation rates in rural western

Kenya

. (The students were probably too diverse, in terms of preparation and even language, to be helped by a single curriculum.) On the other hand, another randomized trial in the same part of

Kenya

found that treating children for intestinal worms did lift school performance. That study has led to an expansion of deworming programs and, as Alan Krueger of

Princeton

says, is “probably improving millions of lives.”

Mr. Banerjee estimates, very conservatively, that $11 billion a year — out of roughly $100 billion in annual development aid worldwide — could be spent on programs that have been proved to work. Unfortunately, nowhere near $11 billion is being spent on such programs. “Right now, we don’t have a lot of things that have been taken up by the policy world,” he said. “But the policy lag is usually substantial. Now that we have a lot more results, I expect that in the next 10 years we will have a lot more impact.”

Mr. Banerjee and Ms. Duflo may not be a modern-day Keynes or Friedman. But they have still managed to do something rather profound. They have brought together the best of the new economics and the best of the old.

As has been the trend over the last decade, they have plunged into the world around them, refusing to accept the idea that economics is merely an extension of math. Yet no one can accuse them of working on some little problem that doesn’t matter.

E-mail: leonhardt@nytimes.com

Related

More on the Jameel Poverty Action Lab: The Study on Textbooks The Study on Deworming Other Randomized Trials Abhijit Banerjee's Web Site Esther Duflo's Web Site Rachel Glennerster's Web Site Other Researchers at the Center

Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company

FT: Obama steals a march with technology

Obama steals a march with technology

By Edward Luce in Washington

Published: February 21 2008 02:00 | Last updated: February 21 2008 02:00

This time last year a video featuring Hillary Clinton rapidly ascended to the top spot in YouTube's daily rankings. The slickly produced video was a parody of an Apple advertisement based on George Orwell's "Big Brother" from 1984 . It was Mrs Clinton who was depicted as Big Brother. Again and again it replayed a clip culled from her own campaign website in which she said: "Let the conversation begin".

Peter Leyden, a former -editor of Wired and now director of the New Politics Institute, which examines how technology affects US campaigns, says the Big Brother video perfectly encapsulated the difference between Barack Obama's campaign and that of Mrs Clinton.

Mr Obama, he says, has run the model new technology campaign, in which staff and volunteers have the autonomy to make their own decisions and in which potential supporters who visit his website are offered multiple online materials.

The Obama website offers almost instant video replays of his speeches, which are also packaged by Obama officials for YouTube. A few mouse clicks from each webcast provides a simple procedure to make online donations. Users can set up blogs, join the Obama Facebook group and even download ring tones featuring recordings of his speeches.

The contrast with Mrs Clinton's relatively conventional website is instructive. In one of her first webcasts Mrs Clinton offered to "have a conversation with America". But the questions she received were obviously screened. The fact these "conversations" took place online could not disguise the fact they were controlled.

"Even businesses find it hard to change their organisational structure to fit the demands of new technology," says Mr Leyden. "But for political campaigns, which are classic command-and-control operations, it is particularly difficult. Mrs Clinton maintains a competent and solid website but Mr Obama has made it the central organising tool of his campaign."

As Mrs Clinton wages an uphill battle towards the must-win primaries of Ohio and Texas on March 4 following her tenth straight defeat to Mr Obama on Tuesday, criticisms about her organisational structure are becoming increasingly noisy.

Some blame the recent failures on her campaign's original launch premise, which billed her as the inevitable candidate and as the candidate of experience at a stage in US history when there is an overwhelming desire for "change". Others blame it on last month's irascible interventions by Bill Clinton, who reminded US voters of how a "copresidency" might function were Mrs Clinton to take the White House.

But it is hard to avoid the conclusion that Mrs Clinton has maintained a much less flexible campaign than her surging opponent, in which technology has been treated as an add-on rather than a central tool. She has also relied on a small coterie of family loyalists rather than recruiting far and wide like Mr Obama. Early on, Mr Obama hired Chris Hughes, co-founder of Facebook, the social networking site, to advise his campaign.

"Candidates get the campaigns they deserve," says Bill Galston, a veteran of Democratic contests. "The media needs a narrative and Mrs Clinton did not provide one. It is too late now to come up with one. All she can hope to do is to sharpen her message and hope something unexpected happens to Mr Obama."

Clinton insiders privately concede that her campaign has proved inflexible in the face of Mr Obama's early successes. Instead of recalibrating their strategy following Mr Obama's emphatic win in Iowa on January 3, the Clinton campaign continued to operate on the assumption the race would conclude with her victory in the "Super Tuesday" primaries on February 5.

That is why the Clinton campaign ran out of money after "Super Tuesday" and why she had to lend herself $5m to keep it going. It is also why the Clinton camp was hopelessly out-organised in the post-Super Tuesday states, such as Virginia, Nebraska, Maryland and now Wisconsin - all of which Mr Obama won.

And it explains why it is only now that the Clinton campaign is getting to grips with the hybrid caucusprimary structure of the Texas nominating vote in less than two weeks, in spite of the fact that the Lone Star state's high Latino population ought to have made it a comfortable win for her.

Mr Obama's better use of technology has enabled him to raise funds at more than twice the rate of Mrs Clinton in the past six weeks from an expanding universe of online donors. She, in contrast, has had to divert valuable time to attend traditional "offline" fundraising events.

"Once you have your online fundraising network in place it operates at virtually zero cost - in time and overheads," says Mr Leyden. "Mr Obama has built a kind of online ATM. Mrs Clinton doesn't have that."

*John McCain yesterday accused Mr Obama of "Washington double-speak" for fudging over whether he would accept public campaign financing in November's presidential election, writes Andrew Ward .

The presumptive Republican nominee has pledged to accept public funding - a move that would place a cap on campaign spending - if his Democratic opponent agreed to do likewise.

Mr Obama made the same pledge at the start of his campaign last year but has since hedged on the issue.

"I committed to public financing; he committed to public financing. It is not any more complicated than that," said Mr McCain. "I hope he keeps his commitment to the . . . people."

See Comment

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2008

FT: Death of self-rule on the internet

Death of self-rule on the internet

By Patti Waldmeir

Published: February 12 2008 21:00 | Last updated: February 12 2008 21:00

Two weeks ago, the company shocked millions of users by radically rewriting the constitution of the democratic republic of Ebay, founded in 1995 not just as an auction site but also as a social experiment in online self-government. For most of those 13 years, Ebay has been run largely as a self-policed island, a place where order was preserved less by real world laws than by norms and customs and expectations and reputations that were almost entirely virtual.

Ebayers governed themselves by rating each transaction using the site’s “feedback” system, where they could report crooks, not to the state but to each other. The theory was that, as in a medieval souk in which everyone knew everyone, everyone on Ebay would know who the crooks were by reading their feedback. Now the company has basically admitted that the cybersouk model does not work: buyers did not tell the truth about sellers, and sellers did not tell the truth about buyers. And in a market where traders lie, the trust that is so central to online commerce cannot flourish.

From now on, Ebayers will not be democratic equals and they will lose a lot of their autonomy: buyers will still be able to rate sellers, raising a red flag to warn others away from merchants who are fraudsters or just plain bad at their business. But sellers will no longer be able to leave negative feedback on buyers – including those who do not pay. Instead, Ebay will step in to help protect honest sellers from dishonest buyers. But most sellers see this as a dramatic shift in the balance of power within Ebay society, and they are right. In future, the Ebay consumer will be king: buyers will easily be able to threaten sellers with negative feedback and sellers will find it much harder to strike back. Many sellers fear the new dictatorship of the consumer.

Ebay says the changes were crucial to boosting the confidence of buyers, too many of whom were intimidated into remaining silent about bad transactions because they feared retaliatory feedback from sellers. Unhappy buyers too often found that, if they complained about a transaction through feedback, the seller would retaliate by insulting them online, even if they had done nothing wrong. Most Ebay buyers take their feedback very seriously: I should know – I have a perfect Ebay feedback rating and I am irrationally attached to it. I do not want anyone besmirching my good name online. So over the 10 years that I have been trading on Ebay, I have never left negative feedback – even for the worst transaction. Even in the best of all possible online worlds, humankind eventually disappoints – but I was too intimidated ever to say so.

So from a buyer’s point of view, the changes are welcome: as Ebay points out, other online merchants do not publicly badmouth their customers.

The whole point of feedback was to enable strangers to trade with each other online by establishing trust: Ebay is just trying to restore integrity to the system.

Chrysanthos Dellarocas, a University of Maryland expert on Ebay feedback, says: “Ebay has realised the limits of self-governance – it is very difficult to induce people to tell the truth in such settings.” His research finds that Ebay buyers are happy with a transaction about 80 per cent of the time but that 99 per cent of Ebay feedback is positive – because users report positive experiences more than negative ones.

For those who were there from the start of this experiment in digitising utopia, including me, this is very disillusioning. Ann Wood, a prominent Ebay seller of luxury brands, reluctantly accepts that change is inevitable but points out that Ebay is about more than business. “This is a big cultural change for a place where both commerce and community matter. The often delightful relationships that buyers and sellers develop on Ebay will be strained by the tilt to almost complete buyer-power.”

Feedback is about psychology, as much as economics. Only time will tell how changing the gestalt of the place will change the numbers. patti.waldmeir@ft.com

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2008