Lapan Ferrari, sebuah Lamborghini berlanggar

BEBERAPA anggota polis melakukan siasatan ke atas tiga buah kereta sport mewah yang terlibat dalam perlanggaran melibatkan 14 buah kenderaan di lebuh raya Chugoku, Shimonoseki kelmarin.

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TOKYO - Lapan buah kereta sport Ferrari, sebuah Lamborghini dan dua buah kereta Mercedes berlanggar di sebuah lebuh raya di Shimonoseki, tenggara Jepun kelmarin.

Menurut agensi berita AP, polis menyatakan perlanggaran itu disebabkan salah seorang pemandu sebuah Ferrari itu cuba untuk mengubah laluan sebelum kereta tersebut merempuh penghadang jalan.

Kereta Ferrari itu kemudian berpusing di lebuh raya tersebut.

Beberapa buah kereta lain berlanggar kerana cuba mengelak Ferrari tersebut.

Tiada seorang yang cedera serius dalam nahas itu tetapi polis di wilayah Yamaguchi menyatakan 10 orang dirawat kerana mengalami luka.

Menurut polis, 14 buah kereta terlibat dalam nahas itu.

Agensi berita AFP melaporkan bahawa kos perlanggaran itu melibatkan 300 juta yen (RM12.07 juta).

Harga kereta baharu Ferrari ialah lebih 20 juta yen (RM804,794) manakala Lamborghini berharga sehingga 30 juta yen (RM1.20 juta). - Agensi

Into the record bugs

Biggest ever ... Weta bug found in NZ

AN EXPLORER has found the biggest insect ever on record - so large it can scoff a carrot.

She's called a Weta Bug and has a huge wing span of SEVEN inches and weighs as much as three mice.

Former park ranger Mark Moffett, 55, discovered the cricket-like creature up a tree on New Zealand's Little Barrier Island.

He spent two days searching for the creepy crawly which were thought to be extinct after Europeans brought rats to the island many years ago.

American Mark, 53, said: "Three of us walked the trails of this small island for two nights scanning the vegetation for a giant weta.

Huge ... insect weighs as much as three mice

"We spent many hours with no luck finding any at all, before we saw her up in a tree.

"The giant weta is the largest insect in the world, and this is the biggest one ever found.

"She enjoyed the carrot so much she seemed to ignore the fact she was resting on our hands and carried on munching away.

"She would have finished the carrot very quickly, but this is an extremely endangered species and we didn't want to risk indigestion.

"After she had chewed a little I took this picture and we put her right back where we found her."

Mark, from Colorado, added: "We bug lovers hear a lot of people who think insects are inferior in some way because of their size, so it was great to see such a big insect.

"This became all the more amazing when we realised that this was the largest insect recorded."

Superman comic sells for £1.4m

Record ... original Superman edition

THE first comic book to ever feature Superman has been sold for a record £1.4MILLION — reportedly by cash-strapped Hollywood star Nicolas Cage.

The Action Comics No.1 introduced the iconic superhero to the world in 1938 and cost just ten cents at the time.

Con Air star Cage famously bought a copy of the collector's item — of which there are only around 100 in existence for £96,000 in 1997 — when he was set to appear in a Superman film directed by Tim Burton.

It is said the comic that was sold was stolen in 2000 and recovered in a California storage shed in April this year — just like an issue owned by Cage.

Seller? ... Nicolas Cage

Cage — who is so obsessed with the Man of Steel he named his six-year-old son Kal-El, Superman's birth name — had to pay to get it back because the insurance company had already settled up.

The actor — who used to command millions for his films — is believed to have had to flog the comic after getting into financial trouble.

Two years ago Cage sued his former business manager, Samuel Levine, for allegedly squandering his fortune on bad investments.

Since then he has been sued by the taxman, banks and finance companies, and even his ex-girlfriend, Christina Fulton, the mother of his 20-year-old son, Weston.

He has lost several properties through foreclosure and sold off others, including two in England and a castle in Bavaria, to try to pay his bills.

Only a handful of the Action Comics No 1 still in existence are thought to be in a good condition.

Another copy of the same issue sold for a previous record price of £950,000 in March last year.

But that one was not said to be in as good condition as the copy sold yesterday through New York-based ComicConnect.

Ferrari FF Neiman Marcus Sold Out in 50 Minutes

The special edition of the Ferrari FF showcased in the annual Neiman Marcus Chrismas Book, was sold within fifty minutes on Thursday, October 27, 2011.

Despite a price tag of $395,000 (or $95k more than a dealer-purchased Ferrari FF), the 10 available cars sold out in less than an hour!

The Neiman Marcus FF will come in an elegant Grigio Caldo exterior color and with a matching luggage set to compliment the Ferrari’s treated leather interior.

To top off the package is an awesome Ferrari Winter Driving Experience that will be held in Aspen, Colorado.

You don’t even have to flog your own FF through the Colorado snow; it’s an arrive-and-drive program, using Ferrari’s FFs instead of your own.

Individuals who ordered the Ferrari FF Neiman Marcus also get the added bonus of receiving their cars by spring of 2012 (much sooner than normal FF buyers).

Source: motorauthority

2013 Hennessey Venom Spyder

Performance has released the first image and details for the Venom GT Spyder, the open top variant of the Venom GT Coupe.

A massive 1,200 bhp (895 kW / 1217 PS) is produced by the Venom GT Spyder’s engine and the model’s weight is stated to be 1,200 kg ( 2,645 lbs ).

Pricing for the coupe is set at $950,000 whereas the Spyder will cost $1.1 million.

Source: Worldcarfans

Kek Krismas paling panjang di dunia

KEK terpanjang di dunia dipamerkan di sebuah hotel di Shanghai semalam.

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SHANGHAI - Seramai 80 orang tukang masak membantu mengukur kek Krismas paling panjang di dunia di sebuah hotel di sini semalam.

Kek itu yang sepanjang 1,068 meter berperisa vanila dan mengandungi coklat diiktiraf dalam rekod Guinness sebagai yang terpanjang di dunia.

Ia dibuat sempena satu majlis kebajikan bagi mengutip derma untuk kanak-kanak yang menghidap kanser. - Agensi

K-Pop mahu kuasai dunia

BEBERAPA anggota kumpulan K-Pop, Girls Generation membuat persembahan pada majlis pembukaan empat saluran televisyen kabel di Seoul semalam.

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LONDON - Selepas melonjak popular di Asia, generasi muda bintang pop Korea Selatan yang dikenali sebagai K-Pop kini berusaha menakluki dunia dengan muzik mereka.

Sejumlah bintang Korea Selatan itu pernah membuat persembahan pentas di London dan New York.

Seorang pakar senario muzik Asia, Steve McClure berkata, dia percaya K-Pop memiliki peluang lebih cerah menembusi pasaran dunia berbanding muzik pop Jepun.

Menurut McClure, berbanding Jepun, pasaran muzik di Korea Selatan terhad dengan sebahagian besar pendapatan penyanyinya dikawal firma telekomunikasi tempatan yang menaja mereka.

Justeru, katanya, penyanyi Korea Selatan lebih fokus untuk mencari pasaran di luar negara untuk menambah pendapatan mereka.

Contoh terbaik ialah kumpulan K-Pop ialah Girls Generation apabila 500,000 unit album pertama mereka dijual di Jepun.

Selain itu, menurutnya, bintang K-Pop bersikap lebih profesional dan menghasilkan muzik lebih baik daripada pesaing mereka dari Jepun. - Reuters

Korean Pop Music Out To Conquer The World

Korean Pop Music Out To Conquer The World Members of K-Pop idol group Girls' Generation perform during the Korean Pop Culture and Art Awards at the Olympic Hall in Seoul November 21, 2011. By Mike Collett-White LONDON, Nov 30 (Reuters) - A host of young Korean stars are taking to the stage in London, New York and beyond in a bid to crack one of the final global frontiers for Asian culture -- pop music. "K-pop," as Korean pop is called, has made major inroads into Japan, the world's second largest music market. But breaking into key countries further afield like Britain, Germany, France and, most crucially, the United States, has so far eluded acts who may be household names at home but remain virtual unknowns outside Asia. Korean bands are not the only ones trying to be the next Britney Spears, Lady Gaga or Justin Bieber. Japanese artists, some of them "J-pop" superstars, have also looked overseas for new audiences, although the size of their own market, only just behind the United States in the world rankings, means they have less incentive. "It is a pain for a lot of these Japanese bands to make the effort to try and penetrate overseas markets," said Steve McClure, executive editor of McClure's Asia Music News and an authority on the region's music scene. "Time spent doing that is time not spent here and it's a really fast-paced market and you have to work at it," he told Reuters, speaking from Japan. Foreign music accounts for around a quarter of Japanese record sales, and the top 10 albums on record are all by local artists. Hikaru Utada holds the record with "First Love" from 1999, while Mariah Carey is the biggest international artist. K-POP VS. J-POP McClure, like many others, believes that K-pop stands a better chance at success globally than J-pop, although even that is far from certain. The structure of Korea's relatively small music market is such that telecom companies control a large proportion of revenues, he said, meaning bands have an economic incentive to look abroad. And K-pop acts, often created and nurtured by savvy record companies like S.M. Entertainment, are being groomed for specific markets -- learning Japanese, for example, and fitting in with Japan's musical mores. One recent success story has been the nine-member South Korean girl band Girls' Generation, whose first full-length Japanese album sold over 500,000 copies in Japan. McClure also argued that Korean pop acts, though often manufactured, were generally more professional than their Japanese rivals and produced a better sound. The most obvious, and biggest barrier to Asian acts breaking regions like Europe and North America is language. Since music is about communicating ideas and feelings, common language helps. And the prevalence of English makes it easier for a singer from Toronto, for example, than one from Tokyo. "The language barrier is probably the biggest thing that sets us apart from the global (arena)," said G.NA, a 24-year-old Canadian-Korean singer whose first language is English but who has found success in Korea. She, along with two other K-pop acts, will be appearing at London's 02 Academy Brixton on December 5 as part of what the PR company handling the gig called "The Invasion of K-Pop." It follows a K-pop concert at New York's Madison Square Garden in October. Those and other similar gigs outside Asia underline the ambition of K-pop acts and management companies to conquer the West and beyond. It may be less invasion and more a small-scale foray, but promoters say there are encouraging signs for K-pop. "We can't spend too much money if there is no market for us," said Ronnie Yang, head of CABA Entertainment who is organizing the London gig featuring artists from Cube Entertainment. "But we feel this is the right stage for developing a new market -- there is demand and it is higher than before." G.NA, for one, is not getting lost in the hype. Chance, she says, is as important as anything else. "This industry is kind of like gambling," she told Reuters by telephone from Seoul. "You lose something, and you may lose everything. You may win and win more than expected. I think there's a lot of luck. "It does depend on how much we try, but no matter how hard we try, if the circumstances don't work out, then things may not work out the way we planned. This concert is huge -- if people don't like it that could be the end of that." "GENRE-SPECIFIC" The wide pop genre may be the hardest market to crack abroad, but there has been success in the United States and elsewhere within narrower categories of music like classical, dance, rock and heavy metal. Japanese heavy metal band X Japan staged a North American tour in 2010 catching the attention of major news outlets, and have visited Europe, Latin America and Asia this year. L'Arc-en-Ciel, a Japanese rock group, has flirted with the United States and Europe, and plans a 2012 world tour. The event is limited in scale so far, however, with seven dates showing on the website including indigO2 in London with a capacity of around 2,500. The band's guitarist Ken alluded to a cultural barrier which has proven tough to break down. "In Japan I am always listening to music from the U.S. and the UK," he told Reuters by telephone, speaking through a translator. "But I never really got the impression people in the UK were listening to music from other parts of the world. So I'm really looking forward to getting a sense of how those people in Britain will perceive our music." McClure added: "Music is meant to be the universal language...well, yes and no. "There does seem to be this inability to accept an Asian face in the world pop music market place. I don't know why that is, as there are Asians who have done well in other spheres."

Bukti keampuhan automotif Jepun

RAKYAT Jepun tidak pernah gagal untuk bangkit. Contoh paling klasik adalah bagaimana negara itu mampu menjadi salah sebuah kuasa ekonomi dunia, biarpun Hisroshima dan Nagasaki hampir lumat dibedil bom atom Amerika Syarikat (AS) pada Perang Dunia Kedua pada tahun 1945.

Jepun juga tidak pernah sunyi daripada berdepan bencana alam. Berada dalam lingkungan Lingkaran Api Pasifik, negara matahari terbit itu sering digegar oleh gempa bumi berskala tinggi. Kemuncaknya, 11 Mac lalu bahagian timur negara berkenaan dilanda gempa bumi dan tsunami.

Impaknya meliputi segala aspek. Loji nuklear Fukushima Daiichi musnah dibadai tsunami, sekali gus mencetus krisis nuklear dan tenaga. Selaku rumah kepada banyak syarikat pengeluar kenderaan utama dunia, bencana itu nyata mengganggu rantaian bekalan alat ganti. Akibatnya, jumlah pengilangan automobil Jepun menjunam.

Bagi wartawan pemotoran seperti saya, antara persoalan yang timbul adakah Jepun akan membatalkan acara pemotoran pentingnya iaitu Tokyo Motor Show 2011 (TMS). TMS yang merupakan acara dwitahunan biasanya dilangsungkan pada bulan Oktober.

Selepas beberapa ketika berada dalam ketidaktentuan, akhirnya penganjur acara tersebut, Japan Automobile Manufacturers Association (JAMA) mengesahkan bahawa TMS 2011 akan berlangsung bermula 2 hingga 11 Disember depan.

Tidak keterlaluan jika dikatakan bahawa penganjuran TMS membuktikan komitmen industri pemotoran Jepun untuk pulih. Malah, pengeluaran kenderaannya berjaya dipulihkan dalam masa yang singkat.

SEORANG model keluar daripada jentera elektrik sepenuhnya, Nissan Pivo 3.

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Pengerusi JAMA, Toshiyuki Shiga menegaskan pihaknya akan menganjurkan TMS yang sudah memasuki edisi ke-42 sebagaimana dirancang. “Kami yakin TMS akan membuktikan kepada semua tentang daya pemulihan industri perkilangan automotif Jepun,” jelas Shiga.

Tokyo Big Sight

Jika sebelum ini TMS sering diadakan di dewan pusat konvensyen Makuhari Messe, Chiba, tahun 2011 menyaksikan lokasinya diubah ke Tokyo Big Sight, Ariake, Koto-ku, Tokyo, Jepun, sekali lagi selepas 24 tahun. Ruang seluas 3,265 meter persegi itu akan menempatkan 176 pempamer dari 12 buah negara dan satu rantau.

Apa yang pasti, ia jauh lebih gah berbanding TMS 2009 yang ketika itu baru merangkak untuk bangkit daripada kemelesetan ekonomi dunia.

Harus diakui juga bahawa pertumbuhan pesat automobil di pasaran besar seperti China dan India sedikit sebanyak mengalih perhatian dunia kepada pameran sama yang diadakan di Beijing, Shanghai dan New Delhi.

Justeru, TMS 2011 yang menjadi simbol kuasa teknologi Jepun perlu bertindak selaku sumber maklumat berkaitan teknologi automobil, bandar dan pengguna. Dengan hasrat menjadi pameran automotif berteknologi termaju, TMS 2011 mengangkat tema Bandar Mobiliti Pintar atau Smart Mobility City.

KENDERAAN masa depan yang comel dan mesra alam, Nissan Townpod.

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Tema itu sekali gus akan mempamerkan kenderaan generasi akan datang (tahun 2040 - 2050) dan sistem-sistem sosial yang berinteraksi dengannya. Ia jua menunjukkan tentang peranan dan tanggungjawab industri automotif di sebalik kebimbangan terhadap isu tenaga serta alam sekitar di peringkat global.

Pengenalan Dunia

Jadi, apa yang boleh anda jangkakan daripada TMS 2011? Sebanyak 52 pengenalan dunia (world premiere) dan 82 penampilan pertama untuk pasaran Jepun akan mengambil tempat di sana.

Untuk tatapan anda, saya telah memilih beberapa pengeluar kenderaan utama Jepun dan apa yang mereka akan pamerkan pada TMS 2011 secara ringkas.

Honda membariskan model-model konsep yang direka untuk keseronokan dan kemudahan mobiliti. Tidak terkecuali, satu model konsep sports yang memberi petunjuk tentang arah rekabentuk model-model masa depannya.

Honda membahagikan model konsepnya kepada tiga kategori iaitu kereta yang terdiri daripada Small Sports EV Concept, AC-X dan Micro Commuter Concept. Sementara model konsep motosikal pula meliputi model Motor Compo, E-Canopy dan RC-E. bukan itu sahaja, Honda turut memperkenalkan model konsep komuter yang diberi nama Townwalker.

MODEL yang diberi nama Townwalker ini dibina untuk memudahkan golongan warga emas bergerak.

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Pengeluar itu juga bakal memperkenalkan N Concept, siri kenderaan kecil yang memberi penekanan terhadap ruang. Produksi pertama model daripada siri itu ialah N BOX. Jentera-jentera lain yang turut dipamerkan ialah Accord, Insight, Jazz dan CR-Z.

Nissan Motor Co. Ltd. akan mengetengahkan kenderaan baharu, prototaip dan tiga kereta konsep. Antara model yang pasti mendapat perhatian ialah model konsep EV iaitu Pivo 3, Esflow dan Townpod. NV350 merupakan model prototaip van komersial ringan penuh gaya.

Toyota pula bakal memperkenalkan kepada dunia model konsep Fun-Vii (Fun Vehicle interactive internet), FCV-R (Fuel Cell Vehicle - Reality & Revolution) dan FT-EV III (Future Toyota - Electric Vehicle III).

Memberi fokus kepada untuk memenuhi keperluan pengguna kontemporari, Suzuki mempamerkan kereta-kereta kompaknya. Antara model yang boleh ditatap oleh pengunjung ialah Regina, Q-Concept dan Swift EV Hybrid.

Mitsubishi juga tidak ketinggalan untuk mempamerkan kemajuan teknologinya dalam menghasilkan kenderaan elektrik. Pengunjung akan dihidangkan dengan model konsep seperti Mitsubishi Concept PX-MiEV dan i-MiEV Cargo.

Drogba to quit Chelsea after snubbing new deal

DEAL ME OUT ... veteran Blues' hitman Drogba

DIDIER DROGBA is ready to walk away from Chelsea after rejecting a January move to AC Milan.

The striker, 33, is in the final season of his £120,000-a-week contract and has turned down a 12-month extension.

Now he is poised to quit Stamford Bridge as a free agent next summer for a lucrative switch to Russia or Qatar.

Drogba's agent Thierno Seydi, based in Senegal, claimed last night: "Didier has had the offer of a one-year extension from Chelsea. That does not suit us.

"We know what we want, where we want to go and what offers we have.

"AC Milan came in for Didier on loan with an option to buy but I said 'No' straight away. Their offer did not interest us.

"At Didier's age, he has nothing left to prove as a player. He will go where he is offered the most money.

"It could be the United States, Russia, Qatar or somewhere else in Asia.

"Once you are well into your thirties you have to go to a club where you can be certain you'll be able to pay your bills.

"LA Galaxy are a possibility among many others. He has been linked with Anzhi Makhachkala in Russia, as they pay well.

"But neither Didier nor I have had an offer from them."

Drogba was signed by Jose Mourinho from Marseille for £24million back in 2004 and has scored 146 goals in his seven years at Chelsea.

News of Drogba's impending departure comes as former Blues favourite Marcel Desailly claims the club is being torn apart under Andre Villas-Boas by dressing-room cliques.

The World Cup-winning Frenchman said: "There are quite a few mini-clans at the club.

"The squad is exploding and people who could hold things together in the past are having to deal with personal worries. You sense total disorganisation at Chelsea right now. It is collectively falling apart."