Movement Reportedly Seen at N.Korea Site

SEOUL, South Korea - South Korea's military is observing movements at a site in North Korea where the communist country is believed to have conducted its first nuclear test, indicating possible preparations for another test, Yonhap news agency reported Saturday.

The report, citing multiple unnamed military officials, said South Korea is closely monitoring movements of trucks and North Korean soldiers at the site in Punggye-ri in the country's remote northeast.

"It is clear there are movements at Punggye-ri after the nuclear test," one military official was quoted as saying. "We are closely monitoring to see if these are preparations for a second nuclear test."

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CTL market players weigh options and increase vigilance.

Like markets across the board, the business of credit tenant leases and of net lease transactions in general is striking a tenuous balance between trepidation and evolution following the events of Sept. 11. While deal flow remains relatively healthy and long-term ramifications seem few, market players are nonetheless reticent to proclaim - or even define - business as usual, as evidenced by the postponement of this week's Synthetic Lease and Credit Tenant Lease Forum 2001 in New York.

"The events of Sept. 11 stopped everything in place for a couple of weeks," said Kyle Gore at Legg Mason Wood Walker. "We're just now figuring out how to get things back out into the …

Store's new owners not liable for extended warranties.(Legal File)

Byline: Eric Freedman

The owners of a Mazda dealership are not liable for extended warranties sold by the previous owner, the South Carolina Court of Appeals has ruled. The court said the new owners did not assume the dealership's liabilities when they bought its assets.

The decision is a victory for Ken McManus and Eric Sigmon, who bought the assets of Mazda of Rock Hill, now called Team Mazda. It is a loss for Bobby Walton, who says the new owners illegally refused to honor a service contract he bought from the dealership's previous operator.

The case

According to court records and lawyer interviews, in August 2002 Walton bought a 1999 …

Emerson develops scroll unit calculator.(internet news)

Emerson Climate Technologies has developed an online calculator that allows contractors to determine how much energy they can save by using the company's XJ Series scroll units.

The XJ Energy Savings Calculator for Copeland Scroll outdoor condensing units compares the XJ scroll to other standard offerings.

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"The XJ Energy Savings Calculator will be a useful tool for a wide variety of people and businesses that are looking to save money and energy on their refrigeration systems," said Jon Lazarow, director of food service marketing at the company. "We've done the legwork so that they can simply fill in a few parameters and find out which unit delivers the best payback."

To use the XJ Energy Savings Calculator, businesses fill in the following information, including box temperature, geographical location, designload basis and local electricity rates.

Once those fields have been populated, the calculator displays the annual operating cost and unit savings of a XJ unit versus alternatives. The final display includes units ranging from 1.5 to 6 horsepower, and includes savings for hermetic, scroll and semi-hermetic units.

For more information on the online calculator, visit www. Emersonclimate.com/copelandoutdoorunit.

LITTLE BEAVER STATE PARK HAS A HOLIDAY SURPRISE FOR CAMPERS.

BEAVER, W.Va. -- The following information was released by the West Virginia State Government:

Long in the works, a campground at Little Beaver State Park will open 30 of the planned 46 total campsites on July 1, just in time for the Independence Day holiday weekend. The 30 campsites will be first-come first-served. The location is minutes off I-64 in Raleigh County. From I-64, take Exit 129A, It is two miles south on WV 307.

"It will quickly become one of our most successful campgrounds in our state park system," said Ken Caplinger, chief of West Virginia State Parks. "It is a welcome addition to our outdoor recreation offerings at state parks."

"These 30 sites have water and electricity," said Erik Evans, park superintendent. "The remaining 16 sites, when completed, will have water only. All sites currently have gravel based pads and access and can accommodate up to a 40-foot RV. The campground features a central dump station, check-in building with camp store. The camp store offers wireless Internet."

A large bathhouse with laundry facilities is also open. "As we bring the campground into full operation, I know campers will appreciate the on-site services and amenities," said Evans. The remaining 16-sites are forecast to be open by mid- to late-fall in 2011. Site paving is planned.

Camping rates are $28 for sites with water and electricity and $25 for sites with water hookup only. "Although these first sites are first-come first-serve for now, we expect to begin taking reservations next year. Our system will mirror the state park campground reservation guidelines," Evans said.

Until now, Little Beaver State Park has been a popular 562-acre day use park featuring Little Beaver Lake for fishing, paddle and row boating. The five reservable picnic shelters, playground, geocaching, activity building and game room are popular with families, reunions and day visitors. Eighteen trails are open to hiking and bicycle riding.

"The campground adds another layer of service at Little Beaver and to our state park system. We're glad to have these 30 sites available and look forward to completing the full site inventory," said Evans. Little Beaver is near Grandview National Park and Theater West Virginia summer productions. Grandview became part of New River Gorge National River in 1990 after more than 50 years as one of West Virginia's state parks.

Campground construction costs at Little Beaver are reported to be less than a million dollars, with work performed in-house by state park employees and other entities. For information about Little Beaver State Park, call 304-763-2494 or visit online www.littlebeaverstatepark.com.

Find all of West Virginia's state parks and state forests at www.wvstateparks.com.

TURKISH VILLAGERS WATCH SYRIAN CRISIS UNFOLD.

GA1/4VEAs.As.I, Turkey -- The following information was released by the Voice of America (VOA):

As the Syrian government continues its violent crackdown on protestors, thousands of people are fleeing across the Turkish border. In the village of GA1/4veAs.As.i, Turkish residents have been watching the refugees stream across. The villagers have a unique vantage point on the events taking place across the border.

At the bottom of the valley lies the border dividing Turkey and Syria.

From their rooftops, the residents of GA1/4veAs.As.i gather in a daily vigil - searching for any glimpse of what is unfolding in the Syrian hills beyond. Many have relatives living there.a [umlaut]

In the late afternoon hundreds of people begin to gather over the border. As the crowd swells they hold a body aloft wrapped in a white sheet.

They carry it to an area of open ground among the orchards.

Locals say the body has been brought here to show the atrocities taking place in Syria to the watching media.

Muhammed is among those watching from the village. He arrived here 2 days ago from Syria. He says there are around 2,000 refugees hiding next to the border among the orchards. He said the Syrian security agents are targeting people who tried to leave the country.

"They are attacking peoples houses and trying to stop them escaping. They break in to people's houses and arrest them there. They even attacked them where they are hiding among the trees and took their children away from them. One woman has given birth hiding in those trees. The area where they're living is completely open to attack. They drink only river water. They wash their clothes in the river and they wash their food with the river water and they drink it," he said.

Muhammed says the body is one of four shot dead by the Syrian security force in the villages just over the border.

Long-time GA1/4veAs.As.i resident AbdullahA[+ or -]n has seen the numbers of people gathering on the border steadily grow in the past few days. "They are scared to be killed that's why they're here. But maybe they don't let them come in. I don't know if they want to come to this side or if they stay there I'm sad, of course I'm sad. We are all brothers, we are all Muslims," he said.

Ambulances and Turkish military patrols pass by along the border. Villagers say some refugees are being housed at the local border post.

Locals on the Turkish side say that 2 days ago a group of several hundred refugees came over the border and were picked up by the Turkish military. The Syrians won't let any foreign journalists in and they're shutting down mobile phone and internet networks which means it's impossible to say if more refugees are on their way.

Preparations are being made for more arrivals - like a refugee camp in the nearby town of YayladaAA[+ or -].

Turkish officials say 4,300 people have now fled across the border. The true number including those who slipped across undetected is likely to be much higher.

Back in GA1/4veAs.As.i, the crowd of mourners has disappeared from view. Syrian refugee Muhammed says the protests will go on until the Assad regime is finished. "All they want is to have democracy and freedom. They don't want anything else from Bashr al-Assad. They want to live in a civilised way like all other countries in the world," he said.

Like the rest of the outside world, the people of GA1/4veAs.As.i will continue to watch and wonder exactly what is happening in the lands beyond the border.

Turning "Like" to "Buy": Social media emerges as a commerce channel.

Now that social networking has become embedded in the fabric of everyday life for millions of consumA[degrees]ers globally, social network sites promise to be the next generation of e-commerce engines and are moving rapidly in that direction. Marketers and strategists are smart to feel a sense of urgency in understanding and experimenting with direct commerce within these platforms; early movers will have a solid foundation on which to build their social commerce capabilities as the platform evolves. As always, learning what doesn't work will be as important as learnA[degrees]ing what does.

Social media has revolutionized the way people communicate and maintain relationships. Globally, Internet users now spend more than four and a half hours per week on social networking sites, more time than they spend on e-mail. There is a public quality to how communicaA[degrees]tion happens on social networks--people are, to use the Facebook analogy, sharing their thoughts on "a wall" for others to see. As more and more of what people think and do ends up getting communicated on these new-age bulletin boards, it is inevitable that social networks will start to affect what consumers buy and how they shop. In a way that has never before been true, consumers are determining which products and services succeed and are shaping the messaging.

The era of social commerce

If the new medium of social networks is creating challenges for companies, it is also handing them an opportunity. Retail, consumer electronics, and media companies are among the many types of organizations that have followed consumers into the social arena, creating Facebook fan pages, sending microblog messages, and building communities. Lead generation--the ubiquitous "likes" of Facebook--will not be the most important activity for long, however. The next phase will go beyond mere communication and influencing. Consumers will transact commerce inside social networks--selecting products, adding their selections to shopping carts, and completing purchases through payA[degrees]ment with credit cards and points. As they do so, the era of social comA[degrees]merce will commence in earnest.

Companies that are pursuing social commerce regard it as a distinct channel underpinned by a significant new aspect of consumer behavior. This new channel represents the merger of e-commerce and social media, as transactions are actually performed within the platform rather than at the retailer's e-commerce site. How ready are consumers to buy products through social media? A 2010 survey by Booz & Company of consumers who spend at least one hour a month on social networking sites and who have bought at least one product online in the last year provides some insight. Twenty-seven percent of respondents said they would be willing to purchase physical goods through social networking sites. Moreover, 10 percent said their buying through social networking sites will be incremental to other buying they do--that is, they will end up buying more physical goods overall. The 73 percent who said they would not purchase goods through social networking sites largely cited concerns related to security and privacy, two areas that many big social networking sites are already working to improve.

"These emerging attitudes make it unlikely that social commerce--a cousin, after all, of the more familiar e-commerce--will face hurdles related to its newness. And as companies find ways to embed their e-commerce engines within social media, the market for social commerce will skyrocket, helped in part by new models for buying and by the availability of products developed specifically for social networking sites," said Ramez Shehadi, Booz & Company Partner leading the IT Practice in the Middle East.

Social commerce opportunities

Today, companies already see opportunities to use social commerce at every moment along the path to purchase--awareA[degrees]ness, consideration, conversion, and loyalty and service--and also to meaA[degrees]sure the success of their efforts. Each step along this path--generating awareness, enticA[degrees]ing customers to buy, and cultivating their loyalty--presents its own opportunities. Companies should be considering targeted efforts all along this path, while integrating social commerce as part of an overarching multi-channel strategy. Developing an integrated and comprehensive strategy for gathering customer data and mining it for insights, imagining new methods for customers to decide and buy together, and building a compelling customer experience will be essential to succeed in this new era of socially powered commerce.

Mastering social commerce

But for most companies, social comA[degrees]merce represents a new channel, with much to learn and master. There are four imperatives that every company should keep in mind.

Imperative 1: Jump in soon and learn by doing. It is usually a good idea to study a new opportunity closely, but given the fast pace at which social commerce is evolving, companies must be willing to learn while doing.

Imperative 2: Develop a strategy for getting the data you need. Companies should develop a "wish list" of information relating to social commerce and then segA[degrees]ment it by how hard it is to get.

Imperative 3: Define what the customer experience should be. Companies should use tests, pilot projects, and sociographic data to map out different social commerce strategies to get a sense of what their customers will see, how they will respond, and what they like best.

Imperative 4: Integrate social commerce into an overall multi-channel strategy. As social commerce becomes a bigger part of the overall sales mix, it is important to underA[degrees]stand its position in the company's broader multi-channel strategy, and in particular to determine the impact social commerce will have on other channels.

A sales channel in its own right

"The market for social commerce has been embryonic to date, but that will change over the next five years as companies race to establish stores, pushing up social commerce revenues sixfold, to US$30 billion globally. As this growth surge happens, social commerce will take its place alongside stores, telesales, and the more tradiA[degrees]tional Web to emerge as a significant sales channel in its own right," concluded Shehadi.

2011 CPI Financial. All rights reserved.

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