Friday, December 4, 2009

“25-per-cent boom in China tourists to B.C. expected after approved ... - Times Colonist” plus 4 more

“25-per-cent boom in China tourists to B.C. expected after approved ... - Times Colonist” plus 4 more

25-per-cent boom in China tourists to B.C. expected after approved ... - Times Colonist

Posted: 04 Dec 2009 02:53 AM PST

VANCOUVER — Chinese tourism to British Columbia could grow 25 per cent a year now that Canada has finally become an approved destination for Chinese tourists.

After years of wrangling, the Chinese government has granted Canada approved destination status, which makes it easier for Chinese tourists to get visas to come to Canada. Up until now, most Chinese visitors came to Canada on business, student or family visas.

As a result, B.C. tour operators and travel agents will be able to organize and advertise tours to B.C. destinations, which could increase Chinese tourism to the province by 25 per cent a year over the next few years, the B.C. government said in a news release.

"Achieving approved destination status with China is a major economic and cultural step in terms of building our important relationship with China, particularly as we prepare to host the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Gamers," B.C. Premier Gordon Campbell said in the release.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper made the announcement from Beijing where he was meeting with Wen Jiaboa, Premier of China.

The United States received approved destination status in December 2007. At the time 134 countries were on China's approved destination list.

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16 games with Mangini is more than enough: Bud Shaw - Cleveland Plain Dealer

Posted: 04 Dec 2009 08:47 PM PST

By Bud Shaw, The Plain Dealer

December 04, 2009, 8:13PM
Bud Shaw

A bad football team has become historically awful in its first year under Eric Mangini. And that's hardly the only reason why he should be one and done as Browns coach.

George Kokinis leaving the building with half a season remaining and with more people claiming Elvis sightings than general manager sightings.

Not one but two befuddled quarterbacks.

Jamal Lewis calling out Mangini for failing to take care of the "crops" not too long before taking a concussed and early retirement.

(Lewis retreated from those words. But he did so because he thought the coverage made him look as if he resented working hard.)

The debacle against Chicago/Green Bay/Detroit/all of the above.

In place of highlights, the FOX, CBS and ESPN studio analysts providing a laugh track at the mere mention of the Browns.

An offense reduced to its latest gimmick. What's the Browns' identity this deep into the season? The direct snap to Cribbs? Or Cribbs-to-Quinn?

The APB for Brian Robiskie, who can't get on the field ahead of Jake Allen. Claimed on waivers on Nov. 18, Allen was apparently rewarded for his hard work. All 10 days of it.

Shouldn't a 1-10 team be about developing young players? Remember when trading Braylon Edwards was going to mean an opportunity for Robiskie?

budman.jpgJOSHUA GUNTER / THE PLAIN DEALERIt's doubtful Eric Mangini's clipboard contains the blueprint for turning around the moribound Browns franchise.Maybe Mangini believes that Robiskie is developing on the sideline. After all, he swore that's one reason he put Brady Quinn back behind center.

The day of fantasy offensive football in Detroit aside, Quinn was better a year ago. Derek Anderson, too.

One defense of Mangini is that this is a young, talent-starved team. And that he bit the bullet hard with the owner's blessing to stockpile 11 picks for next year. Only the stockpiling is true.

The Browns are hardly young. One reason they're talent-starved is because the head coach didn't hit on the draft and didn't capitalize on roster turnover.

Now that the GM is long gone, how many candidates will line up to work with Mangini? Anyone feel comfortable with the draft day motherlode in Mangini's hands?

With five games remaining, the fear should be that Lerner won't land a football man with enough clout -- like Mike Holmgren -- to tell him his organization needs a complete fresh start, coach included.

Lerner might see the need to clear the decks himself if he considers a few simple questions.

Have his customers bought into Mangini? Have the players, other than the modestly skilled ex-Jets acquired to spread the gospel? What about Mangini would entice free agents?

Lerner lost GM candidates who either specifically didn't want to work with Mangini or wanted a say in the coaching hire. With any luck, he already sees the folly in that approach.

You've heard the argument for bringing Mangini back. The culture needed changing. The Browns are more disciplined -- the league's least penalized team. Who thought they would be good?

But step back and take an accident-scene gawk at what they've become.

They narrowly avoided another blackout Sunday. Oakland and Jacksonville will be much harder sells.

As will Browns fans come next year.

Think about it this way. Chris Palmer got fired after two seasons as the expansion coach of a runaway train. One year for the architect of this caboose seems just about right.

For previous columns visit cleveland.com/budshaw

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Prof. Richard Antoun remembered as gentle man dedicated to dispelling ... - Ithaca Journal

Posted: 04 Dec 2009 07:42 PM PST

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"Muslims in general get portrayed in a bad light," he said during one Press & Sun-Bulletin interview. "We're trying to get students to look more deeply into the culture and not accept stereotypes."

Before beginning his career as a faculty member, Antoun earned a bachelor's degree from Williams College, a master's degree from Johns Hopkins University and a doctorate from Harvard University.

H. Stephen Straight, a professor of anthropology and linguistics, had difficulty controlling his emotions as he talked about Antoun.

"He was the gentlest man I've known," said Straight, a long-time colleague of Antoun. He called the late BU faculty member "someone you were always happy to see."

Antoun was someone who dedicated his life to working to dispel myths about different peoples, Straight said.

That makes his death "unbelievably tragic," Straight said.

Despite being retired from BU, Antoun remained active in the academic world. He had just recently published a journal article, Quataert said.

Richard Moench, a professor emeritus of anthropology, described Antoun as a man who had no enemies.

"I can't imagine this happening," Moench said.

As a neighbor, he was one of the best.

Aileen Stratford and her husband, Paul, lived across from the Antouns for more than three decades. They knew him a generation ago as a young father who relished time with his son and, more recently, as a doting grandfather to his single grandson.

They were shocked by the news of his death.

Antoun was a very interesting person, Paul Stratford said. During their lively visits and parties, he would share stories with his neighbors of his adventures and life in the Middle East.

He enjoyed football. He liked organic vegetables, and for a time he tended his own garden, producing fresh vegetables that he shared with neighbors until the deer got to be too much.

He never seemed to slow down over the years.

"He was in great shape," Paul Stratford said.

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Fatal Binghamton University stabbing of professor leaves trail of ... - Press & Sun-Bulletin

Posted: 04 Dec 2009 08:47 PM PST

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DeFleur condemns attack

Devin Sheppard, a BU student, said she heard from students who were in the Science Building that campus police had tackled the assailant.

"The police asked the grad student, 'Did you just stab him?' and he said yes," Sheppard said.

Antoun was rushed from the building on a stretcher and placed in a Harpur's Ferry ambulance that was parked on a walkway outside the building.

BU President Lois DeFleur condemned the slaying as "an act of senseless violence."

She said counselors will be available throughout the weekend by calling 777-2393.

A 10-second moment of silence was observed before the BU-Bucknell University basketball game Friday.

Several students around the Science building Friday afternoon said they weren't certain what had happened, nor did they know why the hallway near Antoun's office had been closed off with yellow police tape. Several said they had not registered with the university to receive text messages notifying them of emergencies.

Some classes continued to take place during the afternoon inside the building, which is on the eastern edge of the BU quadrangle, not far from the Bartle library. There are no classrooms in the section of the building where the stabbing occurred.

"It's kind of scary because it's so close," said Jacqui Boroda, 21, a BU senior. She works at Jazzmans, a coffee house in BU's Academic Building B, which is next to Science I. She said her boss saw the police heading into the building with guns drawn.

Professors and students said the mood in the building was one of shock and fear.

"It's scary as hell," said Peter Knuepfer, an associate professor of geological sciences who works in Science I. "It's another one of those things like the downtown shooting (at the American Civic Association).

"You think it happens somewhere else, but it happens here, too."

Antoun, who lived on Murray Hill Road in Vestal, is a published author who has written several books. He published the book Understanding Fundamentalism: Christian, Islamic, and Jewish Movements.

A BU biography of Antoun shows he received a doctorate from Harvard in 1963 and joined the BU faculty in 1976. It goes on to describe him as an emeritus professor, a "sociocultural anthropologist who has conducted research among peasants in Jordan, urbanites in Lebanon, peasant-farmers in Iran, and migrants in Texas and Greece.

His scholarly interests centered on comparative religion and symbolic systems, the social organization of tradition in Islamic law and ethics, the sociology of dispute with respect to tribal law in the Middle East, local-level politics, and the impact of transnational migration on education, work, and cultural change."

He is survived by his wife Rosalyn and a son.

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Days After Chief’s Ouster, G.M. Shuffles Top Ranks - New York Times

Posted: 04 Dec 2009 07:49 PM PST

DETROIT — Edward E. Whitacre Jr. wasted little time shaking up the management ranks of General Motors, just three days after he took over as chief executive, by promoting on Friday a cadre of young executives to carry out his mandate for change.

In the process, one of G.M.'s best-known executives, Robert A. Lutz, lost many of his responsibilities, but will remain with the company in an advisory role.

The changes come at the end of a tumultuous week at G.M. On Tuesday, G.M.'s board forced Fritz Henderson to resign as chief executive and replaced him with Mr. Whitacre, the board's chairman.

While the move seemed sudden, G.M.'s directors had been planning it for several weeks as the next step in the radical makeover of the company since it emerged from bankruptcy in July, according to two people with knowledge of the board's deliberations.

Mr. Whitacre isn't waiting to make big personnel changes, even though he said G.M. was starting a search for a permanent chief executive.

The most prominent promotion went to Mark Reuss, who a year ago was running G.M.'s operations in Australia and is now the president of G.M.'s core North American operations.

Mr. Reuss, 46, had only recently been made a vice president in charge of engineering at G.M. But he was one of several younger executives that Mr. Whitacre and other new G.M. directors had identified as being capable of taking on more responsibility.

In a prepared statement, Mr. Whitacre suggested that G.M.'s top-heavy management structure might have stifled talented people lower down in the company.

"I want to give people more responsibility and authority deeper in the organization, and then hold them accountable," he said.

He also expanded the duties of three female executives, including Susan E. Docherty, the company's sales chief in North America, who was given additional responsibility for marketing.

Many veteran executives had already retired from G.M. since it came out of Chapter 11. But the resignation of Mr. Henderson gives Mr. Whitacre a free hand to assemble a management team with fewer ties to G.M.'s past.

"It's not surprising," said Stephen Spivey, an auto analyst at Frost & Sullivan. "You've got a new board of directors that wants to put their own team in place."

Mr. Lutz, the 77-year-old vice chairman, had been a fixture at the top of G.M. for nearly a decade as its worldwide product guru. Since the bankruptcy ended, he had been in charge of revamping G.M.'s marketing and communications strategy.

But there is no operational role for Mr. Lutz in the new era. He has no direct reports, and was called an "adviser" on design and global product development in G.M.'s statement.

A G.M. spokesman, J. Christopher Preuss, did not elaborate on Mr. Lutz's new role, or how long he would stay with G.M.

Mr. Lutz, who was not available for comment, had expressed sympathy for Mr. Henderson in comments he made as the keynote speaker on Wednesday at the Los Angeles Auto Show.

People familiar with the latest executive changes said that Mr. Lutz was a casualty of the youth movement that Mr. Whitacre is pushing at G.M. However, Mr. Lutz is still considered an asset in discussions on new products and styling.

Mr. Whitacre also sharpened the lines of authority in G.M.'s international operations.

He named David N. Reilly, who had been running all of G.M.'s overseas operations, as the president of G.M. Europe. With G.M.'s board recently deciding to keep rather than sell its Opel and Vauxhall divisions, Mr. Reilly will now focus on restructuring those operations.

The rest of G.M.'s international divisions — Asia, Latin America, Africa and the Middle East — will be managed by Timothy E. Lee, who previously oversaw manufacturing.

One analyst said that the changes were positive in that leaders were identified for three key regions — Mr. Reuss in North America, Mr. Reilly in Europe and Mr. Lee in Asia.

"The organizational steps G.M. announced are, in the context of the G.M. culture, relatively significant, as they create a clear focus for accountability in key regions," an analyst for Barclays Capital, Brian Johnson, wrote on Friday in a note to investors.

Analysts also discounted concerns that the wholesale changes might disrupt G.M.'s product-development plans. Thomas G. Stephens, a vice chairman, retains control of the global product team while adding purchasing to his responsibilities.

"For the next 18 months to two years, the product is already in the pipeline," Mr. Spivey said. "I don't think this necessarily affects those decisions."

Nick Bunkley contributed reporting.

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