Asia

Peter Grimes on the Beach might have attracted gimmicky interest, but the Church Parables were by far the true artistic highlight of this year's Aldeburgh Festival. The Parables were written specifically for Orford Church. It's important to experience them in this context to really understand their spirit. All around Aldeburgh, ruins remind us of a time when abbeys and churches were outposts of learning. Then came the Reformation, and they were destroyed, burned to the ground in a frenzy of hate .The ruins might look peaceful now but once they witnessed howling mobs hell bent on annihilation. Britten wasn't religious but he despised mob rule and barbarism. The Church Parables aren't really Christian. They are a protest against the destruction of civilized values. The stark white washed walls at the church in Orford bear witness to violence, but their foundations are strong and have lasted a thousand years. Hearing the Church Parables here adds meaning. Britten's fascination with non-western music had very deep roots. He worked with Colin McPhee, the pioneer of Indonesian music. Here is a clip from a recording made in 1941, where Britten and McPhee play a transcription of Balinese music for two pianos. By the time he actually visited Asia he was well of the new horizons non-western music could offer. Curlew River springs directly from the Japanese Noh drama, Sumidagawa River, but it was also a vehicle for Britten's own sense of profound sense of alienation. "I can't write Japanesy", he said. Curlew River isn't pastiche, but reflects ideas long germinating in Britten's psyche.The strange keening lines and swooping cadences can be heard throughout his work, from Our Hunting Fathers to Death in Venice. Read my piece on The Prince of Pagodas here, and many other pieces on Britten and non-western music. Britten was far more radical than we appreciate.In Curlew River, Britten connected the formalism of Japanese theatre with the rituals of Catholic liturgical music. Neither forms were populist, both the esoteric preserve of an educated minority. Yet Britten, with his passionate belief in communication and in the community, also incorporated elements of medieval mystery plays, where complex ideas were expressed in simplified form. The characters in Curlew River are larger than life, almost symbolist archetypes, and the music they have to sing is extreme. Nowadays. we're so used to naturalism in film and theatre, that we forget how recently it took hold. By eschewing naturalsim, Britten connects Curlew River to much more ancient traditions.The stylized ritual also serves as a an emotional mask, distancing the artists from his audiences. This reticence can be off-putting, Britten isn't touchy-feely. But his emotions are so intense that they have to be faced obliquely, as if through a mask.Curlew River is the best-known of the three Church Parables, but at Orford, the connections were enhanced by using the same cast - James Gilchrist, Lukas Jakobski, Rodney Earl Clarke, Samuel Evans, and Mahagony Opera, directed by Frederic Wake-Walker, with designs by Kitty Callister and lighting by Ben Payne. Roger Vignoles was Music Director, conducting the Aurora Orchestra from the chamber organ. The musicians played wearing monastic costume, and barefoot, like the players on stage. That kept them warm on a cold night, but was also part of the meaning. Like the Pilgrims, like the spartan church, the music is deceptively simple : steady percussion, delicately ethereal figures. Curlew River begins and ends with processions, sung by the monks, framing the strange drama within. At Orford, the singers chant in Latin, followed by the orchestral players, holding their instruments. All are barefoot, their feet in contact with the earth.James Gilchrist sang the Madwoman. His voice curled around the long, wailing syntax, each tiny nuance dripping with purpose. "I come from the Mo-o-o-o-u un-n tains" Gilchrist's syllables are razor-shar. His consonants ex

ON Semiconductor Wins 2012 "Best Project Collaboration" Award from Yanfeng Visteon Group SHANGHAI--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- ON Semiconductor (Nasdaq: ONNN), driving innovation in energy efficiency, has been awarded a 2012 Best Project Collaboration Award from Yanfeng Visteon Group (YFV), a leading automotive component supplier in China. The award was presented at YFV's 2013 Supplier Conference. ON Semiconductor was one of only 20 of the manufacturer's thousands of suppliers and the only semiconductor company honored during the Conference. The citation recognized ON Semiconductor's excellence in solution, technology, service, quality and delivery, which YFV described as essential to its success in key automotive projects. "It was a great honor to receive this prestigious award," said Robert Klosterboer, ON Semiconductor senior vice president and general manager of the Application Products Group. "We share a common vision of performance-driven values with YFV through collaboration. We value our long-term relationship with YFV and will continue to deliver superior solutions and service for audio, infotainment, driving information system and climate control heads to support YFV's next-generation products for automotive." As a joint venture between Visteon and Huayu Automotive Systems, YFV is among China's top four suppliers of automotive components, whose business covers automotive interior, exterior, seating, electronics and safety systems. It has more than 90 production bases worldwide, serving more than 30 OEMs and exporting to over 16 countries. About ON Semiconductor ON Semiconductor (NAS: ONNN) is driving innovation in energy efficient electronics, empowering design engineers to reduce global energy use. The company offers a comprehensive portfolio of energy efficient power and signal management, logic, discrete and custom solutions to help customers solve their unique design challenges in automotive, communications, computing, consumer, industrial, LED lighting, medical, military/aerospace and power supply applications. ON Semiconductor operates a responsive, reliable, world-class supply chain and quality program, and a network of manufacturing facilities, sales offices and design centers in key markets throughout North America, Europe, and the Asia Pacific regions. For more information, visit http://www.onsemi.com. Follow @onsemi on Twitter. ON Semiconductor and the ON Semiconductor logo are registered trademarks of Semiconductor Components Industries, LLC. All other brand and product names appearing in this document are registered trademarks or trademarks of their respective holders. Although the company references its Web site in this news release, such information on the Web site is not to be incorporated herein. ON SemiconductorDaisy Sham,(852) 2689-0156Asia Pacific Communicationsdaisy.sham@onsemi.comKEYWORDS:   United States  Asia Pacific  North America  China  ArizonaINDUSTRY KEYWORDS:

The special committee should reject Murdock's offer of $12.00/share. Dole has previously highlighted $500mm ($5.56/share) of non-core assets, and there have been three consecutive weak years in the core banana business. 46% of Murdock's takeout price consists of things that can be sold without affecting the earnings prospects of the core business in any way. The key question for Dole following the divestiture of its Asia segment has been whether a private owner or the public markets should preside over the disposition and related cash distribution of this $5.56/share.The company announced a planned buyback of $175mm on 5/9/13 with proceeds from the sale of land in Hawaii, and so it seemed that a big part of the overriding non-core asset question had been answered. Then, three weeks later on 5/28/13, Dole cancelled the buyback in favor of purchasing ships. Concurrent with the cancellation of the buyback was news that

The 6.4-inch honker, expected to be announced July 4, could house a powerful quad-core processor and 1080p HD screen.

The chipmaker will roll out a 64-bit ARM processor in the second half of 2014.

Taisha is again the author. She writes: Today's photo is of Equisetum arvense, also known as the field horsetail. This picture was taken by Hans Mohr (aka muscovite@Flickr) on May 19, 2013. Thank you Hans for the vibrant photo (submitted via the Botany Photo of the Day Flickr Pool)! Equisetum arvense is a perennial species that is found across North America, Eurasia, Asia, and Greenland. Often, it grows along roadsides or riverbanks, or in fields and pastures. Though native, the field horsetail is considered a weedy species in British Columbia as it is poisonous to young horses and sheep when ingested. Equisetum is derived from the Latin equus meaning "horse", and seta, "bristle", a reference to the resemblance of some species to the tails of horses. Field horsetail can propagate vegetatively from an underground rhizomatous stem. Fertile and vegetative aerial (aboveground) stems are hollow, except at the nodes. The shorter, brown fertile stems mature in early spring, shown in today's photograph. They are unbranched and terminate in a spore-bearing "cone". After spore dispersal, the fertile stems will wither and sterile stems grow. These vegetative counterparts with whorls of side shoots at the nodes are green and photosynthetic. The nodal leaves on the vegetative stems are dark brown, toothed, and form a papery sheath around the stalk.

Chevron Corporation (NYSE:CVX): Closing price $121.52 The American oil giant said Tuesday that it is divesting five Nigerian shallow-water oil blocks, making Chevron the most recent oil major wishing to dispose of assets in Africa’s biggest oil producing country. In recent years, Royal Dutch Shell, Eni, and Total have sold off a number of Nigerian onshore blocks, while ConocoPhillips  is selling its Nigerian operations to Oando Energy for around $1.79 billion. Nigeria wants more direct ownership of its oil and gas resources, either through the state oil company, or local firms, igniting fears among foreign oil majors that they may lose smaller assets for nothing if they don’t sell now, according to industry experts. Are these stocks a buy or sell? Let us help you decide. BHP Billiton (NYSE:BHP): Closing price $62.60 BHP is returning to plans to develop a coking coal deposit in Australia, while it minimizes the strength of extra demand for that commodity from China in the middle of an expected steel glut in Asia. BHP Billiton Mitsubishi Alliance, a joint venture known as BMA, which operates six coking coal mines in Queensland, has pulled back proposals for a new mine with an output of as much as 14 million metric tons of coking coal per year and intends to employ the Red Hill resource in the Bowen Basin to enlarge existing nearby pits instead. The move reflects how firms such as BHP are moving to tighten control of costs, while retaining exposure to rapidly-growing demand for coal in Asia. BHP believes that a lot of China’s future demand growth for coking coal will be addressed by domestic mines, but it has specified India as a growing market for imports. Are these stocks a buy or sell? Let us help you decide. Chesapeake Energy Corporation (NYSE:CHK): Closing price $21.25 Chesapeake has named Patrick Craine, a partner with the law firm Bracewell & Giuliani, and former attorney in the Security and Exchange Commission’s Fort Worth office, as its chief compliance officer. In a statement, the company’s new Chief Executive Doug Lawler said that Craine was hired to complement Chesapeake’s regulatory and legal compliance endeavors. Aside from that, the firm hired Craine in 2012 to address the SEC’s investigation into a controversial perk that granted former Chief Executive Aubrey McClendon a share in each of the firm’s wells, according to a number of inside sources. Are these stocks a buy or sell? Let us help you decide. Tesoro Corporation (NYSE:TSO): Closing price $57.11 Tesoro announced on Monday that it has concluded an agreement to sell Tesoro Hawaii, which operates the 94,000 barrel-per-day Kapolei refinery, together with dozens of retail gas stations, to the subsidiary of Texas-based Par Petroleum, Hawaii Pacific Energy, for almost $400 million. The company said that the sales price of the Hawaii operations is $75 million, plus the market value of net working capital, which should come to between $225 million to $275 million. Also included is an earn-out arrangement payable over three years of as much as $40 million, based on consolidated gross margins, according to Tesoro. The transaction should close during the third quarter. Are these stocks a buy or sell? Let us help you decide. Check out our Stock Picker Newsletter now. Don’t Miss: As U.S. Energy Boom Begins, Is Exxon a Good Buy? Read the original article from Wall St. Cheat Sheet

A million more people joined the ranks of the global super-rich last year, almost a third of them in Asia, as soaring stock markets helped bolster the fortunes of wealthy investors. The number of "high net worth individuals" climbed by 10% in 2012, taking the total worldwide to 12m, according to research by Royal Bank of Canada and consultancy Capgemini. Between them, these twelve million people owned assets worth $46.2tn (£29.5tn) – more than three times the entire annual output from the US economy, and a 10% increase on 2011. A high net worth individual is defined as anyone with $1m (£641,000) or more in "investable assets". The definition excludes the value of a main home and of any "consumer durables" such as cars. World markets were volatile in the first half of 2012, as the eurozone crisis deepened; but after ECB president Mario Draghi promised to do "whatever it takes" to protect the single currency in July, and the Federal Reserve unleashed a drastic third round of quantitative easing in September, share prices recovered strongly, boosting the wealth of those with investments. The findings are likely to increase concerns that the benefits of central banks' radical policies to rekindle economic growth have accrued overwhelmingly to those at the top of society, while unemployment remains stubbornly high in many countries and incomes have been under severe pressure. Britain is home to the fifth-largest group of super-wealthy individuals, according to the report, with 465,000 super-rich individuals, up from 441,000 in 2011. The wealth report came as the latest UK inflation figures showed that with the consumer price index running at 2.7% in May wages for average British workers have now failed to keep up with prices for more than three years. Frances O'Grady, general secretary of the TUC, said, "economic stagnation has caused incomes to fall for most ordinary families but the wealth of the super-rich just keeps on growing. Unless this inequality is tackled Britain could experience a pretty joyless recovery, with the majority of the population seeing little or no benefit when economic growth returns." The US regained its place at the top of the league table in the report, as the home to 3.73m high net worth individuals, up by more than 11.5% on 2011, as the recovering property market helped repair the damage to wealthy investors' housing portfolios inflicted by the downturn of the past five years. The Asia-Pacific region was just behind the US, with a population of 3.68m super-rich investors – up by more than 9% on the year. Europe, where the economy of the single currency zone has now been in recession for 18 months, was home to 3.4m high net worth individuals, but saw a smaller rise in their number, of 7.5%, in 2012. The researchers also sub-divide the millionaires according to their wealth. There was an increase of 11% in 2012 in the number of people classified as "ultra high net worth individuals", the creme de la creme of the super-rich. These 110,000 people are worth $30m or more, and hold assets worth more than $16tn between them. A middle group of just over a million people, the "mid-tier millionaires", held $10tn-worth of assets between them; and a much larger group of 10.8m people, which the report refers to as the "millionaires next door", held assets worth $1m-$3m. The data also underlines the stark geographical divide in the distribution of wealth across the world, with just 140,000 of the 12m super-rich living across the entire continent of Africa. That was an increase of almost 10% from 2011; but still fewer than in Italy, Australia or Brazil. RBC and Capgemini's analysts forecast that the super-rich will continue getting richer, with the total wealth held by this group expected to expand by 6.5% a year over the next three years. The super-rich emerge from the survey conducted as part of the research as a relatively conservative group. They managed their assets cautious

Blake & Mortimer Volume 15: The Secret of the Swordfish Part  1 – The Incredible Chase By Edgar P. Jacobs Cinebook “In a past almost, but not entirely, like ours, the world lives in dread of a new power, an empire centred in Tibet and led by a megalomaniac. When the inevitable attack comes, it destroys all opposition, and capital cities across the planet are left burning. But, in Great Britain, Professor Mortimer, inventor of a mysterious weapon named the Swordfish, and his friend and protector Captain Blake, have escaped the destruction, and must make their way to a secret base…“ The fifteenth Cinebook volume of Jacobs’ classic takes us right back to where it all began, with the very first Blake & Mortimer volume, published in 1950. And frankly, it shows. Not just in the uncomfortable racial profiling with the whole “Yellow Empire” thing, but in the strange pacing and distinctly post-war optimism of having any chance of surviving WWIII. However, despite several problems with the book that really hampered my reading, there’s definitely something really thrilling and rather shocking in this first Blake and Mortimer. I say shocking because nothing can really prepare you for just how quickly and brutally Jacobs drops you into the alternate history of this post-WWII world of Blake & Mortimer. We’re actually entering the narrative some way in, with the cold war fully in effect, although not one involving Russia, instead the East is a tyrant running an empire from Tibet, aided by B&M’s nemesis Olrik. But you’re told that by Mortimer onpage 6: Which rather forces me to criticise before praising. This sort of thing really puts me off Jacobs’ B&M, the huge dialogue exposition is one problem, the overdoing the captions to the same end is another. And the third is the problem of developing the plot as a series of this happened, then this happened, then this happened things and connecting the events with a sequence of coincidences and accidents. I know it’s all part of the nostalgic charm of B&M and these tales particularly come from a far slower time, but this really does affect my enjoyment. The thing is, following that page of text with Mortimer delivering the whole background to the political climate of this alternate post-war world, there’s actually a particularly intense and thrilling section which takes us from cold war to new world order in just 8 pages. It’s completely unexpected, fast, furious, and decidedly brutal; by page 8 the world is at war, page 9 sees the machines of death flying across the globe and nuclear strikes have devastated Moscow, Calcutta, Hankou and Rome, by page 10 Paris, Berlin, Paris and London are destroyed, and by page 13 we have a new world order in place: Personally I’d be a little more upset than “How dreadful!”. But again, that slight understatement is typical of the tone here. Jacobs sets everything up beautifully in these early pages, really creates a sense of desperation, a world in ruins, the only hope seemingly with B&M and the mysterious Swordfish weapon they’re just days away from prototyping. And following the devastation both men are hunted across Europe and Asia, by plane, by foot, by truck, by armoured car, shot down, captured, freed, escape, more allies, hijack a plane, shot down again… all a bit breathless really. But somewhere along the line it goes from desperation and despair with a small band responsible for saving the world to two gents having a jolly good feast in the wreckage of their enemy’s plane. All a bit incongruous really, as if Jacobs has forgotten just how important their mission is, or just how bad the situation is. Again, probably overthinking this, and I know it’s probably one of those things to simply put down to the particular age and style of the strip, and no doubt B&M fans will want my head for this. But it’s a big part of what

First 2 Board | First2Board Miles, Points, and Mai TaisIn 2006 Chase and United came together to offer a revolutionary new product called Choices. For the first time it gave customers the ability to trade in their hard-earned MileagePlus miles for a statement credit on United purchases made with their co-branded credit cards. The redemption rate was, and still is, 1 cent per mile. Choices was quickly written off by many, because after all, who would want to sell back their miles for half or a third of what it typically (at the time) cost to earn them. Compared to trading in miles for first and business class travel overseas (which seems to be the aspirational goal for so many in our hobby), it didn’t appear to be that great of a deal. Understandably, there just hasn’t been much buzz about the program since it was first introduced. Still, MileagePlus Choices remained a viable alternative for those looking to redeem miles, especially for domestic coach award travel. Instead of paying 25,000 miles for a Saver Award or 50,000 miles for a Standard Award, if you could find a ticket less than $250 or $500 respectively, it actually made sense to use Choices. I myself traded in some of my Choices miles for a couple of cheap tickets to Durango, CO back in 2008. As an additional bonus, my husband and I still got our miles (and precious EQMs) for the flight, because as far as United was concerned, those were revenue tickets. After that, I too quickly forgot about the program. In fact, up until very recently, 2008 was the first-and-last time I took advantage of that particular offering from United and Chase. Fast forward to a couple of weeks ago, after a spontaneous late night mileage run booking binge, and all of a sudden I had a several thousand dollar credit card bill to deal with. It was now time to reevaluate my Choices… The Basics Complete program terms and conditions can be found here, but here are a few things you’ll want to keep in mind: Award miles accrued with your MileagePlus credit card and transferred to your MileagePlus account based on eligible card activity, including, but not limited to, credit card purchases, Chase promotional offers, and anniversary renewals, are available for redemption in the MileagePlus Choices program. Your Choices program balance is a subset of your MileagePlus award miles balance and not a separate balance. You cannot have a greater Choices program balance than your MileagePlus award miles balance. So basically, the amount of Choices you have available is based on how much you spend with your co-branded credit card (not just on United purchases, but in general), and you must have enough MileagePlus miles in your account to cover the redemption. Partial credits are allowed, but the minimum redemption is 5,000 miles (up to $50). Statement credit cannot exceed the price of your ticket and requests to redeem Choices must be made within 90 days of purchase. Chase Choices vs. United Award Travel If you’re contemplating award travel, let’s evaluate some options- Domestic Coach Standard Award = 50,000 miles. It’s for last-minute travel and you can’t find a Saver Award (25k), but you do find a revenue ticket for less than $500- let’s say $350. Redeem 35,000 miles via the Choices program for a $350 statement credit and save 15,000 miles! You’re still eligible for upgrades, plus you’ll both miles and EQMs for your flight. Business Class Saver Award to Asia = 120,000 round trip. If you can find a ticket for less than $1200 (again, Business Class) then by all means use your Choices, but good luck! In this case you would most likely never find a ticket for that price so its makes sense to book a mileage award directly with United. Of course, don’t forget about the taxes and fees; if your decision point is close, that may tip the scale. The math is pretty simple- Add two zeroes the price of the ticket, and that’s what it would cos