Muara Teweh!

Mexico set rules that would allow U.S. trucks to cross into Mexico under a one-year pilot program, matching a U.S. effort to open its doors to Mexican trucks.

The rules require U.S. transportation companies to obtain a permit from the Mexican Transportation Ministry and limit participation to a maximum of 100 companies, the ministry said in a statement. The agreement would take effect tomorrow and end a year later, according to the statement.

The U.S. and Mexican pilot programs would test cross-border trucking that was supposed to take effect in 1995 under the North American Free Trade Agreement. In 1995, then-President Bill Clinton decided to block Mexican trucks from carrying cargo beyond a border commercial zone of about 25 miles (42 kilometers) because of concern that unsafe Mexican trucks would become a hazard on U.S. highways.
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LONDON - A man pleaded guilty in a scheme to buy thousands of submachine guns and sell them to Iranians opposed to Iran’s president, court records showed, The Christian Science Monitor reported.

Under the plea agreement reached this week, Seyed Mostafa Maghloubi, an Iran-born US citizen living in the San Fernando Valley, acknowledged that he attempted to obtain night vision goggles and as many as 100,000 Uzi submachine guns for shipment to Iran, in violation of US laws.

He pleaded guilty to one count of attempting to export arms to Iran without a license, which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

Maghloubi, 49, was the subject of a sting operation in February, when a person he had reportedly approached about buying the equipment brokered a meeting between him and a police detective that Maghloubi believed was an arms dealer, according to the plea deal. » Read more after the jump →

Even amid all the market turmoil, 2007 is shaping up as a decent year for mutual fund investors. International stock funds are up 8.3 percent, and US stock funds are up 4.6 percent.

The chief reason, say financial planners and investment officers, is that global worries about credit drying up so far have had the largest impact on areas such as bank shares and real estate - leaving many stock, bond, and international funds to rise along with broad market indexes this year.

As a result, many financial planners say frequent whipsaw days on Wall Street this month haven’t changed their usual recommendation to construct a diversified portfolio and stick with it.

“We don’t do anything defensively when the market’s like this, even when clients call kind of panicked,” said Cheryl Costa, principal adviser at Family Financial Architects in Natick. » Read more after the jump →

Hosted desktop pioneer Nivio has taken an undisclosed investment from AMD to help it work on its ambition of making virtual Windows XP desktops and software accessible from any connected device — even a Linux PC or a smartphone.

The Nivio service uses virtualization to provide users with a virtual PC, which they can configure and even synchronize with their own PC, if they have one. The virtual PCs are hosted on AMD servers at data centers in Geneva and New Delhi, and streamed out over broadband.

Nivio says it can stream a Windows XP desktop, complete with applications, to any device with a compatible web browser. Software — including Adobe and Microsoft applications — can be rented by the month, so users don’t have to purchase a package that’s only needed for the duration of a short project, said the company’s founder Sachin Duggal. » Read more after the jump →

Following Nokia and Motorola, Samsung announced in Beijing that it will set up recycling centers for its old mobile phones as an effort to protect the environment.

Samsung says it will place recycle boxes at its repair centers in 60 key cities of China, including Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou.

Samsung will accept all brands of mobile phones, and it will then provide them to special waste management companies to dispose of. » Read more after the jump →

It seems to be premature to ponder on whether ICL is an opportunity for advertisers. After all, ICL is still an unknown entity. The question whether ICL is an opportunity depends purely on whether the Indian viewer will decide to watch the event or not. Basically, no viewers and no fans equals no interest from advertisers!

A more immediate question for ICL is: what is the product and why will it be viewed? As of now, the ICL product is ill-defined and seems to be a haphazard cricket league featuring a rag-tag group of unknown domestic cricketers and semi-retired international cricketers. This motley crew will play for as-yet unknown teams at as-yet unknown venues. Perhaps more hype than substance?

For all the discussion on how ICL will ‘develop’ the game, let’s make no mistake, this is a commercial venture. The promoters are trying to develop a commercial property which challenges the writ of BCCI. What seems to have drawn public and media interest is the ‘soap » Read more after the jump →

India’s mobile phone production is expected to reach 107 mln units by 2011, mainly driven by the expanding domestic mobile subscriber base and favourable government policies promoting local electronics manufacturing, according to a research by Gartner.

Mobile phone production revenue is expected to reach 13.6 bln usd by 2011 from 4.9 bln usd in 2006, at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 26.6 pct, the information technology research and advisory company said.

He added this would raise EMS vendors’ share of total mobile phone production in India to nearly 40 pct by 2011. Gartner said it expects as much as 30 pct of domestic mobile phone production to be exported to neighbouring regions that are also demanding low-cost handsets such as Africa, the Middle East and other parts of South Asia over the next five years, though it currently caters mainly to local demand.
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