Researchers engaged in developing new strains of crops, such as drought-resistant wheat and new pesticides that are more environmentally-friendly, are also creating a computing tool that could help scientists predict how plants will react to different environmental conditions.
   It is hoped their findings will help create better crops, such as tastier and longer-lasting tomatoes, according to media reports.
   To achieve the best agricultural results, scientists need to predict how the genes inside plants will react when they are subjected to different chemicals or environmental conditions.
   The tool will form part of a new £1.7 million (USD$2.8 million) Syngenta University Centre at Imperial College London, which will provide facilities for researchers from Imperial and Syngenta who are working together to improve agricultural products.
   Prof Stephen Muggleton, Director of the new center from the Department of Computing at Imperial College London, says: “We believe our computing tool will revolutionize agricultural research by making the process much faster than is currently possible using conventional techniques. We hope that our new technology will ultimately help farmers to produce hardier, longer-lasting and more nutritious crops.”
   A prototype of the new tool lets researchers analyze in a matter of minutes, instead of months, which genes are responsible for different processes inside a plant, and how different genes work together. The tool the researchers are using is a sophisticated set of algorithms that allows a computer to ‘learn’ based on data that it is analyzing. The researchers say the tool will recognize complex patterns in that data to find important pockets of information about plant biology that might previously have taken months or even years to find.
   Scientists believe the ‘machine learning’ capabilities of the new tool will allow them to gain a greater understanding of different plants, even when they are lacking information about some aspects of their inner workings. Previously, modeling a plant’s behavior had been imprecise and time-consuming because a lack of information had resulted in poor results.

Asia dealmakers and financial sponsor bankers have taken to the skies again after a travel clampdown late last year as corporate purses were tightened in the global financial crisis.
   And China is the most popular destination, for deals and money. The world’s top private equity firms, including The Carlyle Group, Bain Capital and TPG, have raced to sign deals with Chinese companies across the business spectrum, from telecoms service providers to baby formula makers.
   At the same time, many private equity funds, banks and even law firms have closed offices and cut staff numbers in other major Asian economies such as India and Japan. ‘Valuation is becoming attractive again and, of course, China is the focus,’ said X.D. Yang, a managing director for Carlyle’s buyout fund in Asia.
   Hong Kong-based Yang said his travel agenda is filling up, and he often spends more of his week in mainland Chinese cities than in Carlyle’s Asia head office in Hong Kong.
   However, it’s not yet boom-time for Hong Kong airlines such as Cathay Pacific, as many bankers are opting to fly economy, for now.
   More than 50 per cent of a professional audience at the SuperReturn Asia Conference in Hong Kong last week voted China as the place for the best investment returns in the next three years, a straw poll conducted by the forum’s organiser showed. India ranked second, polling less than 20 per cent of the votes.

More than one lakh tourists gathered in Cox’s Bazar during Eid holidays to cast off the boredom of routine life and spend time in close contact with the nature, boosting the business in the sea resort town.
   All the 120 residential hotels and motels and 50 guesthouses were packed up with the tourists amid additional security measures taken by the district administration and the police took during the vacation beginning with the weekly holidays and including the vacation of Eid-ul-Fitr and Durga Puja from September 20 to 22.
   Some of the victors reached Cox’s Bazar on September 20th and performed their Eid prayers there while some drove to the sea town to spend one day.
   The Cox’s Bazar beach management committee arranged some events including horse-ride, nagardola, speedboats etc for the tourists.
   Md Gias Uddin Ahmed, deputy commissioner, Cox’s Bazar, told New Age that the administration including police, tourists police, had taken special security measures for the tourists.
   He also mentioned that the tourist spots of Cox’s Bazar, including Dolhazara safari park, historical Ramu Ram court, historical Adinat Mandir at Moheshkhali, Inani, Himchari, Teknaf, St Martins, Sonadia, were the main attractions for the tourists.
   Mosharaf Hossen Dulal, president, Cox’s Bazar shell market traders’ association, said hundreds of tourists visited the shell market.

You can leave the US, but it’s getting harder to leave behind baggage fees.
   Fees to check bags on international flights are creeping in and may be here to stay. In the past three months, all the big US carriers have added $50 fees to check a second bag on flights to Europe. Delta and Continental are charging second-bag fees for flights to Latin America, too.
   By limiting baggage fees to domestic flights, the US carriers left out a huge chunk of their traffic. More than half of Continental’s traffic this year has been international. At Delta, which started the move toward international bag fees, almost 39 per cent of its traffic is international.
   So far, the US carriers don’t charge bag fees on most Asian routes. That will likely change. And charging to check the first bag on international flights is a revenue opportunity that might be too good to pass up.
   Sorensen said US carriers will run into trouble charging fees on codeshare flights, where a ticket on, say, fee-charging Delta, might have been sold by partner Air France, which checks two bags for free.
   Airline fares have fallen sharply in the recession, and many in the industry have argued that fees are basically a way to make up some of the shortfall. Luggage is expensive to handle and its weight makes the plane burn more jet fuel, so it makes sense for that service to cost something, the thinking goes.
   Delta originally said it would charge a second-bag fee on all international flights, not just those to Europe. Its announcement in April said it hoped to collect $100 million a year if the new fee went worldwide. It scaled back that plan to just Europe after other carriers didn’t match it. Delta declined to make an executive available to talk about the fee.
   Joe Brancatelli, who runs the business travel Web site JoeSentMe.com, said European airline customers are much more used to paying fees, whereas Asian airlines have maintained a more full-service approach, even in coach. Through August, United and Delta (with its Northwest subsidiary) carried the most traffic to Asia, while Delta and American were the biggest US carriers to Europe.
   The new fees are coming from a shrinking number of travellers.

The global economic crisis will keep more than 60 million Asians in poverty this year, the head of the Asian Development Bank said on Monday, urging a greater focus on social welfare including healthcare.
    ‘This crisis should be seen as an opportunity to take proactive measures that lay the groundwork for inclusive and sustainable development over the long term,’ Haruhiko Kuroda, the Bank’s president, told an international conference.
   Soaring food costs, rising oil prices and, over the past year, the global economic and financial crisis, have caused up to 41 million Chinese workers to lose their jobs while the number of chronically hungry in South Asia has increased by about 100 million, Kuroda said.
   Asian Development Bank estimates show 60 million people are stuck below the 1.25 dollar-a-day poverty line because of the economic downturn.
    ‘These people would have been freed from the shackles of poverty had economic growth continued at pre-crisis levels,’ Kuroda told the opening session of the meeting, billed as the first major Asia Pacific conference on the social impact of the crisis.
   While signs of worldwide economic stabilisation are emerging, the longer-term challenge for Asia’s developing economies will be to enhance resilience to external shocks, Kuroda said.
   Many governments have implemented multi-billion-dollar stimulus measures to deal with the crisis but these have focused more on infrastructure and tax cuts than social services, says a briefing paper prepared for the conference, which is organised by ADB, the Vietnamese and Chinese governments, and the secretariat of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.

World Bank President Robert Zoellick said the United States should not take the dollar’s status as the world’s key reserve
   currency for granted because other options are emerging.
   In excerpts released on Sunday from a speech that he is to deliver on Monday, Zoellick said global economic forces were shifting and it was time now to prepare for the fact that growth will come from multiple sources.
    ‘The United States would be mistaken to take for granted the dollar’s place as the world’s predominant reserve currency,’ he said. ‘Looking forward, there will increasingly be other options.’
   Zoellick said that a meeting of Group of 20 rich and developing countries in Pittsburgh on Thursday and Friday had made ‘a good start’ toward increased global cooperation but they will have accept global monitoring of their activities.
    ‘Peer review will need to be peer pressure,’ he said.
   Zoellick said that the G20, as the new chief forum for international economic cooperation, also must not forget the 160 countries left outside its structure and should try to open opportunity for them.
   ‘We need a system of international political economy that reflects a new multi-polarity of growth,’ Zoellick said. It needs to integrate rising economic powers as ‘responsible stakeholders’ while recognizing that these countries are still home to hundreds of millions of poor and face staggering challenges of development.’

Sovereign wealth funds of four oil-exporting Gulf states lost around 350 billion dollars last year due to the global financial crisis, according to a UN report.
   However, the funds — those of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar and Abu Dhabi — almost maintained their total asset value at the end of 2008 after governments injected into them huge returns from oil income, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development said in a report.
   The World Investment Report 2009, released last week, said that assets held by the four Gulf funds dropped to 1.115 trillion dollars last year from 1.165 trillion dollars at the end of 2007 and that government injections of 300 billion dollars helped narrow their losses.
   Abu Dhabi Investment Authority was the most affected, as it shed around 183 billion dollars from the 453 billion dollars it held in 2007. But the government pumped 57 billion dollars into the fund, helping it end last year at 329 billion dollars.
   Kuwait Investment Authority, which owns stakes in Daimler and Citigroup, lost 94 billion dollars from 262 billion dollars it held at the end of 2007. The Kuwaiti government, however, injected 59 billion dollars, helping the fund to stand at 228 billion dollars at the end of last year.
   Qatar Investment Authority, lost 27 billion dollars and ended at 66 billion dollars in 2008, while Saudi assets, run by the Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency, valued at 501 billion dollars at end-2008, shed around 46 billion dollars, the report said.
   Gulf SWFs have never disclosed the size of their assets nor losses.
   The UNCTAD report said that in recent years Gulf SWFs have become more proactive investors, entering riskier investments and targeting strategic holdings in international companies.
    ‘The recent collapse of real estate and equity markets has generated large losses for SWFs, but it also offers investment opportunities,’ UNCTAD said.
   As a result, some Gulf SWFs have become more cautious in investing abroad and turned to investments in domestic economies.
   The four Gulf states pump more than 13 million barrels of oil per day, just under half of total OPEC production of around 29 million bpd.

World stocks sank Monday after disappointing data from the US undermined hopes of a fast economic recovery and a strong yen whacked Tokyo’s market.
   Reports on manufacturing and home sales released Friday stoked concerns over recovery prospects in the world’s largest economy and pushed US stocks lower for a third day.
   Orders for durable goods, a key indicator for the manufacturing industry, unexpectedly fell in August, declining 2.4 per cent for the second drop in three months. The government also said that new home sales rose to 429,000 last month, which was less than analysts expected.
   The US economy is ‘not recovering as fast as we thought,’ said Jackson Wong, vice president at Tanrich Securities in Hong Kong. The strengthening Japanese yen, he added, ‘brings negative sentiment to other markets.’
   Japan’s Nikkei 225 stock average fell 256.46, or 2.5 per cent, to 10,009.52, at one point dipping below the 10,000-point level for the first time in two months, after the yen reached a nine-month high versus the dollar. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index declined 435.99, or 2.1 per cent, to 20,588.41.
   South Korea’s Kospi fell 0.9 per cent while Singapore’s benchmark declined 1.3 per cent. China’s Shanghai index surrendered early gains to fall 2.7 per cent. Markets in India were closed.
   As trading got underway in Europe, Britain’s FTSE 100 was down 0.5 per cent, Germany’s DAX lost 0.2 per cent, and France’s CAC-40 dropped 0.9 per cent.
   In New York on Friday, the Dow Jones industrial average fell 42.25, or 0.4 per cent, to 9,665.19, its third straight decline. Broader indices also fell. Futures pointed to losses Monday on Wall Street with Dow futures down 26, or 0.3 per cent, at 9,593.
   The dollar fell as low as 88.22 yen Monday, its lowest point since December, but recovered losses to trade at 89.54 from 89.60 late Friday in New York. The euro fell to $1.4606 from $1.4698.
    ‘The too strong yen, it’s not good for their economy,’ said Conita Hung, head of equity markets with Delta Asia Financial Group in Hong Kong.
   A stronger yen can hurt Japanese exporters by reducing the value of overseas profits when sent back home and can make their products less price competitive. Many Japanese exporters have based their earnings forecasts on the assumption that $1 buys an average of 95 yen.

Some of the world’s poorest countries on Monday began a three-day meeting in the Cambodian capital to discuss how to speed up entry to the World Trade Organisation.
   Trade representatives from 12 of the least developed countries in Asia and Africa met officials from the WTO, World Bank, the European Commission and United Nations agencies in Phnom Penh to discuss accession to the organisation.
   Cambodian Commerce Minister Cham Prasidh said his country wanted the meeting to help prepare other impoverished nations for the risks involved in negotiations with the global body.
    ‘We want to share our own experience in negotiating to join the WTO...[and] now we are trying to push for more LDCs [Least Developed Countries] to join,’ Cham Prasidh told reporters.
    ‘What we do is we try to, a little bit, lower their negotiation conditions so that those remaining LDCs can join without having to pay a very high ticket price,’ he said.
   Fellow WTO members Cape Verde and Nepal joined Cambodia providing advice to officials from Afghanistan, Bhutan, Equatorial Guinea, Ethiopia, Laos, Sudan, Vanuatu, Yemen, Comoros, Liberia, Samoa and Sao Tome and Principe.

The yen rose to an eight-month high against the dollar in Asia Monday as exporters repatriated overseas earnings and Japan reiterated that it would not intervene to weaken its currency.
   The dollar sank to as low as 88.25 yen, the weakest since late January. In late Tokyo trade it stood at 89.26 yen, down from 89.60 in New York on Friday.
   The euro fell to 130.26 yen from 131.64 and to 1.4594 dollars from 1.4686.
   Japanese Finance Minister Hirohisa Fujii reiterated that the new government was not considering a foray into the market to sell the yen and help exporters.
    ‘The recent dollar trend (against the yen) is not abnormal,’ he said.
   It would be a ‘mistake’ to artificially weaken the yen to defend exporters, he added, restating the new government’s view that a stronger yen would boost consumption at home thanks to cheaper imports. His remarks gave dealers ‘the green light’ to sell the dollar for yen, Mizuho Corporate Bank senior dealer Yuichiro Harada told Dow Jones Newswires.
   Fujii, however, later appeared to backtrack somewhat, saying the yen’s rise was slightly ‘one-sided’ and that stable currency rates were desirable.
   Even so, analysts said the dollar could drop below its January low of 87.10 yen, piling additional pressure on Japanese exporters.
    ‘Without intervention to weaken the yen and with US yields so low, it’s hard to see what will produce a reversal in the dollar/yen trend in the near-term,’ said NAB Capital analyst John Kyriakopoulos.
   The euro fell as drops on Asian stock markets reduced investor appetite for riskier assets and growth-sensitive currencies, dealers said.
   Traders were looking ahead to US data including personal income and spending figures on Thursday as well as a key monthly jobs report on Friday.
   Against Asian currencies, the dollar rose to 1,195.35 South Korean won from 1,187.70 on Friday, to 1.4202 Singapore dollars from 1.4175 and to 32.46 Taiwan dollars from 32.44.
   It gained to 9,725 Indonesian rupiah from 9,685 and to 47.52 Philippine pesos from 47.32, while slipping to 33.62 Thai baht from 33.63.

China will launch its long-awaited Nasdaq-style ChiNext board in Shenzhen at the end of October, state media reported Monday.
   A new round of firms seeking to list on the board will publish their prospectuses for initial public offerings after the week-long National Day holiday, which ends on October 8, the official Securities Times reported.
   These firms, along with 19 companies that have already released their prospectuses, will make their debut on the board in the last 10 days of October, the newspaper said, citing an unnamed ‘authoritative’ source.
   Regulators hope the new market will help fuel start-ups and other companies with high-growth potential in the world’s third-largest economy, following the example of Wall Street’s Nasdaq.
   But there have also been worries that the new board, which attracted strong interest from investors, may be diverting funds from the main boards and drag down stock prices.
   The first batch of 10 firms, which set their IPO prices and took subscriptions last week, aim to raise up to 6.68 billion yuan (977.5 million dollars) — more than double the 3.16 billion previously planned.
   The second set of nine companies, which will take orders for their IPOs on October 13, have a combined fund-raising target of 1.95 billion yuan, the official Shanghai Securities News reported on Monday.

Oil prices fell on Monday, falling under $65 in London, amid weak energy demand in the United States, the world’s biggest oil-consuming nation, analysts said.
   Brent North Sea crude for delivery in November dropped 55 cents at $64.56 a barrel.
   New York’s main contract, light sweet crude for November delivery, shed 58 cents to $65.44 a barrel.
   Concerns over weak US energy demand are resurfacing after data released Friday showed orders for American durable goods fell 2.4 per cent in August against market expectations for a rise of 0.4 per cent.