Maniolas

Autostrada chairman and president Wellington Soong with Ferrari Far East Hub managing director Dieter Knechtel A deep roar reverberated through Autostrada Motore’s showrooms last week with the official launch of the celebrated Ferrari 458 Italia’s worthy successor – the 488 GTB. Its twin-turbocharged 3.9-liter V8 heart had emitted the sonorous growling, underlining the physicality and sheer power of the new Maranello son. Front and center, the sexy vehicle painted in classic rosso corsa emerged – dramatically peering out through a fog at the gathered motoring journalists ogling it. “The year is coming to an end, and what a way to end (it),” Wellington Soong, chairman and president of the Autostrada Motore, had declared. He and son Jason (executive director of the noted dealership of some of the world’s exclusive, premium auto brands), expressed excitement at the entry of the 488 GTB. Indeed, there is a lot riding on this particular prancing horse. In an exclusive interview with STAR Motoring, Dieter Knechtel, managing director of Ferrari’s Far East Hub, explained that the 488 GTB is in “the segment where Ferrari has the biggest available customer base.” These clients, he continued, are also the most traditional as far as expectations go. Equipped with a mid-mounted V8 that promises a stable of 670 horses (up 100hp over the 458) and 760 Nm (plus 40 percent over the same car) on tap, the 488 GTB “enhances all the purist Ferrari values, and driving pleasures we can combine in one car for everybody who is Read More …

A BILL institutionalizing the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps) which provides conditional cash grants to improve the health, nutrition, and the education of children, hurdled the House Appropriations Committee on Monday.

DAVAO CITY — The United Nations’ (UN) Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) is calling for funding support from donor agencies to roll out the Mindanao Strategic Programme for Agriculture and Agribusiness (MSPAA), a six-year project that aims to strengthen the south’s agriculture sector.

“If you don’t give people incentives to come up with solutions, they’re not going to do it,” says Rudi Roeslein, a wealthy entrepreneur who thinks he’s found a fix. AP/Marcio Jose Sanchez/File NEW YORK — The gas produced by hog manure at farms across the country punches holes in the ozone layer, overheats the planet, and angers neighbors with its peculiar odor, a mix of rotten egg and ammonia. All that’s needed to clear the air is to cover the manure with a system of tarps that captures the gas, but many farms don’t do it because it’s too expensive. “If you don’t give people incentives to come up with solutions, they’re not going to do it,” says Rudi Roeslein, a wealthy entrepreneur who thinks he’s found a fix. His plan: Raise money to help pay for the tarp systems through a greenhouse gas trading market in California, where companies can pay others who are helping the environment so that they can continue to pollute. Widely derided by politicians on the left and the right, once thought dead even by its supporters, the idea of allowing companies to buy and sell pollution “rights” like stocks is now at the fore again as 151 heads of state and government at the Paris climate conference grope for ways to avert environmental havoc. Under such “cap-and-trade” systems, polluters are required to keep emissions below a certain level or hand over money to polluters that have managed to fall below theirs and have surplus Read More …

MANILA, Philippines – The clock is ticking for the Philippines, now the only prospective member which has not joined the China-led multilateral agency, yet the Aquino administration has not put any effort in even deciding on the matter. The country is the last of the 57 prospective members yet to sign the Articles of Agreement of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) that will start operations next year. Economies have until the end of the month to join. “We are still awaiting a decision by Malacañang,” National Treasurer Roberto Tan told The STAR in a text message yesterday. Herminio Coloma Jr., secretary of the Presidential Communications Operations Office, said there is “no decision as of now” in joining the AIIB, seen to rival the US-led World Bank and Japan-chaired and Manila-based Asian Development Bank (ADB). But the problem lies not on fear of irritating Japan and the US, the country’s oldest ally, but more on Manila’s tensions with Beijing over the South China Sea, which President Aquino has publicly admitted to be a factor on the government’s decision. Richard Javad Heydarian, political analyst at De la Salle University, said it did not help the country convinced the United Nations International Court to hear its case against the world’s second largest economy despite the latter’s non-participation. Business ( Article MRec ), pagematch: 1, sectionmatch: 1 The Hague just finished hearing the country’s first set of arguments on the merits of the case. “And there seems to be little appetite for any Read More …