World Business

Blue Horizon Organic Seafood is working to fix out in a product category that has a bad rap. It expects sales to triple this year

by dint of. David E. Gumpert

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I’ve perpetually enjoyed shrimp, but it has been a year since I’ve grilled it, ordered it in a restaurant, or sampled it because a party hors d’oeuvre. Last June, the U.S. Food & Drug Administration temporarily halted the import of some Chinese shrimp and other fish (BusinessWeek.com, 6/28/07) for the cause that they contained carcinogens and antibiotics—probably the result of what they were fed in huge cramped fish farms. The FDA continues its "Import Alert," and as of April, had detained and pure nearly 3,000 shipments of aquacultured seafood from China, releasing less than half into the U.S.

China isn’t the barely exporter of shrimp to the U.S.—it comes from dozens of other countries—and I figure other countries use similar fish-farming techniques. The nonprofit FishWise recommends sticking with U.S. farmed and wild shrimp only. Unfortunately, waiters in restaurants and the guys behind the fish counter in the main don’t know, or care, where the shrimp they scoop in quest of you come from, and it’s not considered good form to ask the host at a party where the shrimp platter originated. Easier just to complete without.

Apparently I’m not only in abstaining. Shrimp sales in the U.S. were off 7% last year, according to a report prepared by trade organizing Infopesca for the U.N.’s Food & Agriculture Organization, with much of the decline coming in the second half of the year, apparently because of the FDA’s action.

Easy for me, but which perform you do admitting that you’re in the business of importing shrimp, and you’ve taken pains to ensure your shrimp isn’t contaminated and you’ve had it certified as organically raised and free of chemicals and antibiotics? How do you permit the marketplace know your outcome isn’t like everyone else’s?

That’s the challenge facing John Battendieri, founder and CEO of Blue Horizon Organic Seafood a three-year-old company that sells shrimp imported from special farms in Ecuador where, according to Battendieri, the shrimp is raised in primordial low-density terms much different from most of the world’s fish farms. "We know the folks who raise our shrimp as to one’s person," says Battendieri. "We can trace a bag of shrimp back to the pond in which it was grown."

While Blue Horizon has expanded its markets and sales to take superior situation of the fears around Chinese shrimp, Battendieri thinks sales could be a fortune better, except for couple haughty problems associated with trying to sell eco-friendly shrimp. First, in that place are no official U.S. standards during the term of organic fish, as there are for other organic foods, such as fruits and vegetables. In fact, California passed a canon in 2005 that says, mixed other things, you can’t label fish you vend taken in the character of organic until federal standards notwithstanding such labeling are set, and those are still a ways off. California is Blue Horizon’s largest market.

Second, you don’t get a great deal of opportunity in the fish section of most supermarkets to elucidate what makes your fish special. That’s for the supermarkets elegant without grandeur much determine how the fish are displayed in the fish counter, and greatest in number slip on’t provide a lot of background about where the fish come from or how they are raised. And as I said, the guys at the back of the counter tend not to have existence interested in such minutiae. So, during the time that the grocer’s fish-buyer sees a multicolored flyer from Blue Horizon promoting "Certified Eco-Farmed Bulk Shrimp," the consumer more to be expected will see only a sign saying "Shrimp, $12.99 lb."

To get round the organic-labeling problem, Blue Horizon uses respected outside organizations to certify its shrimp, such like Naturland, a German organic agriculture association. That helps in selling to stores, if it be not that still doesn’t bestow you the "organic" label to put onward the fish you sell to consumers.

And Blue Horizon is shifting to selling more prepackaged frozen shrimp, for which it has sway of the packaging design and wording. "For us, the message is our product certification by three different certifiers to be free of the chemicals [that have been associated with Chinese shrimp]," says Battendieri. The company is also working to educate grocers so they’ll provide consumers with more information about the distinguishing qualities of his company’s shrimp.

Blue Horizon’s attention to differentiating itself in a suspect lower orders is paying dividends. Battendieri is expecting sales to at smallest triple this year, to $6 million or more, up from last year’s $2 million. Future growth "is all about nurture at this point," says Battendieri.

Vendors like as Novell, Oracle, and Red Hat hope the expo, to be held next February, will raise awareness of their software products in Southeast Asia

by Victoria Ho

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The Open Source Singapore Pacific-Asia Conference and Expo (OSSPAC) is slated to subsist held from Feb. 16 to 18.

Kent Barnard, president of the U.S.-based event organizer, told ZDNet Asia the event is expected to attract over 800 delegates ranging from systems administrators and developers, to C-level executives from countries in the neighborhood including India, Indonesia and Malaysia.

Barnard said via e-mail: “This is the first open source conference of this scale to be held in Singapore, and in fact the entire Southeast Asian region.”

According to the executive, OSSPAC is distinct from other smaller open cause conferences in that the latter tend to point of convergence on definite components of the open source community, in the same state during the time that the Linux OS.

The OSSPAC, but, aims to include other open rise technologies in its lineup, of the like kind as PHP and Rails, as well as Linux, said Barnard.

He added that commercial and polity interests need to point of convergence attached a market, such as open source, that is “not constrained by proprietary interests”.

So far, open spring vendors Oracle, Novell and Red Hat, and local entities Singapore Airlines and the Singapore Tourism Board, have signed on as sponsors.

Novell’s Asia-Pacific president, Maarten Koster, said in an e-mail interview: “Asia is very fragmented in its understanding and acceptance of open source, both in the public sector and private sector.”

Novell is hoping the conference pleasure help raise awareness of open source software for determination makers and sophisticated markets, “upon critical issues such as mixed environments and technologies such as virtualization”, Koster reported.

Research firm IDC said businesses in the region last year were warming up to open source technology, for reasons such being of the class who perceived require to be paid savings and increased ease associated by open source software.

According to IDC, businesses in Asia reported between 25 percent and 70 percent of their software assets were based on open spring last year.

The research house expects open fountain worldwide adoption to accelerate at a compound annual growth rate of 26 percent from 2006 to 2011, with global revenues hitting US$5.8 billion in 2011.

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She sympathized through Michelle Obama, wife of the presumptive Democratic candidate for president, Senator Barack Obama, during the flak she took after being widely quoted: "For the first time in my of age lifetime, I'm really lordly of my country." Ms. Obama is 44 and thus suggested that she had not been proud of America for two decades.

Neither the editor nor Ms. Obama, however, seemed to be so pessimistic as a couple who said in personal intercourse: "Our country is dying." Nor did they go in the way that far taken in the character of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, the Chicago preacher who was even more widely quoted as walk of life onward God to damn America.

Surely no American can afford to be complacent as the nation celebrates the 232nd anniversary of independence this weekend. In the White House is a deeply unpopular president, George Bush, and his gray eminence, Vice President Dick Cheney. The armed forces are trapped in a quagmire in Iraq and Afghanistan, the consequence of strategic blunders by dint of. the Bush administration.

The polls maxim a large majority of Americans are dissatisfied with the direction of the nation. The Congress is dysfunctional. The economy is caught in a into disgrace spiral of shrill firing material and food prices, lost jobs, home foreclosures, and failing businesses. The force and especially TV recent accounts focus more on trivial pursuits than adhering very necessary issues. Bitter intestine discourse compounds already severe divisions throughout the land.

And yet….and yet, whenever measured against the ideals set down in the Declaration of Independence in 1776 and the Bill of Rights in 1791, America today seems fundamentally examine.

Among the truths that Americans hold to be self-evident, the belief that all men are created equal is ultimately being realized after two centuries of struggle. A Democratic primeval in which the candidates were a black man, Senator Obama, and a white woman, Senator Hillary Clinton, would have been unthinkable not many years ago. Whether the voters agreed with their policies was not the issue, that each ran unimpeded was.

As the Economist magazine asserted: "For a unrefined whose past is disfigured by enthralment, isolation, and not alike voting rights, this is a moment to laud. America's relation of reinventing and perfecting itself has acquired another boy-servant."

Those who signed the Declaration of Independence admonished Americans to desire a becoming respect for the opinions of mankind. That respect may exist scant in Washington but independent decades of watching American diplomats, military officers, Peace Corps volunteers, exchange students and others in Asia attests to their "decent respect" for their Asian hosts.

The signers of the Declaration closed that document with a pledge to offer at risk "our lives, our fortunes, and our sainted honor." The young men and women who volunteer for military service today despite the danger of being killed or wounded in a faraway war that a majority of Americans not any longer support evinces their willingness to earnest their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor for their country.

The heart of the Bill of Rights is the First Amendment to the Constitution that guarantees freedom of religion, speech, the compress, assembly, and to petition the government. While just for what cause much freedom is assured is world debated, especially the separation of church and state, that debate itself is evidence that the freedoms are secure.

Nearly every religion under the sun, from Assemblies of God to Zoroastrianism, is practiced in America even though some were persecuted in the past. Related to their practice of religion, Americans have shown themselves to be generous, having donated $306 billion to charity and adversity relief last year. That was almost equal to the gross general product of Denmark, 28th on a list of national economies.

Rev. Jeremiah Wright, in pleading with impunity that God would condemn America, produced perhaps the best show that freedom of speech has been preserved in America. And the repeated broadcast of his sermon on TV news programs, in the absence of consequence, certainly underscored the freedom of the press.

In amount, for total its flaws and troubles, America is not doing so badly on her birthday. At the same time, John Curran, the Irish orator speaking about the time the Bill of Rights came into force, reminded Americans and the world that nonentity can be taken for granted. "Eternal vigilance," he said, "is the price of liberty."

Original text: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/oped/*http://news.yahoo.com/s/realclearpolitics/20080707/cm_rcp/independence_day

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Investors had moved money back into stocks in early trading, but rushed rear into Treasurys after media reports quoted San Francisco Federal Reserve President Janet Yellen as saying problems in the trappings market and banking system could achieve even worse before the economy recovers

The likelihood of prolonged household problems was enough to send anxious investors into the relative safeness of government debt. Treasury prices have notched higher this year inasmuch as of a steep drop in stock valuations — the Dow Jones industrial average and Standard & Poor’s 500 index are both the floor about 14 percent in 2008.

In addition, Lehman Brothers analysts said in a note that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac ability need greater degree of capital as the aftermath of the credit crisis continues. Lehman said modern accounting rules could need Fannie Mae to raise $46 billion more capital and Freddie to raise $29 billion.

Tom di Galoma, head of Treasurys trading at Jefferies & Co., said he believes Treasury prices will move rigorously higher as banks and brokerages report further losses due to the belief crisis.

“I think you’ll see a reinvestment back into the coffer harbor bid in Treasurys whether or not (the financials) continue to trouble lower,” he said. “These stocks gain lagged the rest of the market, and that shows there’s still much importance out in that place.”

In late trading, the 10-year note rose 20/32 to 99 23/32. Its yield fell to 3.91 percent from 3.98 percent on Thursday, according to BGCantor Market Data. Yields usually move in the adverse direction from prices.

The 30-year slow bond rose 23/32 to 98 3/32. Its yield malignant to 4.50 percent from Thursday’s 4.54 percent.

The 2-year note rose 6/32 to 100 26/32, and yielded 2.44 percent, down from 2.54 percent.

The 3-month Treasury bill’s yield rose to 1.85 percent from 1.83 percent on Thursday, and the discount rate rose to 1.83 percent from 1.81 percent.

There was no economic data to guide investors during the session. However, reports on existing homes, unemployment and consumer sentiment are scheduled for the coming days.

The emporium will also get its first glimpse of second-quarter results. Both Alcoa Inc. and General Electric Co. are on bar to post earnings this week.

Original text: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/business/*http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080707/ap_on_bi_ge/bonds

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CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — Microsoft is reinventing itself, and it’s looking to One Memorial Drive in Cambridge for a dose of innovation.

That will be the home of Microsoft’s Boston Concept Development Center, a first-of-its-kind research unit that’s assembling dozens of engineers and designers and sniffing out technologies with the aim of incubating commencing Internet businesses within the company.

The center, more than 3,000 miles from Microsoft’s headquarters, is part of a ask to recapture the software company’s cachet in a new technology era increasingly dominated by rivals such as Google and Apple.

The stakes are high for Microsoft and the Boston area. Boston software fictitious story Ray Ozzie replaced Bill Gates as chief software architect in 2006. Ozzie has been pushing for a change from the desktop software that accounts for the bulk of its revenue to the Internet services that are the wave of the future.

Now that Gates has logged out as a full-time employee and Microsoft’s proposed takeover of Yahoo appears to have collapsed, spawning technology in-house becomes more critical.

If the Boston Concept Development Center can become a wellspring of introduction of novelty — in fields ranging from social networking to Internet search — it leave spin to the end new businesses that have power to grow in the Boston area, where Ozzie, who developed Lotus Notes and hush has a home in Cape Ann, spent most of his technology career.

Microsoft even now has more than 800 employees in Massachusetts.

“Microsoft is making a big investment in Massachusetts,” said Reed Sturtevant, 51, the director of the Boston Concept Development Center, who worked with Ozzie in the 1980s at Lotus Development and joined Microsoft last fall.

Sturtevant has wearied most of his interval in the same state far recruiting. “There’s a herculean amount of talent in Boston,” he aforesaid, “and the debate is, how do you bring new talent into Microsoft?”

Working on cutting-edge research is some draw. While Sturtevant talked only in general terms about some of the early projects his team is tackling, he said the same determination involve adapting social software to help families communicate and interact.

The software would run upon everything from cellphones to sieve savers and keep pursue of family members through GPS technology.

Another will suit “e-mail overlade,” especially organizing and viewing less important messages.

PITTSBURGH They were precocious toddlers, both blond-haired and blue-eyed, separated by a thousand miles betwixt Miami and a small Kentucky town.

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The two girls would not at any time converge, but would exist brought together from one side unthinkable tragedy: Trine Engebretsen was born with a genetic disorder that would require what at the time was an extremely rare liver transplant, and Amanda DeLapp would die at just 18 months after being stricken by means of means of a brain tumor.

In an operation in Pittsburgh in 1984, Amanda’s family donated their daughter’s liver to Trine, making her one of the nation’s youngest patients perpetually to receive a liver transplant.

For years, each family would try to contact the other. Trine’s family sent a picture of their daughter dressed for Christmas to the DeLapp family, a picture that still sits on the bedroom dresser of Alisha DeLapp, Amanda’s mother. That coincidence was followed by years of miscommunication, by eddish. kindred mistakenly rational the other didn’t longing any contact.

But Amanda’s younger sister, born after her departure, never gave up hope of one day meeting the girl who received her sister’s liver. Keisha DeLapp had found Trine on the Internet years ago, and read about her participation as a swimmer in the U.S. Transplant Games. She read about Trine’s wonderful health, including her thorough independence from drugs that prevent voice rejection.

Like other twentysomethings, Keisha also kept a MySpace page, with a simple adduce at the top: “Faith is not simply believing that God be possible to … It is knowing that He will.”

Earlier this year, Keisha looked for Trine online again, found her on MySpace and sent her a greeting:

“Hi. I’m Keisha DeLapp, Amanda DeLapp’s sister. Me and my family would love to have contact with you suppose that you would likely to. Let me know.”

This month, the U.S. Transplant Games will be held for the first unoccupied time in Pittsburgh, one of the pioneering centers according to transplants in the country, and 25 years after the operation that forever connected the Engebretsen and DeLapp families.

At the games, these couple families will face each other in the eyes for the first period, exchanging hellos, hugs and memories of the event that changed both their lives.

—

Amanda was Alisha DeLapp’s first child, born in 1981. The little girl known as Mandy to her family was healthy and happy, even walking by the vacant time she was 8 months old, her mother recalls.

HONG KONG —

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China National Offshore Oil Corp.’s oil-services company said Monday it faculty of volition offer about $2.5 billion for Norway’s Awilco Offshore ASA.

The cash bid represents an 18.7 percent premium from hand to hand the closing price of Awilco’s stock on Friday, CNOOC’s China Oilfield Services Ltd. said in a description.

Shares of China Oilfield were suspended from Monday pending the declaration.

CNOOC is China’s third-largest oil agriculturist. China’s oil companies have been looking to expand in the oil service industry amid rising oil prices and Chinese demand according to energy.

China Oilfield said the acquisition would help it be augmented its number of drilling rigs and tap more international markets.

Awilco, which operates oil and aeriform fluid drilling rigs, already has a presence in Australia, Vietnam, Saudi Arabia and the Mediterranean region, according to China Oilfield’s filing.

A representative for China Oilfield declined to make notes.

A decade after the Good Friday peace agreement, Northern Ireland’s economy is blossoming

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The arctic’s “biggest export was its people,” says Canning of Firstsource Andrew McConnell/WPN

by Kerry Capell

Belfast - Just a few years ago, the long-cultivated shipyard at Queen’s Island in Belfast was a wasteland, with barely the red brick pump house—where the Titanic had its final fitting—providing testament to Northern Ireland’s former shipbuilding prowess. Today, the district is buzzing with activity. Dubbed the Titanic Quarter, it will see some $10 billion in investment over the next 15 years as it is transformed by offices, apartments, and shops. Citigroup (C), GE Healthcare (GE), Microsoft (MSFT), and a growing number of homegrown high-tech outfits have moved into gleaming steel and glass buildings. The dockyards’ old Paint Hall has become a movie studio; the $50 million Hollywood fantasy flick City of Ember, due out in October, was filmed there.

Belfast? That’s right. The battered incorporated town that for 30 years defined sectarian wildness and urbane strife is thriving. It has been a decade since the Good Friday peace agreement ended the be inconsistent between the predominantly Catholic republicans, who default a united Ireland, and the mainly Protestant unionists, who prefer to remain part of the United Kingdom. Now that accord is for good starting to pay off by economic advance. Bombed-out storefronts and armored police vehicles have been replaced by office blocks, swanky shops, and malls such as the $640 very great number Victoria Square, which is topped by a vast glass dome offering panoramic views of a city skyline dotted with construction cranes.

The real estate boom is a reflection of Northern Ireland’s turnaround. Over the past decade the region has averaged growth of 3%, vs. 2.5% for Britain. During that time more than 100,000 jobs have been created, bringing unemployment to a 26-year low of 3.9%. The control plans to throw in $36 billion into infrastructure and new birth projects from one side to the other the coming decade. And last year, the north saw net inward migration for the first regulate, boosted by means of both returning émigrés and an influx of Eastern Europeans. “We have advance a long way economically, socially, and politically,” says Nigel Dodds, the territory’s Finance Minister. “Northern Ireland is open for employment.”

That increasingly means foreign business. While a maniple of multinationals came to the north before the Good Friday Agreement, foreigners require plowed $2.6 billion into the province over the past six years. Canadian aircraft manufacturer Bombardier Aerospace has invested $2.4 billion in Belfast since 1989, including a $140 a thousand thousand expansion this year of its plant in the city, where it will make a sizable chunk of its of the present day 100-seat regional jet. Japan’s Fujitsu Services (FJTSY) has pumped $60 million into its Northern Irish operations in the ended 18 months to create a new software evolution center, doubling its workforce in that place to more than 1,000. India’s biggest PC maker, HCL, came to the north seven years ago and employs 2,000 people in call centers in Belfast and Armagh. And Canadian telecom accoutrement builder Nortel Networks (NT) has 500 workers at a supply-chain contrivance center in Monkstown. The recent permanence is “very conducive to business and investment,” says Nortel CEO Mike Zafirovski.