The Hilton Worldwide Waldorf Astoria and Mandarin Oriental have announced plans to open properties in Chengdu.

Chengdu is the place to be for major international luxury hotel chains as the booming city continues to attract top names.

The Hilton Worldwide Waldorf Astoria and Mandarin Oriental have announced plans to open properties in Chengdu.

The first Waldorf Astoria hotel in the capital of Sichuan Province is scheduled to open in the second quarter of 2016, which will make it the fifth Waldorf Astoria in China. Situated in the Chengdu Tianfu New Area, the hotel will occupy the top 15 floors of a mixed-used development. Service apartments will fill the lower part of the building.

“The introduction of the Waldorf Astoria brand into Chengdu marks another major milestone in Hilton Worldwide’s expansion across central and western China. We look forward to allowing more guests in China to experience the classic elegance and modern grandeur embodied in this iconic brand and also to helping embellish Chengdu’s status as a leading meetings, incentives, conferences and exhibitions (MICE) and tourist destination,” said John Vanderslice, global head of luxury & lifestyle brands, Hilton Worldwide.

The Mandarin Oriental Chengdu is scheduled to open in 2015 on a prime riverfront site in the Jin-jiang district, across from the ancient Wang-jiang Park. Being touted as the most sophisticated luxury hotel in China, the Mandarin Oriental Chengdu will feature 320 rooms, including 41 suites with plenty of spa and fitness amenities.

Luxury home prices likely to fall in Greater Taipei in 1st half

Prices of luxury apartments in New Taipei City may go down by 10 percent in the second half while those in the outskirts of Taipei by 5 percent, said Yen Pin-li, general manager of real estate advisor DTZ, yesterday. He made the remarks during a news conference yesterday reviewing the housing industry in the second quarter. He based his prediction on the possible effects of the newest credit control measure launched by the central bank against buyers of posh, upscale apartments. Under the measure, banks are not to provide loans of over 60 percent of prices to buyers of luxury homes, which are defined as those exceeding NT$80 million in total price in Greater Taipei and NT$50 million in other parts of the island. Banks are also not to provide home equity loans, home improvement loans or other types of loans to offer additional money to these people, the central bank stipulated. The measure is an extension of an earlier rule restricting loans to buyers of properties in certain portions of Taipei and New Taipei City. The new measure has been effective in suppressing buying in the luxury home market, Yen said. “In the past, one luxury apartment for sale would bring three groups of potential buyers. Now there is only one,” he said. “Consumer sentiment has waned noticeably.” With no incentives or growth dynamics in the market, prices are expected to go through a correction in the second half, he said.

Chinese Millionaires and Super Rich Live

According to Hurun Research Institute, there are a total of 2.7 million dollar millionaires in China and those in Beijing, Guangdong and Shanghai combined represent almost half of total dollar millionaires (47.6%). 

There are 63,500 super rich (CNY 100 million or USD 15.8 million) in China, most of whom are business individuals.

These numbers are known rich people in China and the real number is probably twice or even three times as much.

Diabetes drug makes brain cells grow

The widely used diabetes drug metformin comes with a rather unexpected and alluring side effect: it encourages the growth of new neurons in the brain. The study reported in the July 6th issue of Cell Stem Cell, a Cell Press publication, also finds that those neural effects of the drug also make mice smarter. See Also: Health & Medicine Brain Tumor Stem Cells Nervous System Mind & Brain Brain Injury Intelligence Neuroscience Strange Science Reference Neural development Stem cell treatments Diabetes mellitus type 2 Embryonic stem cell The discovery is an important step toward therapies that aim to repair the brain not by introducing new stem cells but rather by spurring those that are already present into action, says the study's lead author Freda Miller of the University of Toronto-affiliated Hospital for Sick Children. The fact that it's a drug that is so widely used and so safe makes the news all that much better. Earlier work by Miller's team highlighted a pathway known as aPKC-CBP for its essential role in telling neural stem cells where and when to differentiate into mature neurons. As it happened, others had found before them that the same pathway is important for the metabolic effects of the drug metformin, but in liver cells. "We put two and two together," Miller says. If metformin activates the CBP pathway in the liver, they thought, maybe it could also do that in neural stem cells of the brain to encourage brain repair. The new evidence lends support to that promising idea in both mouse brains and human cells. Mice taking metformin not only showed an increase in the birth of new neurons, but they were also better able to learn the location of a hidden platform in a standard maze test of spatial learning. While it remains to be seen whether the very popular diabetes drug might already be serving as a brain booster for those who are now taking it, there are already some early hints that it may have cognitive benefits for people with Alzheimer's disease. It had been thought those improvements were the result of better diabetes control, Miller says, but it now appears that metformin may improve Alzheimer's symptoms by enhancing brain repair. Miller says they now hope to test whether metformin might help repair the brains of those who have suffered brain injury due to trauma or radiation therapies for cancer.

Freeze Fresh Herbs in Oil to Preserve Them

Have a few fresh herbs sitting around that you won't get to using before they turn? Sure, you can freeze them in water or dry them out, but if you know you'll use them relatively quickly, you can add a few weeks to their life without damaging their potency by freezing them in oil instead. We've shown you how to make simply syrups with them, and how to use sea salt to dry them, but if you have some lovely herbs you want to use, but won't get to before they turn brown, consider dropping them in an ice cube tray, filling up the cubes with olive oil (or any other oil of your choice, as long as it freezes nicely), and popping them in the freezer. When you're ready to fry some potatoes, for example, pop out a couple of rosemary oil cubes—you'll need the oil for the pan anyway, and the rosemary will be right at home. Need some oil in a baking dish or crock pot for a few chicken breasts? Grab a frozen sage oil cube. The sky's the limit. The only thing to note is that with some herbs have a shorter shelf life when frozen in oil than in water (like garlic, for example), so this won't beat drying if you're looking to keep your herbs fresh for months and months. It will, however, work for weeks on end, and if you freeze them, pop them out of the ice cube trays and put them into zippered baggies, they'll keep even longer. Then, the next time you need oil for a recipe, you can add a little fresh flavor at the same time. Hit the link below for even more oil-freezing tips, and some tips on which herbs take well to freezing and which don't.

mclaren 12C spider convertible

'MP4-12C spider' by mclaren

mclaren automotive has produced its second 'MP4-12C' model, the '12C spider'. bred through the essence of a race car, the '12C spider' incorporates a 

convertible roof explicitly designed to let users experience the sounds of the vehicle's V8 twin turbo engine. unlike many other convertible models, 
the hard top roof can be operated whilst moving at speeds of up to 30 kph (20mph) taking less than 17 seconds to raise or lower. with the '12C' originally
designed as a convertible, its 75kg carbon fibre monocle frame required no additional strengthening for it to feature in the 'spider'. 

closing the hard-top

the raising of the roof frees 52 liters of space for storage. in 2013, vehicle lift will be available as an option, allowing for the '12C spider' to be raised 
in the front and rear for improved ground clearance, up to 40mm (1.5") at the front and 25mm (1") at the rear.

the MP4-12C will be launched in 'volcano red', one of 17 exterior paint finishes currently available for the '12C' and '12C spider'. 
first deliveries to customers are planned for november 2012. 

closed top

3/4 top view

 

3/4 rear view

 

top view

interior view

specifications: 

0-62 mph (0-100 kph) : 3.1 sec 
0-100 mph (0-161 kph) : 6.1 sec
0-124 mph (0-200 kph) : 9.0 sec
¼ mile (400m) : 10.8 sec at 134 mph (216 kph) 

engine configuration: V8 twin turbo, 7 speed automatic

Barclays boss Bob Diamond resigns

Barclays chief executive Bob Diamond has resigned with immediate effect. The move comes less than a week after the bank was fined a record amount for trying to manipulate inter-bank lending rates. Mr Diamond said he was stepping down because the external pressure on the bank risked "damaging the franchise". Chairman Marcus Agius, who said on Monday he was stepping down, will take over the running of Barclays until a replacement is found. "I am deeply disappointed that the impression created by the events announced last week about what Barclays and its people stand for could not be further from the truth," Mr Diamond said in a statement. He will still appear before MPs on the Treasury Committee to answer questions about the Libor affair on Wednesday. "I look forward to fulfilling my obligation to contribute to the Treasury Committee's enquiries related to the settlements that Barclays announced last week without my leadership in question," Mr Diamond said. Last week, regulators in the US and UK fined Barclays £290m ($450m) for attempting to rig Libor and Euribor, the interest rates at which banks lend to each other, which underpin trillions of pounds worth of financial transactions. Staff did this over a number of years, trying to raise them for profit and then, during the financial crisis, lowering them to hide the level to which Barclays was under financial stress. Prime Minister David Cameron has described the rigging of Libor rates as "a scandal". The Serious Fraud Office is also considering whether to bring criminal charges.