The obituary from the Economist 6 October 2011.

NOBODY else in the computer industry, or any other industry for that matter, could put on a show like Steve Jobs. His product launches, at which he would stand alone on a black stage and conjure up a “magical” or “incredible” new electronic gadget in front of an awed crowd, were the performances of a master showman. All computers do is fetch and shuffle numbers, he once explained, but do it fast enough and “the results appear to be magic”. He spent his life packaging that magic into elegantly designed, easy to use products.

He had been among the first, back in the 1970s, to see the potential that lay in the idea of selling computers to ordinary people. In those days of green-on-black displays, when floppy discs were still floppy, the notion that computers might soon become ubiquitous seemed fanciful. But Mr Jobs was one of a handful of pioneers who saw what was coming. Crucially, he also had an unusual knack for looking at computers from the outside, as a user, not just from the inside, as an engineer—something he attributed to the experiences of his wayward youth.

Mr Jobs caught the computing bug while growing up in Silicon Valley. As a teenager in the late 1960s he cold-called his idol, Bill Hewlett, and talked his way into a summer job at Hewlett-Packard. But it was only after dropping out of college, travelling to India, becoming a Buddhist and experimenting with psychedelic drugs that Mr Jobs returned to California to co-found Apple, in his parents’ garage, on April Fools’ Day 1976. “A lot of people in our industry haven’t had very diverse experiences,” he once said. “So they don’t have enough dots to connect, and they end up with very linear solutions.” Bill Gates, he suggested, would be “a broader guy if he had dropped acid once or gone off to an ashram when he was younger”.

Dropping out of his college course and attending calligraphy classes instead had, for example, given Mr Jobs an apparently useless love of typography. But support for a variety of fonts was to prove a key feature of the Macintosh, the pioneering mouse-driven, graphical computer that Apple launched in 1984. With its windows, icons and menus, it was sold as “the computer for the rest of us”. Having made a fortune from Apple’s initial success, Mr Jobs expected to sell “zillions” of his new machines. But the Mac was not the mass-market success Mr Jobs had hoped for, and he was ousted from Apple by its board.

Yet this apparently disastrous turn of events turned out to be a blessing: “the best thing that could have ever happened to me”, Mr Jobs later called it. He co-founded a new firm, Pixar, which specialised in computer graphics, and NeXT, another computer-maker. His remarkable second act began in 1996 when Apple, having lost its way, acquired NeXT, and Mr Jobs returned to put its technology at the heart of a new range of Apple products. And the rest is history: Apple launched the iMac, the iPod, the iPhone and the iPad, and (briefly) became the world’s most valuable listed company. “I’m pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn’t been fired from Apple,” Mr Jobs said in 2005. When his failing health forced him to step down as Apple’s boss in August, he was hailed as the greatest chief executive in history. Oh, and Pixar, his side project, produced a string of hugely successful animated movies.

In retrospect, Mr Jobs was a man ahead of his time during his first stint at Apple. Computing’s early years were dominated by technical types. But his emphasis on design and ease of use gave him the edge later on. Elegance, simplicity and an understanding of other fields came to matter in a world in which computers are fashion items, carried by everyone, that can do almost anything. “Technology alone is not enough,” said Mr Jobs at the end of his speech introducing the iPad 2, in March 2011. “It’s technology married with liberal arts, married with humanities, that yields the results that make our hearts sing.” It was an unusual statement for the head of a technology firm, but it was vintage Steve Jobs.

His interdisciplinary approach was backed up by an obsessive attention to detail. A carpenter making a fine chest of drawers will not use plywood on the back, even though nobody will see it, he said, and he applied the same approach to his products. “For you to sleep well at night, the aesthetic, the quality, has to be carried all the way through.” He insisted that the first Macintosh should have no internal cooling fan, so that it would be silent—putting user needs above engineering convenience. He called an engineer at Google one weekend with an urgent request: the colour of one letter of Google’s on-screen logo on the iPhone was not quite the right shade of yellow. He often wrote or rewrote the text of Apple’s advertisements himself.

His on-stage persona as a Zen-like mystic notwithstanding, Mr Jobs was an autocratic manager with a fierce temper. But his egomania was largely justified. He eschewed market researchers and focus groups, preferring to trust his own instincts when evaluating potential new products. “A lot of times, people don’t know what they want until you show it to them,” he said. His judgment proved uncannily accurate: by the end of his career the hits far outweighed the misses. Mr Jobs was said by an engineer in the early years of Apple to emit a “reality distortion field”, such were his powers of persuasion. But in the end he changed reality, channelling the magic of computing into products that reshaped music, telecoms and media. The man who said in his youth that he wanted to “put a ding in the universe” did just that.

On the passing of Steve Jobs I will end this blog.

I will be forever grateful for his inspiration.

Amazon.com have recently released The Goose That Laid The Golden Egg eBook, by Doug Bremner. The book is available in the Kindle Store

In 2001 Hoffman-La Roche’s drug Accutane was selling in its billions worldwide as a treatment for acne. For those who suffered from extreme scarring acne, it was something of a miraculous treatment, however evidence started to mount that for others it was a death sentence. Over the next few years it was estimated that between 300 and 3,000 young people being prescribed Accutane since its launch had committed suicide or killed others.

In 2001 the father of young man in Ireland who had committed suicide approached Dr. Doug Bremner as Professor of Psychiatry & Radiology at Emory University to see if he could find a causal link between the drug and depression. His findings were that the drug did have an effect on the brain likely to cause acute depression in some patients, which was not surprising as it is a molecular cousin of Vitamin A which is known to cause depression in excessive quantities.

One might think that Hoffman-La Roche would have welcomed these findings. After all, no-one was doubting that Accutane was an extremely effective remedy in many cases, it was just that it appeared to have lethal side-effects in others.

You might like to think again on that one.

‘The Goose That Laid The Golden Egg’ is the account of what Hoffman-La Roche did next, which was to prosecute a determined, energetic and vindictive campaign against Dr. Bremner designed to suppress his findings and destroy his career and livelihood.

Nonetheless, Dr. Bremner persisted and Hoffman La-Roche have since withdrawn Accutane from the US market, not only for its potentially depressive effects, but also for the likelihood of its causing birth defects and stunting growth.

From the pen of the author of ‘Before You Take That Pill: Why the Drug Industry May Be Bad for Your Health: Risks and Side Effects You Won’t Find on the Label of Commonly Prescribed Drugs, Vitamins, and Supplements’, this is a truly riveting and emotional read detailing just what it costs to take on the full might of one of the largest corporations in the world when you have never claimed to be a saint and have no desire to become a martyr.

About the Author

Dr. Doug Bremner is Professor of Psychiatry & Radiology at Emory University and the author of ‘Before You Take That Pill: Why the Drug Industry May Be Bad for Your Health: Risks and Side Effects You Won’t Find on the Label of Commonly Prescribed Drugs, Vitamins, and Supplements’.

Kate Turkington from IOL Travel tells us the Tanzanian government is killing the goose that lays the golden egg. Here’s her story.
You’ve almost certainly heard of Ngorogoro Crater, and may even have been to Zanzibar, but Tanzania’s Selous Game Reserve is much less well known – and I was astonished by its splendid desolation, its incredible variety of landscapes and its abundant game and birdlife.
Together, the three destinations form Tanzania’s Golden Triangle, and should be on any serious traveller’s wish list.
It’s one of only three Unesco World Heritage Sites in Tanzania (with Selous and Serengeti) and is often called the Eighth Wonder of the World. It’s an almost perfect basin, holding an astonishing variety of different scenery – mountains, forests, fresh and salt water lakes, open plains and rivers. All this is in an area only 18km in diameter. You feel as if you are at the bottom of a giant soup bowl.
The game is prolific, and this is predator paradise. I’d never seen such fat complacent lions, hyenas and jackals anywhere. Black rhino nibbled the grass (they’d switched here from being browsers to grazers), and hundreds of buffalo mooched moodily around river and lake sides. The salt lake was bright pink as far as the eye could see – brimming with flamingos.
But there are drawbacks to this paradise, not in the form of an ambitious snake, but in the numbers of noisy, often ill-behaved tourists who come to this legendary place.
The Tanzanian government is killing the goose that lays the golden egg. The crater entry fee is US$200 a vehicle and there is absolutely no restriction on how many vehicles can go down into the crater. A visit to this spectacular place is a must, but don’t expect exclusivity for your dollars.
We then flew in a comfortable small plane with an engaging young American pilot to one of East Africa’s best-kept secrets – the Selous Game Reserve. The second-largest game reserve in the world after Greenland, it covers more than 55 000km2, and is authentic, untamed African wilderness. The game is also prolific here – we saw 16 lions in one day – but only two other vehicles in three days. Although the accommodation at Mivumo River Lodge matches the best in Sabi Sands or the Okavango Delta, Selous is not for sissies.
Ironically, Captain Selous, who survived so many dangerous encounters with wild animals, was killed by a bullet from a German sniper when he was scouting the area for the British in World War I. He was buried where he fell. A visit to his grave is strangely poignant.
Selous Game Reserve has a dazzling variety of habitats from palm forests and riverine bush, to open plains, the huge Manzi lake with its abundance of water birds, and the mighty Rufiji River – the park’s lifeline. When you fly from Selous to Dar es Salaam you’ll be astonished by the intricate system of big waterways, channels, lagoons, lakes, sandbanks and swamps – it’s like the Okavango Delta on steroids. The reserve also shelters a unique combination of East and southern African wildlife plus over 440 species of birds.
To see game from the water is a highlight. We chugged down the Rufuji river in a small boat watched by literally hundreds of hippos and crocs. We picnicked on a small sandbank and evicted a dozing hippo which rushed past us in a panic and exploded into the water. It then eyed us grumpily as we ate our sarmies and downed cold beers.
Then it was off to Zanzibar, place of legend, history and turquoise seascapes that dazzle the eye. It was on this ancient island ruled by powerful sultans that slavers, missionaries, explorers and traders plied their respective occupations, and set off into the almost unknown interior.
The house where Dr David Livingstone stayed still stands, albeit a bit shakily, and it was from Stone Town harbour that Henry Morton Stanley set out to find Dr Livingstone. You’ll find the crucifix carved from the tree under which Livingstone’s heart was buried in the historical 1887 Anglican cathedral whose altar is built over a former slave whipping post.
An evocative reconstruction of a slave pit lies outside the cathedral, and when you go into the underground chambers where slaves were kept prior to sale or shipping off to the New World, the cold dropping stone shelves seem to speak of the unbearable misery that was suffered here.
Zanzibar reeks of history. Explore the winding narrow streets of Stone Town on foot, take note of the beautifully hand-carved doors as you pass by veiled women and tiny shops tucked into old walls, as a muezzin calls from a tall tower. Enjoy the beautiful beaches, the superb dive and snorkelling spots, and don’t miss out on a trip on an Arab dhow, still built in the same way for thousands of years.
We sat on a wooden balcony at the Zanzibar Serena Inn, a former sultan’s palace overlooking the Indian Ocean, as the sun sets. Zanzibar was once known as the Spice Island because of its exports of exotic spices. This evening the heady smell of cloves still drifted fragrantly on the evening air as an Arab dhow drifted slowly by. It’s much more than a Kodak moment – it’s a treasure house of memories.

Read the full article by Kate at http://www.iol.co.za/travel/world/africa/tanzania-s-golden-triangle-1.1109345

NEW YORK: He called it his ”golden egg” and for 92 years it has been incubating quietly in a trust fund in his home town of Saginaw, Michigan. But by the end of this month its shell will crack and out will come a fortune worth up to $US110 million, enriching people he never knew and ending the saga of one of the strangest bequests in US history.

The ”golden egg” belonged to Wellington Burt, a fabulously wealthy Michigan lumber tycoon who was, according to the account of his contemporaries, brilliant, crotchety and eccentric in equal measure. When he died in 1919, aged 87, he had a multimillion-dollar fortune to give away, and was expected to provide handsomely for his immediate family and for the Saginaw causes that he espoused.
It was not to be. Nobody quite knows why but Mr Burt wrote one of the most peculiar wills that probate lawyers can remember.

The ”golden egg”, he said, would remain in its nest for 21 years after the death of his last surviving grandchild.
The last of his grandchildren alive when he died was Marion Lansill, and she died in November 1989, thus starting the 21-year countdown that ended last November 2010. Since then a local judge in charge of the trust fund has been poring over 30 applications from individuals eager to share in the spoils.

The local newspaper, the Saginaw News, reports that at the end of the judge’s researches, 12 people will divide up the golden egg, now estimated after interest to be worth between $US100 million and $US110 million.

The sum they receive varies greatly too, under a formula agreed between family lawyers that grants most money to those closest in generation to Mr Burt with fewest siblings. The greatest individual profit is $US16 million and the least $US2.9 million.

For those who came before them, and who were deprived of any of Mr Burt’s fortune, his legacy was one of bitterness, and some say a curse. The newspaper says that Mr Burt’s six children, seven grandchildren, six great-grandchildren and 11 great-great grandchildren all received not a penny, either because they died while the ”golden egg” lay dormant or because they were deemed ineligible.

The youngest of the 12 heirs, Christina Cameron, 19, who will receive almost $US3 million, as will her sister Cory, told the Saginaw News that she had mixed feelings about the windfall as she had seen the pain it caused her forebears. First her grandfather had been due to inherit, but he died two years ago. Then her mother was in line, but she died aged 50 last February.

”I guess all of this happening within a year made this seem more like a curse,” Ms Cameron said. ”My grandfather was pretty excited about it and then my mother was pretty excited about it as well. Cory and I are not as excited.”

Guardian News & Media

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/world/goose-who-laid-the-goldenegg-plan-finally-at-peace-20110513-1emdu.html#ixzz1NGQcsYTo

The mining companies in Australia have advice for the country’s Federal Government. They are saying that the proposed carbon abatement scheme must not kill, or even significantly injure, the goose laying Australia’s golden eggs.

Tony Grant-Taylor and Sophie Foster from the Courier Mail in Queensland Australia report the mining industry has delivered a warning to the Federal Government following Tuesday’s Budget which underlined Australia’s reliance on an insatiable Asia for local resources.

Queensland Resources Council chief executive Michael Roche said yesterday his members welcomed the Government’s Budget steps towards addressing the sector’s skills shortage.

But he said committing to a carbon price without adequate protections for trade-exposed industry remained a threat to the new investment assumptions in the Budget.

“What Treasurer Swan refers to as ‘Mining Boom Mark 2′ will only disappoint if a price on carbon makes Queensland’s minerals and energy industries uncompetitive globally,” Mr Roche said.

“The best tonic for the Australian economy is political acknowledgment of what the European Union already knows, and that is there is no environment benefit in exporting industries and their carbon emissions to countries not subject to similar carbon restrictions.”

The Mining Council of Australia said yesterday, with resource demand booming and iron ore and coal prices at or close to record levels, “the Budget should already be back in the black”.

“This Budget was an opportunity to outline a strong productivity agenda in areas like project approvals, infrastructure and regulatory reform and to signal the critical importance of flexible labour market arrangements to securing the gains from future mining investment,” it said.

It was a task the MCA obviously thought the Treasurer had ducked and it said: “There remains much to be done on this front.”

The MCA said the Budget provided a promising framework for alleviating skilled labour shortages, adding “reform of the vocational and technical education sector will now be crucial in ensur- ing the system is more market responsive”.

The MCA also welcomed promised increases in permanent skilled migration, the creation of enterprise or regional-migration agreements and a streamlining of the processing of temporary skilled migration to tackle immediate shortages of skilled workers.

But it also warned that a carbon abatement scheme needed to be very carefully designed.

Meanwhile, there were quibbles with the Budget from other business quarters, particularly about lack of action on a raft of tax reforms.

PricewaterhouseCoopers’ Budget breakfast in Brisbane yesterday was told that as of Monday, 70 tax reform measures had been announced but not yet enacted.

Of the Henry Tax Review’s 138 recommendations to overhaul the tax system, only 20 had made it into Budget announcement, PwC tax partner Tim Cox said.

Here’s the article: http://www.couriermail.com.au/business/australias-miners-warn-federal-government-not-to-kill-the-goose-with-its-budget-focus-on-asian-demand-for-resources/story-e6freqmx-1226054211832

“Really the question to pose is, is our approach to tax reform right? Are we in fact embarking on tax reform in this country at the moment or are we really just embarking on a tax maintenance program.”

Statoil (STO) is an international energy company primarily focused on upstream oil and gas operations. The company is headquartered in Norway and employs over 30,000 people worldwide in 42 countries. The Norwegian state is the largest shareholder in Statoil, with a direct ownership interest of 67%.
Statoil has 40 producing oil and gas fields and is one of the world’s largest net sellers of crude oil. It is also the second-largest exporter of gas to Europe. Approximately 80% of oil and gas production of the company comes from Norway. The rest of the operations are scattered throughout the rest of the world.
Business areas:
- Exploration & Production Norway
- International Exploration & Production
- Natural Gas
- Manufacturing & Marketing
- Technology & New Energy
- Projects & Procurement
- Statoil Fuel & Retail
The natural gas business area is responsible for transportation, processing and marketing of natural gas worldwide, including the development of additional processing, transportation and storage capacity. Manufacturing & Marketing is responsible for processing and sale of the group’s and the Norwegian state’s production of crude oil and natural gas liquids.
Statoil Fuel & Retail is a stand-alone entity listed on the Oslo Stock Exchange. Statoil owns 54% of the shares in Statoil Fuel & Retail and consolidates the results of the company in its financial statements. Statoil Fuel & Retail is a leading Scandinavian road transportation fuel retailer with a strong presence also in Poland, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia.
Key Figures

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Statoil has the smallest market cap out of the companies selected in the table above. Therefore, there should be room for growth. Valuation of the company (P/E, P/B) is on par with others, while dividend yield is among the best.
Peer review

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Statoil has an excellent gross margin (51%). Due to effective tax rates between 72% (2010) and 85% (2009), the profit margin appears low compared to its peers and taking into account the GM. Return on assets (ROA) is also a bit lower than with its peers. Return on equity (ROE) is at par with others. Statoil has the highest amount of long term (LT) debt per equity, but given the excellent gross margin and operating margin (26%), there should not be any problem servicing the debt. In addition, given the very high effective tax rates, there should not be any significant impact to the bottom line either, even if servicing the debt becomes more expensive in the future than it was in 2010.
Strategy Update
CEO Helge Lund stated in the 2010 annual report:
We are positioned to deliver a compound annual production growth rate of around 3% from 2010-2012. However, due to the constraints of existing production permits and the temporary issues at Gullfaks, this growth will not be linear. We expect production for 2011 to be around the 2010 level, or slightly below.

Statoil is involved in 13 fields that are being developed with a planned start-up by 2012, and is expected to add around 200 mboe per day. In addition, 150 mboe per day are expected to be added from the ramp-up of newly started fields. Statoil expects 40 additional projects to be sanctioned over the next two years at competitive break-even prices.
Statoil’s CEO confirms that the strategy as a technology-driven upstream company remains firm. He also gave the following forward-looking guidance:
We expect to continue to demonstrate substantial value creation from the Norwegian continental shelf (NCS). The NCS still has a large resource base with significant yet to find volumes, and we have the experience and the competenceto exploit its full potential. The decline at mature fields is as envisaged, and we expect new projects with competitive break-even prices to deliver significant future growth. We see production outlook as being stable towards 2020 on the NCS.

We officially started production from Leismer in Canada in January 2011 and expect to start Peregrino in Brazil towards the end of first quarter of 2011, establishing Statoil as a genuinely international operator. We expect to increase our exploration activity in 2011 and will continue the pursuit of attractive exploration acreage. We will continue to mature our portfolio of international projects, laying the foundation for growth beyond 2012.

Project highlights
These are the projects and operations that I find particularly interesting:
Snøhvit (Snow White) is the first LNG production plant in Europe. It is located at 70 degrees north, making it the world’s most northerly offshore gas field. The field is at a depth of 300 meters beneath the surface. Natural gas liquids and condensate are transported 143 kilometers through the seabed pipeline to Melkøya in Hammerfest, Norway.
Carbon Capture and Storage
Statoil is a pioneer in the field of carbon capture and storage. From 1996 onwards, Statoil has been injecting and storing one million tonnes of CO2 annually from the Sleipner gas field on the Norwegian continental shelf. The company also injects CO2 in the ground on the Snøhvit field in the Barents Sea and on the In Salah field in Algeria. It also participates in a project to develop a full-scale carbon capture and storage facility at Mongstad in Norway.
Conclusion
Strategically, Statoil is positioned as a technology-driven upstream energy company. Currently some 80% of oil and gas production of the company comes from Norway, but in the long run this is likely to change. While the production outlook remains stable towards 2020 in Norway, according to Statoil, it’s looking for growth elsewhere in the world. The annual report for 2010 states:
In further developing our international business, we intend to utilize our core expertise in areas such as deep water, heavy oil, harsh environments and gas value chains in order to exploit new opportunities and develop high quality projects.

The Norwegian state benefits immensely from Statoil. It is the largest shareholder in Statoil and also imposes high taxes on the profits (above 70%). Therefore, Statoil is the goose that lays the golden eggs for the state of Norway. Looking at the key figures and the peer review, Statoil is a good choice also for an individual investor. It offers an excellent alternative to US- and UK-based oil giants in a stable region.

Don’t know if you can get the BBC program Fast Track. Always has some great stories here’s one from Rajan Datar.

Jordan is the latest destination for budget carrier Easyjet and arguably another milestone in the story of low-cost carriers. Their arrival in the 90s was a wake up call for the rest of the industry but today the divisions are increasingly blurred.
Easyjet is now 15 years old and wants to take on the grown-ups as the first no-frills carrier to go from Europe to the Middle East, entering a new phase of expansion and sending a message to customers, rivals and governments.
With some exceptions, it does seem that low-cost carriers increasingly want to compete on customer service with the old boys.
But with no in-flight entertainment, some customers may not see it that way.
“On any flight today, most people have their own entertainment; they have their DVDs, they have their earpieces, they have their iPods,” argues Carolyn McCall, Easyjet’s CEO. She believes that providing no entertainment is a better option.

The budget airlines have created new local economies based around the routes they have opened up over the years, and with this in mind, Easyjet’s new hosts in Jordan are enthusiastic about their arrival.
Tourism makes up 15% of the country’s economy and it wants to sell itself as an oasis of calm in a troubled region.
“We’re looking at it as a long partnership – a partnership that we would like to see growing in the coming years and expanding to other destinations,” says Nayef Al-Fayez, managing director of Jordan’s tourism board.

The flight for early bookers on Easyjet to Amman can be as little as $150 (£91) return. But book later, tot up all those extra charges and prices creep far closer to the premium carriers. It is a practice all low-cost airlines use, known as price dripping.
“The general perception is that the whole low-cost model is riddled with ancillary charges and airlines have to be careful that that doesn’t kill the goose that laid the golden egg,” says Tim Jeans, former commercial director at Ryanair.

Easyjet are tapping into the business travel market
America is 20 years ahead of the curve in low-cost travel, with the likes of South West creating the blueprint for the low-fare gate-crashers. But today, South West is going upmarket with 400 planes and three million customers. And on some routes it provides a choice of six flights a day. Studies in the US reveal the old divisions between legacy carriers and the budget airlines are becoming blurred. The gap in prices between the two models is now only 14% on domestic flights.

“In the United States they have never been this close,” says aviation expert Oliver Fainsilber.
“The low-cost airlines used to have a cost advantage from having very modern fleets that did not require maintenance in the early years.
“They had their pick of routes where they could thrive, but as you grow and have to chase new markets – it’s difficult.”

In Amman and on other routes, Easyjet is attracting passengers from the so-called “visiting friends and relatives market” – with some making eight or nine trips a year.

Low-cost travel is not at an end, but the era of ultra-low cost travel – the 50p (81c) fares, the £5 ($8.16) fares – most probably is
Tim Jeans, former commercial director at Ryanair.

But Easyjet is now especially keen to target the business traveller market with new flexible fares offering free luggage, check-in and priority boarding. “They are beginning to appoint a corporate sales force. If anything was a sign of stealing the clothes of British Airways, that is,” says Mr Jeans. Many low-cost carriers are turning to primary airports and hubs, seduced by lower landing charges.
Air Berlin is increasing its longer-haul routes and its hub at the city’s airport. Iceland Express now flies to Boston, Chicago and New York.

Meanwhile, the rising costs of taxes and oil are hitting some budget airlines in Europe disproportionately hard and closing the cost gap with the legacy carriers. “Low-cost travel is not at an end, but the era of ultra-low cost travel – the 50p (81c) fares, the £5 ($8.16) fares – most probably is, not least because taxation is bearing down on air travel in a disproportionate way compared with other modes of transport,” says Mr Jeans. The legacy carriers are cost-slashing by chopping fleets, routes and employees.
And their coffers are being boosted by charging for insurance, sports gear, seat selection and food – no longer taboo for the premium carriers on short haul anyway.

We’re good value, we’re not always cheap, we are sometimes but not always – we are cheerful
Carolyn McCall, CEO Easyjet. In moving to destinations like Amman, Easyjet is opening access to tourist honeypots like the Dead Sea, the Wadi Rum desert, Petra’s Roman ruins and Jordan’s diverse nature and ecology. But how far can it go – literally?

“It’s difficult for a low-cost airline to go long distances because you start adding complexity to your system,” says Mr Fainsilber.
“If your crews have to sleep overnight somewhere, if you need technical support in far away places, you are essentially changing your business model.”

So far there are no indications of Easyjet entering the very long haul market like India. Its core business is still short haul.
Is Easyjet happy to be called cheap and cheerful? “No,” says CEO Ms McCall.

“I think low fares with great service. I’d be happy with that. We’re good value, we’re not always cheap, we are sometimes, but not always. We are cheerful. I’m happy with that bit.”

You can watch Fast Track on BBC World News on Saturday at 0430, 1230 and 1930 and Sunday at 1930 GMT

What is going on in Bangalore? Seems there might be a high price for playing with Mother nature according to Mr Neethu Reghukumar from the Bangalore Mirror.

Mr Reghukumar likens the poultry farming practices to killing the goose that lays the golden egg.

Poultry farmers are subjecting chickens to an inhuman treatment in order to make them lay more eggs that means more money.

Just the way amphibians and mammals cast off their skin, chickens shed their feathers during autumn (the beginning of January and February), which is known as moulting. The process lasts a fortnight. While chickens stop laying eggs during moulting, poultry owners force them to shed feathers through starvation.

With egg prices soaring, many poultry farms across the state are resorting to artificial moulting. The practice has become so rampant the department of animal husbandry is flooded with representations from animal welfare organisations seeking a crackdown on it.

Artificial moulting has also drawn the ire of the Animal Welfare Board of India, which has ordered a ban on it. “Poultry owners try to hasten the process of moulting by forcing chickens to starve. They are under the false impression that starvation will make them shed feathers earlier,” says Sowmya Reddy, a member of Humane Society International, which is demanding a ban on the practice.

This inhuman practice is also said to be contaminating chickens with the deadly salmonella bacteria, which recently took a toll on tigers at Bannerghatta.

Jayasimha N G, a veterinary expert and a manager at Humane Society, feels the ‘forced moult regime’ will contaminate eggs and chicken with the salmonella bacteria. “We have requested the state government and the veterinary department to keep tabs on poultry farms,” he said.

He has witnessed such practices in many poultry farms in Bangalore and across the state. “Only a few are aware of the ill-effects of forced starvation, a lot many need to be educated on it,” he felt. The campaign has drawn political support too. Senior Congress leader and MLA Ramalinga Reddy has written to the government seeking a ban on the practice. “I was shocked to learn that ‘forced moult regimes’ are widely used in farms in Karnataka. Food is often withheld for up to 14 days and chickens are deprived of water for one to two days,” he said.

The legislator said chickens lose 35 per cent of their body weight during the process because of mental trauma. “Several countries have banned the practice as it will adversely affect consumers and chickens,” he said.

Meanwhile, sources in the veterinary department admitted the Animal Welfare Board of India had directed all states to end the practice and see it as a punishable offence under Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act.

Even as animal welfare bodies cried hoarse against artificial moulting, P S Nanda Kumar, the former president of Karnataka Hatcheries’ Association, denied the practice existed anywhere in Bangalore or even in Karnataka.

Be very careful when eating chicken in Bangalore.

David Clarke from StarCourier.com reports on a new way to get the goose to lay golden eggs.
Wethersfield’s Flying Geese will be hoping they have a lucky golden egg in a new fund-raiser for the Wethersfield Academic Foundation.
It’s a raffle called “The Goose that laid the Golden Egg” with the winners drawn Saturday, May 21, at the Wethersfield Athletic Field during the Wethersfield Elementary PATT Goose Trot.
Tickets for the drawing are $5 each, or 5 for $20, and can be purchased at any of the school’s three offices — high school, elementary school, or unit office in the Blish Building. Once tickets are purchased they will be placed in gold plastic eggs, then in a roller for the drawing.
The grand prize is an iPad 2. Second prize is an iPod Nano. Third prize is a $50 savings bond. Various other small prizes will also be given away in the drawing.
If you buy five tickets, you will have five golden eggs in the drawing.
The wild, or flying goose has been Wethersfield’s school mascot since shortly after the high school was established in 1903. According to the 1913 yearbook, an emblem was needed for the school pin and students chose the wild goose because the one block square where the school was built had once been wetlands and a popular gathering place for migrating and domestic geese.
Before there was a high school, the village of Wethersfield had been nicknamed “Goose Island.”
The goose chosen for the WHS school pin was all white. The emblem changed to the black and white Canada goose used today when the late Richard Rose, as a senior in the Class of 1958, drew a winged version on the west wall of the gymnasium.
That rendering was covered over when the gym was painted years later but became the “official” version of the mascot which is now drawn on the north wall of the gym.
In the 1950s and ‘60s, the school actually had a live goose mascot. Betty Dexter Tomsic, a 1954 WHS graduate, recalls the goose’s name was “William the Conqueror,” and it was in attendance at all home football games.
The 1961 WHS yearbook includes a photograph of a white goose standing across a cinder track from crowded ground-level bleachers at a football game.
By the way the foundation recently donated $12,000 to the school for the purchase of smartboards, computers, laptops and other educational materials.
Go to this link to view the article.

http://www.starcourier.com/education/x713433637/-Golden-eggs-to-raise-funds-for-Wethersfield-Academic-Foundation

I am always fascinated by enterprising people. Here’s a very good example of how enterprise can lead to more profit.
The VietNamNet Bridge recently published an article that describes how many enterprises have to struggle hard to get the profit of 10 percent for their investment deals, small shopkeepers on pavements can earn the profit.
The pavements in the central area of Hanoi are considered the “goose that laid the golden eggs”.
The lemon teashops in the Cathedral area in the center of Hanoi are always full of customers who fully occupy the pavements. There are so many customers that sometimes they have to take seats on the road. Most of the visitors are young people, or students. The drinks that most of them choose are lemon tea, which is selling at VND8000 per glass. Customers can drink lemon tea with sunflower seeds or dried beef, priced at 5000-30,000 dong. Of course, the prices are exorbitant if compared with the prices at which the same products are sold at other shops in other areas.
The area has become so familiar and crowded that it is now called the “lemon tea cooperative”. The “cooperative” was formed five years ago, when young people in Hanoi began having the habit of drinking lemon tea. The area near the Cathedral is just 100 square meters in size, but it can receive nearly thousand customers. Every day, the “cooperative” opens from 9 am to 10 pm.
Thanh Nam, a student, told VnExpress that he regularly comes to the teashop in his free time. “This is a kind of favorite drink for young people. Meanwhile, it is wonderful to enjoy lemon tea here, in a fresh atmosphere, where you can admire the ancient cathedral and watch people walking pass,” Nam said
The owner of a shop here revealed that thousands of customers come here every day. “I cannot count the number of customers. I just know that I sell several kilogrammes of lemon a day,” he said. However, he declined to reveal the actual profit he can earn every day.
Here on the golden land plot, the price of everything is exorbitant: a glass of lemon tea is selling at VND8000, a loaf of bread at VND20,000, and a product made of balloons at VND45,000.
Meanwhile, in order to make 100 lemon tea glasses, one has to spend 70,000 dong for 0.5 kilogramme of good tea, 46,000 dong for two kilos of sugar and 54,000 dong for three kilogrammes of lemon.
After deducting the expenses of 170,000 dong, shop owners will get the fat profit of 630,000 dong for 100 lemon tea glasses. As such, with thousands of glasses sold every day, the owners of the shops can easily pocket five million dong a day.
In Vietnam, a person with a monthly income of 10 million dong is considered a “high income earner”. As such, 10 million dong is equal to two days income of a teashop owner.
Vien, the woman who has been vending tea for many years in ancient streets in Hanoi, also said that she has been living well on the job. She said that the pavements of ancient streets in Hanoi can bring millions dong to vendors, because the customers here are plentiful and rich.
The woman related that the living standard of local residents is higher than that of residents in other residential quarters of the city. Therefore, it is more profitable to sell things on the pavements of ancient streets. A cup of yoghurt can be sold at 20,000 dong, a glass of squeezed oranges at 35,000 dong, a glass of apricot juice at 20,000 dong, while a glass of tea is no less than 15,000 dong.
Meanwhile, the input material prices are relatively low: a kilogramme of oranges, which can make 2-3 glasses of juice, is priced at 25,000 dong per kilogramme, while a cup of yoghurt is priced at 4000 dong. As such, Vien can earn the fat profit of 10,000 dong for every glass sold, and hundreds of glasses sold a day can bring her no less than one million dong.
However, the “businessmen who trade on the pavements” complain that they also have worries of their own. The owner of the lemon tea shops complained that there is no good place for visitors to park their motorbikes. In many cases, people have to park their motorbikes on the roads, and the motorbikes can be seized by the police. Therefore, visitors have to run away every time when they see policemen, and they cannot pay for the drinks.
Hoa, who is vending eggs and bread on Hoan Kiem Lake area, complained that everyday, she has to walk no less than 30 kilometres. “As the pavements here are too expensive, I can only stay for some minutes to sell products. After finishing selling, I have to go away,” she said.
Here’s the link to the article http://english.vietnamnet.vn/en/business/6191/pavements-net-small-shopkeepers-millions-dong-a-day.html