Delegations from the DPRK and the ROK march under the Korean unification
flag during the Parade of Nations at the opening ceremony. /VCG Photo
The 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang began with a rare display of unity from South Korea and North Korea. Olympic athletes from both nations marched together during the Opening Ceremony in South Korea.
“United in our diversity, we are stronger than all the forces that want to divide us,” International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach said Friday during the ceremony.
The unified flag of Korea was jointly carried into Pyeongchang Stadium by South Korean bobsledder Won Yun-jong and North Korean ice hockey player Hwang Chung-gum. The united contingent of athletes was the last to walk in the parade of nations.
Top DPRK leader invites S.Korean president to visit Pyongyang
Kim Jong Un, top leader of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), invited South Korean President Moon Jae-in to visit the DPRK at Moon's convenient time, the presidential Blue House said Saturday.
Kim Eui-kyeom, spokesman for President Moon, told a televised press briefing that Kim Yo Jong, the younger sister of the DPRK leader, delivered a letter of Kim Jong Un to Moon showing Kim's willingness to improve inter-Korean relations.
The younger Kim delivered the DPRK leader's message, saying the DPRK leader is willing to meet President Moon at an earliest possible date.
The invitation was made during an informal meeting between Moon and the DPRK's Olympic delegation, including the younger Kim who serves as the first vice director of the Central Committee of the ruling Workers' Party of Korea.
In response, Moon said, "Let's create conditions going forward and make it."
The DPRK delegation was led by Kim Yong Nam, president of the Presidium of the Supreme People's Assembly. Two other senior delegates attending the meeting were Choe Hwi, chairman of the National Sports Guidance Committee, and Ri Son Gwon, chairman of the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Fatherland.
The meeting and luncheon, not disclosed to the media, lasted for about three hours at the presidential complex.
It marked the first time in eight and a half years that a ranking DPRK delegation visited South Korea's presidential complex.
In August 2009, the DPRK sent a high-ranking condolence delegation to bid farewell to late South Korean President Kim Dae-jung who held the first inter-Korean summit with late DPRK leader Kim Jong Il, father of the current leader.
The meeting between President Moon and the DPRK delegates was held informally, not made open to the media.
Attending the informal meeting from the South Korean side are the spy agency chief, the unification minister, the presidential chief of staff and the top presidential security advisor.
The DPRK delegates are scheduled to return back to their homeland on Sunday. - Global Times
According to Wikipedia, a blockchain,[1][2][3] originally block chain,[4][5] is a continuously growing list of records, called blocks, which are linked and secured using cryptography.[1][6]
Each block typically contains a cryptographic hash of the previous block,[6] a timestamp and transaction data.[7] By design, a blockchain is inherently resistant to modification of the data. It is "an open, distributed ledger that can record transactions between two parties efficiently and in a verifiable and permanent way".[8]
For use as a distributed ledger, a blockchain is typically managed by a peer-to-peer
network collectively adhering to a protocol for validating new blocks.
Once recorded, the data in any given block cannot be altered
retroactively without the alteration of all subsequent blocks, which
requires collusion of the network majority.
Blockchain technology can be integrated into multiple areas. The primary
use of blockchains today is as a distributed ledger for cryptocurrencies, most notably bitcoin.[65]
Each of the Big Four accounting firms is testing blockchain technologies in various formats. Ernst & Young has provided cryptocurrency wallets to all (Swiss) employees,[79] has installed a bitcoin ATM in their office in Switzerland, and accepts bitcoin as payment for all its consulting services.[80]
Marcel Stalder, CEO of Ernst & Young Switzerland, stated, "We don't
only want to talk about digitalization, but also actively drive this
process together with our employees and our clients. It is important to
us that everybody gets on board and prepares themselves for the
revolution set to take place in the business world through blockchains,
[to] smart contracts and digital currencies."[80] PwC, Deloitte, and KPMG have taken a different path from Ernst & Young and are all testing private blockchains.[80]
Why enterprises should care about blockchain
If you are in business or government or interact with businesses or government (that should be all of you), blockchain technologies will impact you in a profound way.
People much smarter than me who have studied blockchain deeply say this is like the internet before Marc Andreessen co-invented the browser. Then, we had no idea that the world would change as radically as it has. The world will change radically again, and no one can predict how.
However, let’s take a glimpse into the future at what people are working on now, so you get just an inkling of what’s possible.
IBM is putting a lot of wood behind the blockchain arrow and aggressively going after business. One example is a project with Walmart to track food shipments. Let’s use the example of mangos. Why is this important and how does the blockchain fit in?
This food-tracking application is important because Walmart wants to have all the information it can about the mangos it’s buying. Armed with this information, Walmart can do many valuable things:
Verification: Verify that the mangos that claim to be organic are actually organic (ensures quality)
Tracking: Track the mangos as they travel from the farm to the store, so they know where they are and when they will arrive (reduces cost)
Ensure quality: Ensure that if they need to be refrigerated within 40 and 50 degrees to ensure freshness, that they were refrigerated correctly during shipment (ensures quality
Recall management: Know exactly which mangos should be taken off the shelves if there’s a problem with the food (both ensures quality and reduces cost)
Automation: Reduce human interaction required between the farmer, distributors, brokers and the buyer (reduce cost)
But where does the blockchain fit in? Here’s how a blockchain-enabled mango-buying transaction works better than a process without the blockchain.
VERIFICATION
It turns out that people eat more food that has been labeled "organic" than is farmed. That's because there is fraud in some claims as to whether or not something is organic and those things can make their way into shipments unbeknownst to the buyer. Now, the mangos get labeled at the source, by a trusted entity that deems them organic. That information is then recorded on the blockchain, and that information cannot be changed. The "proof of organic" is now locked in and Walmart now fully trusts its mangos are organic. That makes it very difficult to fraudulently sell you mangos that are not organic.
TRACKING
Walmart is great at removing costs from their supply chain - maybe the best in the world. Now, they can build in a delivery price guarantee into the system, without human intervention. It works like this. Using a smart contract (code that represents an agreement) Walmart can say they will pay a certain amount for mangos that show up on the shipping dock within a specific shipment window. And, they can do that without having to create paperwork representing a different price for a late shipment. The payment to the late shipper gets changed automatically, based on the code in the smart contract.
ENSURE QUALITY
If the refrigerator truck in which the mangos are being shipped has a malfunction, the mangos could go bad. The shipper might not realize there's a problem, and Walmart might not realize there's a problem, but the consumer will be very unhappy. If the transportation company has thermometers on their truck continually report the temperature of the truck during transport, then Walmart will know that the mangos are fresh when they arrive, ensuring high quality. And, this is done automatically on the blockchain due to a trusted source of information (the thermometers) communicating with the smart contract that has set the temperature parameters.
RECALL MANAGEMENT
Sometimes mangos need to be recalled for one reason or another. Without the blockchain, Walmart might have to remove many thousands of mangos to ensure no customer gets a bad one. With the blockchain, Walmart now knows exactly what mangos need to be taken off the shelf. This ensures the bad mangos are removed. Yes, other technologies exist today that can do something similar as it’s related to tracking mangos. However, what the blockchain does is provide a higher level of confidence that fraud did not occur at some point along the way to protect the entity that enabled bad mangos to happen in the first place.
AUTOMATION
Today, a lot of intermediate transactions can exist in a transportation process. For example, transactions between the farmer and the broker; between the broker and the shipper; between the shipper and Walmart. These transactions usually require people to approve or deny some aspect of the movement of products. Through smart contracts, a lot of these approvals can be automated and sped up by removing people from the equation. This both reduces costs and speeds up the process.
Of course, this is only one example of an application that can transform an industry. Many, many other applications are being built to address very different use cases. I recommend you start to become educated on what is going on so you can get ahead of the curve.
By Glenn Gow is the Marketing Partner at Clear Ventures, a CEO Coach, Board Member and Advisor, and a Blockchain Strategist.
Is bitcoin a scam?
Is bitcoin a Ponzi scheme?
Is bitcoin one humongous scam or Ponzi scheme? Before I answer that question, let’s look at the four typical characteristics of a Ponzi scheme.
First of all, there must be a promoter for the scheme. It may be a single individual or a corporation.
The key point here is that there is a single party promoting (and thus benefiting from) the scheme. The second characteristic is the promised return.
To attract gullible investors the scheme will promise unrealistic sky-high returns. The saying “if it is too good to be true, it probably is” always applies in this scenario.
The third characteristic pertains to the investment’s liquidity, which simply means how easy it is to get out once you are in. The promoter will tend to discourage investors from cashing out using and will do so using one or more of these three approaches.
The stick approach is where the investor loses a portion of his investment if he withdraws early.
Conversely the carrot approach entices the investor to stay in by promising even higher returns the longer he keeps the funds invested.
Finally the “too-good-not-to-share” approach requires the investor to find a new investor to take over his investment. In short, he needs to look for new fools to buy him out.
Yes, the Ponzi scheme’s liquidity is at the mercy of the promoter’s whim and fancy.
Thus we come to the fourth characteristic. Ponzi schemes require a constant flow of new investors (read: new money) to fund the payout to early investors.
Before the promoter vanishes into thin air, a small number of EARLY investors DO actually get to cash out and enjoy the ridiculous returns. This is done intentionally by the promoter to “instill” confidence in the scheme as these early investors will help to bring in new investors.
Let’s apply these four characteristics to Bitcoin. The decentralised nature of bitcoin means that there is never a single party promoting bitcoin.
One may argue that there are plenty of people promoting the virtues of bitcoin.
However these are all unrelated parties, akin to different investment advisers promoting the virtues of gold as an investment.
What about returns?
Yes, bitcoin has provided spectacular profits to some investors in the past year.
However these profits were never promised in the first place. In fact people have lost money trading bitcoins, in spite its meteoric rise. This is due to the extreme volatility of the price.
Does bitcoin have sufficient liquidity that is, can you get out? All the recent headlines about regulators and banks freezing the accounts of crypto-related transactions have given the impression that it is hard-to-get-out once you are in.
However, nothing could be further from the truth. The decentralised nature means that there are so many alternatives for selling bitcoins, although not all are convenient.
Finally, are bitcoin investors who are late to the party effectively funding the early investors’ profits?
On that note, bitcoin may sound similar to a Ponzi scheme.
Then again the same can be said of investors who entered the markets at the peak of the dotCom bubble or the housing bubble.
This is a zero-sum game.
I would be remiss if I did not acknowledge the existence of numerous proven scams out there that uses or references Bitcoin.
To counter that point, note that these scams never actually put money into bitcoin, merely hitching a ride on the bitcoin bandwagon and hype.
Prior to the emergence of cryptocurrencies, Ponzi schemes already existed. These schemes claim to use special techniques to generate spectacular profits from various asset classes such as commodities or real estate. Do you hear anyone labelling real estate as a Ponzi?
That said, I must make the point clear that one can easily lose a fortune putting hard earned money into either bitcoins or a Ponzi scheme. Nevertheless, bitcoin is not a scam or Ponzi scheme, as outlined by the points above.
Source: The Star, by Chong Jin Yoong, CFA, is a financial markets trainer and consultant.
Readers can learn more about whole bitcoin and cryptocurrency saga at a talk organised by The Star on Feb 10 entitled “Bitcoin: Dive in or stay away?”
'In the very first place, does Penang really need an undersea tunnel and
three main highways? Are the new infrastructures going to solve the
congestion in Penang or bring in more vehicles?
THE trend for P148 looks promising and it will definitely be very hot.
No, I am not giving you any lucky numbers. P148 refers to Ayer Hitam parliamentary constituency in central Johor.
Ayer Hitam did not draw much attention before this. It is seen as a “safe seat” for Barisan Nasional, and has been held by MCA’s Datuk Seri Dr Wee Ka Siong for several terms.
Pakatan Harapan has allocated P148 to DAP. DAP, which was at first reluctant to contest there, told Amanah: “You can contest here under the DAP logo.”
It goes to show that DAP initially did not want to commit to a war it has no full confidence of winning.
But things have changed. Recently, DAP’s top leaders have upgraded the status of P148. Its adviser Lim Kit Siang said if (Pakatan) wants to take over Putrajaya, it has to wrestle Ayer Hitam.
People cannot really comprehend what the direct link is between Ayer Hitam and taking control of Putrajaya.
It would be easier to understand that the Opposition coalition is one step closer to Putrajaya if former premier Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad wins Pulau Langkawi or Kubang Pasu.
But P148 Ayer Hitam? It is not the seat of (Prime Minister) Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak, (Deputy Prime Minister) Datuk Seri Dr Ahmad Zahid Hamidi or (Defence Minister) Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein. It is not special at all.
As for Dr Wee, it is still fresh on people’s minds that he has been aggressive in questioning the Penang undersea tunnel project.
Is DAP listing Ayer Hitam as their primary battleground because they want to topple Dr Wee? Does it want to take the MCA deputy president down because he has been critical of the project?
Is this a strategy to attack Dr Wee in order to save Penang Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng and force Dr Wee to stop harping on the tunnel project?
Or perhaps, it is an “act of revenge” to show Dr Wee some colours?
Frankly speaking, I don’t think Dr Wee will back off as he is known for his tough personality.
Quite the contrary, this will further boost his fighting will, prompting him to investigate the undersea tunnel issue further by diving 3km into the deep blue sea to seek answers.
From the people’s point of view, I think the focus should not be on the two personalities.
This does not have to be a battle between Guan Eng and Dr Wee. This should go beyond a spat between them.
It should be an issue of public interest. The public can analyse the case and be the judge.
DAP’s intention to conquer Ayer Hitam will bring the tunnel project issue to a bigger platform for it to be scrutinised and debated. This will be a positive development.
People are interested to know why the feasibility study and detailed designs for the undersea tunnel and three main roads would cost RM305mil.
A point to note is the feasibility study and detailed designs for the three main roads cost more than RM200mil.
A back-of-the-envelope calculation showed that the cost for every kilometre is about RM10mil, based on the total length of 20.3km.
The engineering industry said the cost was “extraordinarily high”. Is the feasibility study so detailed that it will find out how many worms there are in every inch of the land?
The construction cost of the undersea tunnel is RM3.6bil, with the feasibility study and detailed design priced at RM96mil.
Why is the feasibility study for the three roads higher than that of the tunnel when the roads are supposedly easier and cheaper to build?
Guan Eng insisted that not a single sen has been paid. But then, why has the state government transferred parcels of land to the investors involved?
With the exit of the builder from China and the entrance of a local fashion company (in the project’s special purpose vehicle), there is a change in the paid-up capital. This does not match the requirement set earlier. How will the state government handle this?
The reports have yet to be completed and the project has not yet started. Will the tunnel still be built? Penang state executive councillor Chow Kon Yeow said the three main roads would be built first but will this go against the overall concept of the project?
In the very first place, does Penang really need an undersea tunnel and three main highways? Are the new infrastructures going to solve the congestion in Penang or bring in more vehicles? Why doesn’t the state government build a metro rail? Wouldn’t it better suit the needs of Penangites?
From undersea tunnel to Ayer Hitam, a series of questions and doubts has emerged.
This should not be a dispute between Guan Eng and Dr Wee but an issue of public interest that ought to be explained and clarified.
By Tay Tian Yan, The Star - The writer is Sin Chew Daily deputy editor-in-chief..
Alibaba Cloud, which set up a datacentre in
Malaysia last year, is considering a second one to further develop a
local ecosystem, its president Simon Hu said. — Reuters
https://youtu.be/MwixREUJOI0
Jack Ma's Life Advice Will Change Your Life (MUST WATCH)
https://youtu.be/lYGGpc2mMno
KUALA LUMPUR: Alibaba Group will set up a traffic control system harnessing artificial intelligence for Malaysia's capital Kuala Lumpur, its first such service outside China, as the e-commerce giant pushes to grow its cloud computing business.
Alibaba Cloud, the cloud computing arm of Alibaba Group, said on Monday it plans to make live traffic predictions and recommendations to increase traffic efficiency in Kuala Lumpur by crunching data gathered from video footage, traffic bureaus, public transportation systems and mapping apps.
It is partnering with state agency Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation (MDEC) and the Kuala Lumpur city council to roll out the technology, which would be localised and integrated with 500 inner city cameras by May.
The partnership comes after Alibaba founder Jack Ma and Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak launched an "e-hub" facility last year, part of an initiative aimed at removing trade barriers for smaller firms and emerging nations.
Alibaba Cloud, which set up a data centre in Malaysia last year, is considering a second one to further develop a local ecosystem, its president Simon Hu said on Jan 29.
He declined to elaborate on the company's total investments made and planned for in Malaysia, but said it was "no small amount" and that the investments would continue if there was demand for cloud computing technologies.
MDEC's chief executive officer Yasmin Mahmood said there was no estimate of City Brain's impact on traffic in Kuala Lumpur yet. The traffic management system in the Chinese city of Hangzhou had resulted in reports of traffic violations with up to 92% accuracy, emergency vehicles reaching their destinations in half the time and overall increase in traffic speed by 15%.
Najib has forged close ties with China in recent years. Last year, the Malaysian leader announced a slew of infrastructure projects, many funded by China, as he worked up momentum towards a general election he must call by the middle of this year. — Reuters
KUALA LUMPUR: The Government has vowed to end “crony capitalists” whose wealth came at the cost of ordinary Malaysians, said Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak.
The Prime Minister said lessons had been learnt from past mistakes in planning Malaysia’s economic transformation, after confronting many “legacy issues” along the way.
“Some of the country’s development under a former leader came with an unnecessary price tag, in the form of a class of crony capitalists,” he said in his keynote address at Invest Malaysia 2018 yesterday.
Citing public transport as an example, Najib said massive overhauls had to be done to rectify the issue.
“For decades, public transport was neglected. It was incoherent, with different owners, different systems and certainly no integration
“One man’s obsession with the idea of a national car – which is now being turned around under international joint ownership – led to Malaysia lacking an efficient public transport system.
“This was a serious obstacle to achieve high-income status and for Kuala Lumpur to be a world-class capital,” he said.
Although no name was mentioned throughout his speech, it was an apparent dig at former premier Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad.
Najib also said that during this time, the Government had signed independent power producer concessions that were lopsided.
“Consumers had to pay far more for energy than they should have, even for energy they were not using.
“This was a real burden to the people, so we renegotiated these concessions – and determined that in the future, we would not allow private companies to earn excessively at the expense of ordinary Malaysians,” he said.
Najib also pointed out that the ringgit had been pegged against the US dollar for “far too long”.
“Investors and global markets lost confidence in us, and it took a long time to win that back. That was a very heavy cost to the country,” he said, stressing that the Government would never repeat that measure.
He also spoke on the challenges at state-owned institutions, such as 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB), which were amplified and used as a tool to suggest that Malaysia’s economy was collapsing.
“I’m not going to brush over this issue. There were indeed failings at the company, there were lapses of governance. There was a valid cause for concern.
“This is why I ordered one of the most comprehensive and detailed investigations in Malaysia’s corporate history, one that involved multiple lawful authorities, including a bipartisan parliamentary body.
“Their findings were taken on board and the company’s board was dissolved, its management team changed and its operations reviewed,” he said.
On another note, Najib rubbished claims that Malaysia was welcoming foreign direct investments (FDIs) by selling out the nation’s sovereignty.
“My Government will never sacrifice an inch of our sovereignty,” he said, adding that while RM63bil in FDI stock came from China and Hong Kong, there was more from Japan at RM70bil.
“You don’t hear anyone warning that we are selling our country to the Japanese.
“Of course not. They are most welcome here. So are investors from Africa, the Americas, China, the European Union, India, Saudi Arabia and around the world,” he said.
Malaysia continues to improve in three key areas
Moving forward: Najib attending the Invest
Malaysia 2018 launch together with (from left) Bursa Malaysia Bhd CEO
Datuk Seri Tajuddin Atan, Treasury secretary-general Tan Sri Dr Mohd
Irwan Serigar Abdullah, Chief Secretary Tan Sri Dr Ali Hamsa, Finance
Minister II Datuk Seri Johari Abdul Ghani, Bursa Malaysia chairman Tan
Sri Amirsham Abdul Aziz and Malayan Banking Bhd chairman Datuk
Mohaiyani Shamsudin in Kuala Lumpur.
KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia will continue to develop three key areas – transparency, accountability and efficiency – to attract more investments, said Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak.
The Prime Minister observed that the country’s excellent economic and financial fundamentals had greatly benefitted local and foreign investors, providing them with stability, strength and certainty.
“We will continue to make our country even more business- and market-friendly, which means we are always working to improve transparency, accountability and efficiency.
“The Securities Commission, Bursa Malaysia, Bank Negara Malaysia and the Finance Ministry have continuously introduced and supported measures to increase the dynamism of our capital market.
“Towards this objective, I can assure you that we can expect further measures in the near future,” he said in his keynote address at Invest Malaysia 2018 here yesterday.
The two-day annual event is jointly organised by Bursa Malaysia Bhd and Maybank. A total of 61 local companies, with a combined market capitalisation of RM767.6bil were featured in the event.
The Prime Minister also cited figures that justified the confidence in Malaysia shown by investors and global institutions.
“Our total trade grew strongly by 20.8% between January and November last year, while in November alone, gross exports reached double-digit growth of 14.4%, with the highest receipts ever recorded, at RM83.5bil.
“Last year, foreign net fund inflow recorded a positive RM10.8bil, the highest since 2012, while corporate bond and new sukuk issuance reached RM111.2bil for 11 months of the year, close to 30% higher than the whole of 2016,” he said.
Najib also observed that Malaysia has enjoyed years of strong growth, with figures that most developed economies “could only dream of”, even during times of economic uncertainty.
“In fact, last year Malaysia exceeded all expectations, with the World Bank having to revise its estimate for our growth upwards not once, not twice, but three times – to 5.8%,” he said.
Najib added the World Economic Global Competitiveness index for 2017 and 2018 rate Malaysia very highly out of 137 countries.
The country is ranked third for Strength of Investor Protection, fifth for Pay and Productivity, fifth for the low Burden of Government Regulation and 14th for the Quality of Education System.
“The International Monetary Fund has also praised our sound macroeconomic policy responses in the face of significant headwinds and risks.
“The World Bank also recently confirmed that it believes Malaysia is on track, and that we are expected to achieve high-income status in the next few years,” he said.
