Japan quake: Smartphones, cameras to go costlier

 Disaster-hit Japan churns out many of the world's smartphones, video cameras and other gadgets and while sales are not expected to suffer around the globe, industry analysts expect prices to rise.

"From semiconductors to displays, to automotive and consumer electronics, the effects of the Japan earthquake continue to reverberate throughout the world," said Dale Ford, senior vice president at research firm IHS iSuppli.

"Beyond the damage to Japan's own industrial base, the earthquake has impacted the production of basic electronic raw materials," Ford said. Japan produces between 15 per cent and 20 per cent of the world's electronics and "plays a particularly key role in some areas," said Jean-Philippe Dauvin of Paris-based consulting company Decision.

Dauvin said 30 per cent of the videogames, 40 per cent of the video cameras and still cameras and 15 per cent of the television sets sold around the world are manufactured in Japan. He said 40 to 50 of Japan's 140 semiconductor factories have been shut down as a result of the March 11 earthquake and tsunami and noted that DRAM and NAND memory are key components of both tablet computers and smartphones.

Within the next few weeks, there will be disruptions to the global supply chain and higher prices for computer chips, "leading inevitably to higher prices for the consumer," Dauvin said.

"There's about 100 euros ($141) worth of semiconductors in a smartphone," Dauvin said. "There's sure to be memory and Japanese components in there." Apple's iPad and iPhone, for example, is assembled mostly in China but is brimming with "Made in Japan" parts according to IHS iSuppli, including the battery, electronic compass, NAND and DRAM memory and the touchscreen display.

"The supply chain will begin to dry up within about three weeks," Dauvin said, leading to shortages, delivery delays and forcing the shutdown of some production lines. Japan's factories usually work at full capacity from April and May to crank out products for later in the year, including the Christmas holidays.

It remains difficult to predict when the country will resume producing at full capacity because aftershocks are continuing to play havoc with factories and electricity remains rationed in some areas. Gartner research vice president Richard Gordon said he was cautiously optimistic Japan's disasters would not have too much of a negative impact on the global supply chain for electronics.

"Early on, when the earthquake just happened, there was lot of concern that there would be an immediate impact and that it would be quite significant on the global level in terms of a disruption to the electronics supply chain," he said.

"But over the past two or three weeks we've become a bit more optimistic that disruptions will be contained, that there will be enough flexibility in the supply chain to smooth out some of these disruptions," he said. "It is still possible in the next months, into April and May, that we may see some shortages that we're not forecasting at the moment," Gordon said.

"But at this stage it's a bit early to say so," he said. "We will wait and see how the supply chain copes." 

Indian book of jobs in US: 60,000 and adding

Representatives of 25 Indian blue-chip companies, industry mavens, and diplomats gathered in the guts of the US Congress on Thursday to tell an economically-stricken America that they are "part of the solution, not part of the problem," and that they are creating jobs in the US, not taking them away.

In an extraordinary event that saw more than a dozen US lawmakers embrace Indian businesses in a room deep in the recesses of the US Senate, India Inc presented a checklist of what it was doing for America in troubled times: employing 60,000 people across 40 states, more than four-fifths hired locally; acquisitions worth nearly $6 billion since 2005; hiring thousands of fresh US college graduates; all with the cumulative effect of saving thousands of American jobs.

"Indian businesses remain committed to the US economy in terms of generating direct and indirect jobs to help in the ongoing recovery," said Kiran Pasricha, whose 16-year run as the face of Indian industry's lobbying effort in Washington DC, ending in June on her return to India, was topped off with a 100-page study titled "Indian Roots, American Soil," that examines the remarkable story of the rise of Indian companies in the US economy.

The study chronicles the value Indian companies such as Infosys, Wipro, Larsen and Toubro, Ranbaxy, State Bank of India, Essar, Bharat Forge, HCL, Mindtree, Polaris, and the ever-present House of Tatas and House of Mahindra have brought to the US at a time of much American angst about free trade and flight of jobs. Reps of several of these companies stepped up to the plate to tell lawmakers of the jobs they were creating in their Congressional districts and states in an effort backed by the Indian ambassador Meera Shankar, whose understanding of US-India business dynamics goes back to her stint in Washington as the chief commercial official in the mid-90s.

The Indian claims were immediately endorsed by individual lawmakers, some of whom (like New Jersey's Frank Pallone and Washington state's Jim McDermott) are familiar India hands. But even legislators relatively new to India Inc's baby steps (but growing footprint) in America subscribed to the idea of recovery through Indian investment. Jean Schmidt, an Ohio Congresswoman, was among those who spoke of how a Tata investment in her constituency generated 450 jobs, saved a building from being gutted, and improved the tax base in her district.

It was the kind of positive sentiment that resulted in Congressman Ed Royce ( California) kicking off his remarks with a hearty "Jai Hind" at the meeting organized by the Confederation of Indian Industries (CII) over the unusual fragrance in the Senate building of kababs and samosas. America is hurting economically, and US politicians are happy only too happy to embrace help from any quarters, especially a country with democratic credentials and rule of law.

From Essar, whose $ 2.5 billion investment in America, including a $1.3 billion iron ore pellet plant in Minnesota, employs 7000 Americans, to software firms such as L&T Infotech and Polaris (500 and 800 jobs respectively in Edison, New Jersey), Indian companies pitched their wares to US lawmakers all too receptive to Indian investment.

Royce, a co-chair of the India Caucus, spoke feelingly about the kind of "one-way relationship" US business were having with China, a country that he said offered a poorer rate of returns on investment when compared to India, as he pushed for investment also in the other direction – US businesses going into India. The general sentiment of the evening was that, many minor wrinkles aside, the United States and India were onto a win-win situation in terms of two-way trade and commerce, and there is need to keep the doors open rather than closing them.

What can Mexican billionaire Slim's money buy?

Mexican tycoon Carlos Slim strengthened his grip on the title of world's richest man this week, piling up billions of additional dollars between himself and his nearest rivals Bill Gates and Warren Buffett.

Over the past year, the 71-year-old Slim added $20 billion to the value of his assets, making him worth $74 billion, according to Forbes.

Equivalent to 6.6 per cent of Mexico's annual economic output, Slim could in theory use his fortune to transform the lives of millions, slash public debt or wallow in boundless luxury.

Following are a few examples of what the money could buy.

* Slim could cover Mexico's entire education budget for the next decade or pay the statutory minimum wage for nearly four out of 10 Mexicans for an entire year.

* The cash could feed all of Mexico's 112 million people with 80 kilos of tortilla -- the average amount of the staple foodstuff Mexicans eat annually -- for the next 11 years.

* The $74 billion is more than double what Mexico, the world's No. 7 oil exporter, earned from crude exports last year and could entirely cover the state-run oil firm Pemex's annual tax bill, roughly a third of the Mexican government's budget.

* Slim, a widower who has been romantically linked to Queen Noor of Jordan and Spanish socialite Silvia Gomez-Cuetara, could afford 1,617 pink diamonds like the rare 24.78 carat stone sold by Sotheby's for $45.75 million last year.

* His astronomical wealth could fund the operations of U.S. space agency NASA for four years.

* The avid sports fan could pay four times the budget of Brazil's Olympics Public Authority, the agency in charge of coordinating investment for the 2016 games.

* The money could also cover eight times the $9 billion annual cost for global HIV treatments as estimated by the Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS.

* An art collector who earlier this month opened a 60,000+ piece museum in Mexico City, Slim could buy 528 Jackson Pollock "No. 5, 1948", which reportedly sold for $140 million -- the highest price ever paid for a painting.

New York tour bus accident

Atleast 14 people were killed as a tour bus overturned on the highway, in the Bronx, New York. The bus had just reached the outskirts of New York City from the Mohegan Sun casino in Connecticut when the crash happened.

The driver told police he lost control trying to avoid a swerving tractor-trailer, CBS News reports. The crash happened at around 5:35 am., with some of the passengers still asleep. It scraped along the guard rail for 300 feet, rolled onto its side and crashed into the support pole for a highway sign indicating the exit for the Hutchinson Parkway. The pole knifed through the bus all the way from the front to the back, along the window line, peeling the roof off. Most people aboard were hurled to the front of the bus on impact, fire chief Edward Kilduff said. The bus driver has been identified as Ophadel Williams, 40, of Brooklyn, New York. He was taken to a nearby hospital along with the other injured passengers in the bus.

NYC Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said police were still looking for the truck, which did not stop after the crash. He said the truck was in a lane on the left side of the bus and that it was unclear whether the two vehicles touched.

Kelly said both the bus and the truck were moving at "a significant rate of speed."

Rodin’s $350,000 sculpture is stolen from Israel museum

A statue by French sculptor Auguste Rodin was stolen from the Israel Museum during the facility's recently completed renovation, the museum said.

The nude bronze of French novelist Honore de Balzac was one of a series of studies Rodin cast for a monument to Balzac on display in Paris. It was donated to the museum in 1966 by the Jewish-American impresario and lyricist Billy Rose.

The museum said the theft was discovered three months ago and immediately reported to police. The statue is 50 inches high and 24 inches wide and weighs about 65kg. It was molded in 1892 and cast posthumously between 1918 and 1926.

Rodin, who lived between the years 1840-1917, is renowned for masterpieces such as "The Thinker'' and "The Kiss.''

The museum said it could not provide a value for the Balzac piece. But based on Rodin sculptures of similar dimensions it put the estimated value of the stolen item at approximately $350,000. Christopher Marinello, the executive director and general counsel of The Art Loss Register, said it would be very difficult to sell such a high-profile piece of stolen art in the open market without detection.