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UPDATE 2-Yamaha Motor to raise up to $812 mln in share sale

April 3, 2010 By vani Leave a Comment

* Public offering could boost shares outstanding by 22 pct

Cyclical Consumer Goods | Financials

* Funds to develop efficient engines, low-cost motorcycles

* To spend total 202 bln yen on R&D in three years to 2012

TOKYO, April 2 (Reuters) – Japanese motorcycle maker Yamaha Motor Co (7272.T) said it will raise up to 76.1 billion yen ($812 million) in a share sale to finance the development of fuel-efficient engines and low-cost bikes for emerging markets.

Hit by a demand slump in the United States and Europe, as well as restructuring costs, Yamaha booked a hefty net loss of 216 billion yen in 2009 and aims to break even this year.

The offering will mark the largest equity-based fund raising by a company in the auto sector since Mazda Motor’s (7261.T) deal to procure 98 billion yen in October last year.

Players in the auto market have entered into a costly race to cope with the demand plunge in the United States, the world’s largest market, as well as a shift in customer appetite towards environmentally-friendly products, including hybrid and electric vehicles.

Yamaha said it will develop more fuel-efficient engines for motorcycles and boats to improve the competitiveness of its products, as well as electric motorcycles and motor-assisted bicycles, for which demand is seen rising.

This is the first equity fund-raising by Yamaha since it raised 40.3 billion yen in May 2007.

The company said in a statement on Friday that it would issue up to 63.25 million shares, including a greenshoe option of 8.25 million shares. The public offering could increase its total number of shares outstanding by 22 percent.

Nomura Securities, a unit of Nomura Holdings (8604.T), will manage the sale, Yamaha said.

The firm said it would spend a total of 202 billion yen on research and development in the three years to 2012 to help achieve growth in emerging and ASEAN countries and to accelerate the development of environmentally-friendly engines.

It spent 62 billion yen on research and development in 2009 and has budgeted 60 billion yen for the current year.

Under its recently compiled mid-term business plan, the company aims to raise its annual revenues to 1.4 trillion yen by 2012 from 1.15 trillion yen in 2009, although that would still be short of the 1.6 trillion yen achieved in 2008. (Reporting by Yumiko Nishitani; Editing by Joseph Radford

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Despite IAEA findings, Iran sings its old nuke-for-peaceful-purposes tune

September 19, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Tehran, Sep. 18 (ANI): Even as a secret IAEA report revealed that Iran is capable of making a nuclear bomb and is developing a missile system to carry an atomic warhead, Iranian officials have reiterated claims that the Islamic nation’s nuclear program is intended for peaceful purposes.

Fox News quoted Iran’s ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency, Ali Asghar Soltanieh, as saying that Iran is sincere in wanting to negotiate with the West.

He added that Western countries should “read between the lines” about Iran’s intentions.

Although the prospects of finding anything between the lines were almost nil after the surfacing of the IAEA report, but Soltanieh insisted that discussions with the West would be a “real, new window of opportunity.”

The secret U.N. watchdog report, titled “Possible Military Dimension of Iran’s Nuclear Program,” concludes:

*Iran worked on developing a chamber inside a ballistic missile capable of housing a warhead payload “that is quite likely to be nuclear.”

*Iran engaged in “probable testing” of explosives commonly used to detonate a nuclear warhead – a method known as a “full-scale hemispherical explosively driven shock system.”

*Iran worked on developing a system “for initiating a hemispherical high explosive charge” of the kind used to help spark a nuclear blast.

“Iran has sufficient information to be able to design and produce a workable implosion nuclear device (an atomic bomb) based on HEU (highly enriched uranium) as the fission fuel,” The agency assessed.

On October 1, Iran is scheduled to meet with the U.S. and five other world powers seeking curbs on its atomic activities for the first time in more than a year.

However, Tehran says it is not prepared to discuss its nuclear activities. (ANI)

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Catalyst simulations for fuel cells may make clean cars a reality

September 19, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, Sep 18 (ANI): University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers are working towards developing better catalyst for fuel cells in a bid to make clean cars a reality.

If successful, the researchers could make a car that runs on hydrogen from solar power, and produces water instead of carbon emissions.

Materials science and engineering assistant professor Dane Morgan and Ph.D. student Edward (Ted) Holby have developed a computational model that could optimise an important component of fuel cells, making it possible for the technology to have a more widespread use.

The researchers investigated how particle size is related to the overall stability of a material, and showed with their model that increasing the particle size of a fuel cell catalyst decreases degradation and therefore increases the useful lifetime of a fuel cell.

Fuel cells are electrochemical devices that facilitate a reaction between hydrogen and oxygen, producing electrical power and forming water.

In the type of fuel cells Morgan is researching, called proton exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs), hydrogen is split into a proton and electron at one side of the fuel cell (the anode).

The proton moves through the device while the electron is forced to travel in an external circuit, where it can perform useful work, while at the other side of the fuel cell (the cathode), the protons, electrons and oxygen combine to form water, which is the only waste product.

One of the many hurdles to producing efficient fuel cells for widespread use is the catalyst added to aid the reaction between protons, electrons and oxygen at the cathode.

Current fuel cells use platinum and platinum alloys as a catalyst. While platinum can withstand the corrosive fuel cell environment, it is expensive and not very abundant.

Thus, to maximize platinum use, researchers use catalysts made with platinum particles as small as two nanometers, which are approximately 10 atoms across.

These tiny structures have a large surface area on which the fuel cell reaction occurs.

However, platinum catalysts this small degrade very quickly, which means that the fuel cell doesn’t last long.

The researchers have found a possible solution to the rapid degradation problem-when it comes to catalyst particle size, sometimes smaller isn’t better.

In their modelling work, they showed that if the particle size of a platinum catalyst is increased to four or five nanometers, which is approximately 20 atoms across, the level of degradation significantly decreases.

This means the catalyst and the fuel cell as a whole can continue to function for much longer than if the particle size was only two or three nanometers.

“Fuel cells are just one of many energy technologies – solar, battery, etc. – with enormous potential to reduce our dependence on oil and our carbon emissions. Computer simulation offers a powerful tool to understand and develop new materials at the heart of these energy technologies,” said Morgan. (ANI)

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Taliban now terrorise 80% of Afghanistan after eight years of war: Report

September 12, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Kabul, Sep. 11 (ANI): Almost eight years after the war began in Afghanistan in the aftermath of the 9/11 carnage, the Taliban insurgency has spread across 80 percent of the country.

The violent incidents this week have drawn attention to the deteriorating security situation of northern Afghanistan, which had largely remained peaceful so far, the Christian Science Monitor reports.

The northern provinces are facing difficult times as heavy insurgent activity has spread to 80 percent of the country – up from 54 percent two years ago, the report says.

The militants’ focus has shifted to northern parts following continuous pressure from their Pakistani counterparts to attack NATO’s second supply route situated here, it adds.

“[Militants] have been trying to widen the ground for the insurgency in Afghanistan and now they have got momentum. The militants are eager to target this route to prevent a smooth supply chain from northern Afghanistan,” the report quoted Waliullah Rahmani, executive director of the Kabul Center for Strategic Studies, as saying.

Last week’s airstrike targeted two fuel tankers headed to supply NATO troops in Kabul that had been hijacked by the Taliban.

Although the increase in violence is only a recent phenomenon, the conditions had worsened long ago, the report says.

The violence can be linked to districts with large Pashtun populations, whose grievances the government has failed to address – making them sympathetic to the Taliban, who share their ethnicity and language, it adds.

“The districts which are turning violent are those which have had a very recent history of abuses against the Pashtuns.

The government has allowed these conditions to go unaddressed and this is now being addressed by the population by giving shelter to the Taliban and other insurgents,”the report quoted Prakhar Sharma, the head of research at the Center for Conflict and Peace Studies, as saying.(ANI)

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US accepts Iranian offer to hold discussions

September 12, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, Sep. 11 (ANI): The United States has accepted Iran’s proposal to hold talks, despite the Islamic republic announcing that it would not bring its future nuclear programs on the discussions table.

The decision to engage directly with Iran would put a senior representative of the Obama administration at the bargaining table, along with emissaries from five other nations, for the first time since Obama took office, the New York Times reports.

The decision is bound to raise protests from conservatives and human rights groups.

Earlier on Friday, senior administration officials said that their expectations from the talks were extremely low.

“We’ll be looking to see if they are willing to engage seriously on these issues. If we have talks, we will plan to bring up the nuclear issue,” paper quoted US State Department spokesman Philip J. Crowley, as saying.

They added that the United States could make a case for imposing far stronger sanctions on Iran if diplomatic engagements fail.

Britain, France, Russia, China and Germany are going to be present on the discussion table, who in the past have negotiated with Iran even without the presence of an American representative.

Iran made its offer to meet in a five-page letter delivered to several nations on Wednesday.

But the letter said nothing about Iran’s nuclear program. However, this week Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad vowed never to halt the fuel production.

Within less than 48 hours the Obama administration said they would consider the offer to meet.

Even though it is unclear who will represent the US on the discussion table, but most probably William J. Burns, the under secretary of state for political affairs, will lead America.

Earlier, Burns was quoted as saying that the Obama administration had begun preparing sanctions against Iran, so that it would be ready to implement them at the end of the year. (ANI)

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