Would you invest in a fund based only on Twitter?

Twitter has become a social networking phenomenon, with more than 200 million users around the world, and more than 10 million daily users. A European hedge fund is planning to harness the power of Twitter by making investment decisions based on real-time messages, known as tweets. The founder of the fund along with a University professor, claim they can predict market directions based on Twitter trends and the various moods of tweets, which are 140 characters or less.

Using proprietary technology, the fund will monitor tweets and sort them into several categories, such as calm, alert or happy. According to analysts, the idea rather makes sense since markets generally reflect the mood of the investors, and with such large number of daily users on Twitter, the mood inspired from the tweets (which is a considerable representative sample) will provide a good assumption about the actual general mood of the investors and the markets around the world.

The idea is still being debated and the question is whether the fund owners will succeed in convincing investors about their project, and therefore be able to raise sufficient funds to meet the launching threshold of this avant-guardist new hedge fund.

One thing is sure: if only by using Twitter to predict the market movements this hedge fund can perform well, and consequently generate profits for on-board investors, many others will follow this business model and will start using the same tool for their new investments. It will be a new era for Twitter as well which might see its popularity growing further and its company valuation flying high.

Pollution on the internet

Pollution is a major plague confronting the world today. It is mostly witnessed in the atmosphere, or in the streets, but in fact pollution has reached other places in our lives, and one of the most important places is the internet. Sometimes unnoticed, especially to those who don't use the web or use it very little, internet pollution is becoming a daily topic in our lives.

May be the most common form of web pollution is viruses. Tens of thousands of viruses attack on a daily basis sensitive sites and workstations worldwide. In many cases the viruses are hidden in emails, messages or applications, which commonly offer internet users fictious and false services, such as instant rewards or pornographics etc...

Major IT institutions worldwide conduct and finance researches, in continuous attempts to win the race against a generation of viruses, that are becoming more harmful, destructive and more sophisticated day after day.

Another form of pollution on the internet is the huge number of meaningless articles, webpages, applications that are listed on the web, and the large number of such material that is uploaded on a daily basis as well. Some of it is benign and does not present any harm or disturbance to users, and the reason for its release on the net remains not understood, since it does not generate any kind of benefit for its authors or for the public. This certainty has recently pushed Google (the world's largest search engine on the internet) to adopt new measures with regards to web searching, resulting in a massive "cleansing" operation for the worldwide web, which has caused many editors to lose up to 50% of their publications from search engines results.

A serious kind of pollution on the internet is the kind where web surfers attempt to use the web for prohibited or even criminal practises, such as paedophilia, abduction, organ trafficking, drug dealing and terrorism. In Such cases the intervention of public prosecutions from the countries concerned is inevitable, and people who are involved in such crimes are nowadays easily tracked down and caught, thanks to new technologies available to governmental institutions, notably the latest generation of GPS. Needless to mention that very serious punishments await those who are involved in such crimes, as we have seen lately in Belgium and in Germany. 

If the pollution of the atmosphere has prompted the UN to mobilise many major Heads of States to sign the Kyoto Protocol, the pollution on the internet would only require people to have more ethics, in business and in personal life. If ethics were to be observed, many other problems of our modern times would also be resolved.

Is Egypt the new China of the Middle East?

Egypt, country of the Nile and one of the oldest civilizations in the world, has always been the epicentre of history, culture, and changes. On the verge of one of the most important changes in its recent history, the home of the pharaohs looks at a bright and promising future. In fact, Should the new Egyptian regime succeed in realizing a "real change" in the country, a lot of potential awaits to be unleashed out of the egyptian economy which has several strong foundations.

The availability of cheap labor, the cheapest in the region and probably one of the cheapest in the world, backed by a population of more than 80 million egyptian, with an average GDP per capita among the lowest in the world (around 5,000 USD per year), the active population will have no problem at all competing with any country in the region, if not in the world since the labor cost in countries like India or China is comparable to the one in Egypt.

The egyptian population has another important component: the middle class, which is highly educated and qualified in most cases, fluent in French and English, helping to make commercial and trading activity relatively easy with western counterparts, unlike many countries in the Far East where only the national language is spoken. Besides all, egyptian people are so funny and very humble. 

Geographically, Egypt is at the center of the Middle East at the proximity of one of the biggest oil producers in the world, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and is also very close to Europe, which makes import & export activities to the euro-zone and de facto to the industrialized nations very convenient and time-saving.

Strategically, the Suez canal insures the sea traffic between the Far East, India and Saudi Arabia to Europe and the United States. Therefore, the strategic dependance of Egypt on other States is much less than other countries when it comes to exercise normally its commercial activities.

The country possesses substantial proven reserves of natural gas and is one of the exporters of this commodity to several countries in the region. This would bring down dramatically the production costs for eventual manufacturing or industrial activities. 

The considerable amount of funds that are expected to be retrieved from the old regime will undoubtedly bring a considerable boost to the economy, in fact around 70 billion US dollars are estimated to be heading back for the Egyptian treasury in the near future, and that would represent a surplus of funds equivalent to the government's budget for two years. Such amounts could be used to upgrade the country's infrastructure which is necessary for the economy to flourish. 

Egypt has all the necessary elements to become a big economy, the biggest in the region. All the ingredients of the chinese model are available in abundance to the egyptian people who has done a lot so far, and still have a lot more to do in the near future.

Airbus: the enemy

By Nidal Raad.

Before 1970, more than 90% of the world's commercial airplanes were exclusively produced by Boeing, a company who made aviation history, notably during world war II, when it was still producing military aircraft solely, it contributed to the end of the war thanks to legendary bombers such as the B-25 fortress and B-29 superfortress and others. Then after the war Boeing started to build commercial aircraft and in the 1950's the company introduced the best seller Boeing 707 and in 1969 the Boeing 747: the famous jumbo jet, both models having flewn the world for decades. Boeing was comfortably the biggest aircraft maker in the world.

Then in 1970 everything began to change. A group of brilliant French engineers came up with a new design for a "twin engine medium size carrier" which they called A300. The idea of twin engines for a medium size long courier aircraft was perceived by many as bound to failure, since in the 70's quadruple engines for a long courier inspired more security. After a successful first flight, the A300 began accumulating successes not only on the technical level since it was very advanced technologically, but also on the operational level; In fact it was more fuel efficient than the B707 by 20%. Airbus was born thanks to the large number of orders for the new A300 which exceeded 800 planes. The French company became quickly a confirmed aircraft maker.  

Airbus A320 neo 

In the 1980's Airbus turned it's attention to the small aircraft sector (100 to 150 seats) and introduced the ultra sophisticated A320 in 1987. It was the first ever aircraft to utilize the "fly by wire" technology, which allowed engineers to remove definitely the third function on aircraft cockpits: the flight engineer. Airbus stated at the time that the aircraft was so automated and ahead of it's time to the point that theoretically only one pilot would be needed to fly it safely. It was also the first ever commercial jet able to perform "auto landings". Boeing was then beginning to lose the race as it was producing a rival B737, a very popular aircraft but relatively old.

The 1990's were the expansion years for Airbus as it was entering and acquiring new markets every year. Unfortunately the success of the French maker was all at the expenses of the US giant who was consistently losing market shares and large orders from airlines. In 1995 Airbus introduced the mid size - long range A330 family aircraft while Boeing introduced the larger size - long range B777. Both models were very successful, Airbus won around 1,200 orders for the A330 family and Boeing won around 1,000 orders for the B777.

Boeing 787 "Dreamliner"

In the early years of the new millennium the two aviation giants had different views about the future of aviation. While Boeing was working hard on a new mid size - long range aircraft, Airbus was drafting the project of the world's biggest ever commercial aircraft. Boeing's study was based on the facts that airlines will be in need of medium size, super advanced, ultra efficient and economical aircraft . Airbus thinking was much simpler: with airports becoming busier everyday and the number of passengers growing relatively fast, the need will be to provide a "gross transportation" way to cope with the growing traffic.

Boeing started to build the new generation B787 which is still under testing and is almost 3 years behind schedule, Airbus started to build the A380 the biggest ever passenger aircraft having a double deck which entered into service in 2007. That year was very significant for Airbus since it was the first time ever when the number of orders for Airbus planes surpassed the number of orders for Boeing planes. Airbus became officially the largest commercial aircraft maker in the world. 

 Airbus A380

It should be noted that Boeing tried to catch up with the success of the A380 by developing a new larger version of the B747 : the B747-8 Intercontinental, but the plane hasn't been so popular and was only able to attract 30 orders, 20 of them from Lufthansa which is thought to have placed such an order to gain more traffic rights in the US skies since the German carrier is well established in the US.

On the other hand Airbus is developing the new A350, a direct competitor to the Boeing 787 dreamliner, the A350 is scheduled to enter into service by the end of 2013.

With time, the huge loss of market share prompted Boeing in 2005 to file a lawsuit at the World Trade Organization against Airbus, accusing the European Company of benefiting from illegal government loans. Airbus responded by filing a similar lawsuit against Boeing with the same charges. The latest statement from the WTO showed that both parties have indeed benefited from government loans, which brings back the battle to breakeven. it is clear that such matter will take many years to be concluded.

Enemy or competitor, Airbus has seduced the world of air-travel and has gained respect of the world's airlines who fly Airbus aircraft on hourly basis, daily, worldwide. it's lifetime rival Boeing does not enjoy less respect from airlines nor is it less popular, but the difference is that Boeing has been losing ground to Airbus for the last 40 years, while Airbus has been moving forward. 

Lebanon After The War..(article in French)

Le Liban après la guerre..

Le Liban est sorti d’une longue guerre qui a duré de 1975 jusqu’ à la fin de 1990 et a laissé de profondes marques sur la société, comme sur l’Etat, l’économie et le peuple.

Suffisamment d’années se sont écoulées depuis la fin des opérations militaires pour que les Libanais s’engagent pleinement dans la reconstruction de leur pays et de leur société, cherchant, animés par l’espoir, à régler leurs problèmes et à améliorer leur niveau de vie aussi rapidement que possible.

Certes les années de guerre ne sauraient être tenues responsables des problèmes de déséquilibre structurels que rencontrent aujourd’hui les libanais, ces problèmes ayant contribué à l’explosion et à la poursuite du conflit.

L’on ne pourrait estimer le coût de la guerre du Liban en pertes humaines et sociales pour la société Libanaise.

Les effets de cette guerre sur les jeunes générations et les enfants sont plus graves et se manifestent à long terme; il faut signaler que les écoles, les ressources en personnel, le matériel et les programmes du secteur de l’enseignement et l’éducation, en particulier dans le secteur public, ont subi de très lourdes pertes, qui ont entraîné une détérioration significative dans le système de l’instruction qui s’avère ancien et parfois inadapté aux besoins du pays..

Les jeunes vont se voir refuser l’un de leurs droits fondamentaux, à savoir le droit à une bonne éducation et une solide formation à même de les préparer à remplir efficacement et convenablement leur rôle social et productif.

Il en va de même pour la détérioration des services de santé assurés par le service public, la dégradation de l’environnement, la perte des débouchés, la désintégration de la famille due au déplacement et aux problèmes d’intégration sociale, pour ne pas parler du décès d’un ou de plusieurs membres de la famille au cours de la guerre que ce soit un enfant, un membre de la famille de l’enfant ou un parent plus au moins proche, ou encore des préjudices corporels subis par l’un d’eux  .

Aujourd’hui, la protection juridique des personnes préjudiciées par la guerre pourrait ne pas présenter un problème dans les milieux où ces personnes bénéficient heureusement d’une protection adéquate, quand leurs intérêts sont pris en charge par elles-mêmes, les parents, le conjoint ou les enfants.

Pourtant, il subsiste malheureusement des personnes, que la guerre a préjudiciées, qui vivent dans un contexte où l’isolement est de plus en plus fréquent et où la possibilité de vivre sous la protection de la famille ou de l’Etat se réduit en permanence.