U.S.A.
December 1, 2014
Ebola scare boosts business
for Alabama company
Blue pear-shaped diamond
sets $32.6M auction record
NEW YORK (AP) — A Fancy Vivid Blue pear-shaped
diamond from the estate of Rachel “Bunny” Mellon has
sold for $32.6 million. It’s an auction record for any blue
diamond.
Sotheby’s says seven people bid on the 9.75-carat gem
before it sold to an anonymous Hong Kong collector. The
diamond, mounted in platinum, carried a $10 million to
$15 million presale estimate.
The Wittelsbach Diamond held the previous auction
record for any blue diamond. It sold at Christie’s for $24.3
million in 2008.
Mellon died in March at age 103. She was the widow of
philanthropist Paul Mellon and heir to the Listerine
fortune. Sotheby’s also has been selling paintings and
other objects from Mellon’s homes.
q
Oil plunge is threat and
boon to global economies
cost $1.20 per liter ($4.54
per gallon) in the capital
last week, down from $1.35
per liter ($5.11 per gallon)
in June. Cheaper fuel
would ease financial pres-
sure on manufacturers and
small businesses. China’s
economic
growth
has
declined steadily over the
past two years.
Elsewhere in Asia, the
impact is varied. In Indone-
sia, fuel costs have risen
because the government
has cut subsidies, more
than offsetting the decline
in global oil prices. The
higher prices triggered
street protests, so the
latest fall in crude prices
may help ease tensions.
Malaysia is among the
few oil-exporting nations in
Asia, so the drop is hurting
its coffers. But it is also
cutting expensive fuel
subsidies.
Continued from page 4
prices have been slow to
filter down to consumers.
Also, a recent drop in the
yen’s value will reduce the
savings Japan can reap
from lower oil prices.
In June, regular gasoline
cost $1.40 per liter ($5.29
per gallon) at the Esso
filling station in Shim-
bashi, near the glittering
Ginza shopping strip in
Tokyo. The price was $1.44
per liter ($5.44 per gallon)
on November 28, 2014.
Prices are expected to
fall but that will complicate
the government’s efforts to
end Japan’s deflation.
China, emerging
Asian economies
The Chinese government
adjusts retail prices in line
with the global market. As
a result, Beijing has cut
prices repeatedly this year.
The highest grade gasoline
THE ASIAN REPORTER n Page 7
By Jay Reeves
The Associated Press
IRMINGHAM, Ala. — The
Ebola scare has subsided in
the United States, at least
temporarily, but an Alabama
manufacturer is still trying to catch
up with a glut of orders for gear to
protect against the disease.
Located in north Alabama, the
family-owned Kappler Inc. of
Guntersville typically gets only a few
orders annually for the type of suit
needed by health workers who are in
contact with Ebola patients.
That changed once the disease
showed up in Texas, Kappler vice
president of marketing Dennis
Sanders said. Quickly, orders were
flooding in for thousands of the
company’s Provent 10,000 coverall.
“It happened, literally, overnight,”
he said. “We took orders in a couple of
days that exceeded the orders we’ve
had on that particular product in two
or three years.”
While the company has about
75,000 of the suits on backorder,
Sanders said, it has yet to need to add
to its workforce of 150 employees or
extend working hours.
“We’ll probably be filling orders
through April 2015,” he said.
Other U.S. manufacturers also
have reported seeing spikes in orders
for protective gear, including surgical
face mask manufacturer Kimberly-
Clark. In China, Weifang Lakeland
Safety Products has said it is dou-
bling capacity to meet the demand for
B
SEALED SEAMS. Doctors and nurses from the National Medical Center, wearing anti-contami-
nation suits against Ebola, participate in a drill at the National Medical Center in Seoul, South Korea.
The Ebola scare has subsided in the United States, at least temporarily, but an Alabama manufac-
turer is still trying to catch up with a glut of orders for gear to protect against the disease. Orders
quickly flooded in for thousands of the suits once the disease showed up in Texas. A company rep-
resentative believes they’ll likely be filling orders through April 2015. (AP Photo/National Medical
Center)
expects another round of new orders
coveralls.
Kappler is the only company if Ebola again becomes a lead topic for
making protective suit entirely in the news in the United States.
“Anytime there is an event in the
United States, Sanders said. Its
product works because of a special world we get the inquiries about
method for sealing seams and things like, ‘How long would it take
APTRA, a plastic film that protects for a 1 million orders?’” he said. “This
against blood and body fluids that time those calls turned in to orders.”
The World Health Organization
could carry the Ebola virus, he said.
Kappler sells its suits to says more than 5,400 people have
distributors that, in turn, sell to died in the current outbreak, mostly
hospitals and health agencies. The in Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone
Provent 10,000 suit costs about $25 in western Africa.
Ten people have been treated for
retail.
While the company is now working Ebola in the United States, and one
through old orders, Sanders said he has died.
TALKING STORY IN
ASIAN AMERICA
q
China’s $350M bridge gets
scant North Korean welcome
Continued from page 5
Pyongyang, meanwhile,
has also moved quickly
ahead with several major
construction projects of its
own, including the capital’s
new international airport
and high-profile housing
projects.
The bridge — which,
from the start, appears to
have been of more interest
to China than to North
Korea — is intended to
provide a new connection
between Dandong and the
special economic develop-
ment zone in North Korea’s
Sinuiju. More broadly,
China wants to develop
inroads with North Korea
that
will
allow
its
landlocked northeastern
provinces access to North
Korean ports so its goods
can be exported or shipped
down the Chinese coastline
more cheaply.
The old bridge, built in
1937 when Korea was a
Japanese colony, carries a
railway line, as well as cars
and trucks. But the vehicle
traffic can move only one
way at a time. Normally it
moves one direction in the
morning, and the other in
the afternoon.
Officially,
at
least,
Pyongyang says it is still
keen on boosting foreign
trade in Sinuiju and else-
where.
North
Korean
officials involved in the
Sinuiju project say the new
bridge is an important
element of an ambitious
plan to bring foreign trade
and investment to a
particularly
strategic
corner of their country.
Hopes
of
attracting
foreign investment to the
15-square-mile area of
Sinuiju, much of which is
still farmland, have yet to
materialize. But one of the
North Korean government
administrators for the new
zone, Kim Hak Yong, told
APTN that hopes for
Sinuiju’s future remain
high.
Hajime Izumi, a North
Korea specialist at Japan’s
Shizuoka University, said
the bridge delays come as
Beijing and Pyongyang are
rethinking their relation-
ship, shifting from the past
focus on alliance and
mutual friendship to a
more pragmatic one based
instead on mutual interest.
He added that North
Korea may also simply be
waiting for the Chinese to
chip in more money.
n Polo
Polo’s “Talking Story”
column will return soon.
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