The government agency believes that smuggling is behind the 76 percent decrease of its sales this year and they are tapping with law enforcers nationwide to address the problem.

“We’ll run after those responsible for such drop in gold sale,” DENR Sec. Ramon Paje declared during a press conference in Metro Manila on Thursday, December 8.

Reported data from the Mines and Geosciences Bureau (MGB) for 2011′s third quarter has shown the BSP’s gold purchases from small-scale miners declined 76 percent, from 7,166 kilograms in 2010 to 1,722 kilograms in 2011.

Accordingly, gold sales also dropped from Php 3.55 billion from Php 12.32 billion during the reference period, MGB said.

According to Paje, the DENR would provide the required information to law enforcement agencies concerned so measures to address the problem could be identified and implemented soonest.

The Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) earlier issued Revenue Regulation 7-2008 covering taxation on sale of gold and other metallic mineral products extracted or produced by small-scale miners to BSP.

The regulation requires imposition of two percent excise tax and five percent withholding tax on gold for anyone that produces and sell it to BSP.

Lesser gold sold to BSP means lower taxes for government. DENR suspects tax evasion is the reason for gold smuggling.

Paje said through smuggling, gold was traded in the black market tax-free. “Parties involved need not pay tax if they don’t sell to BSP,” he added.

Hoarding is an unlikely reason for gold’s dipping sale to BSP since small-scale miners aim for converting their products to cash as soon as possible, Paje said.

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Earlier, on Christmas Eve 2008, Madoff and his wife apparently botched a suicide bid soon after Madoff’s multibillion dollar fraud was exposed.

“I don’t know whose idea it was, but we decided to kill ourselves because it was so horrendous what was happening,” she says.

They took pills and woke up the next day, It was very impulsive and she is glad that they woke up, according to Mrs. Madoff.

Bernard Madoff said that after the attempted suicide, he is ‘lucky to still be sane’ and left in him his sense of humor while in prison.

During four months he spent in a New York jail, Madoff said, he was on suicide watch. He considered killing himself, but he “didn’t have enough courage to do it”.

The 73 year old former chairman of the Nasdaq, is troubled by anger and turmoil within his own family.

He has not spoken to his wife, Ruth Madoff, since after the suicide of their son, Mark Madoff, on Dec. 11, 2010.

But after their son’s suicide, the couple had an emotional final meeting at the prison at which Ruth Madoff “asked me to let her go, which I understood,” Madoff said.

Early this year, China announced it had cut its export quota of REE by 35 percent for the first half of 2011 as part of the crackdown on illegal mining of the rare earth oxides.

Following the announcement of China to further tighten its control over REE production, the Philippines is now eying exploration projects for the development of the country’s rare earth elements deposits.

REE are also dubbed as the ‘metals of the future’ and ‘strategic minerals’ because of their use in the development of weapons guidance systems and other space age technologies.

The Mines and Geosciences Bureau (MGB) director, Leo Jasareno, said the government has earmarked P20 million pesos (US$ 465,000 dollars) for REE development, adding that exploration projects would start early next year.

“We have already found potential areas to explore and these areas are also close to copper-gold mines. Notably we can say Palawan and Mindanao are the best places to start,” Jasareno said.

Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) Secretary Ramon Paje told reporters that they hope to secure technology and funding from Australia for a planned $5 million aeromagnetic survey of the Philippines’ mineral reserves, particularly in Luzon and Mindanao.

The DENR chief said the earlier proposal for the aeromagnetic survey was turned down by the Department of Foreign Affairs because of security and intellectual property rights issues.

Those strictures require companies to seek government approval before making a loan and call for collections to take place in front of public officials.

SKS Microfinance, India’s largest microlender, was once seen as a model for how microcredit firms could do very well for themselves by making small loans to poor people. Now the company seems to symbolize the problems of microfinance.

In August of 2010, its shares shot up 50 percent in its initial public offering but this May of 2011, SKS shares closed at 298.60 rupees (US$ 6.67 dollars), down about 70 percent from the price at which it went public.

The company’s first quarterly loss as a public company was a result of many borrowers stopping payment on their loans in the company’s home state, Andhra Pradesh, where government officials have branded microlenders as greedy loan sharks.

The first quarter of this year, only 10 percent of SKS’s borrowers in Andhra Pradesh made their payments.

In India’s Andhra Pradesh state, loan repayments started falling sharply late last year after lawmakers there enact a tough law to restrict lending by microcredit firms.

Policy makers have said they want to rein in aggressive loan collection that drove some overextended borrowers to commit suicide. Some borrowers took multiple loans, amassing debts of US$ 2,000 dollars or more.

In May of this year, the Reserved Bank of India, the country’s central bank, issued its own rules for microlenders that included restricting annual interest rates to 26 percent and limiting total lending to US$ 1,118 dollars per borrower.

The Reserved Bank also said that commercial banks could provide loans to microfinance firms, an endorsement that should help lenders raise money.

Vikram Akula, the American who is chairman of the SKS Microfinance acknowledged that the company had reacted too slowly to criticism by politicians and community leaders. They failed clearly at working with the broader political environment.

“In many ways, microfinance will have to reinvent itself,” according to Samit Ghosh, managing director of Ujjivan Financial services, a microlender in Bagalore. It could take two years for the industry to overcome the crisis in Andhra Pradesh, he added.

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Officials and business leaders believe that debt collection problems are a profound deterrent to commerce within European Union (EU) and a cause of lagging job creation and wealth generation. EU officials are starting to address the problem.

Debt collection is just one example of the shortcomings of a market which, for legal, linguistic, cultural issues, rarely functions as a single space.

Professional qualifications in one country often are not recognized in another, for example and local business regulations frequently make it hard for Europeans to set up shop in another EU country.

In theory, the European Union is one gigantic economic zone of about 500 million consumers, all integrated into the world’s biggest trading bloc.

But the ideal is still far ahead of the reality, particularly for businesses that end up trying to collect debts across the Union’s many orders.

There are 27 national legal systems in the bloc, each with its own procedures for handling claims, property attachment and bankruptcies.

A more effective single market the Union officials say, could generate 60 billion to 140 billion euros in additional trade, the equivalent of an additional 0.6 percent to 1.5 percent of the bloc’s gross domestic product.

But individual EU countries still jealousy guard the right to control many regulations covering business, and to operate independent civil and commercial legal systems.

Valle Garcia de Novales, a lawyer here who specializes in global commerce, tells her clients that any debt of less than 100,000 euros is not worth pursuing in court because it is just costly. Many companies have given up on doing business across borders.

This year, it is expected to propose a standardized Europe wide system to freeze the amount of money owed to a company in the debtor’s bank account. That would prevent it from being moved to another country.

Arento, an agricultural co-op here, supplied wheat to an Italian pasta maker and did not cut off the credit until the debt reached 1 million euros.

Now, a decade later, having spent years in the courts and tens of thousands of legal bills, Arento has recovered only half of what was owed.

Companies doing business across borders have several safety mechanisms. They can get insurance, a letter of credit or demand cash upfront. But each is costly and slip-ups are easy.

Mr. Luis Navarro’s Arento, for instance, did not inform the insurance company fast enough to make a claim, partly because it did not understand the terms of the policy.

Lourdes Lebrero, the financial director of matilsa, a small family owned company that makes aerial work platforms here, insisted on a cash deposit when an order came in from Romania.

But the letter sent as proof of transfer turned out to be a forgery. A friend of a friend who was making a trip to Romania tried to look into collecting the debt, but came back convinced that it was hopeless.

The power windows, the dashboard navigation maps, the fuel injectors, these and many other operations are controlled by some electronic systems in a typical modern computerized car.

Renesas Electronics supplies about 40 percent of the world market for these crucial chips, known as automobile micro-controllers.

If it were the Personal Computer (PC) industry, customers would have found alternative suppliers for their standard chips. But because the way the automotive industry has evolved, micro-controllers are usually customized for each car model.

That makes it difficult for auto manufacturers to quickly switch suppliers. And it has left manufacturers no choice except Renesas to resume production.

To help meet demand, Renesas is shifting some production from its main factory to their other branches not damaged by the quake. Test production has begun and
employees worked in the clean room to repair and realign sophisticated machines that must be precised to billionths of a meter.

But red lights next to most pieces of equipment indicated they were not working. As a sign of how crucial this plant is, Japanese automakers, auto parts companies and other customers have sent as many as 2,500 workers to help repair it.

A reason for the industry’s heavy reliance on Renesas is that it is the product of mergers involving three Japanese semi-conductor companies: Hitachi, Mitsubishi Electric and NEC Electronics.

Automotive micro controllers which act as the brains of electronic control systems, are mainly bespoke chips, with many different hardware designs and different types of software tailored for each design.

That is partly a legacy of the auto industry tradition of each company designing and building vehicles to its own specifications. The automotive electronics industry is much the same.

Automakers in the United States, Europe and Japan have formed consortia to standardize some technology focusing on software and electronic standards for the systems.

“There will be more reason to push the industry standardization efforts, now that automakers have seen what can happen when a key supplier goes down,” according to Egil Juliussn, an auto electronics analyst at IHS iSuppli, a research firm.

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Eagerly and warily, Cubans are taking up the government’s offer to work for themselves, selling coffee in their front yards, renting out houses, making rattan furniture and hawking everything from bootleg DVDs to homemade wine. With this happening it’s obvious that free enterprise is now sprouting in communist Cuba.

By the end of 2010, the government had awarded 75,000 new licenses, according to Granma, the Communist Party’s official newspaper. In what could be the biggest remodeling of the state run economy since Fidel Castro nationalized all enterprise in 1968.

Streets which was once devoid of commerce in Cuban towns and capital Havana are gradually coming to life as people hang painted signs and bright awnings outside their houses and mount roadside stalls.

Technical professionals through leaflets dissemination are offering their services to the public while small entrepreneurs are creative enough to produce and sell beaded necklaces, ground sardines and toasted corn used in ceremonies at the shop in their yard.

But it is still a long way and from the amount needed to create alternatives for all the laid off workers and there is no guarantee that the market will support hundreds of thousands of freelancers.

Fidel Castro allowed the private sector to take root in the early 1990s, after the collapse of the Soviet Union. But over the years, the government stopped issuing new licenses and suffocated businesses with taxes and prohibitions.

Raul Castro who took over from his brother in 2006, says things have changed. In a speech in December, he urged the government and the Communist Party to help the private sector, not ‘demonize’ it.

However, many still remain skeptical, according to them they will not pursue to open new businesses until there is an established wholesale market, where they can get what they need to run a business like wood for carpenters and cable for electrician and so forth.

The Cuban government says it will set up a wholesale market, though it might take years, and this year will import US$ 130 million dollars worth of goods and equipment for the private sector.

“There is a lot more to be done for the state to get out of the way and for people to produce and employ,” said Ted Henken, an expert on the Cuban private sector at Baruch College in New York.

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Hence, neuromarketers have accepted that traditional market research methods, like consumer surveys and focus groups are essentially incorrect because the participators cannot connect insensible ideas that would arouse their appetites for products.

Successful advertisements need to reach the subconscious level of the brain, where consumers develop initial interest in products, inclinations to buy them and brand loyalty, according to A.K. Pradeep, the founder and chief executive of NeuroFocus, a neuromarketing firm based in Berkeley, California.

“By measuring brain waves, we are able to measure attention, emotion and memory,” says Dr. Pradeep.

Brain waves that correlate with heightened attention become more active, according to researchers who have used electroencephalographs (EEGs), to study the brain’ electrical frequencies. Brain waves that signal less focused attention meanwhile, tend to subside.

Neuromarketers, an initial group of researchers who use techniques from neuroscience to analyze people’s responses to products and promotions.

“There has always been a holy grail for advertising” to reach consumers subconsciously.

Neuromarketing is simply the latest, according to Joseph Turow, a professor of communication at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania.

Research firms and major corporations, are frustrated for any new technique to help them break through all the marketing confusion, according to Turow.

Some consumer advocates call neuromarketing ‘brandwashing’, a mixture of branding and brainwashing and should be regulated, says Jeff Chester, executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy in Washington, which works to safeguard digital privacy.

Technique proponents, however, say that neuromarketing is simply a more accurate barometer of consumer response.

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In keeping with the theme of globalization, both calcium enriched and low lactose dairy products have since made their appearance in other continents, according to the Food Agriculture Organization (FAO).

On the other hand, the proliferation of fast food chains in Southeast Asia have been instrumental in introducing dairy products where most countries in the region do not form part of their national cuisine.

In countries where there is no tradition of cheese consumption, cheese is viewed by the average consumer as being smelly and bad tasting and may even be regarded as poisonous.

However, with the spread of fast food chains, mild varieties of cheese have gained a much more positive image.

This is reflected in the trade statistics for many Southeast Asian countries where cheese imports are dominated by mozzarella and sliced cheese.

Malaysia, Thailand, China, Singapore, Vietnam and the Philippines are the main importers of dairy in Asia.

The main beneficiaries of the growing demand for dairy products are Australia and New Zealand. Milk production is growing steadily in each country and, as both have mature domestic markets, any increase in output is destined primarily for export.

The dairy market products will be much more diversified in terms of their packaging.
The future market will no longer be one of anonymous bulk products but rather it will be focused on providing a range of highly specified products, tailored to meet demanding consumers’ need throughout the world, according to FAO.

There are, for example so called niche market products geared to a specific market or group of consumers.

Calcium enriched milk for the Southeast Asian market where osteoporosis is a health concern, has been developed. Low lactose milk powder was developed with a view to the large lactose intolerant population in Southeast Asia.

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World production of the top four tropical fruits – pineapples, mangoes, avocados and papayas exceeded the 55 million ton mark for the last decade, according to the Food Agricultural Organization (FAO) of the UN in their first formal intergovernmental meeting on tropical fruits held in Asia.

Delegates from 33 countries considered economic, trade, food safety issues plus a project proposal for African Fruit Fly control and establishment of a global network on tropical fruits.

Most of these fruits are consumed in the countries that grow them and less than 5 percent is traded globally. Nonetheless, global tropical fruit imports for the last decade and a half, brought in over US $2.2 billion dollars.

Asia is the largest fruit producing region, and its top importers are: The European Union (EU), which consumed the traded tropical fruits at 50 percent; North America, 26 percent; Japan, 10 percent.

FAO forecasts a steady rise in demand for these fruits in fresh form. Global imports of mangoes and avocados are projected to more than double. The UN agency forecasts an increase of 53 percent of mangoes and 55 percent for avocados.

Papaya and pineapple increase in global imports are projected at 46 percent and 35 percent respectively. In industrialized countries, increase of tropical fruits in dinner table will be fueled by reductions in tariffs and other import restrictions. Increased consumer awareness is spurring diets that provide more fruit.

FAO’s Raw Materials, Tropical and Horticultural Products Service, pointed out that developing countries often pay a lot to import fruits from great distances. Ironically, these are less nutritious than the tropical fruits they grow themselves.

The trend could be reversed by improving the image of tropical fruits in producing countries, according to FAO.

Phasing out of methyl bromide, the multi-purpose pesticide used to fumigate fruits and vegetables, poses a future problem for tropical fruit exporters.

Alternatives, such as irradiation and hot water treatment are still prohibitively expensive for low income countries.

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