Important news from Darlena

UPDATE 1-India to grant Internet licence to Qualcomm-telecoms secy

Tue, 18 Oct 2011 05:15:58 -0400

NEW DELHI Oct 18 (Reuters) - India has agreed to grant an Internet service licence to Qualcomm Inc , Telecoms Secretary R. Chandrashekhar said on Tuesday, clearing the way for the U.S. chipmaker to launch broadband services in the country after its application for the licence was rejected initially.Qualcomm last year paid about $1 billion for wireless spectrum it won in a state auction in four of India’s 22 telecoms zones. The company needs to get the so-called Internet Service Provider’s licence to launch broadband services.The ministry had earlier cited Qualcomm missing the deadline for applying for the Internet service providers’ licence as one of the reasons for rejecting the application. The ministry had also said Qualcomm applied for four separate licences, whereas it should have applied for just one.Qualcomm was not immediately available for comment. The company has previously said it fully complied with the application process and will work with the Indian authorities to resolve the matter.It last year sold a total 26 percent stake in its India broadband venture to Indian firms Global Holdings and Tulip Telecom to comply with Indian rules, which allow a maximum 74 percent foreign holding in local telecoms companies.Qualcomm, which is pushing for the deployment of LTE (long-term evolution) broadband technology, has said it is looking for more operator partners in the Indian venture and plans to eventually exit the business.Other firms who have wireless broadband spectrum in select zones include top telecoms firm Bharti Airtel , smaller carrier Aircel and privately held Augere and Tikona.A unit of Reliance Industries , India’s most valuable firm, has wireless broadband spectrum in all the 22 zones of the country.None of the broadband spectrum winners have launched services yet.

RPT-FEATURE-So many US manufacturing jobs,so few skilled workers

Wed, 12 Oct 2011 20:33:27 -0400

* Shortfall in computer, math and science training* Siemens has more than 3,000 jobs open* Study sees a shortage of up 1.5 mln workers in 2020By Lucia MutikaniWASHINGTON, Oct 12 (Reuters) - U.S. manufacturers are failing to fill thousands of vacant jobs, surprising when 14 million people are searching for work.Technology giant Siemens Corp., the U.S. arm of Germany’s Siemens AG , has over 3,000 jobs open all over the country. More than half require science, technology, engineering and math-related skills.Other companies report job vacancies that range from six to 200, with some positions open for at least nine months.Manufacturing is hurt by a dearth of skilled workers.”What we have been saying for quite a while is that even though there is a high unemployment rate, it’s very difficult to find skilled people,” said Jeff Owens, president of ATS, a manufacturing consulting services company.A survey by ManpowerGroup found that a record 52 percent of U.S. employers have difficulty filling critical positions within their organizations — up from 14 percent in 2010.Owens said his company, which counts manufacturing behemoths Caterpillar and Motorola among its clients, has at any given time about 200 open positions .”We are pro-actively working to fill them. It can take 90 to a hundred days, probably, to fill them,” he told Reuters. “We are creating jobs. We just don’t necessarily have the right people to fill them.”On average, companies usually take seven weeks to fill job openings.MISMATCH OF SKILLS AND JOBSMost of the jobs hard to fill are for skilled trades, Internet technology, engineers, sales representatives and machine operators.Yet American colleges are producing fewer math and science graduates as students favor social sciences, whose workload is perceived to be manageable, leading to a skills mismatch.Math, engineering, technology and computer science students accounted for about 11.1 percent of college graduates in 1980, according to government data. That share dropped to about 8.9 percent in 2009.An aging population of skilled workers is adding to the problem. As the baby boomers retire, there are fewer skilled workers available to replace them.”Many of the younger kids that are coming out of college have been discouraged to go into manufacturing,” said Dennis Bray, president and CEO of Contour Precision Group.”A lot of the college graduates have chosen a curriculum and degree that does not give them the necessary science and math skills to be of immediate benefit to companies such as ours.”Contour Precision, based in Clover, South Carolina, does contract work for the energy and aerospace industries. It is currently looking for six technicians. It has had positions open since last year.Unemployment in manufacturing is at 8.4 percent, below the overall rate of 9.1 percent. According to the Labor Department’s latest Job Openings and Labor Turnover survey, there were 240,000 open jobs in manufacturing in August up 38.7 percent from a year ago.The problem is sufficiently serious that businesses are pushing Congress to address the issue of visas and help them hire more high-skilled foreigners.STRUCTURAL UNEMPLOYMENT?These companies’ inability to fill open jobs suggests that part of the unemployment problem confronting the nation could be more of a structural nature rather than a downturn in the business cycle.Two years after the end of the worst recession since the Great Depression of the 1930s, about 14 million Americans are still unemployed.In September, nearly 45 percent of them had been out of work for six months or more. The longer people are out of the workforce, the more dated their skills become, making it even harder to reintegrate them into the labor market.The types of jobs available are also changing.Medium-skilled repetitive tasks that can be computerized continue to disappear. First, it was from from the factory floor, but it also affects the back office, where processing and support jobs are declining.The strongest job growth is concentrated in healthcare and the scientific, technical and computer fields, which usually require at least a post-secondary education.”The old jobs are not coming back. We need to invest in education and training to get people prepared to fill these high-skilled, high-wage jobs of the future,” said Eric Spiegel, president and CEO of Siemens Corp.Siemens is recruiting in states where unemployment is high. Pennsylvania, Florida, Texas, North Carolina, New Jersey, California, Illinois, Georgia and New York have jobless rates that range from 8 percent to 12.1 percent.According to the Conference Board, workers with computer and math or science skills have a far better chance of getting a job, with one worker applying for every three of these types of jobs advertised. In contrast, there are roughly three people for every advertised job in sales.PLENTY OF WELL-PAYING JOBSFew of the thousands of jobs open in the manufacturing sector are low-wage positions.Workers at the very low levels can earn as much as $30 an hour, with annual salaries for engineers ranging from $75,000 to $100,000. At Siemens, the average potential salary offered for its open positions is $89,000 a year.Manufacturing lost its appeal during the 1990s when companies started moving production to Asian countries like China, in search of cheap labor. But rising wages in China are forcing some companies to bring production back home.Although manufacturing accounts for about 12 percent of U.S. gross domestic product and about 10 percent of total non-farm employment, it has been the main pillar of support for the economy and one of the highest-paying sectors.The shortage of skilled workers is also compounded by the depressed housing market, which is making it tough for Americans to relocate to where the jobs are.The housing market crash has left many people with home loans owing financial institutions more than what their houses are worth, making it difficult for them to sell.BRING IN THE ARMYIn hopes of addressing the skills gap, companies such as Siemens and ATS are turning to the military, targeting veterans. Siemens is embarking on apprenticeship programs, while ATS is running training programs for young people.”We have found that veterans have extensive technical training and experience that they gain through military service, and these skills are extremely valuable to us and match up well with many of our over 3,000 open positions,” Spiegel said.Siemens has hired 450 military veterans so far this year.Others are teaming up with professional bodies like the Society of Manufacturing Engineers (SME), which has developed online courses to support its members.”We are not filling the pipeline with enough candidates for these positions. This problem has been ongoing for the last three or four years,” said Mark Tomlinson, CEO of the Society of Manufacturing Engineers.But the long-term solution lies in revamping the nation’s education system to meet the current challenges and invest more in vocational training, industry leaders say.”Often people say we do have vocational training, but it’s geared towards yesterday’s technology and yesterday’s job opportunities,” said ATS’s Owens. “I am not sure the educators are on the mark with what exactly needs to be taught for today’s environment.”

Ex-trader draws 2-1/2 years prison in Galleon case

Wed, 12 Oct 2011 16:03:30 -0400

NEW YORK Oct 12 (Reuters) - A former lawyer and Wall Street trader caught up in the U.S. government’s crackdown on insider trading was on Wednesday ordered to serve two years and six months in prison for his role in the case.The man, Michael Kimelman, co-founded trading firm Incremental Capital in New York with brothers Zvi Goffer and Emmanuel Goffer in late 2007. All three were convicted by a Manhattan federal court jury in June on securities fraud and conspiracy charges, part of a broad investigation that also ensnared Galleon Group hedge fund founder Raj Rajaratnam.Multimillionaire Rajaratnam, who was convicted at a separate jury trial in May, is scheduled to be sentenced on Thursday in what some legal experts predict could be a lengthy prison term for insider trading.U.S. District Court Judge Richard Sullivan, who imposed the 30 month-long sentence on Kimelman, had denied him a re-trial. Kimelman is appealing his conviction. In recent weeks, Sullivan sentenced Zvi Goffer, described as a ringleader, to 10 years in prison and Emmanuel Goffer to three years incarceration.The jury found that the government proved its case against Kimelman, 40, and the Goffers who obtained inside information about mergers and acquisitions and traded on the information. Goffer worked at Galleon for nine months before starting his own firm.Much like the trial of Rajaratnam, court-approved phone taps played a major role in the prosecution.Sullivan also sentenced Kimelman, of Larchmont, New York, to three years of supervised release and ordered him to forfeit $289,079, about the same as his estimated illicit profits.The case is USA v Zvi Goffer et al, U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, No. 10-00056.

Samsung says upgrades smartphones to avoid Dutch sales ban

Wed, 12 Oct 2011 05:15:37 -0400

Apple tried to block sales of Samsung’s flagship Galaxy line of smartphones and tablets in the Netherlands, citing 10 patent rights including Apple’s claim of “slavish style copying”A Dutch court ruled in August that Samsung had breached just one of Apple’s patents and imposed a sales injunction on three Samsung smartphone models— Galaxy S, S II and Ace — and dismissed all other claims including model rights.The Apple patent allows for a certain method of scrolling or browsing through photos in some Samsung smartphones.The court imposed a sales injunction of the affected products in some European countries and offered a grace period until Oct. 14 to address the infringement.”We’ve fixed the technological problem and upgraded products to address the issue. They will be shortly available for sale,” Samsung spokesman James Chung said.He declined to comment on an exact launch date.The move comes as Samsung awaits a court ruling in Australia on Thursday over Apple’s request to temporarily ban sales of Samsung’s Galaxy Tab 10.1 tablet in the country, a crucial ruling that may affect pre-Christmas sales.

Cricket-Decision review system no longer mandatory, says ICC

Tue, 11 Oct 2011 13:37:11 -0400

“Although the DRS improves correct umpire decisions by around five percent and corrects any blatant errors, there are some who are not convinced by its reliability,” ICC Chief Executive Haroon Lorgat said in a statement.”We will continue to work with interested parties to improve the system while permitting the participating teams to decide whether they wish to use it or not.”The ICC, at its annual conference in June, had made the use of Hot Spot technology - which indicates the ball’s point of contact - mandatory, subject to availability, and left the use of ball-tracking technology up to the playing boards.The ICC had even won over the Indian cricket board (BCCI), which had strongly opposed the ball-tracking technology in DRS, with its modified version which allows teams to challenge umpire decisions.The modified version of DRS, minus the ball-tracking technology but including Hot Spot, was used during India’s recent tour of England but drew flak for inconsistent results.The ICC’s executive board, which met in Dubai on Monday, said it would continue using the DRS in its global events and would support the use of technology and its continued development.The change in the ICC stance on DRS followed criticism by the BCCI’s new president N. Srinivasan last month.”The BCCI is not averse to technology. We did not believe in the ball-tracking technology at all,” Srinivasan said at the time. “So therefore, at the last meeting of the ICC in Hong Kong, we agreed to a minimum usage of DRS including Hot Spot.”At the time, we were under the impression that Hot Spot was very good. It is not necessary for me to dwell on the accuracy of Hot Spot, it was there for everybody to see.”We do not wish to use the DRS in its present form, even in its minimum standard,” said Srinivasan, adding that he intended to raise the issue at the ICC meeting.