As Beijing prepares to lift the curtains on the Olympics with a spectacular opening, it is willing to say little on the $6.5 billion price tag of its security arrangements. A sizeable chunk of this expenditure has gone in the coffers of global companies which have provided a vast range of high-tech security equipments to China to cover the Olympic Games.

Among the multi-national companies who have secured lucrative billion-dollar contracts from the Chinese government are Panasonic, IBM, General Electric, Honeywell, Siemens and LG. These companies will not only be supplying the most advanced security technology to safeguard the Olympic Games but will also get a rare opportunity to make further inroads into the vast Chinese market. China has earmarked an outlay of $6.5 billion for security arrangements which is more than four times the $1.5 billion budget that had been set aside during the Athens Olympics.

The Security Industry Association estimates that almost 90% of the companies providing security equipments are foreign. While Panasonic has supplied surveillance cameras, Honeywell has sold intrusion detectors and a $20 million deal for the Bird’s Nest stadium. Siemens has bagged a $7 million contract for building-automation and security control systems. China has also acquired a Smart Surveillance System from IBM which will enable the law enforcers to track 300,000 video camera images. GE, however, has emerged as the biggest player in the security market with its equipments being installed in 22 venues, 168 buildings in Beijing and the national capital airport.

-Kalyani Mookherji

On Wednesday, Google Inc announced that it has unveiled a music search service in China. This new search service will enable users to legally access music online in a country where free downloading of pirated music is rampant. The online forum is supported by select music companies and will run on revenue from advertising.

The music search service from Google is called Music Onebox and will direct users to a Chinese website known as Top100.ch from where they will be able to perform free downloading or streaming of music. Top100.ch has a licensing agreement with almost a hundred music record labels from all around the globe. Besides this, the Beijing-based website is also in partnership talks with Sony BMG and Warner Music Group Corp. According to the website, Chinese basketball star Yao Ming is one of the major investors of Top100.ch.

Only users from China will be able to access music offered on Top100.ch and directed by Music Onebox. This will come as a welcome offer in a country where the system of paid music downloads is unheard of. The digital music store, iTunes from Apple Inc, too is not offered in China. According to an estimate by the International Federation of Phonographic Industries, more than 99% of all music files going around in China are pirated and its legal sales of $76 million a year accounts for a mere one percent of total global sales.

-Kalyani Mookherji

Federal agents have uncovered a fraudulent scheme in Los Angeles under which homeless people were recruited as fake patients and then government health programs were billed for thousands of millions of dollars. three major health centers have been raided and a hospital CEO arrested by FBI officials.

State and federal authorities allege that in this scheme, certain hospitals in Los Angeles and Orange counties would bring in thousands of patients from downtown Skid Row, many of whom were mentally ill and drug addicts. These phony patients would then be treated for non-existent or minor conditions like dehydration and yeast infections by being hospitalized for as long as three days. In the process, the hospitals would defraud the government of millions of dollars for unnecessary hospital stays and treatments.

in 2006 the Los Angeles Police Department received reports that hospitals were leaving homeless patients out on the streets. This sparked of wider investigations by both state and federal agencies and the health care fraud was uncovered.

The FBI revealed that raids were carried out at City of Angels Medical Center, Los Angeles Metropolitan Medical Center as well as Tustin Hospital. The two people arrested by the FBI and later indicted were identified as Rudra Sabaratnam, the CEO of City of Angels Medical Center and Estell Mitts, an operator of a health assessment center at a Skid Row.

-Kalyani Mookherji

One of the biggest insurance providers in the US, AIG Inc incurred huge losses in the second quarter of 2008 with as much as $11 billion being sunk in investments and write downs. The news of its second quarterly performance led to sharp fall in its shares which came down by 7.5% in after hours trading.

The second quarter losses of American Insurance Group Inc were primarily due to heavy losses in capital investments which amounted to $6.08 billion. Another $5.56 billion were sunk in massive writes down related to its credit default swap portfolio. The company posted a net loss of $5.36 billion or $2.06 a share in the second quarter of 2008. This was a sharp comedown from a net income of $4.28 billion or $1.64 a share for the same period in 2007.

For AIG, this quarterly loss was the third in a row. In the last two quarters it has incurred total losses of $13 billion due to difficult write downs related to sub prime mortgages. The new AIG CEO Robert Willumstadt blamed harsh investment conditions as well as the crisis in the housing and credit markets for the poor performance of the company.

-Kalyani Mookherji

The Massachusetts Department of Public Health has recalled sandwiches being sold from eighteen Roche Brothers and Sudbury Farm stores. the recall was limited to the outlets in certain areas of Eastern Massachusetts. It is feared that the sandwiches may have been contaminated by the bacterium Listeria Monocytogenes.

The suspect sandwiches were manufactured as ready-to-eat “roller sandwiches” by World Class Canapes of Wilmington. They may have been sold in the prepared food sections of the stores or later may have been included in catering platters. The sandwiches were intended for sale from July 31 through August 2 and were labeled as “Progressive Gourmet Chicken Caesar Roller Sandwich”, “Progressive Gourmet Buffalo Chicken Roller Sandwich” or “Progressive Gourmet Honey Turkey with Baby Spinach Roller Sandwich”.

State health authorities have asked consumers to discard sandwiches bought at any of the 18 stores. even though healthy people are rarely infected by Listeriosis, those with weak immune systems like the elderly and newborns might contract the disease. Listeriosis has also been known to induce miscarriages in pregnant women. Symptoms of Listeriosis include fever, fatigue, muscle ache which may or may not be accompanied by diarrhea and muscle cramps.

-Kalyani Mookherji

The US Defense Department re-opened its bidding process for a new generation of Air Force tankers and indicated that it would take a decision by New Year’s. this puts Boeing, one of the main contenders of the $35 billion contract at a significant disadvantage. The other contender for the major defense contract is Northrop Grunman.

The Pentagon has chalked up a speedy timetable for awarding of the contract. It intends to open discussions next week on the requirements of the deal and then ask bidding companies to submit their proposals by October 1. by the end of November or early December, the Pentagon would ask for the best and final offer from all competitors and then hand over the contract by beginning of 2009.

Two factors in Pentagon’s proposals go against Boeing; one is the hasty schedule and the other is the demand for a tanker from which a larger quantity of fuel which can be off-loaded. The latter will significantly favor the bigger A330 airbus from Northrop instead of Boeing’s 767 commercial jets. While Boeing has raised objections to the Pentagon’s plans and has even hinted at taking the matter to the Government Accountability Office, Northrop has predictably welcomed the news.

-Kalyani Mookherji

Greyhound has pulled out its advertisements in Canada that praised the relaxing effects of long distance bus travel. The pull out comes in the wake of a horrifying incident in which one of its passengers at an overnight bus journey murdered and beheaded a co-passenger.

Greyhound Spokesperson Abby Wambaugh said that the advertisement campaign was being scrapped due to concerns about its appropriateness in the aftermath of the macabre incident. Ironically, the tag line of the ads read, “There’s a reason you’ve never heard of ‘bus rage’.”

The Greyhound ads, extolling the virtues of bus travel, had appeared on billboards and tunnel posters in Canadian cities like Toronto, Ontario as well as in some places in Western Canada. Around 20,000 inserts of the advertisements were also supposed to appear in the Alberta Summer Games handbook but were pulled out before going to the press.

Last week as the Greyhound bus traveled from Edmonton, Alberta to Winnipeg, Manitoba, Vince Weiguang Li made an unprovoked attack on fellow passenger, 22 year old Tim MacLean. Horrified passengers watched at Li repeatedly stabbed MacLean and then beheaded him. Witnesses say that Li then went on to display the severed head to passengers who had fled outside. A police officer reveals that a witness had reported Li making cannibalistic attacks on the dead body of the victim.

-Kalyani Mookherji

On Wednesday, South African economy was crippled by one of the biggest protests in recent times. Tens of thousands of people refused to show up at work in a protest against spiraling food prices and rising cost of electricity. The protests hit hard the mining and manufacturing sectors which together drive the bulk of South African economy.

The protests were organized by the Congress of South African Trade Unions as millions of workers struck work and marched across cities like Cape Town and Pretoria. The strike brought the shoe, car and textile factories to as standstill and according to some reports work in the country’s gold mines were badly affected. Analysts warn that such strikes would further hurt an ailing economy which grew at just 3% this year as compared to 5% in the past four years. The police claimed that by and large the strike went off peacefully even though there were scattered reports of some people being threatened as they left for work.

The strikes come in the wake of rising food prices and soaring electricity costs in South Africa and like similar trends in rest of the world, the poor have been the hardest hit. Many African cities have seen some of the worst protests in recent times when locals were accused of attacking and destroying the business of the more prosperous immigrant population.

-Kalyani Mookerji