BUSINESSThursday, February 8, 2018 9
Beijing
Mercedes-Benz has become the latest foreign company to run afoul of Beijing’s policies on Tibet and other Chinese-
claimed regions, apologising for “hurting the feelings” of the people of China for quoting the Dalai Lama. The German auto giant joined several international companies that have backpedalled recently for offending Chinese consumers with advertising (AFP)
Dhaka
Bangladesh’s central bank will file a lawsuit in New York against a Philippine bank over the world’s largest cyber
heist, the finance minister said yesterday.
Unidentified hackers stole $81 million in February 2016 from the Bangladesh central bank’s account with the US Federal Reserve in New York. (AFP)
Donald Trump
Mercedes apologises to China “If we don’t change the legislation, if we don’t get rid of these loopholes where killers are allowed to come into our country and continue to kill ... if we don’t change it, let’s have a shutdown,”
Bangladesh to file suit over bank heist
US President
Airbus tests drone delivery serviceThe Skyways project aims to use drones to provide an efficientdelivery service of small parcels to staff and students across
the campus of the National University of Singapore
Sources: Airbus Helicopters, NUS, SingPost, Aviation Week © GRAPHIC NEWS
NUSCampus
Parcelstation
Aircorridor
Port of Singapore
SKYWAYS DRONE: Octocopterdesigned to carry payloadof 2-4kg
Robotic arm loadspackage on tounderside of drone
DELIVERY
1
Drone fliesautonomously viaair corridor betweenparcel stations
2
Drone lands, roboticarm placesparcel in locker
3
Recipient notifiedby mobile thatparcel is ready
to collect
4SINGAPORE
GPS and precisionlocalization systemcorrects position ofdrone when approachingdelivery station
If university testis successful,
system could beextended to service ships
anchored in Port of Singapore
NationalUniversity ofSingapore(NUS)
400m
1,300ft
Elon Musk’s Falcon rocket soars to space
Cape Canaveral
The world’s most powerful rocket, SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy, blasted off Tuesday on its highly anticipated
maiden test flight, carrying CEO Elon Musk’s cherry red Tesla Roadster toward an orbit near Mars.
Screams and cheers erupted at mission control in Cape Canaveral, Florida as the massive rocket fired its 27 engines and rumbled into the blue sky over the same NASA launchpad that served as a base for the US missions to the Moon four decades ago.
“The mission went as well as one could have hoped,” an ecstatic Musk told reporters, calling it “probably the most exciting thing I have seen literally ever.”
“I had this image of a giant explosion on the pad with a wheel bouncing down the road with the Tesla logo landing somewhere,” he said. “Fortunately that is not what happened.”
Loaded with Musk’s red Tesla and a mannequin in a spacesuit, the monster rocket’s historic test voyage captured the world’s imagination.
SpaceX’s webcast showed the Tesla Roadster soaring into space, as David Bowie’s “Space Oddity” played in the background -- with the words “DON’T PANIC” visible on the dashboard, in an apparent nod to the sci-fi series the “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.”
The Roadster was also outfitted with a data storage unit containing Isaac Asimov’s science fiction book series, the Foundation Trilogy, and a plaque bearing the names of 6,000 SpaceX employees.
Musk posted a live video showing the “Starman” mannequin appearing to cruise, its gloved hand on the wheel, through the darkness of space, with the Earth’s image reflected on the car’s glossy red surface.
He tweeted late Tuesday night that the rocket’s upper stage had made a successful final burn, sending the car and its mannequin passenger out of Earth’s orbit, into an orbit around the Sun that brings it close to Mars.
After surviving a five-hour journey through the Van Allen Belt -- a region of high radiation -- the car now embarks on a journey through space that could last a billion years and take it as far as 400 million km from Earth, the same as a trip around the equator 10,000 times. (AFP)
© GRAPHIC NEWSSources: Yahoo Finance, Yardeni Research, Inc.
Stock market pullbacks and corrections After months of levitation, markets are down some eight percent fromall-time highs, triggering fears of a pullback or so-called correction –
a 10 percent drop from the prior market peakS&P 500 index
2008500
1,000
1,500
2,000
2,500
3,000
09 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18
FALL-56.8% -16.0%
-19.4%-7.7%
-5.8%
-12.4%
-9.8%
-9.9%
-5.8%
-6.9% -13.3%
Jan 26, 2018: All-timehigh of 2,872.87Feb 5: Low of 2,638.17Decline of -8.2%
Market pullback – 5% declineCorrection – 10% declineBear market – 20%-plus downturn
Financial crisis
The mock payload of a red Tesla roadster, complete with fake astronaut driver, is on its way to orbiting
the Sun
The mannequin at the wheel of the Tesla roadster blasted into space
Falcon 9 SpaceX heavy rocket lifts off