True Sports Man Spirit.. Casillas

11/19/2013

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In an interview with Spanish daily 'El Pais', Iker Casillas discusses a call that he made to Xavi to keep things calm within the Spain squad, when league rivalries were flaring between Barça and Real Madrid players.

"I didn't do anything special for the national team. I called Xavi because it was my responsibility as captain of the side, because we were making a right royal mess of it all; because I represent a country and support an ideal", explained the Real Madrid keeper.

"We spoke to sort out what was going on because we were properly cocking things up. Right from my childhood I had never seen the type of Barça-Real image we were creating, and I was there, I was there as a central actor in an unforgiveable mistake, responsible for what was going on. And since that wasn't what I had set out to do, but was involved, I took a decision", added Casillas.

The Spain captain says that the call didn't take any toll on him or on Mourinho's Real side: "No, no… What I know is that I have a clear conscience. Look, what I'm certain of is that Real, as a team, didn't suffer as a result and I always put the team first rather than myself. Since that call to Xavi we won the 'Copa', a fantastic league title, a 'Supercopa, a European Championship with Spain…".

He's certain that if he's not playing at Real it's for reasons purely regarding football, and there aren't any hidden motives for it: "I'm not playing due to a technical decision. I've said it a hundred times".

Does he see himself being the starting keeper in Brazil? His answer: "Nobody knows what's going to happen tomorrow – you need to live for the moment".

Hat-trick hero Ronaldo

11/19/2013

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Portugal will be at the 2014 World Cup in Brazil. Cristiano Ronaldo saw to it with a hat-trick that ended Sweden’s chances of reaching the tournament. Ibrahimovic scored both of Sweden’s goals (3-2), but came up short on the night.

The Real Madrid man was once again unstoppable. He opened the scoring in the 50th minute when he culminated a speedy counterattack with a left-footed shot across goal.

Despite facing an uphill struggle (needing three goals to go through), Sweden reacted strongly and equalised through Ibrahimovic in the 67th minute, when the PSG striker headed home from a corner.

Ibrahimovic then gave Sweden the lead (2-1) in the 71st minute with a powerful shot that Portugal’s goalkeeper, Rui Patricio really should have done better with.

It was then that Cristiano Ronaldo reappeared to put an end to Sweden's come-back, equalising from a counterattack similar to that of his first goal. CR7 finished the job soon after with Portugal’s third of of the game, also from a counterattack

GATE sounds mayday over pilot shortage

Summit theme: ‘Breaking the Paradigms: Training the Gulf’s New Generation of Aviators’

The Gulf Aviation Training Event (GATE), one of the Dubai Airshow’s events-within-a-mega-event,  took off for a two-day run today at Dubai World Central under the theme ‘Breaking Paradigms: Training the Gulf’s New Generation of Aviators’ and quickly heard how crisis loomed over the sector.

Urgent action is needed to resolve the lack of qualified, commercial aviation pilots, delegates at the Dubai Airshow heard today.

Captain Ed Davidson, GATE Summit Director and former Gulf-based Emirates Airline executive, said: “We are running out of the capabilities to fix this issue before we are in a dire situation.

“If we look at the latest numbers – following on from the announcements by Etihad, flydubai and Emirates Airline yesterday regarding buying hundreds of aircraft, and opening new routes, we face an extreme challenge. We need to find 460,000 pilots over the next 20 years, but the biggest number of people ever recruited into the industry annually was just 14,000.”

Capt. Ed Davidson identified three barriers to recruitment: where to find the manpower; the high cost of training a pilot – US$100,000 - and how to train pilots so they are comfortable with automation and technology.

Two organisations present at the GATE summit - CTC Aviation and Emirates Airline - have long identified the increased demand for pilots - and the subsequent industry repercussions – so have set about developing solutions.

Emirates is in the final stages of completing a Cadet Pilot Academy at the new Al Maktoum World Central Airport, Jebel Ali, Dubai.

Captain Alan Stealey, Executive Vice President, Flight Operations for Emirates said: "The new Emirates Pilot Academy is in the heart of the Gulf’s expansion. “Emirates is committed to producing a growing portion of our pilot need internally as we recognise that the increasingly competitive pilot marketplace over the next ten years is significantly under-supplied."

CTC Aviation Group Limited, one of the world’s largest providers of Cadet Pilots to the air transport industry, a GATE gold sponsor and exhibitor – is strongly focussed on future pilot recruitment and training; with plans to open new training facilities in the near future.

Captain Rob Clarke, CEO, CTC Aviation, said: “We are seeing increasing demand for cadets joining our hugely popular CTC Wings training programme. With graduates being placed directly onto jet equipment with our partner airlines we are seeing a year-on-year growth which requires us to double our capacity over the next few years.”

Meanwhile, Saudi Arabian investment company Infinity unveiled plans at the Dubai Airshow, which runs at Dubai World Central until Thursday evening (November 21),  to establish a new US$267million Aviation Academy in Riyadh.

The 50,000m2 academy will be designed by FlightSafety International, including state-of-the-art full flight simulators and other advanced technology training devices. 

GATE - the Middle East’s dedicated training event for the aviation industry, has brought together senior air transport industry executives, regulators and operators, to discuss the impact of the pilot shortage on current selection methods and training. The forum is held under the patronage of HH Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al Maktoum President of Dubai Civil Aviation Authority, Chairman of Dubai Airports, Chairman and CEO of Emirates.

Delegates wishing to participate in GATE 2013 will also have access to the full five days of the Dubai Airshow – registration is still open at the Dubai Airshow box office with one day rates available.

The Dubai Airshow is organised under the patronage of HH Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, and in co-operation with Dubai Civil Aviation Authority, Dubai Airports, Dubai World Central and the UAE Armed Forces.

Siemens nets big wind farm order from Denmark’s Dong Energy

Denmark's Dong Energy had ordered 97 wind turbines from Siemens Wind Power, which were to be installed in the firm's new North Sea wind farms Gode Wind 1 and 2, the German engineering conglomerate announced Monday.

The contract was for Siemens' new 6-megawatt (MW) turbines, which had a rotor diameter of 154 meters (168 yards), and included full 5-year services for the installations, Siemens said.

Neither Siemens nor Dong disclosed the total value of the contract, but sources close to the negotiations told Reuters news agency that it amounted to about 1 billion euros ($1.33 billion).

The two Gode Wind projects off the German coast are Dong's biggest investment ever, generating a total of 582 MW - the annual electricity consumption of about 600,000 German households.

'Being constructed in an area with good wind and soil conditions, relatively close to shore and in a cluster where we can harvest synergies, the Gode Wind projects provide a sound business case,' said Dong's Vice President Samuel Leipold on the company website.

Major offshore wind farm projects in German territorial waters have become rare in recent months due to unresolved technical difficulties and uncertainty about future German government subsidies for wind energy.

Dong said it would receive a fixed price per kilowatt hour of electricity produced for the first ten years of operation after which it would have to sell its electricity at market price.

The Danish firm also called on the government to unveil a support framework for wind energy in the future, which was needed to attract private capital for investments in modernizing Germany's energy sector.

Berlin is currently weighing options for reducing its subsidies for renewable forms of energies, as a boom in green energy has led to sharp spikes in German electricity prices.

German companies reluctant to make investments next year

Despite slightly more favorable cyclical developments, economic pundits believe German firms are unlikely to respond to improved markets by raising their investment activities throughout 2014.

According to a new study by the Cologne Institute for Economic Research (IW), only every third company in Europe's powerhouse is planning to increase their investments, while every sixth is intending to trim them.

The survey released Monday is based on a poll among 3,300 German companies of different size and representing a cross section of industries.

All eyes on Berlin

'The ongoing low investment levels in Germany are cause for concern,' IW Director Michael Hüther said in a statement, adding the reluctance to invest continued despite a further pickup in employment.

He commented the only modest investments that companies were planning in buying new machinery would thus only marginally contribute to the predicted 1.5-percent growth rate for the German economy next year.

As coalition talks between Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservatives and the Social Democrats continued in Berlin, Hüther urged policy makers to have the courage and improve planning security for potential investors

Carmaker Volkswagen tops world list of R&D investors

Volkswagen was the world's top private-sector investor in research and development (RD) in 2012, spending about 9.5 billion euros ($12.8 billion) for the purpose, according to a European Union survey released Monday.

The German carmaker was followed by South Korean electronics firm Samsung, which had invested 8.3 billion euros into developing new products, the EU data showed.

According to the ranking of 2,000 global companies, Volkswagen was the only EU firm which had made it into the top 10. Other companies in the leading group of RD investors were US companies Microsoft, Intel, Merck, Johnson Johnson and Pfizer, as well as Swiss companies Roche and Novartis and Japan's Toyota.

'The EU still lags behind its main competitors in business investment in RD,' said EU Research and Innovation Commissioner Maire Geoghegan-Quinn, adding that this was a worrying sign for the 28-nation bloc.

Noting the positive result for EU firms in the automobile sector, she also said that more must be spent in high-tech sectors such as biotechnology and software.

German firms drive Europe's rise

The EU survey showed that global expenditure on RD rose by an average of 6.2 percent in 2012 compared with the previous year. EU companies reached a slightly higher rise, with 6.3 percent on average.

However, Europe's increase among the 130 firms listed was mainly driven by those of German origin, accounting for almost 60 percent of the bloc's total.

China boasted the largest year-on-year increase with an average increase of 12.2 percent for its 93 companies included in the rankings. Companies in the United States were up 8.2 percent, while Japanese firms increased development spending by 0.4 percent.

Japan scraps climate goal to plug post-Fukushima energy gap

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The cabinet of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe approved a new greenhouse gas emissions target calling for reductions of 3.8 percent by 2020 from their 2005 levels, the government in Tokyo announced Friday.

The revision was made because an earlier goal of a 25 percent emissions cut from 1990 levels had become unrealistic, government spokesman Yoshihide Suga told a news conference in Tokyo. The move was inevitable after Japan had been forced to close its 50 nuclear plants following the 2011 earthquake that destroyed the Fukushima nuclear reactor.

'Given that none of the nuclear reactors are operating, this was unavoidable, Environment Minister Nobuteru Ishihara said.

Japan's new emissions target marks a dramatic turnaround in climate policy, actually representing an increase in emissions by 3 percent over 1990 - the year of reference for reductions laid down in the so-called Kyoto Climate Protocol singed in 1997.

However, the loss of its nuclear power industry, which accounted for 26 percent of the country's electricity, has increased the use of coal, oil and gas for power generation. As a result, emissions in the fiscal year ending in March were up 2.8 percent on the year before, reaching their second highest level ever with 1.2 billion tons.

At the current world climate summit held in Warsaw, Japan's decision was met with consternation.

Noting that the move might have a devastating impact on the negotiations, World Wildlife Fund's (WWF) Japan representative Naoyuki Yamagishi told Reuters news agency that it could further accelerate the race to the bottom among other developed countries.

Su Wei, the deputy chief of the Chinese delegation is quoted by Xinhua news agency as saying that he didn't have words to describe his dismay.