The largest electrical networks are not the best
Madrid , Spain (SPX) May 16, 2014 -
There is an optimum size for electrical networks if what is being considered is the risk of a blackout. This is the conclusion reached by a scientific study done by researchers at Universidad Carlos III in Madrid (UC3M); the study analyzes the dynamics of these complex infrastructures.
In 1928, the British biologist and geneticist John Haldane wrote the essay "On being the right size" in w ...
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Vietnam violence throws snag for US plans in Asia
Washington (AFP) May 15, 2014 -
The outbreak of deadly anti-China protests in Vietnam raises the stakes for the United States, which has rallied behind Beijing's neighbors but faces ugly new realities.
Demonstrations have spread to a third of Vietnam's provinces, with workers attacking Chinese workers and factories, in a wave of nationalist outrage after Beijing moved a deep-water drilling rig into waters claimed by Hanoi. ...
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China bad loans jump as growth slows
Beijing (AFP) May 16, 2014 -
China's bad loans increased sharply in the first three months of the year, official data showed, with analysts saying Friday the total was at its highest in almost three years.
Outstanding non-performing loans at Chinese banks stood at 646.1 billion yuan ($103.6 billion) at the end of March, up 54.1 billion yuan from the beginning of the year, the China Banking Regulatory Commission (CBRC) s ...
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China Southern orders 80 A320 planes: Airbus
Paris (AFP) May 16, 2014 -
China Southern Airlines, which has the biggest fleet of aircraft in China, ordered on Friday 80 medium-haul Airbus A320 planes with a list value of $7.9 billion, Airbus said.
The deal, worth a headline equivalent of 5.8 billion euros, is for 30 of the existing models of the A320 and for 50 of the more energy-efficient A320Neo planes, Airbus said.
China Southern Airlines, in a statement t ...
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Pinterest valued at $5 bn after fresh funding
San Francisco (AFP) May 16, 2014 -
Pinterest on Friday confirmed that another $200 million has been pumped into its coffers to build up search capabilities at the booming, bulletin board-style social network.
The latest round brings to $764 million the total amount of funding raised by the San Francisco-based start-up and gives Pinterest an overall value of $5 billion.
"Pinterest has a vision of solving discovery and help ...
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India's Modi vows to fulfil 1.2 bn dreams after landslide win
New Delhi (AFP) May 16, 2014 -
Triumphant Hindu nationalist Narendra Modi promised to fulfil the dreams of 1.2 billion Indians as he propelled his party to a stunning electoral triumph Friday with the biggest winning margin for 30 years.
Preliminary results at the end of the marathon six-week election showed his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on track for the first parliamentary majority by a single party since 1984.
M ...
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Apple, Google call truce in smartphone patent war
San Francisco (AFP) May 17, 2014 -
Google and Apple, the two technology titans behind the world's top smartphone platforms, called a truce Friday in a long-running patent war.
"Apple and Google have agreed to dismiss all the current lawsuits that exist directly between the two companies," the companies said in a joint statement.
"Apple and Google have also agreed to work together in some areas of patent reform."
The c ...
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Ireland aims to duplicate oil, gas success of its neighbors
London (UPI) May 16, 2013 -
The Irish government wants to erase the near 40-year drought of successful exploration in the waters off its coast, Irish Minster of State Fergus O'Dowd said.
O'Dowd told delegates at a business summit in London the approximately 270,000 square miles off the Irish coast have seen relatively few successes in the last 40 years.
"We need increased levels of exploration activity, in ...
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U.S. has responsibility to act as 'emerging energy superpower,' Upton says
Washington (UPI) May 16, 2013 -
The United States has an obligation as an "energy superpower" to respond to Russian pressure on the Ukrainian gas sector, U.S. Rep. Fred Upton, R-Mich., said.
Upton, chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, said threats from Moscow to shut off the supply of natural gas through Ukraine because of lingering debt were shameful.
"Threatening to turn off the spigot of natu ...
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Fracking concerns raised for Maryland gas export facility
Washington (UPI) May 16, 2013 -
Environmental advocacy groups said U.S. regulators need to restart their review process for an export license for liquefied natural gas from Cove Point, Md.
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission issued its environmental assessment for the LNG terminal in Maryland.
Dominion Energy wants to ship 770,000 cubic feet of LNG per day to countries that don't have a free-trade agreemen ...
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China evacuates 3,000 nationals from Vietnam after deadly unrest
Beijing (AFP) May 18, 2014 -
China has evacuated more than 3,000 of its nationals from Vietnam following a wave of deadly anti-Beijing unrest, state media said Sunday, as Vietnamese civil society groups called for renewed demonstrations in several cities.
The Xinhua news agency said the evacuees included 16 nationals who were "critically injured" in the worst anti-China violence in Vietnam in decades triggered by Beijin ...
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China to rein supreme in world commodities in 2014: report
Paris (AFP) May 18, 2014 -
Grains, metals, meat: these are just three of the commodities being sucked in by the voracious Chinese economy which is set to be the key driver on raw materials markets this year.
French commodity research specialist Cyclope in a report published this week argues that "in the coming months, global markets will feel even the slightest sneeze from China".
World commodity prices have surg ...
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Indonesian island hopes to spark green power revolution
Kamanggih, Indonesia (AFP) May 18, 2014 -
An Indonesian family of farmers eat cobs of corn outside their hut under the glow of a light bulb, as the women weave and young men play with mobile phones.
Until two years ago, most people in Kamanggih village on the island of Sumba had no power at all. Now 300 homes have access to 24-hour electricity produced by a small hydroelectric generator in the river nearby.
"We have been using t ...
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Swiss turn down world's highest minimum wage
Geneva (AFP) May 18, 2014 -
Swiss voters on Sunday rejected a proposal to introduce the world's highest minimum wage, which would have guaranteed every worker in one of the world's priciest nations at least $25 an hour.
A proposal to introduce a minimum wage so high it could pass for mid-management pay elsewhere, was rejected by 76,3 percent of Swiss voters.
A series of referendums in Switzerland also saw voters ni ...
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Cisco chief writes to Obama to decry NSA activities
New York (AFP) May 18, 2014 -
Cisco chief executive John Chambers has complained to US President Barack Obama about the National Security Agency's spying practices, saying they were harming overseas business for US tech firms.
"This issue affects an entire industry," the head of the telecom equipment maker said in a letter dated Friday obtained by AFP.
Chambers referred in particular to recent media reports that the ...
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'Wolfenstein' videogame a Nazi-fighting adventure
San Francisco (AFP) May 18, 2014 -
Videogame lovers keen on battling evil and embracing storytelling will get to do just that when "Wolfenstein: The New Order" is released Tuesday.
Evil comes in the form of a fierce Nazi regime in an alternate history where Germany won World War II thanks to mysterious advanced technology in its arsenal.
Devotees of the decades-old Wolfenstein franchise will get, for the first time, to se ...
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US auto parts maker to outsource interiors to China
New York (AFP) May 18, 2014 -
US auto parts supplier Johnson Controls will outsource its manufacturing of interior car parts in a merger with a subsidiary of Chinese automaker SAIC, according to a statement Sunday.
Johnson Controls said it will have a 30-percent stake in the shared enterprise, which it claimed would be "the largest automotive interiors company in the world with revenues of approximately $7.5 billion." ...
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Cameroon says abducted Chinese likely in Nigeria
Yaounde (AFP) May 18, 2014 -
The 10 Chinese workers abducted by Boko Haram gunmen in Cameroon have most likely been taken back across the border to the Nigerian Islamist group's strongholds, a police official said Sunday.
"We are almost certain that the 10 Chinese have been kidnapped and transferred to Nigeria. We have no fresh news about them," the official told AFP on condition of anonymity.
"The search continues ...
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Colombia hails 'important step' in FARC peace process
Havana (AFP) May 17, 2014 -
Colombia and leftist FARC guerrillas concluded a key stage in talks on Friday aimed at ending five decades of war, as the rebels announced a truce for the upcoming presidential election.
The outcome of talks between the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) rebels and Bogota authorities is important for President Juan Manuel Santos's May 25 re-election bid.
Santos faces growing o ...
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One month on, Ukraine military fails to rout rebels
Donetsk, Ukraine (AFP) May 17, 2014 -
Without even firing a shot, masked rebel gunmen overran a Ukrainian military headquarters in the main eastern city of Donetsk on Friday and swiftly declared they were in control.
After a couple of hours of what one local described as "negotiations", uniformed members of a National Guard special forces unit simply took off in a few trucks, leaving the building to the rebels.
Ukraine's mil ...
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Modi eyes 'India's century' after landslide victory
New Delhi (AFP) May 16, 2014 -
Triumphant Hindu nationalist Narendra Modi pledged to make it "India's century" as he propelled his right-wing party to a stunning electoral triumph Friday with the biggest winning margin for 30 years.
Final results at the end of the six-week election showed his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had secured the first parliamentary majority by a single party since 1984 on a platform of economic g ...
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Taiwan companies reel from anti-China riots in Vietnam
Taipei (AFP) May 16, 2014 -
Taiwanese workers told of their fear as they hid from Vietnamese rioters who ravaged hundreds of foreign-owned factories in Vietnam during violent demonstrations against China this week, burning several to the ground.
The atmosphere remained tense in the southern provinces of Binh Duong and Dong Nai Friday, where demonstrators looted and torched the factories in protest at Beijing's deployme ...
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New product to detect nuclear weapon materials to be demonstrated
Mountain View, Calif. (UPI) May 16, 2013 -
Start-up technology company Rhombus Power Inc. reports its first product, an advanced neutron detector, is being demonstrated to U.S. government agencies.
Mercury, which meets ANSI standards, is a networked, scalable and digital detector that can be used to detect nuclear weapons and their materials. In addition to its usefulness for homeland security to discover contraband nuclear mate ...
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Canadian missile defense radar to be operated, maintained by Raytheon
Ottawa (UPI) May 16, 2013 -
A missile warning radar system for the north of Canada is to be operated and maintained by Raytheon Canada Limited.
The contract for the North Warning System was issued by Public Works and Government Services Canada, a department of the government of Canada. It is for five years with two options for an additional five years.
The financial terms of the award were not disclosed. ...
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Frigate combat systems being tested
Lorient, France (UPI) May 16, 2013 -
French shipbuilder DCNS has sailed the second FREMM frigate it's building for the French Navy into the Mediterranean for new sea trials prior to delivery.
During the trials the company, the French Navy and OCCAR - an international organization which manages cooperative defense equipment programs - will test the performance of the Normandie's main combat system sensors and the frigate' ...
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