FOUNDER & PUBLISHER Kowie Geldenhuys EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Paulo Coutinho

“ THE TIMES THEY ARE A-CHANGIN’ ”

MOP 7.50HKD 9.50

Blackberry email service powered by CTM

ad

WED.25May 2016

N.º

2564

T. 25º/ 31º CH. 65/ 90%

P13 MIGRANT CRISIS

‘shrek the musical’ cast visits macauThe cast and crew of “Shrek the Musical” anticipate the show’s debut set for the coming July 22

P5 MDT REPORT P4

HIROSHIMA By visiting Hiroshima, Barack Obama parachutes himself into a seemingly endless dispute among key U.S. allies and trading partners over World War II. More on p10,11

CHINA-US Improved relations between the U.S. and Vietnam must not lead to greater pressure on China or threats to its interests, an official Chinese newspaper says. More on p12

AUSTRALIA Right-wing firebrand politician Pauline Hanson, who opposes Muslim immigration, has a realistic chance of returning to Australia’s Parliament in July elections, experts say.

WORLD BRIEFS

More on page 18

P7

Stanley Ho buys prime Singapore hotel plot

belgian products promoted in macau

more than 54,000 refugees trappedMore than 54,000 refugees and migrants have been trapped in Greece since countries further north shut their land borders

Event producer ‘stunned’ over amount Macau paid for giant duck P3 INTERVIEW

BLO

OM

BERG

AP P

HOT

OAP

PH

OTO

AP P

HOT

O

25.05.2016 wed

MACAU 澳聞 www.macaudailytimes.com.mo

th Anniversary

2

DIRECTOR AND EDITOR-IN-CHIEF_Paulo Coutinho paulocoutinho@macaudailytimes.com MANAGING EDITOR_Paulo Barbosa paulo.barbosa@macaudailytimes.com CONTRIBUTING EDITORS_Eric Sautedé, Leanda Lee, Severo Portela

DESIGN EDITOR_João Jorge Magalhães magalhaes@macaudailytimes.com | NEWSROOM AND CONTRIBUTORS_Albano Martins, Annabel Jackson, Daniel Beitler, Emilie Tran, Grace Yu, Irene Sam, Jacky I.F. Cheong, Jenny Lao-Phillips, João Palla Martins, Joseph Cheung, Juliet Risdon, Renato Marques, Richard Whitfield, Rodrigo de Matos (cartoonist), Ruan Du Toit Bester, Sandra Norte (designer), Viviana Seguí | ASSOCIATE CONTRIBUTORS_JML Property, MacauHR, MdME Lawyers, PokerStars | NEWS AGENCIES_ Associated Press, Bloomberg, Lusa News Agency, MacauHub, MacauNews, Xinhua | SECRETARY_Yang Dongxiao amy@macaudailytimes.comsend newsworthy information and press releases to: newsroom@macaudailytimes.com website: www.macaudailytimes.com.mo

A MACAU TIMES PUBLICATIONS LTD PUBLICATION

ADMINISTRATOR AND CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICERKowie Geldenhuys kowie@macaudailytimes.com SECRETARY Juliana Cheang juliana@macaudailytimes.com ADDRESS Av. da Praia Grande, 599, Edif. Comercial Rodrigues, 12 Floor C, MACAU SAR Telephones: +853 287 160 81/2 Fax: +853 287 160 84 Advertisement advertising@macaudailytimes.com For subscription and general issues:general@macaudailytimes.com | Printed at Welfare Printing Ltd

www.macaudailytimes.com.mo

+6,200 like us on facebook.com/mdtimesThank You!

+ 4 Million page viewsPER MONTH

CE meets with President of Portugal’s Supreme Court

Chief Executive Chui Sai On met the President of the Supreme Court of Portugal, António Gaspar, this week at the Santa Sancha Palace. During the meeting, Mr Gaspar mentioned that “strengthening the cooperation with Macau would bring mutual benefits and would help to maintain Macau’s special judicial system within China’s judicial system.” According to a government statement, the CE stressed that “judicial independence has been and will continue to be the cornerstone for the city’s development,” adding that the “government respects the spirit of the rule of law and the independence of the judiciary institutions, as stated in the Basic Law.”

Word ‘national’ avoided when naming Taiwan universities Taiwanese universities whose names include the word “National” are seeing the word being deleted or replaced with “Taiwan” by the Macau government, related associations, and some media outlets, according to a report by Macau Concealers. The report says that the Tertiary Education Services Office has avoided using the word for many years, and that it resorts to names such as Taiwan University and Chengchi University as opposed to the institutions’ full names, National Taiwan University, and National Chengchi University. According to a Jornal Cheng Pou report published this week, similar changes can be found in several local media sources, including Macao Daily News and TDM.

So admits treatment of greyhounds can improveAmbrose So, the Chairman of Sociedade de Jogos de Macau (SJM), said that the Canidrome’s existence is still justifiable as the space “promotes economic diversification in the gaming area.” Speaking to Radio Macau on the sidelines of this week’s elections for the board of the Clube Militar, So commented on the campaigns to close the facility and admitted the need to improve its treatment of animals, saying, “I think that there is room for the Canidrome to improve [in] this aspect.”

THE Health Bureau (SSM) has responded to an ac-

cusation from a patient’s fa-mily that the Hospital Conde S Januario did not provide timely treatment.

“The clinical condition of this patient has been properly monitored by CHCSJ and the-re was no delay in her treat-ment,” the bureau replied in a statement this week.

This statement from the health authorities came in response to comments from the family of a female patient, who had used an electronic platform to accuse the hospi-tal of delaying her treatment.

The SSM also stated that

the decision of sending pa-tients for medical treatment abroad is always “dependent on the professional decision of specialist physicians, in compliance with the needs and status of the patient and in accordance with the strict standards set by law.”

The bureau added that it “understands the impatien-ce of the patient and family, acknowledging also that the patient possesses the right to choose which medical ins-titution should perform the surgery.”

In the statement, the bu-reau added that the patient’s family members have been

calling for the patient to un-dergo a surgical procedure in Hong Kong, instead of the planned surgery today in the Public Hospital.

The SSM said that since childhood, the patient has suffered from a tumor in the soft tissues of her leg, and that several medical proce-dures had been carried out previously, including a num-ber of surgeries in mainland China.

Aside from her treatments in mainland China, the pa-tient has reportedly been in the care of the CHCSJ Onco-logy Service, which recently decided that since there were

no signs of a relapse, the pa-tient’s next surgery would be carried out by the CHCSJ Plastic Surgery Service, mea-ning that the patient would not need to go abroad for her procedure this time.

“The plan was communica-ted to the family of the pa-tient. However, the family continued to request for the procedure to be done in Hong Kong and have not res-ponded to the booking of the surgery in the CHCSJ,” SSM claimed, adding that the hos-pital is hopeful that the fa-mily will still contact the ins-titution for proper treatment of the patient. RM

HEALTH

Hospital rejects accusations of delay from patient’s family

MARIA Helena de Senna Fernan-des, the director of the Macau

Government Tourism Office (MGTO), was elected on Saturday to serve as a voting member of the Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA) Executive Board during the 2016 PATA Annual Summit in Guam.

Senna Fernandes, who previous-ly served on the board as an invited non-voting representative, now joins as one of the 12 voting members for a two-year term.

“My new responsibilities in PATA are a great honor for Macau tourism and also an endorsement [of] our efforts throughout the years to support the association’s endeavor to foster sus-tainable tourism development in the

Senna Fernandes, PATA CEO Mario Hardy (center) and outgoing chairman Kevin Murphy (2nd right) with Macau delegates

TOURISM

MGTO director made voting member of travel group board

Asia-Pacific region,” she said, accor-ding to a statement from the MGTO.

The PATA Executive Board determi-nes the industry policies and positions of the organization, serving as its go-verning body. It is also responsible for governing the corporate affairs and operations of the travel association.

Hosted by the Guam Visitors Bu-reau, the PATA Annual Summit 2016 saw around 640 participants from 33 countries and territories attend the conference last week on the Pacific is-land of Guam.

According to a statement from the MGTO, Senna Fernandes attended se-veral association meetings last week, including a one-day conference tit-led “Exploring the Secrets of the Blue

Continent” and a half-day “Ministerial Debate on Pacific Island Tourism,” which was jointly run by PATA and the United Nations World Trade Organi-zation.

Founded in 1951, PATA is a non-pro-fit membership association dedicated to building responsible tourism de-velopment in the Asia-Pacific region. Macau has been a member of the orga-nization since 1958.

A Hong Kong court glimpsed the private letters exchan-

ged between billionaire Eric Hotung and businesswoman Winnie Ho Yuen during a legal battle over shares in a local ca-sino operation.

The letters, which were sigh-ted on Monday, centered on the HKD2 million that Hotung had allegedly handed to Ho, his secret lover, on trust deca-des ago.

South China Morning Post (SCMP) reported that the phi-lanthropist claimed much of the money was spent on pro-perty overseas, including hou-ses in Portugal, London and Los Angeles.

While Ho appealed that the sum was not given to her on

Lovers’ feud disclosed in casino legal battle trust and that she had paid back about HKD1.6 million, the High Court heard that Ho was supposed to invest the mo-ney in her brother Stanley Ho ’s Sociedade de Turismo e Diver-soes de Macau (STDM) and Shun Tak Shipping Company, shortly after he was granted a gaming license in 1961.

Hotung said he aimed to di-vide the earnings from the in-vestment equally among his heirs, and demanded that the money be returned along with

Ho’s profits. SCMP stated that Ho refused

to accept flowers that Hotung sent her due to remarks he no-ted to the press, details of whi-ch were not revealed in court.

“Your defamatory remarks have caused me a great deal of pain and I now realize that you have never loved me,” she wrote.

Ho added that she had always been a shareholder in STDM in her own right, and asked the billionaire to stay away from Moon Valley.

According to Hotung’s coun-sel, Hylas Chung, the first letter revealed the philanthropist’s intention to invest in STDM when he first gave the money to Ho, who then used it to set up Moon Valley Inc.

The billionaire is now asking the court to declare that Ho held his property on trust and to order her to return the mo-ney, along with any profits derived from both the original HKD2 million and the STDM shares.

wed 25.05.2016

MACAU澳聞macau’s leading newspaper 3

th Anniversary

18,056,589 page views in 2016

Q&A

Event producer ‘stunned’ over amount Macau paid for giant duck

CRAIG SAMBORSKIPRESIDENT OF DRAW EVENTS

Daniel Beitler

CRAIG Samborski is the President of event produc-

tion company Draw Events, and has produced concerts and festivals in the U.S. and Canada since 1992.

Last year, Samborski held an exhibit in Philadelphia of the giant duck – the one currently cruising near the Science Cen-ter - about a year after it was shown in a separate Los An-geles event, also organized by Samborski.

The event producer came un-der fire from Dutch artist Flo-rentijn Hofman, who to this day claims that Samborski is not authorized to show the duck without his permission and that he had stolen the construction plans for the artwork.

As per the artist’s demand, the duck must be constructed locally prior to exhibition. In other words, Hofman does not provide the artwork for exhibi-tion.

Samborski, who objects to these accusations, explained in an email interview what it was like to work with Hofman.

Macau Daily Times (MDT) - You have an interesting story about negotiating with Hofman about brin-ging the inflatable duck to your first show in Los An-geles. What happened?

Craig Samborski (CS) - In Los Angeles, where we debuted our duck the year before our Philadelphia exhibit, a former colleague did most of the nego-tiations with Hofman and his wife, Kim, did most of the com-munication on his behalf.

Dealing with Hofman and his wife was confusing and frustra-ting, perhaps partially because of the language barrier. It beca-me very evident after we recei-ved the “plans” from him that something was wrong.

He was contracted to produ-ce “technical plans” to build an 18-meter tall duck, but he sent us plans for a 12-meter duck. When confronted with this, he told us to have the companies building the duck and pontoon to simply do the math on the pieces [in order] to scale it up to 18 meters.

That might sound simple, but it was far from it. Both com-panies refused to build from his plans because they were not really technical plans to build the duck, but more like clues. The companies wanted engi-

Craig Samborski

There is a serious question about what Hofman is paid for.

CRAIG SAMBORSKI

neering drawings that would conform to safety and structu-ral standards. By the time of the Philadelphia show, I was alrea-dy done with Hofman.

MDT – You previously described what Hofman sent you as a “sketch,” but what had he promised you?

CS - He promised us technical

plans, which we were led to be-lieve would include the comple-te instructions for building the duck. But they did not.

When asked to provide te-

chnical plans for the [contrac-ted] 18-meter duck and not the 12-meter duck, Hofman asked for an additional 7,500 euros [MOP67,000].

[Instead of paying this sum] each of the companies working on the duck were contracted to create their own plans to con-form with the size we needed, and both the duck and pontoon were built to engineering safety standards.

Once we realized that we had to come up with our own plan, it took about six weeks to get the duck built. In reality, once we realized Hofman would be of no assistance and we moved on without him, the project be-came much easier.

MDT - What happened when you wanted to re- exhibit the duck and how did Hofman respond?

CS - Hofman claimed that he had a copyright over the duck and that there was an agree-ment with us to never show the duck again [after Los Angeles] without paying him an addi-

tional licensing fee; I believe he was seeking 50,000 euros [about MOP447,000] for each re-display.

However, once we realized that the plans were not really plans, and [given that he was now] seeking additional sums from us, I moved forward on my own and considered the agreement with him breached due to lack of performance. He has spoken out in the media a couple of times about this, but behind the scenes, he refused to provide any sort of legal copyri-ght documents.

MDT - What do you think of the copyright claim that Hoffman has put forward? Is the claim justified?

CS - He has never actually asserted a copyright claim le-gally as far as I know, just in the media and via threats. My intellectual property attorney has researched this and there is no copyright or trademark owned by Hofman, at least in the United States. Hofman was confronted about this twice in

writing from us and has failed to produce any documentation or even to respond to our let-ters.

MDT – There were dou-bts over whether the duck was really worth the alleged USD20,000 (MOP160,000) for its visit to Pittsburgh. Can you dis-close how much you paid for the exhibit?

CS - Another matter of frus-tration for me. At about the same time that I was disco-vering what Hofman’s actual drawings were, we found out how much Pittsburgh paid him. I had heard USD25,000 for the licensing fee, but USD20,000 could be right. Then, from me, Hofman was asking for 100,000 euros [MOP895,000]. Yet another slap in the face from Hofman, [as I discovered that] they were the same plans he had sent Pittsburgh: plans for a 12-meter duck. Keep in mind, this is just the cost for his plans, you still have to pay to build the duck, which I can say is more than six figures.

Ultimately, we abandoned Ho-fman and his plans and got this duck built. However, when he received the 50,000 euros from us, he expected another 50,000 euros [as well as] 60 percent of the sales from the little rubber ducks we sold as souvenirs, for which we paid and procured.

I am guessing that the vast majority of the amount that was paid in Macau went to Hofman.

MDT - According to the organizers of the exhibit in Macau, it did. Do you think it was worth the money?

CS - Paying Hofman for the plans was not worth it. It was the most disheartening expe-rience I have had professio-nally. I am very happy about the project as a whole. The duck is a great attraction and truly brings happiness to many, many people, which makes me very happy.

I was stunned when I did the currency conversion to see how much Macau paid for the duck. All in all, my duck cost less than one-third of that amount. Based on the fee difference between Pittsburgh, myself and what Macau paid, there is a serious question about what Hofman is paid for. Had I known Macau was interested in the duck, I would have happily brought my duck there for just a fraction of what Macau had to pay.

Lovers’ feud disclosed in casino legal battle

25.05.2016 wed

MACAU 澳聞 www.macaudailytimes.com.mo

th Anniversary

4

ad

Gloria Batalha (left) and Michèle Deneffe

THE final version of the draft for the Ani-mal Protection Law was debated yester-

day by the First Standing Committee of the Legislative Assembly (AL). At the end of the meeting, the president of the Commit-tee Kwan Tsui Hang said that the proposal “didn’t receive criticism from the five [ani-mal rights] associations heard,” as cited by Radio Macau.

Representatives of the Civic and Munici-pal Affairs Bureau (IACM) presented the final draft of the law which, according to José Tavares, president of IACM, should not have significant changes before it re-turns to the AL plenary for the final vote.

The President of IACM assured debate participants that the bill will provide ad-ded powers to the government: “After the approval of this law we will be able to have access to all venues, including yards, buil-ding sites and all places to which we have had no access before.”

Antonieta Manhão, the representative of the Abandoned Animals Protection Asso-ciation of Macau (APAM) said the current draft is “acceptable.”

“The most important thing at this moment is to continue with the legislative process so that the law comes into force later this year,” she added.

Final version of Animal Protection Law gathers support

Daniel Beitler

AN event showcasing Bel-gian food and beverage

products took place Monday night in the Macau Universi-ty of Science and Technolo-gy’s (MUST) training restau-rant, The Seasons.

Nine suppliers exhibited products in areas ranging from chocolate and desserts to beers and potato proces-sing products. The event, “A Taste of Belgium,” was co-organized by the Macau Trade and Investment Pro-motion Institute (IPIM) and the Consulate General of Belgium in Hong Kong and Macau, with the main aim of driving local interest in the supplies.

Michèle Deneffe, the Con-sul General of Belgium in Hong Kong and Macau, and Gloria Batalha Ung, execu-tive director of IPIM, both attended the event.

“The bilateral relations between Belgium and Ma-cau are excellent and, in

Belgian products promoted in Macau

Belgian products such as chocolate, beers and waffles are already well-known in Macau.

MICHÈLE DENEFFEBELGIAN CONSUL

the context of the European Union, Belgium has always been a strong supporter of the deepening of the EU re-lationship with Macau,” said the Consul.

“In the field of trade and economy, some Belgian products such as chocolate, beers and waffles are already well-known in Macau,” said Deneffe.

“However we think that more could be done in the context of the current di-versification process of the Macau economy, which will provide new opportunities […] namely in the booming hospitality industry and food and beverages sector,” she added.

One of the exhibiting com-

panies on Monday night was Puratos, a supplier of bakery and confectionery ingredien-ts, which has expanded to 100 different countries since its establishment in 1919.

Ken Man, sales manager for the company’s Hong Kong arm, explained to the Times: “We want to build our brand because we were

previously quite low-key in Hong Kong and Macau.”

“We are also here to su-pport the country of Belgium [by showcasing] Belgian quality and craftsmanship in chocolate and other ingre-dients,” added Ken.

“Macau is […] the ideal pla-tform to introduce Belgian products to local customers and tourists from China and the rest of Asia,” said IPIM executive director Ung, ad-dressing event attendees.

“In the first quarter of 2016, the bilateral trade between the two [Belgium and Macau] increased to USD4.3 million from USD3 million in the same period of 2014, covering both goods and services.”

“In the future, we look forward to expanding our bilateral collaboration in trade, retail and the service sectors,” she added.

Some of the exhibiting com-panies were business-to- business providers seeking to market their Belgian products to local restauran-ts and distributors, while others targeted consumers.

According to Consul Gene-ral Deneffe, there are around 25 Belgians in Macau who are active in various sectors; namely hotels and restauran-ts, food and beverage, water sanitation, and education.

wed 25.05.2016

MACAU澳聞macau’s leading newspaper 5

th Anniversary

4,069,668 page views in April

advertorial

Renato Marques

THE cast and crew of “Shrek the Musical” were

part of a media event held yesterday anticipating the show’s debut set for the co-ming July 22.

A “sneak peek” of the show was presented during the event at The Venetian Macao. Tour manager Justin Scholl, Kyle Timson (Shrek) and Christian Marriner (Lord Far-quaad) were some of the gues-ts that attended the event.

Tour manager Justin Scholl – visiting the territory for the second time after his role in the musical “Beauty and the Beast” – disclosed part of the story of the production, which started back in 2008 on Broadway and is now tou-ring the world. The show is passing through Macau after Jakarta, Indonesia. Scholl is pleased with the reception from the Asian audience.

“We are really hoping that the Macau audience will con-tinue that great energy that we have started off [in Jakar-ta],” Scholl said.

In terms of the most challen-ging part of putting such a tour together, Scholl cited the need to “create a home away from home for everybody,” adding that “experiencing all the different cultures and countries” compensates for the long hours of travelling.

Another aspect of the show that he highlighted is the lo-calization of the tour to the place where it is being pre-sented, featuring a few “local inputs” in words, expressions or even local artists and/or celebrities. This reminds the cast and crew that each local leg of the tour is backed by about 200 people that help to “put on the show every day.”

Comparing the musical and

ENTERTAINMENT

‘Shrek the Musical’ cast visits Macau before show kicks off in July

the famous movie, Scholl ex-plained: “We picked up the 90-minute movie and exten-ded it to…two hours and 30 minutes. That gives us time and space to explore deeper details and connections of the story and namely where Shrek and Fiona came from. It’s a little more investment in the characters.”

Christian Marriner, who plays Lord Farquaad, fa-ces the added challenge of being four feet tall on stage (approx. 1.22m) while being six feet tall (1.83m) in real life. For the “stunt”, he acts on his knees with the help of special rigging gear.

The performer says the most fun part of playing Far-quaad is “the interaction with the audience”, as he gets the chance to improvise in some parts and speak “local lan-guages in the dialogues.”

Both Marriner and Timson emphasize that “this is not the usual fairytale” and that the story carries a very im-portant message that “it is OK to be different and in fact, that is [normal].”

Timson, who plays Shrek, states that the story is really about “acceptance”, adding “what the show is trying to bring across is that even thin-gs that look evil or monstrous at the first sight have good and bad feelings in them. It’s a metaphor for the real wor-ld, where the ogre represents just the fact of being different or acting differently, and that people should look for deeper feelings in the people they cross [paths] with”.

The stage production by Broadway Entertainment Group FZ LLC and NETworks Presentations, LLC., will play at the The Venetian Macao this summer from July 22 to August 7.

Justin Scholl

Kyle Timson, who plays the role of Shrek (left) and Christian Marriner, who plays the role of Lord Farquaad

25.05.2016 wed

MACAU 澳聞 www.macaudailytimes.com.mo

th Anniversary

6

ad

Mainland Chinese have toned down their spending, shelling out 1,762 patacas (USD220) per person in the first quarter on non-gambling purchases, down almost a third from 2014. That’s bad news for casino operators as they shift focus to casual gamblers and tourists to lift revenue from hotels, retail and conventions amid a two-year gambling slump. Chinese still make up about two-thirds of Macau’s visitors, even as their numbers last year fell for the first time since 2009 and eased a further 1 percent in the first four months of this year, according to data released Monday.

THE Composite Consumer Price Index (CPI), a key

measure of inflation, increa-sed last month by 3.02 percent year-on-year to 108.03, down by 0.29 percentage points from the 3.31 percent year-on-year growth observed in March, ac-cording to new information released by the Statistics and Census Service (DSEC).

For the 12 months ended April 2016, the average Composite CPI increased by 4.09 percent from

A customer browses apples at a store in Macau

Inflation up 4 percent year-on-year

the previous 12-month period. Composite CPI reflects the im-pact of price changes on general households.

A statement from DSEC ac-credited the year-on-year in-crement to higher rentals for parking spaces, rising charges for eating out and dearer prices of motor vehicles and tobacco, as in the previous month.

In particular DSEC made refe-rence to the growth in tobacco tax, tuition fees, and the prices

of motor vehicles in driving up the price index of Alcoholic Be-verages and Tobacco, Educa-tion, and Transport, which in-creased by 37.15 percent, 8.98 percent and 7.6 percent respec-tively.

Meanwhile the price index of Clothing and Footwear, and Communication declined by 3.48 percent and 0.93 percent respectively.

Month-to-month, the CPI in April edged up by 0.03 per-

cent compared with March, led by an increase in the price in-dex for Clothing and Footwear (+2.18 percent) and Transport (+0.58 percent), but mitigated by Housing and Fuels (-0.47 percent), Recreation and Cul-ture (-0.29 percent) and Food and Non-Alcoholic Beverages (-0.22 percent), among other

categories.Meanwhile the average Com-

posite CPI for the first four months of 2016 increased by 3.5 percent year-on-year, with the price index of Alcoholic Beverages and Tobacco, Edu-cation, and Transport rising by 38.2 percent, 8.94 percent and 6.95 percent respectively.

wed 25.05.2016

BUSINESS分析macau’s leading newspaper 7

th Anniversary

ad

Michelle Jamrisko

PURCHASES of new homes in the U.S. surged in April to

the highest level since the start of 2008, pointing to a robust spring selling season for builders.

Sales jumped 16.6 percent to a 619,000 annualized pace, and purchases in the first three months of the year were revised higher, Commerce Department data showed yesterday. The rate exceeded the most opti-mistic forecast in a Bloomberg survey. The median sales price climbed to a record, reflecting a pickup in signed contracts for more expensive properties.

The rebound in purchases sig-nals housing was returning to more stable footing, helped by healthy employment gains and cheap borrowing costs. The num-ber of homes sold and not yet under construction climbed to the highest level since May 2007, indicating homebuilding will help add to economic growth.

“The spring selling season is off to a decent start,” Ryan Sweet, a senior economist at Moody’s Analytics Inc. in West

New-Home sales in U.S. surge

Chester, Pennsylvania, said be-fore the report. “I think it’ll add more to growth this year than it has in the past several.”

The gain in demand last month was paced by the South, where sales climbed 15.8 percent. Pur-chases rebounded in the West and climbed in the Northeast.

The supply of homes fell to 4.7 months from 5.5 months in March. The median sales price of a new house increased 9.7 percent from April 2015 to a record $321,100. Purchases climbed for dwellings priced at $300,000 or more.

New-home sales, which ac-count for about 10 percent of the residential market, are tabula-ted when contracts are signed. Bloomberg

Pooja Thakur

GAMING tycoon Stanley Ho has bought prime land

site off Singapore’s famed Or-chard Road shopping belt, in the first transaction of a rede-velopment site for a hotel in this location in more than a decade.

Shun Tak Real Estate (Sin-gapore) Pte, a subsidiary of Hong-Kong-listed Shun Tak Holdings Ltd., bought the plot for SGD145 million (USD105 million), according to a statement from Jones Lang LaSalle Inc., which brokered the deal through a public tender. The sellers, who were not identified in the statement, were expecting of-fers in the region of SGD160 million to SGD170 million, the broker had said in April when it put the site up for tender. The valuation report pegged the value at SGD131 million, according to a Shun Tak filing to the Hong Kong stock exchange on Monday.

Shun Tak’s headquarters in Hong Kong

Stanley Ho buys prime Singapore hotel plot

Stanley Ho is the founder of Shun Tak, a property and transportation conglomerate he set up in 1972.

The price works out to about SGD2,145 per square foot per plot ratio, after factoring in an additional SGD87 million that would be needed to de-velop the hotel. The site is flanked by The St. Regis Sin-gapore and Four Seasons Hotel, and is located within a prestigious enclave about 200 meters (656 feet) off Or-

BLO

OM

BERG

chard Road.The property, with a land

area of 2,391 square meters, is zoned for a hotel develop-ment, but the Urban Redeve-lopment Authority has said it is also prepared to consider a proposal for a residential project, according to the sta-tement.

The plot was sold by the trustees of the estate of the late owner, who purchased it in the 1950s, Jones Lang said. Bloomberg

BLO

OM

BERG

25.05.2016 wed

BUSINESS 分析 www.macaudailytimes.com.mo

th Anniversary

8

corporate bits

The Wynn Employee (WE) Volunteer Team organized an outing to the Macau Giant Pan-da Pavilion for nearly 200 senior citizens from the Elderly Activity Center of Tung Sin Tong.

According to Wynn’s state-ment, the two-day outing “ena-bled seniors to enjoy a day in the great outdoors, surrounded by nature.”

The press release added that the two pandas, Hoi Hoi and Sam Sam, caused excitement

wynn volunteers organize outing for seniors

among the visitors, most of whom had not visited the pavi-lion before.

The WE volunteer team ac-companied the elderly citizens on their outing and accom-panied them back to Wynn Ma-cau to enjoy lunch and an af-ternoon filled with educational games and camaraderie.

Wynn Macau supports diffe-rent charitable activities in the city, with the aim of bettering people’s lives.

Twitter is making some big changes, at least in the con-text of 140 characters or less.

The social media service said yesterday that in coming months, photos, videos and other media will not count toward Twitter’s 140-charac-ter limit. That means more wordy tweets are on the way.

The change is yet another attempt by the San Fran-

twitter tweaks 140-character policy

cisco company to make its messaging service easier to use, and to attract new users. Twitter did not, as many had speculated in recent months, abolish its character limit.

A person’s Twitter handle, which starts with the “@” sym-bol, will also not count against character limits. And people will be able to retweet and quote their own tweets.

Yahoo! Inc.’s strategic review to sell its core business is “well along the way,” Chief Financial Officer Ken Goldman said, wi-thout giving any specifics.

“It’s going, I think, very, very well,” Goldman said during a presentation hosted by JPMor-gan Chase & Co. in Boston yesterday. “We are continuing to work tirelessly to get to the right place.”

Yahoo - under the leadership of Chief Executive Officer Ma-rissa Mayer - started a review of the company’s options in February after pressure from investors and a failed turna-round. Bidders have included TPG, Verizon Communications Inc., YP

Holdings LLC, and a con-sortium led by Bain Capital LP

yahoo says core business sale underway

and Vista Equity Partners LLC, people familiar with the matter have said.

While Goldman said the pro-cess is robust, he declined to give details on what “inning” the effort is in during the pre-sentation.

Pavel Alpeyev and Takashi Amano

SONY Corp. forecast annual profit that fell short of esti-mates, hurt by costs to repair a factory that was damaged

in the Kyushu earthquake, lost sa-les and slowing demand for smar-tphone components.

Net income will probably decli-ne 46 percent to 80 billion yen (USD732 million) in the 12 mon-ths ending March 2017, the Tokyo- based company said in a state-ment yesterday. That compares with the 196 billion yen average of analysts’ projections compiled by Bloomberg. The shares fell 1.2 percent in German trading.

The earthquake erased Sony’s previous prediction for its most profitable year in almost two de-cades, as Chief Executive Officer Kazuo Hirai sought to shift away from consumer electronics. The slowdown in demand for image sensors that power cameras in smartphones - including Apple Inc.’s iPhone - will test Sony’s ability to generate more of its ear-nings from PlayStation 4 gaming consoles, streaming services for its 65 million online users as well as movies and music.

Operating profit will probably rise to 300 billion yen this fiscal year, short of the 400 billion yen predicted by analysts. That fo-recast reflects a negative impact of 115 billion yen from the earth-quake, including the loss of po-tential sales, Sony said. Revenue is on on track to decline 3.8 per-cent to 7.8 trillion yen, compared with the average estimate for 7.94 trillion yen.

Chief Financial Officer Kenichi-ro Yoshida said Sony’s underlying business remains strong, despite the impact from the earthquake.

“The company’s earning power

Jack Clark

GOOGLE is releasing new advertising products and services to take advantage of the way people

use their smartphones to search for items, then often buy in nearby stores rather than online.

Google said it now handles trillions of searches a year, with more than half coming from mobile de-vices. About one-third of its searches on mobile are location-specific. The new products, which include more detailed text advertisements, additions to Goo-gle Maps, and new ways to buy ads, were announced Tuesday by the Alphabet Inc. subsidiary at the Google Performance Summit in San Francisco.

“It’s very clear to all the advertisers we speak with, that mobile is here, it’s really the mainstream,” said Sridhar Ramaswamy, senior vice president, Google ads and commerce.

Some advertisers are paying more for Google’s mobile ads than for its desktop ones, as the empha-sis of the company’s USD40 billion-a-year business shifts to mobile devices, he said. Google wants to be able to better show how ads on its search engine translate into in-store sales. “This year, around 90 percent of all global sales will happen in stores as opposed to online,” said Jerry Dischler, vice presi-dent of product management for Google’s ad busi-ness.

New ad products include enhanced listings on Google Maps, ads that re-shape themselves accor-ding to the website they’re seen on and expanded business descriptions in sponsored links. Along with that, Google said it can measure, with more than 99 percent confidence, whether an online ad-vertisement yielded an in-store purchase. The U.K. subsidiary of Nissan Motor Co. saw that 6 percent of clicks on mobile ads resulted in someone visiting a dealership, yielding a 25 to 1 return on invest-ment, Google said.

Google will also let advertisers change how much they pay depending on whether they use mobile, com-puters or tablets, letting them tweak campaigns ac-cording to the device.

“It’s useful because every device has different in-tents, different conversion rates,” said Frederick Vallaeys, the chief executive officer of Optmyzr, whi-ch provides tools for advertisers and marketers, and a former Google employee. “In the past tablets could have been a money pit. You had to buy it as part of the desktop traffic. Or it could have been doing really well and it was a missed opportunity.” Bloomberg

TECHNOLOGY

Google tries to better connect physical to digital with new ads

Sony’s profit forecast misses estimates

has strengthened considerably,” Yoshida told reporters at a news conference. “We are also seeing the impact of recurring busines-ses, such as the profit growth from PlayStation Network services.”

The smartphone business will report a profit of 5 billion yen in the year to March 2017, compared with a loss the previous year, Sony said. The industry is facing its first slowdown since Apple introduced the iPhone in 2007. While much of the drop in demand is seen in mature markets and China, where Sony no longer develops phones, the broader slowdown has impli-cations for the image-sensor busi-ness, which supplies camera com-ponents to other handset makers.

“You have the uncertainty over future earnings from CMOS sen-sors as smartphone market dece-lerates,” said Hiroyasu Nishikawa, an analyst at Iwai Cosmo Securi-ties Co. “On the other hand, finan-cial services remain a steady sour-ce of profit, as well as automotive sensors, and they are also over the hump when it comes to restructu-ring TV and handset businesses.”

Sony forecast a 40 billion yen loss for its device business, which inclu-de chips that convert light into digi-tal signals in smartphone cameras. The company booked a 59.6 billion yen impairment charge for the unit last fiscal year, citing “a decrease in projected future demand.”

Last week, Sony resumed ope-rations at its Kumamoto facility, which was shut down after the factory, clean rooms and equip-ment were damaged during the April 16 earthquake on the sou-thern island of Kyushu. The im-pact from the seismic event, in-cluding repairs and lost sales, will be about 60 billion yen, it said.

Profit at Sony’s games and ne-twork services business will rise to 135 billion yen, on anticipated sa-les of PS4 consoles this year. The company is looking to cement its lead over Microsoft Corp.’s Xbox One and Nintendo Co.’s Wii U con-soles by launching a virtual-reality headset in 2016. The PlayStation VR will be available to the more than 36 million people who alrea-dy own a PS4 when it goes on sale in October for $399. Bloomberg

BLO

OM

BERG

wed 25.05.2016

ADVERTISEMENT廣告macau’s leading newspaper 9

th Anniversary

25.05.2016 wed

CHINA 中國 www.macaudailytimes.com.mo

th Anniversary

10

Foster Klug

BY visiting Hiroshima, Bara-ck Obama parachutes him-

self into a seemingly endless dispute among key U.S. allies and trading partners over World War II. In Tokyo’s decades-long tug-of-war over history with its neighbors China and South Ko-rea, it’s the American president who could end up losing.

Many in China and South Ko-rea feel that Japan got what it deserved when U.S. atomic bombs detonated in Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945, and in Naga-saki three days later. They re-sent what they see as Japan’s focus on the bombs’ victims instead of the millions of civi-lians killed, raped and enslaved by Japanese troops. They worry that the first-ever U.S. presi-dential visit to Hiroshima will allow Japanese conservatives, including Prime Minister Shin-zo Abe, to further distance the country from its wartime sins.

Despite this anxiety, however, there’s also a growing desire to work with Japan, the world’s No. 3 economy, on diplomacy, security, tourism, culture and trade. This is especially true in South Korea, a fellow democra-cy and U.S. ally.

Here, then, is a look at some of the issues that will roil beneath the surface as South Korea and China closely watch Obama’s visit:

South Korean President Park Geun-hye (center), poses with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe (left), and Chinese Premier Li Keqiang as they meet to hold a trilateral summit at the presidential house in Seoul

WWII

Hiroshima trip parachutes Obama into history disputes, from Seoul to Beijing

WHO’S THE VICTIM?It’s complicated: Many in

Northeast Asia claim the role.Japan’s sense of victimhood

stems from the more than 200,000 dead in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and from the huge numbers of civilians killed in U.S. air raids on major cities in 1945; 100,000 were killed in the Tokyo firebombing alone. Yet not only did Japan instigate the Pacific war with its 1941 at-tack on Pearl Harbor, decades of colonial and wartime aggres-sion before that claimed hun-dreds of thousands of victims in China and South Korea.

Those killed by the atomic bombs include an estimated 20,000 Koreans, many brought to Japan for slave labor.

“We [South Koreans] think we were the real victims. For China, their pride was hurt a lot becau-se they think they were in char-ge before being badly battered by Japan,” Lee Myon-woo, an analyst at South Korea’s Sejong Institute, said. “The Japanese think they also suffered a lot be-cause of the West. Each country has a victim mentality [...] and it’s not something that we can easily overcome.”

The White House says Obama isn’t going to Hiroshima to apo-logize, but just being there will be seen that way by many.

Assigning too much impor-tance to the bomb, critics in Japan’s neighbors argue, dis-

tracts from Tokyo’s current ex-pansion of its military and the hawkish Abe’s efforts to distan-ce Japan from its wartime past. Some also worry that it signals a preference by Washington for Tokyo over Seoul.

“The United States and Japan ignore our country a bit,” said Park Jeong-mi, 50, from Seoul. “I am dissatisfied with the fact that the U.S. president will visit Japan and also go to the specific area, Hiroshima, when Japan has not made an official apology to our country yet” for its warti-me atrocities.

Japanese leaders have apolo-gized repeatedly in the past, but in recent years, Abe has been viewed by South Korea, Chi-na and others as attempting to backpedal those apologies and previous acknowledgements of wartime atrocities.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said re-cently that Japan, when it invi-tes leaders to Hiroshima, should reflect that it “will never tread on the path of militarism again, as it once brought unspeakable suffe-ring to its people and [the] people of Asia and around the world.”

Yukio Okamoto, a former Ja-panese diplomat, said the Japa-nese people simply want Oba-ma to honor the dead. He said it will “be seen by the Japanese people as the United States fa-cing for the first time the inci-dent eye-to-eye.”

WHAT’S AT STAKE?The White House wants the

visit to look forward, not back.“My purpose is not to simply

revisit the past, but to affirm that innocent people die in a war, on all sides, that we shou-ld do everything we can to try to promote peace and dialogue around the world, that we shou-ld continue to strive for a wor-ld without nuclear weapons,” Obama told Japanese public broadcaster NHK in an inter-view aired Sunday.

Japan and its neighbors, however, could end up inter-preting the trip differently. That holds risks for burgeoning cooperation among China, Ja-pan and South Korea.

History disputes have rarely hurt economic and cultural ties among the three neighbors, but they have upset regional securi-ty efforts. Seoul, for instance, has been reticent to directly share North Korea-related inte-lligence with Tokyo because of fear about a domestic backlash to cooperation with Japan’s mi-litary.

Both Beijing and Seoul have sometimes been accused of using anti-Japan sentiments to stir up nationalist grievances in order to push domestic agendas or distract attention from go-verning failures.

Regional ties have recently improved. South Korea, Japan and China held a three-way

summit in Seoul in November, and Seoul and Tokyo forged an important, but much criticized and still not implemented, deal late last year to compensate Ko-rean women forced into sexual slavery by Japan’s military.

These relatively positive fee-lings, a rarity in Northeast Asia, could fade if Japan is seen as trying to use Obama’s visit to minimize its wartime aggres-sion — or if South Koreans and Chinese think Obama is being indifferent to their painful ex-periences.

“Obama will say all the ri-ght words, but the image of him being there will still upset many [in the U.S., as well as in Asia],” Ralph Cossa, presi-dent of the Pacific Forum CSIS think tank, said in an email. “At this point, it’s a lose-lose for Obama.”

WALKING A FINE LINEObama will try to focus on his

vision of a world without nu-clear weapons while avoiding anything that portrays Japan exclusively as a victim.

There’s some debate, howe-ver, about how, or if, he’ll tackle the past.

The visit “will entirely be framed in a futuristic discou-rse, for example about the fu-ture nuclear-zero-goal,” said Victor Cha, an Asia expert at Georgetown University. “The-re is, I think, a desire by Oba-ma to heal the past, but I don’t think he will make any direct reference to it.” Others disa-gree.

In order to try to satisfy audien-ces in the United States, Japan and the rest of East Asia, Oba-ma will criticize Japan’s pre- A-bomb wartime actions and call for a world free of nuclear weapons, but he won’t criticize American use of the bomb, ac-cording to Charles Armstrong, an Asia expert at Columbia University.

This balancing act might not be enough.

“He will be criticized by Ame-ricans, Koreans and Chinese for being too soft on Japan,” Arms-trong said, “and by Japanese for being too critical.”

Some observers hope Obama’s visit could lead to something that they say has proven extre-mely difficult for Japan: An ho-nest accounting of its wartime record. They want reciprocal visits by Abe to Nanjing, China, for instance, to honor those kil-led in the 1937 massacre there, or to Pearl Harbor, which was attacked 75 years ago this De-cember.

“The powerful image of an American president ready to finally confront the brutal and morally questionable acts of the war can only be truly suc-cessful if he can use it to press for similar actions on the part of the Japanese toward their Asian neighbors,” Asia exper-ts Gi-Wook Shin and Daniel Sneider recently argued. AP

AP P

HOT

O

wed 25.05.2016

ASIA-PACIFIC亞太版macau’s leading newspaper 11

th Anniversary

Mari Yamaguchi & Julie Watson, Tokyo

TWO very different vi-sions of the hell that is war are seared into the minds of World War II

survivors on opposite sides of the Pacific.

Michiko Kodama saw a flash in the sky from her elementary school classroom on Aug. 6, 1945, before the ceiling fell and shards of glass from blown-out windows slashed her. Now 78, she has never forgotten the li-ving hell she saw from the back of her father, who dug her out after a U.S. military plane dro-pped an atomic bomb on the city of Hiroshima, Japan.

People were walking like zom-bies, with their flesh scraped and severely burned, asking for help, for water. A little girl looked up, straight into Mi-chiko’s eyes, and collapsed.

Lester Tenney saw Japanese soldiers killing fellow Ameri-can captives on the infamous Bataan Death March in the Phi-lippines in 1942. “If you didn’t walk fast enough, you were kil-led. If you didn’t say the right words you were killed, and if you were killed, you were either shot to death, bayonetted, or decapitated,” the 95-year-old veteran said. He still has the bamboo stick Japanese soldiers used to beat him across the face.

Different experiences, dif-ferent memories are handed down, spread by the media and taught in school. Collectively, they shape the differing reac-tions in the United States and Japan to Barack Obama’s deci-sion to become the first sitting American president to visit the memorial to atomic bomb victims in Hiroshima later this week.

The U.S. dropped a second atomic bomb on Nagasaki three days after Hiroshima, and Ja-pan surrendered six days later, bringing to an end a bloody conflict that the U.S. was drawn into after Japan’s surprise atta-ck on Pearl Harbor in Decem-ber 1941.

Japan identifies mostly as “a victim rather than a victimizer,” Stephen Nagy, an international relations professor at the In-ternational Christian Universi-ty in Tokyo, said. “I think that represents Japan’s regional role and its regional identity, whereas the United States has a global identity, a global agenda and global presence. So when it views the bombing of Hiroshi-ma, Nagasaki, it’s in the terms of a global narrative, a global conflict the United States was fighting for freedom or to li-berate countries from fascism or imperialism. To make these ends meet is very difficult.”

A poll last year by the Pew Research Center found that 56 percent of Americans believe the use of nuclear weapons was justified, while 34 percent do not. In Japan, 79 percent said

Arthur Ishimoto, 93, a Japanese-American and U.S. Army Military Intelligence Service veteran, poses with archival photographs of himself as he is interviewed in Honolulu

I hope he will give an apology to the atomic bomb survivors, not necessarily to the general public.

TERUMI TANAKA SURVIVOR, 84

JAPAN | WWII

Hiroshima visit stirs differing views across Pacific

the bombs were unjustified, and only 14 percent said they were.

Terumi Tanaka, an 84-year- old survivor of the Nagasaki bombing, said of Obama: “I hope he will give an apology to the atomic bomb survivors, not necessarily to the general public. There are many who are still suffering. I would like him to meet them and tell them that he is sorry about the past action, and that he will do the best for them.”

The White House has clear-ly ruled out an apology, which would inflame many U.S. vete-rans and others, and said that Obama would not revisit the decision to drop the bombs.

“A lot of these people are te-lling us we shouldn’t have dro-pped the bomb — hey, what they talking about?” said Ar-thur Ishimoto, a veteran of the Military Intelligence Service, a U.S. Army unit made up of mostly Japanese-Americans who interrogated prisoners, translated intercepted messa-ges and went behind enemy li-nes to gather intelligence.

Now 93, he said it’s good for Obama to visit Hiroshima to “bury the hatchet,” but there’s nothing to apologize for. Ishi-moto, who was born in Honolu-lu and rose to be an Air Force major general and commander of the Hawaii National Guard, believes he would have been killed in an invasion of Japan if Japan had not surrendered.

“It would have been terrible,” he said. “There is going to be controversy about apologizing. I don’t think there should be any apology. [...] We helped that country. We helped them out of the pits all the way back to one of the most economically advanced. There’s no apology

required.”Beyond the deaths — the ato-

mic bombs killed 140,000 peo-ple in Hiroshima and 73,000 in Nagasaki by the end of 1945 — the effects of radiation have lingered with survivors, both physically and mentally.

Kodama, the Hiroshima schoolgirl, faced discrimination in employment and marriage. After her first love failed becau-se her boyfriend’s family said they didn’t want “radiated peo-

ple’s blood in their family,” she married into a more understan-ding one.

The younger of her two dau-ghters died of cancer in 2011. Some say she shouldn’t have given birth, even though multi-generational radiation effects have not been proven.

Obama doesn’t have to apolo-gize, Kodama said, but he shou-ld take concrete actions to keep his promise to seek a nuclear-free world.

“For me, the war is not over until the day I see a world wi-thout nuclear weapons.” she said. “Mr. Obama’s Hiroshima visit is only a step in the pro-cess.”

Nagasaki survivor Tanaka views the atomic bombings as a crime against humanity. A pro-mise by Obama to survivors to do all he can for nuclear disar-mament “would mean an apo-logy to us,” he said.

He added that his own gover-nment also should take some of the blame for the suffering of atomic bomb victims. “It was the Japanese government that started the war to begin with, and delayed the surrender,” he said, adding that Japan has not fully faced up to its role in the war.

Japan did issue apologies in various forms in the 1980s and 1990s, but some conservative politicians in recent years have raised questions about them, said Sven Saaler, a historian at Sophia University in Tokyo.

“In particular right now when Japan has a government that is [...] backpedaling in terms of apologizing for the war, if now the U.S. apologized, that also would be, I think, a weird sig-nal in this current situation,” Saaler said.

Tenney, one of only three re-maining POWs from the Bataan Death March, wants Obama in Hiroshima to remember all those who suffered in the war, not just the atomic bomb vic-tims.

“From my point of view, the fact that the war ended when it did and the way it did, it sa-ved my life and it saved the life of those Americans and other allied POWs that were in Japan at the time,” he said at his home in in Carlsbad, California. “I was in Japan, shoveling coal in a coal mine. No one ever apolo-gized for that. [...] I end up with black lung disease because they didn’t take care of me in the coal mine, and yet there is no apology, no words of wisdom, no nothing.”

Obama’s visit is firmly su-pported by Earl Wineck, who scanned the skies over Alaska for Japanese warplanes during World War II.

“He’s not going there like some of them might, and keep remin-ding them of all their transgres-sions,” the 88-year-old veteran of the Alaska Territorial Guard said. “That should have ended after the war, and I think a lot of it did, but of course, there’s always people who feel resent-ment.”

Japan occupied two Alaskan islands during the war. The ba-ttle to retake one of them, Attu Island, cost about 3,000 lives on both sides.

“We hated them,” Wineck said “But things change, people change, and I think people in the world should be closer to-gether.”

How so?One Tokyo high school stu-

dent has a suggestion. Mayu Uchida, who said she cried when she heard survivors re-count their memories on a school trip to Hiroshima, wants Obama to bring home what he learns and tell any supporters of nuclear weapons how horri-fying they are.

“He could also suggest, pro-moting opportunities for more Americans to visit Hiroshima, or to hear the story of Hiroshima,” the 18-year-old said. “It will be even better if those opportuni-ties are available for younger ge-nerations like us.” AP

AP P

HOT

O

25.05.2016 wed

ASIA-PACIFIC 亞太版 www.macaudailytimes.com.mo12

th Anniversary

Secretary of State John Kerry stands in the front of the auditorium after attending U.S. President Barack Obama’s speech at the National Convention Center in Hanoi

Foster Klug, Nancy Benac, Hanoi

PRESIDENT Barack Obama yesterday pres-sed Vietnam to allow greater freedoms for its

citizens, arguing that better hu-man rights would improve the communist country’s economy, stability and regional power.

On his second full day in the southeast Asian nation, Oba-ma also met with activists and entrepreneurs as part of a push for closer ties with the fast-growing, strategically crucial country. The visit included the lifting of one of the last vestiges of Vietnam War-era antago-nism: a five-decades-old arms sale embargo.

In a speech at the National Convention Center, Obama sought to balance a desire for a stronger relationship with Vietnam with efforts to hold its leadership to account over what activists call an abysmal treat-ment of government critics.

Nations are more successful when people can freely express themselves, assemble without harassment and access the in-ternet and social media, Obama said.

“Upholding these rights is not a threat to stability but actually reinforces stability and is the foundation of progress,” Oba-ma told the audience of more than 2,000, including gover-nment officials and students from five universities across the Hanoi area. “Vietnam will do it differently than the United Sta-

‘Big nations should not bully smaller ones,’ Obama said in an allusion to China’s attempt to push its rivals out of disputed territory

U.S. President Barack Obama meets with Vietnamese Communist party secretary general Nguyen Phu Trong at the Central Office of the Communist Party of Vietnam in Hanoi

IMPROVED relations between the U.S. and Vietnam must not lead to greater pressure

on China or threats to its interests, an official Chinese newspaper said yesterday.

While China applauds the spirit of reconci-liation between Hanoi and Washington, “wha-tever common interests the two countries pursue, they should never compromise Chi-na’s national interests and threaten regional security,” the English-language China Daily said in an editorial.

The comments point to Beijing’s underlying concerns about closer ties between its chief regional rival and its southern neighbor, with which it is in dispute over ownership of is-lands in the South China Sea.

Any attempt to enlist Vietnam in an effort to contain China “bodes ill for regional peace and stability, as it would further complicate

VIETNAM

Obama pushes for better rights after arms deal

tes does [...] But there are these basic principles that I think we all have to try to work on and improve.”

Freedom of expression is whe-re new ideas happen, Obama said. “That’s how a Facebook starts. That’s how some of our greatest companies began.”

Journalists and bloggers can “shine a light on injustice or

abuse” when they are allowed to operate free of government interference or intimidation, he added. And, stability is en-couraged when voters get to choose their leaders in free and fair elections “because citizens know that their voices count and that peaceful change is pos-sible. And it brings new people into the system,” Obama said.

Obama also traced the trans-formation of the U.S.-Vietna-mese relationship, from war-time enemies to cooperation. He said the governments are working more closely together than ever before on a range of issues.

“Now we can say something that was once unimaginable: Today, Vietnam and the Unites States are partners,” he said, adding that their experience was teaching the world that “hearts can change.”

Earlier yesterday, Obama met with six activists, including a pastor and advocates for the disabled and sexual minorities. He said several others were pre-vented from coming. “Vietnam has made remarkable strides in many ways,” Obama said, but “there are still areas of signifi-cant concern.”

Obama also referred in the speech to China’s growing ag-gression in the region, some-thing that worries many in Vietnam, which has territorial disputes in the South China Sea with Beijing.

Obama got a round of applau-se when he declared that “big nations should not bully smaller ones,” an allusion to China’s at-tempt to push its rivals out of disputed territory. Obama said the United States will continue to freely navigate the region and support the right of other countries to do the same.

After Hanoi, Obama flew to Ho Chi Minh City, formerly Sai-gon. He visited the Jade Empe-ror Pagoda, considered one of the most beautiful pagodas in southern Vietnam and a reposi-tory of religious documents that includes more than 300 statues and other relics. A strong smell of incense hung in the air as visitors frequently burn incen-

se outside the main temple to announce to the heavens their arrival.

As Obama paused before one statue, a guide explained that if he wanted to have a son, he should pray to her.

“I like daughters,” Obama re-plied.

Shifting from the historical to the modern, Obama also stopped by the Dreamplex bu-siness complex in downtown Ho Chi Minh City, a space for

startup entrepreneurs that fits with Obama’s message about the potential benefits of closer ties to Vietnam’s growing eco-nomy and its burgeoning mid-dle class.

Obama visited with several entrepreneurs at the modern Dreamplex, learning about a virtual game that helps people recover from nerve injuries and a smart phone that can serve as a laser cutter. But Obama cau-tioned that you have to “be ca-reful where you point it.”

The meeting gave him ano-ther chance to promote the benefits of what he says will be enhanced trade under a 12-na-tion trade deal that is stalled in Congress and opposed by the leading U.S. presidential candidates. He said the pact, if approved, will accelerate economic reforms in Vietnam, boost its economic competiti-veness, open up new markets and improve labor and envi-ronmental standards.

During his address, he said the agreement would give Viet-namese workers the right to form labor unions and would prohibit forced and child labor. He also predicted it would lead to greater regional cooperation.

“Vietnam will be less depen-dent on any one trading part-ner and enjoy broader ties with more partners, including the United States,” Obama said. AP

China says better US-Vietnam ties must not threaten Beijing

the situation in the South China Sea, and risk turning the region into a tinderbox of conflic-ts,” the newspaper said.

China on Monday formally welcomed Washington’s decision to fully lift a five-de-cade arms embargo on Vietnam during a visit by President Barack Obama, saying it is happy to see Vietnam develop “normal and friendly cooperative relationships with all other coun-tries, including the United States.”

China has looked on warily as the U.S. and Vietnam have steadily strengthened their re-lationship in recent years, in line with growing Vietnamese concern over Chinese moves to assert its maritime claims.

Despite being fraternal Communist nei-ghbors, China and Vietnam fought a border war in 1979, and clashes in 1988 over their conflicting claims in the South China Sea kil-led dozens of people. The tensions reared again in 2014, when China parked an oil rig off Viet-nam’s central coast, sparking confrontations at sea and deadly anti-China riots in Vietnam.

While the China Daily noted Obama’s asser-tion that lifting the arms embargo had nothing to do with China, the outspoken nationalist ta-bloid Global Times dismissed that notion ou-tright, calling it a “very poor lie which reveals the truth — exacerbating the strategic antago-nism between Washington and Beijing.”

The U.S. is “taking advantage of Vietnam to stir up more troubles in the South China Sea,” the newspaper said. AP

AP P

HOT

O

AP P

HOT

O

wed 25.05.2016

WORLD分析macau’s leading newspaper 13

th Anniversary

Costas Kantouris, Idomeni

GREEK authorities be-gan the gradual evacua-

tion of the country’s largest informal refugee camp yes-terday, persuading more than 1,500 people to leave the Idomeni site for other organized facilities in nor-thern Greece.

An estimated 700 police were participating in the ope-ration, but there were no re-ports of violence or protests.

Greece’s left-led govern-ment has pledged that no for-ce will be used, and says the operation is expected to last between a week and 10 days. Journalists were blocked from entering the camp.

By late afternoon, 32 bu-ses carrying a total of 1,529 people had left Idomeni on the country’s border with Macedonia, police said, whi-le earth-moving machinery was used to clear abando-ned tents.

Vicky Markolefa, a repre-sentative of the Doctors Wi-thout Borders charity, said the operation was procee-ding “very smoothly” and without incident. “We hope it will continue like that,” she said.

The camp, which sprang up at an informal pedestrian border crossing for refugees and migrants heading nor-th to wealthier European nations, was home to an estimated 8,400 people — including hundreds of chil-dren — mostly from Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq.

At its peak, when Macedo-nia shut its border in March, the camp housed more than 14,000, but numbers have declined as people began ac-cepting authorities’ offers of alternative places to stay.

In Geneva, UNHCR spokesman Adrian Edwards said the evacuation appea-red to be taking place “cal-mly,” and the U.N. refugee agency was sending more staffers to Idomeni.

“As long as the movement

FRENCH police have raided Google’s Paris offices as part of an investi-

gation into “aggravated tax fraud” and money laundering, authorities said. The raid is the latest regulatory headache for the American search engine-and-email company, which like other Silicon Valley firms faces increasing questions about its complex tax arrangements.

France’s financial prosecutor’s office said the raids were carried out with the assistance of the police anti-corruption unit and 25 information technology ex-perts. French daily Le Parisien, which first reported the news, said the raid took place at dawn and involved some 100 in-vestigators. An Associated Press reporter at the scene saw officers still at the scene yesterday [Macau time].

“These searches are the result of a preli-minary investigation opened on June 16, 2015 relative to aggravated tax fraud and organized money laundering following a complaint from French fiscal autho-rities,” the prosecutor’s office said in a statement. “The investigation is aimed at finding out whether Google Ireland Ltd. is permanently established in France and if, by not declaring some of its activity on French soil, it has failed to meet its fiscal obligations, in particular with regard to corporation tax and value added tax.”

Google Inc. and other American tech-nology companies typically base their European subsidiaries in Ireland or other low-tax jurisdictions such as Lu-xembourg, allowing them to do business with customers across the continent while minimizing their fiscal obligations — a technique known as profit-shifting. European regulators have increasingly pressed the firms to pay taxes in the ju-risdictions in which they do business.

Google is under pressure elsewhere. Earlier this year the company agreed to pay about 130 million pounds (USD140 million) in back taxes to the British go-vernment, a deal which drew the atten-tion of European investigators. Google’s rivals have faced similar pressures: in December Apple agreed to pay Italy 318 million euros (about $350 million) in ta-xes for several past years.

Google declined to go into detail when reached for comment.

“We comply with French law and are cooperating fully with the authorities to answer their questions,” the company said in statement. AP

Refugees and migrants wait to embark into the buses during a police operation at a makeshift refugee camp at the Greek-Macedonian border

Google vice president Mario Queiroz holds up the new Google Home device during the keynote address of the Google I/O conference

More than 54,000 refugees and migrants have been trapped in financially struggling Greece

FRANCE

Police raid Google over ‘aggravated tax fraud’ allegations

MIGRANT CRISIS

Greek police evacuate hundreds from Idomeni refugee campof people from Idomeni is [...] voluntary in nature [and] that we’re not seeing use of force, then we don’t have particular concerns about that,” he said.

“It often does help to move people into more organized sites, when they’re willing to move to those places,” he added.

In Idomeni, most have

been living in small cam-ping tents pitched in fields and along railroad tracks, while aid agencies have set up large marquee-style tents to help house people. Greek authorities have sent in cleaning crews regularly and have provided portable toilets, but conditions have been precarious at best, with heavy rain creating muddy ponds.

Recently the camp had begun taking on an image of semi-permanence, with refugees setting up small makeshift shops selling everything from cooking

utensils to falafel and bread.More than 54,000 refugees

and migrants have been tra-pped in financially strug-gling Greece since countries further north shut their land borders to a massive flow of people escaping war and poverty at home. Nearly a million people have passed through Greece, the vast majority arriving on islands from the nearby Turkish coast.

In March, the European Union reached an agree-ment with Turkey meant to stem the flow and reduce the number of people un-dertaking the perilous sea crossing to Greece, where many have died when their overcrowded, unseaworthy boats sank. Under the deal, anyone arriving clandesti-nely on Greek islands from the Turkish coast after Mar-ch 18 faces deportation to Turkey unless they succes-sfully apply for asylum in Greece.

But few want to request asylum in the country, whi-ch has been struggling with a deep, six-year financial crisis that has left unem-ployment hovering at arou-nd 24 percent.

Greek authorities are also eager to reopen a railway line — the country’s main freight train line to the Balkans — that runs throu-gh the camp and has been blocked by protesting camp residents since March 20.

Anastassios Saxpelidis, a spokesman for Greek trans-

port companies, said that the 66-day closure has cost transporters about 6 million euros (USD6.7 million).

Giorgos Kyritsis, a govern-ment spokesman on immi-gration, said the line should open “in coming days.”

The government has been trying for months to persua-de people to leave Idomeni and go to organized camps. This week it said its cam-paign of voluntary evacua-tions was already working, with police reporting that eight buses carrying about 400 people left Idomeni Sunday. Others took taxis heading to Thessaloniki or the nearby town of Polycas-tro.

On the eve of the evacua-tion operation, few at the camp appeared to welcome the news.

“It’s not good [...] becau-se we’ve already been here for three months and we’ll have to spend at least ano-ther six in the camps be-fore relocation,” Hind Al Mkawi, a 38-year-old re-fugee from Damascus, told The Associated Press on Monday.

Abdo Rajab, a 22-year-old refugee from Raqqa in Syria, has spent the past three months in Idomeni, and is considering paying smug-glers to be sneaked into Ger-many.

“We hear that tomorrow we will all go to camps,” he said. “I don’t mind, but my aim is not reach the camps but to go Germany.” AP

AP P

HOT

O

AP P

HOT

O

25.05.2016 wed

INFOTAINMENT 資訊／娛樂 www.macaudailytimes.com.mo14

th Anniversary

what’s ON ...

The enchanTing Red BoaTTime: 10am-6pm (no admission after 5:30 pm; closed on Mondays; open on public holidays; free to public on 15th of every month)UnTil: October 9, 2016 admission: MOP15 VenUe: Praceta do Museu de Macau 112 enqUiRies: (853) 2835 7911

BlUe Room in The sky – exhiBiTion By BlUe chanTime: 10:30am-6:30pm (Closed on Mondays and public holidays) UnTil: June 26, 2016 admission: Free VenUe: 10, Calcada da Igreja de S.Lazaro, Macao enqUiRies: (853) 2835 4582

macaU aRTs WindoW 2016 encoUnTeR – PRinTmaking By caTheRine, cheong cheng WaTime: 10am-7pm (No admittance after 6:30 pm, closed on Mondays)UnTil: June 5, 2016VenUe: Macau Museum of Art, Av. Xian Xing Hai, s/n, NAPE admission: MOP5 (Free on Sundays and public holidays) enqUiRies: (853) 8791 9814

Fam: macaU annUal VisUal aRTs exhiBiTion 2016 – WesTeRn media caTegoRyTime: 10am-8pm (Closed on Mondays)UnTil: August 7, 2016VenUe: Old Court Buildingadmission: FreeoRganizeR: Macau Cultural Affairs BureauenqUiRies: (853) 8399 6699

10Th macaU design BiennialTime: 10am-7pm (Closed on Mondays, no admission after 6:30 pm)UnTil: June 26, 2016 VenUe: Macau Museum of Art admission: Adult MOP5, free for Children under 12 years old, elderly over 65 years old (Admission is free on Sundays and public holidays) enqUiRies: (853) 2836 7588

aBsTRacT PainTings FRom The mam collecTionTime: 10am-7pm (no admittance after 6:30 pm, closed on Mondays) UnTil: December 31, 2016VenUe: Macau Museum of Art, Av. Xian Xing Hai, s/n, NAPE admission: MOP5 (Free on Sundays and public holidays) enqUiRies: (853) 8791 9814

this day in history

Dozens of men are feared dead in the seas around the Falkland Islands after the container ship Atlantic Conveyor and the destroyer HMS Coventry were hit by Argentine missiles.

HMS Coventry managed to destroy two Argenti-ne Skyhawk planes with Sea Dart missiles. Another wave of Skyhawks hit her four times with 1,000 bom-bs. She capsized, losing 21 of her crew.

An explosion and a fireball swept through the ope-rations room. The ship listed to port and the crew and wounded made their way to the upper decks from where they were rescued.

It is thought the Atlantic Conveyor, owned by Cunard, was mistaken for the aircraft carrier HMS Hermes.

She was attacked by two Super Etendards which fired French-built Exocets like the ones that sunk the Coventry’s sister ship HMS Sheffield on 4 May.

One of the eight men still unaccounted for on the container ship is her master, Captain Ian North.

Bill Slater, Managing Director of Cunard, said he was a “remarkable man... very well known in the in-dustry generally and this is typified by the messages of sympathy we’ve received from all over the world”.

Two Exocets were fired at the Atlantic Conveyor. Only one struck home but it was enough to damage

the ship seriously. The Defence Ministry hopes some of the supplies

carried by the Atlantic Conveyor can be salvaged. All the Harrier jump jets aboard have been flown

off and some of the helicopters and other supplies could be saved because the vessel is still afloat and upright.

There are now 43 British merchant ships serving with the task force. Cargo vessels and tankers for fuel and water form a conveyor belt of supplies between Britain and the South Atlantic.

Three passenger ships have also been taken over as hospital and troop ships.

The operation is costing the government around £5m a week, employing 2,000 members of the Mer-chant Navy.

Courtesy BBC News

1982 dozens killed as argentines hit british ships

in contextThe Atlantic Conveyor eventually went down with the loss of 12 men, including its commander Captain Ian North. He was posthumously awarded the Distinguished Service Cross. The vessel’s troop-carrying Chinook helicopters, key equip-ment necessary to re-capture the islands, sank with the ship. Without them, the British troops were forced to march to take their first major objective - Goose Green. After a bloody land battle, Argentine forces surrendered to the British and peace was declared on 20 June. More than 900 people died in the three-week war - 655 Argen-tines, 255 British troops and three Falkland islanders. The Falklands War gave a huge boost to Margaret Thatcher’s popularity. She won the general election the following year with a massive majority and remained in power until 1990. Although the two nations have made peace and relations are harmonious, Argentina still retains its historic claims to the “Malvinas” and Britain maintains an expensive and large gar-rison there.

Offbeat

China’s dancing grannies have taken their moves to the record books.

Guinness World Records says more than 31,000 Chinese participants have set a record for mass plaza dancing in multiple locations.

Some 31,697 people in Beijing, Shanghai and four other cities set the new mark on Saturday by performing choreo-graphed dance moves together for more than five minutes, Guinness said on its website.

Participants in Beijing posed with Guinness representati-ves in front of the city’s iconic Bird’s Nest stadium.

Generally middle-aged and elderly women, such dancers are a common site in parks, plazas and other public spa-ces in Chinese cities. While considered a healthy way to exercise and socialize, the performances have sometimes drawn criticism from those living nearby over the loud mu-sic accompanying the moves.

in sync: over 31,000 in china set world dance record

TV canal macau13:0013:3015:0018:1519:0519:3519:5020:3021:0021:3022:1023:0023:3000:2501:00

TDM News (Repeated) News (RTPi) Delayed Broadcast RTPi Live Helena’s Shadow (Repeated) TDM Entreview (Repeated) Non-Daily Portuguese News (Repeated) Soap Opera Main News, Financial & Weather Report Montra do Lilau Criminal Minds Sr.9 Helena’s Shadow TDM News Drama Main News, Financial & Weather Report (Repeated) RTPi Live

cinemacineteatro19 may- 25 may

X-MEN: APOCALYPSE_room 1(2D) 2.00, 4.40, 9.50 pm(3D) 7.15 pmDirector: Bryan SingerStarring: James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Jennifer Lawrence Language: English (Cantonese)Duration: 144min

MONEY MONSTER_room 22.30, 4.30, 7.30, 9.30 pmDirector: Jodie FosterStarring: George Clooney, Julia Roberts, Jack O’ConnellLanguage: English (Cantonese)Duration: 98min

TERRA FORMARS_room 32.30, 4.30, 9.30 pmDirector: Takashi Miike Starring: Hideaki Ito, Tomohisa Yamashita, Shun OguriLanguage: Japonese (Cantonese/English)Duration: 109min

CAPTAIN AMERICA: CIVIL WAR_room 36.45 pmDirector: Anthony and Joe RussoStarring: Chris Evans, Robert Downey Jr., Scarlett Johansson, Sebastian StanLanguage: English (Cantonese)Duration: 147min

macau tower19 may - 1 Jun

X-MEN: APOCALYPSE_1.15, 4.00, 6.45, 9.30 pmDirector: Bryan SingerStarring: James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Jennifer Lawrence Language: English (Cantonese)Duration: 144min

wed 25.05.2016

INFOTAINMENT資訊／娛樂 macau’s leading newspaper 15

th Anniversary

THE BORN LOSER by Chip SansomYOUR STARS

SUDOKU

Easy Easy+

Medium Hard

Cro

ssw

ord

puzz

les

prov

ided

by

Bes

tCro

ssw

ords

.comACROSS: 1- Opposed; 5- Wand; 10- Word form for “ten”; 14- Mindy of “The

Facts of Life”; 15- The end of ___; 16- LAX guesstimates; 17- Gillette product; 18- First-stringers; 19- Tombstone name; 20- Temporary stop; 22- Spire; 24- Joy Adamson’s lioness; 27- ___ kleine Nachtmusik; 28- Sweet wine; 32- Principle; 35- They appear before U; 36- ___ I can help it!; 38- Actress Taylor; 40- Eliel Saarinen’s son; 42- Pays to play; 44- Costly; 45- Garbage; 47- Pianist Claudio; 49- Colo. clock setting; 50- Bridges; 52- Worker; 54- Surf sound; 56- “_____ She Lovely?”; 57- Sparkle; 60- Ready to hit; 64- James of “The Godfather”; 65- Gives a 9.8, say; 68- Red Muppet; 69- Actress Merrill; 70- This is only ___; 71- Muddy up; 72- Lodge members; 73- Dated; 74- Great quantity;

DOWN: 1- Put ___ on (limit); 2- ___ chance!; 3- Drive-___; 4- Momentarily; 5- Bleat of a sheep; 6- Hill insect; 7- Summer shirts; 8- Use a soapbox; 9- Carte blanche offer; 10- Intensified; 11- List-ending abbr.; 12- Feel concern; 13- Egyptian cobra; 21- Joie de vivre; 23- Cabinet dept.; 25- Greek portico; 26- MetLife competitor; 28- TV horse; 29- Consumers; 30- Throat problem; 31- Brit’s bottle measure; 33- Foe; 34- Fluff, as bangs; 37- Physicist Enrico; 39- Harper’s Bazaar illustrator; 41- Musical instruments; 43- Drains; 46- Nautical speed unit; 48- It parallels a radius; 51- Subordinate ruler; 53- Furry swimmers; 55- Gaucho’s rope; 57- Olympian Devers; 58- Slender; 59- Hwys.; 61- Voting group; 62- What ___ mind reader?; 63- Tattled; 64- Alphabet trio; 66- Curvy letter; 67- Fr. holy woman

Yesterday’s solution

CROSSWORDS USEFUL TELEPHONE NUMBERS

ad

BeijingHarbinTianjinUrumqiXi’anLhasaChengduChongqingKunmingNanjingShanghaiWuhanHangzhouTaipeiGuangzhouHong Kong

WEATHER

MoscowFrankfurtParisLondonNew York

MIN MAX CONDITION

CHINA

WORLD

Emergency calls 999Fire department 28 572 222PJ (Open line) 993PJ (Picket) 28 557 775PSP 28 573 333Customs 28 559 944S. J. Hospital 28 313 731Kiang Wu Hospital 28 371 333Commission Against Corruption (CCAC) 28326 300IACM 28 387 333Tourism 28 333 000Airport 59 888 88

Taxi 28 939 939 / 2828 3283Water Supply – Report 1990 992Telephone – Report 1000Electricity – Report 28 339 922Macau Daily Times 28 716 081

30222921252123262328272729283331

drizzledrizzle/cleardrizzle/clear

drizzlemoderate rain/clear

1148515

2212171620

1712171016919201417191817262426

shower/cloudydrizzle/showershower/cloudy

clearovercast

cloudy/overcastdrizzle/moderate rain

cloudy/overcastshowercloudycloudy

overcast/drizzlecloudy/overcastdrizzle/overcast

cloudycloudy

Mar. 21-Apr. 19You’re totally blind to all you have in common with those around you. You’re so busy being independent-minded that you isolate yourself from others. If money really is your personal ball and chain, it’s around more than one neck.

April 20-May 20You’re coming up with quite a few good ideas. Unfortunately, the nuggets are hidden by just as many duds. As long as your subconscious is willing to spit them out, you are willing to sift through the glitter.

TaurusAries

May 21-Jun. 21If losing everything doesn’t get the message through to some people, then your preaching certainly won’t. You’re tempted to teach a lesson or two but don’t bother getting up on your soapbox.

Jun. 22-Jul. 22Taking care of yourself is actually taking care of others. You’re not worth much in your current state, and coworkers will thank you for restoring your flow of energy.

CancerGemini

Jul. 23-Aug. 22Looking on the bright side is vital, and it’s not as hard as you’re making it out to be. There’s a lot to be said about your current financial state. Each and every day is an adventure, for one. That should get your list going.

Aug. 23-Sept. 22Going with the flow will never make you leader. You know what they say about the view from in front versus the view from behind. The same is true if you’re simply floating downriver in an inner tube. It’s time to start paddling.

Leo Virgo

Sep.23-Oct. 22It’s okay to feel selfish every now and then and you definitely deserve to reward yourself. Just don’t forget that a reward now feels like punishment later if you use your credit card. Be kind to yourself both ways.

Oct. 23 - Nov. 21No one respects a charlatan, no matter how much money they have. You may feel like an imposter more than a con artist, but whatever the source of your nagging doubt, others can feel it.

Libra Scorpio

Nov. 22-Dec. 21A phone call from a long lost friend, the unexpected drop-in visit of a neighbor – these are things that would brighten your day. You’ll get something of the sort but in the financial arena.

Dec. 22-Jan. 19Retirement seems like a distant dream. It may seem impossible that you’ll ever get that far, but you will, and faster than you think. You won’t have time to make up for your lack of foresight, either, so make your future a priority.

Sagittarius Capricorn

Feb.19-Mar. 20Walking on eggshells at work is getting tiresome. Start looking into the job market just to see what’s out there. The piece of mind you get from knowing you have options makes staying that much more palatable.

Jan. 20-Feb. 18As much as you’d love to splurge, your over-all plan doesn’t allow it. Hang around with people with your kind of budget today, to make sure you’re not tempted to overspend.

Aquarius Pisces

25.05.2016 wed

ADVERTISEMENT 廣告 www.macaudailytimes.com.mo16

th Anniversary

wed 25.05.2016

SPORTS體育macau’s leading newspaper 17

th Anniversary

Chris Lines, Bangkok

OF all the various fi-ghting styles that combine to create the burgeoning sport of

Mixed Martial Arts, it is Thai kickboxing which is at the core of the new discipline. Yet it has taken until this week for Thailand to host its first major MMA event.

Initially, there was concern and resistance among the guar-dians of Thai kickboxing — or Muay Thai as it is known locally — who feared the culturally im-portant martial art would be subsumed by the brash newco-mer, draining away fan interest and fighters.

Partly, also, the delay was be-cause of the lack of a promota-ble local hero in MMA ranks, and partly because of the diffi-culty many outside companies face in navigating the regula-tory and commercial landscape of Thailand in order to stage an event.

It took a serendipitous mee-ting between two childhood friends late last year to provide the key to unlocking these pro-blems.

When Chatri Sidyodtong, fou-nder of Asia's principal MMA promotional company One Championship, met up with entertainment entrepreneur Kamol "Sukie" Sukosol, the first outlines were drawn for an event that will come to fruition this Friday: the 'Kingdom of Champions' event in Bangkok.

As Thais, they knew how to unlock the regulatory and com-mercial backing to make an MMA event work here, and had the complementary expertise in sports and entertainment.

The lingering concerns of the traditional Muay Thai aficiona-dos should be ameliorated both by Chatri's long and respected history in Muay Thai, and the presence of former Muay Thai

REPLACING Alex Ferguson is proving

harder than Manchester United could ever have imagined.

United is looking for its third manager since Ferguson's trophy-laden 26-year dynasty ended in 2013 after firing Lou-is van Gaal yesterday [Macau time] following months of uncertainty around his position.

Jose Mourinho is set to take over at Old Tra-fford as the latest coach attempting to revive the fortunes of England's bi-

One Championship Strawweight champion Dejdamrong Amnuaysirichoke attends a press conference for his upcoming Mixed Martial Arts, (MMA), match in Bangkok

AP P

HOT

O

AP P

HOT

O

MUAY THAI

MMA comes to heartland of Thai kickboxing

Jose Mourinho

FOOTBALL

Man United fires Van Gaal, expected to appoint Mourinho soon

champion Dejdamrong Am-nuaysirichoke in the main event, a straw-weight fight against Ja-pan's Yoshitake Naito.

Chatri began Muay Thai as a child under the famed tutor Yo-dtong Senanan — Chatri took his ring name and now surna-me from his trainer — and has a reverence for the sport that precludes any desire to eclipse it. Instead, he sees a symbio-tic relationship between Muay Thai and MMA.

"I've been a Muay Thai prac-titioner for 30 years, as a stu-dent, fighter, teacher and coa-ch. I love Muay Thai, it will always be my first love," Chatri told The Associated Press.

"In Thailand, historically, the

practitioners of Muay Thai have been the lower class, it hasn't really hit the middle class and upper class, but One Cham-pionship is going to give a big boost in popularity from the middle and upper class to su-pport the sport. Even though Muay Thai is a national trea-sure, who really practices it? I want to make it mainstream."

Thailand is one of the last re-gional frontiers for One Cham-pionship, which has staged events in most parts of Asia and has established itself as the dominant regional player in MMA.

The ambitions for the com-pany are high, reckoning on the martial arts heritage of Asia,

the development of local heroes and the possibilities of a sports media market which is heavily reliant on foreign products.

"Asia is the home of martial arts for the last 5,000 years," Chatri said. "Bruce Lee, Jet Li and Jackie Chan are movie heroes who are billion dollar products themselves, but no-body has ever tried to present the beauty of true martial arts to the mainstream in a com-mercial manner on a pan-Asian basis.

"There are 4.1 billion people in Asia. It's the largest media market in the world, so there is no reason why One Cham-pionship cannot be the largest media property in Asia by far."

UFC is the powerful promo-tional group for MMA in Nor-th America, and moved to the verge of Asia with an event in Australia last year. Chatri belie-ves UFC and One can co-exist without infringing too much on each other's territory.

"UFC has a 90 percent market share in North America, we have a 90 percent share in Asia," Chatri said. "It's Apple vs. Samsung, GM vs. Toyota, Amazon vs. Alibaba, it's no di-fferent. Do I believe that UFC is going to succeed in Asia, yeah I believe so. But do I think they can take our spot? No."

For all the business sense behind the company's expan-sion, the trip to Thailand is an emotional homecoming for Chatri, who is of mixed Thai and Japanese heritage.

His family lost its money in the Asian currency crisis of 1997, and his father left the family. Chatri, after studying in the U.S., worked his way up throu-gh the financial world, running a hedge fund before deciding to channel his energies into mar-tial arts.

"My family got thrust into poverty, and I didn't know if I was ever going to come back to Thailand," Chatri said. "I left Thailand on a very down note, but I've always kept Thailand in my heart. I am very emotional about this particular event be-cause I'm coming back home.

"I do feel a sense that I was somehow maybe destined for this." AP

ggest club.It was beyond David

Moyes, who lasted 10 months as Ferguson's hand-picked successor, and now Van Gaal has departed after two un-derwhelming years when he oversaw more than USD350 million of spen-ding on new players.

"I am very disappointed to be unable to complete our intended three-year plan," Van Gaal said. "I believe that the founda-tions are firmly in pla-ce to enable the club to move forward and achie-

ve even greater success."United, the record 20-

time English champion, said its "decision on a successor as manager will be announced soon" while giving no names.

Delivering United's first trophy — an FA Cup on Saturday — since Fer-guson's retirement was not enough to save Van Gaal. He paid the pri-ce for failing to qualify United for next season's Champions League, with the team finishing fifth in the Premier League.

"I hope that winning

the FA Cup will give the club a platform to build upon next season to res-tore the success that this passionate set of fans desire," Van Gaal said.

The 64-year-old Van Gaal could now be hea-ding into retirement. He has also coached Ajax, Barcelona, Bayern Mu-nich and the Nether-lands in a stellar coa-ching career. But Van Gaal's turbulent tenure at United has been mar-red by accusations from critics that he betrayed the Red Devil's heritage

by playing a defensive, risk-averse style.

Mourinho has been heavily linked with the United job for months and told The Associated Press last week that he would sign a contract with a new team by the end of next month. The

Portuguese coach is a serial winner, guiding Chelsea to three Pre-mier League titles in his two spells, but his foo-tballing philosophy and confrontational style has long been regarded as at odds with United tradi-tions. AP

BUZZTHE

WORLD BRIEFS

Roadside

High Density Residental Area

Ambient

Station Air quality

SOUR

CE: D

SMG

North Korea’s UK ambassador rejects trUmp’s offer

North Korea’s ambassador to Britain said yester-day that his country has no interest in presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s offer to open nuclear talks with North Korean lea-der Kim Jong Un.

Ambassador Hyon Hak Bong said that Pyon-gyang views Trump’s offer as an electoral ploy that

isn’t serious.Hyon said that “we see it as the dramatics of a

popular actor,” adding that U.S. presidential can-didates say a lot of things during a campaign but once they assume power they always adopt a hos-tile stance toward North Korea. The timing is not right for talks, he said.

60-80Moderate

Kim Tong-Hyung, Seoul

AN unspecified num-ber of North Koreans

working at a Pyongyang-run restaurant overseas have es-caped their workplace and will come to South Korea, South Korean officials said yesterday.

The announcement by Seoul’s Unification Ministry came after South Korean media reported that two or three female employees at a North Korean-run restau-rant in China fled and went to an unidentified Southeast Asian country earlier this month.

It’s the second known group escape by North Ko-rean restaurant workers dispatched abroad in recent weeks. In April, a group of 13 North Koreans who had worked at a North Korean

-run restaurant in the eas-tern Chinese city of Ningbo defected to South Korea.

The latest escapes will likely enrage Pyongyang, which typically accuses Seoul of trying to abduct or entice North Korean citizens to defect. South Korea has denied the accusation.

After the 13 workers — a male manager and 12 wai-tresses — arrived in Seoul in April, Pyongyang clai-med they were kidnapped by South Korean spies and repeatedly demanded their return. South Korea said the workers chose to resettle in the South on their own. It was the largest group defec-tion by North Koreans to the South since North Korean leader Kim Jong Un took power in 2011.

A brief Unification Minis-try statement confirmed that

105-135Bad

105-135Bad

opinion

No Art iN SAyiNg ‘No’According to different books and arti-

cles about Asian culture, especially those about doing business in China, saying ‘no’ seems to be one of the hardest things for the Chinese to do. But what exactly makes it so hard for us to say no to an offer or a request? That has often kept me wonde-ring. We are not born incapable of practi-cing refusal or rejection, so it must be our upbringing. Can we blame it on the Confu-cian tradition and our collectivist culture? And is it really just a Chinese problem?

It has been observed that as children we were often taught by parents not to reject: “You can’t say no to Grandpa!” or “When Uncle Important asks if you like his present, say YES!” or “When Auntie Big asks you to do something, ALWAYS SAY YES!” Well, that has much to do with our tradition of respect for seniority and filial piety. However, this observation does not just come from Chinese fami-lies. I have heard it from Western families too, so respect for seniority may be be-coming a more universal tradition. That is probably one of the reasons why we grew up with an invisible chip in our head that makes us say “yes”. For people from my generation, Gen X, in particular, we did not have much education in the way of saying “no” or giving any negative re-ply in general. This has often resulted in people with overloaded plates of food we don’t even like. I mean this metaphori-cally and, more than often, quite literally.

We can’t say “no” directly because many of us have been brought up to think that saying “no” to someone more senior than ourselves is rude and disrespectful. On the other hand, saying “no” to someone junior is being unhelpful.

While some people want to be helpful and show respect to everyone, some worry about what others might think if one only says “yes” to superiors but “no” to subordinates. How about those who are at the same level of seniority as ou-rselves, our friends and acquaintances? Well, saying “no” may cause us to lose one of those. So in the end, we end up either saying “yes” all the time or we just keep beating around the bush until the other person withdraws their invitation or ‘gets the hint’.

However, I must argue that this is really not just a Chinese thing. Though Western culture is more direct, and business peo-ple are less roundabout or vague in their answers, saying “no” is also difficult for Westerners.

On the internet, we see more and more websites teaching people to reject re-quests for our precious time, and the im-portance of work-life-balance. Isn’t that a clue that Western culture is also suf-fering from the difficulty of saying “no”? Moreover, when learning about making requests and offers in English classes, we were taught never to just answer “no.” The polite way is to say “I’d love to, but…”

Just Google the phrase “Art of Saying No” and you get a list of sites, articles and books teaching you how to say “no” polite-ly. It usually entails excuses and white lies, of course, that may be better than being vague, but why can’t we just say “no”? Okay, for the many reasons raised about the virtues of respect and politeness – but isn’t honesty a virtue too? Perhaps, just for a change, next time I get an invitation for a drink on a day I don’t feel like going out, I will try being honest and saying, “No, I don’t want to.” But this may be just a bit too big a step. First, I’ll practice saying no to that second serving of pasta, or choco-late and cakes before dinner.

Made in MacaoJenny Lao-Phillips

some other North Korean restaurant workers abroad fled, but didn’t elaborate. Of-ficials at the unification and foreign ministries refused to provide further details about the North Koreans and their escapes, citing worries about their safety and potential diplomatic problems with concerned countries. It was unclear when they would ar-rive in Seoul.

New Focus, a Seoul-based online news outlet run by a North Korean defector, was among the first to break the news Monday. It said the group comprised three wo-men in their 20s who had worked at a North Korean-run restaurant near Shanghai.

The defector head of New Focus, who uses the pseu-donym Jang Jin-sung in in-terviews because of worries about the safety of relatives left behind in the North, said yesterday that the informa-tion came from people who guided the North Koreans after they escaped from their restaurant. He refused to identify the guides.

South Korea’s Yonhap news agency reported yes-terday that the North Ko-reans had worked at a res-taurant in the central Chi-nese city of Xian and that they may have traveled to Thailand. AP

The musical fountain at the West Lake in Hangzhou, capital of east China’s Zhejiang Province. As one of the highlights of the West Lake, the fountain will erupt twice a day from Monday to Thursday after an

upgrading project.

Xinhua/Huang Zongzhi DECISIVE MOMENTTHE

BYE-BYE KIM

South Korea: Overseas North Korean restaurant workers flee

North Korean performers entertain customers at the Okryugwan restaurant in Beijing

AP P

HOT

O

INDONESIA A human rights group urges Indonesia to involve forensic experts in exhuming mass graves linked to massacres a half-century ago to ensure the preservation of crucial evidence and allow for the identification of bodies.

INDIA India has successfully tested its first small space shuttle as part of its efforts to make low-cost reusable spacecraft. The Indian Space Research Organization said the shuttle lifted off on a rocket from a launch pad in southern India this week and completed a successful 13-minute test flight.

INDIA British actor Ian McKellen has criticized India’s use of a British colonial law to crack down on homosexuals, saying in an interview with a Mumbai newspaper that “India needs to grow up.”

SYRIA The Russian military says it has called for a 72-hour cease-fire in Syria between government and opposition forces in two Damascus suburbs. In a statement, Lt. Gen. Sergei Kuralenko says this would allow Russian war planes to carry out airstrikes against the Nusra Front, the Syrian branch of al-Qaida.

TENNIS Rafael Nadal is back doing what he does best: Demolishing opponents on the red clay of Roland Garros. The nine-time champion’s 6-1, 6-1, 6-1 victory against Sam Groth of Australia added another notch to the Spanish player’s stunning record in Paris, now at 71 wins, with just two losses.

AP P

HOT

OAP

PH

OTO

AP P

HOT

OAP

PH

OTO

wed 25.05.2016

ADVERTISEMENT廣告macau’s leading newspaper 19

th Anniversary

25.05.2016 wed

ADVERTISEMENT 廣告 www.macaudailytimes.com.mo20

th Anniversary