Archive for February, 2012
Xi declares 'success' as US trip ends in Hollywood
Posted: February 18, 2012 at 9:30 am
Chinese leader-in-waiting Xi Jinping declared his US visit a "full success," as he rounded it out with a Hollywood film deal and a trip to a basketball game in Los Angeles.
Xi made the comments on Friday, in the final hours of his five-day trip, which started with power talks in Washington and included a charm offensive trip to America's heartland, where he reached out with billions of dollars in farm deals.
"I can now say my visit to the United States has been a full success," Xi said in a visit to an LA school with US Vice President Joe Biden, adding that his meetings with Biden and President Barack Obama had been "very fruitful."
Echoing the warm remarks, Biden -- who visited China last year -- joked: "I envy a lot of things about him, starting with his full head of hair. And I admire his stamina. We have given him virtually no time to sleep."
But Biden also reiterated a key message Xi has heard this week -- that the United States wants Beijing to play the same "rules of the game" to reduce the enormous trade imbalance between the two heavyweights.
"We very much want to see more of our business in China, and Vice President Xi has committed to making that possible," he said, adding: "The faster the US economy grows the more Chinese citizens will benefit."
In America, "we all welcome the competition," he told Xi, who is expected to lead the rising Asian power for a decade starting next year.
But he added: "The crux of our discussion is that competition only benefits everyone if the rules of the game are fair and being followed.
"So we will continue with the Vice President and the Chinese government to make sure that everyone is playing by the same rules, and everyone is on a level playing field."
Xi hailed Biden, saying: "We have established a good personal friendship and working relationship."
Recalling how China competed in the Olympics in 1984 for the first time after being re-admitted, adding that Chinese relations have "made some twists and turns" along way, but "over the years we have made some headway."
Building further cooperation between the nations "is the right strategic decision that serves the interests of both," he said.
Protests have accompanied Xi throughout his trip, and did so to the last: hundreds of Tibetan and Falun Gong activists rallied outside his LA hotel Friday, along with a group of pro-Chinese activists waving red Chinese flags.
A string of deals were signed in the sidelines of Xi's visit, including one Friday by "Kung Fu Panda" US studio giant DreamWorks Animation for a $330 million Chinese joint venture, Oriental DreamWorks.
The tie-up, unveiled by DreamWorks Animation boss Jeffrey Katzenberg, will team his California-based studio with three Chinese companies -- who will hold a majority 55 percent stake -- to operate a studio in Shanghai.
Katzenberg told AFP a short time afterwards that Oriental DreamWorks' first film was expected to be released in 2016.
Ruigang Li, chairman of one of the companies China Media Capital, added: "We share the same vision with DreamWorks Animation to build a world-class family entertainment company."
The announcement came as Xi rounded off a US trip that included a meeting at the White House with Obama, who urged China to play by the "same rules" in the global economy but voiced hope for cooperation.
Xi then traveled to Iowa, where a business delegation accompanying him agreed to buy 317 million bushels of soybeans from major US companies, in a deal estimated to be worth $4.3 billion.
On Friday he was spending his final hours on US soil at an economic forum in downtown Los Angeles, before a National Basketball Association game between the LA Lakers and the Phoenix Suns at the Staples Center.
A commentary on his US trip Friday in the overseas edition of the People's Daily -- the mouthpiece of China's Communist Party -- said the visit had "deepened mutual understanding" between China and the United States.
"Xi Jinping's visit was not long, but it had a big impact in promoting exchanges between the two peoples," it said. "This partnership will certainly see a more healthy development."
The Chinese leader starts the next leg of his trip in Ireland on Saturday. He is also due to travel to Turkey before returning home.
Excerpt from:
Xi declares 'success' as US trip ends in Hollywood
China's Xi sells U.S. trade elixir, personal chemistry
Posted: at 9:29 am
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - China's leader-in-waiting Xi Jinping on Friday swiped away fears that his country's economic growth could stumble, and turned to courting American companies, film-makers and governors hungry for a slice of that growth on the final day of his U.S. visit.
At the end of Vice President Xi's five-day trip, his U.S. counterpart Joe Biden announced China had agreed to make it easier for Hollywood to distribute movies to China's expanding audiences. Xi (pronounced "shee") told a business forum in Los Angeles that China would promote greater domestic demand and turn more to the United States to buy imports and send investment.
Despite recent economic slowing and persistent price pressures, Xi told the gathered business executives that China's economic momentum would not falter as some economists warn.
"China's economy will maintain stable growth," he said "There will be no so-called hard landing."
Xi is almost sure to succeed Hu Jintao as Chinese president in just over a year, and the final day of his tour of the United States featured commercial deals and reassuring talk intended to blunt American ire about the trade gap between the countries.
"We will further increase imports from other countries in the light of our economic and social development and consumer demand. We will actively expand imports from the United States," Xi later told a midday meeting.
Biden, who accompanied Xi to Los Angeles, praised the Chinese Vice President's efforts to reach out to often wary Americans, but reminded him that rancor over trade imbalances and barriers had not evaporated in all the sunny goodwill.
"The crux of our discussion is that competition can only benefit everyone if the rules are fair and followed," Biden told the midday reception for Xi.
The U.S. movie industry has long complained about China's restrictions on the number of foreign films allowed into the country each year, a limit that they say boosts demand for the bootleg DVDs that are widely available in China.
The film announcement does not remove China's quota system, but it might ease some of the ire.
The agreement allows more American exports to China of 3D, IMAX, and enhanced-format movies, and also expands opportunities to distribute films through private enterprises rather than the state film monopoly, the U.S. Trade Representative's office said.
GETTING READY FOR NEXT DECADE
The two vice presidents both suggested that Xi's diplomacy, deals and folksy public displays could pave the way for steadier ties between the world's two biggest economies.
Xi said that he felt from his visit that "mainstream American opinion" supports stronger ties. "I can now say that my visit has been fully successful," he said.
"We've established a personal friendship and a healthy working relationship," he said of himself and Biden.
Xi is poised to become China's next leader after a decade in which it has grown to become the world's second-largest economy. Beijing wants to avoid tension with Washington while the Communist Party leaders focus on the power handover.
Xi's visit to the United States was also intended to get both sides more familiar with each other for the decade that he could be in power. He will most likely succeed Hu Jintao as party chief in late 2012 and as president in early 2013.
Under Xi, China's economic size and military capabilities are likely to grow closer to U.S. levels.
Washington and Beijing have often jostled over economic, political and foreign policy disputes from human rights to Taiwan and most recently Syria.
The U.S. trade deficit with China expanded to a record $295.5 billion in 2011, and many U.S. lawmakers complain China's yuan currency is significantly undervalued, giving its companies an unfair advantage.
The Obama administration has also accused China of distorting trade flows by ignoring intellectual property theft, putting up barriers to foreign investors and creating rules that favor China's state-owned behemoths.
Xi's stop in Los Angeles was choreographed to blunt those complaints and make China's case that its rapid growth presents the U.S. economy with opportunities, not threats.
Scores of executives from major U.S. and Chinese companies, from Intel to Microsoft, lined up to sign deals after Xi's address at the economic forum on Friday.
They included "Kung Fu Panda" studio Dreamworks Animation's venture to make films from Shanghai, and Chinese telecom giant Huawei's pledge to award $6 billion in contracts over three years to Qualcomm Inc, Broadcom Corp and Avago.
"MISSION IMPOSSIBLE" FAN
More than the publicly stern Chinese President Hu, Xi has tried to put a friendlier face on his government during his U.S. visit, including revisiting the small town of Muscatine in Iowa where he visited in 1985 and stayed two nights with a family.
The 58-year-old also visited the International Studies Learning School in South Gate -- a Los Angeles enclave of mainly Hispanics -- where students learn Chinese.
At the school, Xi recalled his first visit to Muscatine: "They gave me the same impression that, like Chinese people, they are warm-hearted, friendly, honest and hard-working. Twenty-seven years have passed, but that remains my impression, and it has become a deeper one."
Xi also offered a glimpse of his personal life, telling the students he enjoyed swimming and watching sports, including American basketball, baseball and gridiron football.
Showing his familiarity with Hollywood fare, Xi said it was difficult to find time to relax. "It's like the name of that American movie -- 'Mission Impossible'."
After their visit to the school, Biden told reporters the talks with Xi had been very forthright, and was also intensely curious about the workings of the American political system.
"This is a guy who wants to feel it and taste it, and he's prepared to show another side of Chinese leadership," said Biden. "He is intensely interested in understanding why we think the way we do, what our positions are, and the need to actually broaden this kind of understanding."
Xi was due to watch part of an LA Lakers basketball game before he left for the next two countries of his international tour, Ireland and then Turkey.
(Additional reporting by Doug Palmer and Paul Eckert in Washington; Editing by Todd Eastham and Robert Birsel)
Go here to read the rest:
China's Xi sells U.S. trade elixir, personal chemistry
Ad-Up Online Training Solutions – Video
Posted: at 9:29 am
Originally posted here:
Ad-Up Online Training Solutions - Video
Collegiate Career Fair 2012 at TRAC – Video
Posted: at 9:29 am
Here is the original post:
Collegiate Career Fair 2012 at TRAC - Video
What is Medbridge? – Video
Posted: at 9:29 am
The rest is here:
What is Medbridge? - Video
HCA Vice President John Steele, Online College Graduation Speech – Video
Posted: at 9:29 am
Go here to read the rest:
HCA Vice President John Steele, Online College Graduation Speech - Video
Science Teaching Degree Online: WGU Graduate Julie Laub – Video
Posted: at 9:29 am
See the original post here:
Science Teaching Degree Online: WGU Graduate Julie Laub - Video
Bones Cavalier: Online Investor Education-Money vs Time – Video
Posted: at 9:28 am
More here:
Bones Cavalier: Online Investor Education-Money vs Time - Video
Bambi Cantrell – Call for creativeLIVE Audience – Video
Posted: at 9:28 am
Read the original:
Bambi Cantrell - Call for creativeLIVE Audience - Video
Ohio considers online driver's education program
Posted: at 9:28 am
TOLEDO, OH (WTOL) - It's offered in other states, teens taking driver's education classes on-line. Could that become an option here in Ohio?
During a meeting in Napoleon with driver school operators and two state lawmakers, discussion focused on the importance of continuity between classroom and street instruction.
"It would be a bad thing because the things we teach in the classroom go over into the car." says Bonnie Lech with the Key Driving School in Napoleon.
"We are teaching lifelong safety skills they need to learn in the classroom, then it has to be a one-on-one when they're out driving." says Donna Foster with Mid-America Driver Training in Bowling Green.
Even though traditional driving schools would still be needed to perform on-the-road training, Foster says on-line programs would result in jobs lost in Ohio:
"My school in Bowling Green has 18 employees. If the on-line program was allowed to go through, I would probably go down to maybe 3 or 4 employees."
State Senator Cliff Hite says he's not sure he could support legislation to create on-line driver's education courses.
"When you do math on-line that's a little different than when you're doing driver's education where people's lives could be in danger if you're not instructed well, so it's a good argument."
State Representative Bruce Goodwin is also skeptical should a proposal go before Ohio lawmakers.
"I was a former educator. I believe you can't replace that person in the classroom as easily as many people believe."
Copyright 2012 WTOL. All rights reserved.
Read the original:
Ohio considers online driver's education program