Hong Kong reports first H7N9 case of the year
Hong Kong health authorities on Wednesday confirmed the territory’s third human case of the deadly H7N9 bird flu, the city’s first of 2014. A 65-year-old man has been infected with the virus and is in a critical condition, Hong Kong Centre for Health Protection controller Leung Ting-hung told reporters at a press conference late Wednesday. Leung also said that the patient may have “passed through” the entrance of a government building complex containing a wet market in Hong Kong. An 80-year-old man died on Boxing Day after he was infected with H7N9, Hong Kong’s first death from the virus.
Alibaba to set up mobile gaming platform in China
E-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd said on Wednesday it would set up a mobile gaming platform in China, venturing into a fast growing sector dominated by tech rival Tencent Holdings Ltd. Mobile gaming is hugely popular in China, home to the largest number of smartphone users in the world. In 2013, mobile gaming revenue accounted for 11.24 billion yuan ($1.86 billion), or 13.5 percent of the overall Chinese video gaming market, the world’s third largest. Liu Chunning, a former Tencent executive who now heads Alibaba’s digital entertainment business, said in a statement the mobile gaming platform would be offered free to developers for the first year.
Salvadoran ex-president admits Taiwan payments
Salvadoran ex-president Francisco Flores admitted to a congressional panel Tuesday that he had received checks worth millions of dollars from Taiwan but denied the funds were for his personal use. “I handed in those checks (from Taiwan) for their appropriate use at all times,” said Flores, who was president from 1999-2004. President Mauricio Funes last month suggested to reporters that the missing funds might have been skimmed or misused, and said prosecutors would call Flores in for questioning. Funes recently charged that three checks — for $1 million, $4 million and $5 million — were issued by the Bank of New York, on behalf of Taiwan, and endorsed by Francisco Flores.
Hong Kong mulls following China to destroy ivory stockpile
Hong Kong’s government is considering destroying its stockpile of over 30 tonnes of ivory obtained through seizures of elephant tusks, it said Wednesday. The Chinese government crushed a pile of ivory weighing more than six tonnes on Monday, its first public destruction of ivory, to discourage illegal trade. “The Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department is aware of the steps taken in other places to destroy forfeited ivory,” the Hong Kong government department said in a statement sent to AFP Wednesday. Hong Kong has been a transit point for the ivory elephant tusk trade.
Ethiopia: Israel Follows Saudi Arabia to Demand Deportation of Ethiopians BY BEWKET ABEBE
As Ethiopians removed from Saudi Arabia continue filing back into the country, Israel is also planning to deport 500 Ethiopians, possibly as early as January 2014. Some 60,000 migrants from different African countries – particularly Eritrea and Sudan, which makes up the lion’s share at some 90 pc of the total – have entered Israel […]
Read More →L’Oreal halts sale of Garnier brand in China
French cosmetics group L’Oreal said Wednesday it was halting the sale of its Garnier brand in China, the latest Western company to get cold feet over a chill in luxury sales. In order to reinforce its leading position on the Chinese cosmetics market “…the decision was taken to halt the commercialisation of the Garnier brand in China,” the company said in an email to AFP. L’Oreal said it would now focus on its L’Oreal Paris and Maybelline New York mass market brands in China, which have been enjoyed better sales there than Garnier.
Tech tie-up says to launch smartphone OS to rival iOS, Android
A new smartphone operating system developed by a global collaboration of tech firms to rival Google’s Android and Apple’s iOS is expected to launch in the next few months, Japanese mobile phone operator NTT Docomo said Wednesday. The open source offering called Tizen, based on the Linux operating system, could be installed on telephones sold from the end of March, NTT Docomo spokesman Jun Otori told AFP. Tizen is the product of a tie-up among companies from Japan, China, South Korea, Europe and the United States and comes despite tensions among the Asian neighbours over territorial disputes.
China aims to ban smoking in public places by end of the year
China aims to impose a nationwide ban on smoking in public places this year, as authorities move to stamp out a widespread practice that has taken a severe toll on citizens’ health. China, home to some 300 million smokers, is the world’s largest consumer of tobacco, and smoking is a ubiquitous part of social life, particularly for men. Tougher regulation of smoking is a priority this year, officials from the National Health and Family Planning Commission said this week, adding that the agency was pushing lawmakers to toughen laws on tobacco use. “Compared to the damage to health that smoking causes, tobacco’s economic benefits are trivial,” Mao Qun’an, a spokesman for the commission, told a news conference on Tuesday.
China online marketplace Taobao to ban Bitcoins
China’s largest online marketplace, Alibaba Group’s Taobao, said Wednesday that it would ban the trading of Bitcoin and other virtual currencies from January 14, after a government crackdown on the units. The People’s Bank of China (PBoC), the country’s central bank, in December ordered financial institutions to halt Bitcoin-related services and products and cautioned against its potential use in money-laundering, according to a statement. The PBoC also banned domestic third-party payment companies from providing clearing services for virtual currencies, according to state media reports. “Newly added rules include a ban on sales of Internet virtual currencies like Bitcoin and Litecoin,” it said.
High-stakes games: Tencent rolls the dice on mobile
By Paul Carsten and Pete Sweeney BEIJING/SHANGHAI (Reuters) – Tencent Holdings, China’s largest Internet company by revenue, is betting that one-upmanship between friends playing addictive mobile games will boost revenue from WeChat, a social messaging app used by over half of all Chinese smartphone users. The company, led by billionaire CEO and Chairman Pony Ma, last week released an update to WeChat, or Weixin, hoping the addition of games, paid-for emoticons, or stickers, and a mobile payment system will help it cash in on a client base of more than 300 million people. Tencent doesn’t charge users to download and play WeChat’s ‘freemium’ games such as Tiantian Ai Xiaochu, which is similar to “Candy Crush Saga”, the world’s top grossing app, according to Think Gaming. Instead, WeChat’s social networking features encourage friendly competition between players and their contacts by sharing scores.
