Baccarat, the Chinese way: Rituals you won’t see in Vegas

Macau, China (CNN) — Baccarat is not just for James Bond anymore. It is the game of choice for Chinese gamblers from mainland China and Hong Kong. Both groups make up the majority of gamblers in Macau. And they bring some unique, superstitious rituals with them that you won’t see in Las Vegas.

If you watch many Chinese gamblers play baccarat in Macau, there is a good chance you will see the players squeeze the cards tightly between their fingers, slowly peek at the cards by lifting the vertical end just enough to see the suit and number, then turn the card horizontally to peek at the number again.

Each time, they crease the cards rendering the cards unusable for another round (Macau casinos seem to tolerate this). The slow dance of peeking and creasing is to increase the suspense as the player hopes for a good pair of numbers that close in on the magic number: 9.

Some Chinese players even blow on the cards, hoping to “blow away” bad numbers. At one table with a sizeable group, a woman exclaimed “hoi, hoi,” (“turn it over, turn it over”) as she watched a player perform his ritual.

“Sometimes, you almost believe that they can actually change the outcome of a card by the way they squeeze the card. So there’s a lot of superstition,” said Scott Milburn, vice president of table games at City of Dreams.
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AIG selling overseas business to rival MetLife

AIG is selling an overseas insurance business to rival MetLife for $15.5bn (£10.3bn), as it continues to raise funds to pay off a federal bail-out.

MetLife is paying $6.8bn in cash and $8.7bn in shares for American Life Insurance Company (Alico), which operates in more than 50 countries.

The announcement comes a week after AIG agreed to sell its Asian business AIA to UK group Prudential for $35.5bn.

AIG is seeking to repay $182.3bn of loans from the US government.

“This came quicker than expected – normally you’d expect a company to take a breather after a deal like the AIA sale,” said Antony Gifford, portfolio manager for North American equities at Henderson Global Investors.

“But MetLife already announced it was in negotiations on 2 February, while the AIA deal was still going on. Perhaps the timetable was driven by the US government.”
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Europeans offered browser choices

From 1 March, Microsoft will ask millions of Europeans if they want to use a web browser other than its own.

Windows users will be offered the choice as part of a deal Microsoft struck with the European Commission.

The agreement resolves a long running case in which the software giant was accused of abusing its market position.

A pop-up window will prompt people to choose and install one of 12 different browsers or let them stick with Microsoft’s Internet Explorer.

Install options

The browser choice software will be delivered as part of the Windows Update system Microsoft usually uses to distribute security patches.
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Tiger Woods loses Gatorade sponsorship

Energy drink firm Gatorade has ended its sponsorship of Tiger Woods.

Gatorade is the latest major company to cut ties with the sportsman following Woods’s admission that he was unfaithful to his wife.

The drinks company, owned by PepsiCo, had already discontinued a Tiger Woods-themed drink, Tiger Focus. It follows AT&T and Accenture in ending deals.

However, Gatorade said it would continue its partnership with the charitable Tiger Woods Foundation.

Dropped

A spokeswoman for Gatorade said: “We no longer see a role for Tiger in our marketing efforts and have ended our relationship… We wish him all the best.”

Its move comes just one week after the star made a frank public address to a select gathering at PGA Tour headquarters in Florida.

In his statement Woods apologised to his wife, friends and family, as well as to his fans.

“I was unfaithful, I had affairs and I cheated. What I did was unacceptable,” he said.
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Toyota boss Akio Toyoda apologises for faults

Toyota’s president has apologised to the US Congress and American Toyota owners for safety problems that led to deaths and worldwide recalls.

Akio Toyoda said he was “deeply sorry” for any incidents which had occurred as a result of failures with accelerators and brakes on several models.

Mr Toyoda pledged his “full co-operation” with the US investigation.

But, under questioning, he insisted no faults had been discovered with the electronics of any of its vehicles.

He pledged that an independent, outside advisory board would look into the issue.

‘Not safe’

Toyota has recalled about 8.5m vehicles worldwide.
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Toyota president testifies before Congress

Akio Toyoda, the president and CEO of Toyota, and Yoshimi Inaba, president and COO of Toyota Motor North America, answer questions from members of the House Oversight and Government Reform committee on the recall of 8 million vehicles worldwide. All updates are Eastern Standard Time.

(CNN) — 6:50 p.m. — Toyoda tears up and pauses for composure as he thanks the audience for their support. He describes the hearing as an opportunity to remind customers of the company’s commitment to quality and safety. “We have to rethink everything about our operations to regain customers’ confidence,” he says, reading from a statement in English. “We have to reassert the values that have been our hallmark.”

6:45 p.m. — A plant worker from Kentucky and a dealer from Texas join Inaba and Toyoda onstage at the National Press Club, where the two men receive a standing ovation.

5:50 p.m. — Toyoda makes a brief statement after the hearing thanking Congress and again pledging to change how Toyota handles complaints. He then makes his way through a dense crowd to a Toyota Highlander waiting for him outside. He is due to speak to an audience of Toyota dealers at the National Press Club in Washington later in the evening.

5:37 p.m. — Chairman Edolphus Towns thanks the men for coming in voluntarily and says he considers their appearance a sign of their commitment to addressing problems. The panel is adjourned.

5:34 p.m. — Rep. Driehaus reads a letter from a driver who experienced sudden acceleration in his 2005 Toyota Tacoma. The driver said he had no mats and used to race cars. Toyoda says tests conducted so far have not demonstrated the same phenomenon and believes the system is safe, but pledges to continue testing.
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Roaming abroad

India’s biggest mobile-phone operator makes a move on Africa

AS THE orchestra of chirrups and pings in any public place in the rich world attests, the market for mobile phones in developed countries is saturated—and even in some developing ones opportunities for growth are running short. So big mobile operators, including those from emerging economies, are looking for growth wherever it can be found. Bharti Airtel, the biggest Indian operator when measured by subscribers, said on Monday February 15th that it is hoping to expand beyond one of the world’s fastest growing markets and into another. It is in talks with Zain, a Kuwaiti telecoms company, to buy its sub-Saharan assets for $10.7 billion and bring together African and Indian mobile-phone expertise.

Bharti has tried to move into Africa before. Two previous efforts to merge with South Africa’s MTN fell through, the latest in September last year. The deal was blocked by South Africa’s government, which was unwilling to let go of a national champion. If the new deal proceeds Bharti should find a warmer welcome in the 15 countries, including Nigeria, Uganda and Tanzania, where Zain provides mobile phones to some 42m customers.

Although the mobile-phone business is still booming in India, growth there is slowing. Competition, not least from operators based in the rich world, has brought the number of mobile operators in the country to 12 and a brutal price war is under way. Recent new arrivals include Norway’s Telenor and Japan’s NTTDoCoMo. Penetration rates in India are at around 50% compared with 40% in much of Africa. Bharti sees a chance to stake a claim in the fastest growing region in the world and to do so profitably.
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Honda extends airbag recall by 437,000 cars

Honda has added 437,700 cars, mainly in North America, to its existing global safety recall over airbag inflation problems.

It broadens a recall announced in late 2008 for less than 4,000 Accord and Civic sedans, then expanded in mid-2009 to cover another 510,000 vehicles.

The latest announcement also covers Japan, Mexico, Taiwan and Australia.

The fresh blow to Japanese carmakers came as Toyota recalled nearly half a million hybrid cars over faulty brakes.

Toyota has already had to bring millions of other vehicles back to dealerships amid accelerator and floormat problems.
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Coming to Milwaukee: A Chinese mega-mall?

Beijing, China (CNN) — A Beijing-based company will soon open a Chinese-style mega shopping mall in the most unlikely of places: Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

“The cost of doing business there is very low,” said Wu Li, president of Toward Group. “The people are friendly, the environment is peaceful and the pace of living is slow. It is a good place for Chinese enterprises to go abroad.”

Loaded with cash, credit and encouraged by the government to expand overseas, Chinese companies have been investing in property abroad at an increasingly rapid clip. While most are purchasing properties in traditional commercials centers like New York, few have ventured into the Rust Belt — until now.

“Americans should be prepared that more Chinese investors will buy up commercial real estate in the United States in 2010 to take advantage of low valuations in an improving economy,” said Shaun Rein, managing director of China Market Research Group, a Shanghai-based market intelligence firm. “It could be a huge trend.”
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US to probe Toyota Prius brake problems

The US Transportation Department has opened an investigation into brake problems in the 2010 Toyota Prius.

The move follows an admission from Toyota that it had had a problem with the brake system in the hybrid, which the carmaker said was fixed in January.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has received 124 reports from drivers about the issue, including four of crashes.

There have been no reports of any such accidents in the UK.

The investigation will look into allegations of momentary loss of braking capability while travelling over uneven road surfaces, potholes or bumps. However it will not suspend sales.

This latest alarm for the beleaguered carmaker – the world’s number one – follows worldwide recalls of almost eight million cars due to separate floor mat and pedal problems.

No Prius recall
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