1 Samsung profit forecast up 80% (BBC) Electronics
giant Samsung has estimated its third quarter operating profit will be 7.3t won
($6.29bn) - up 79.8% from a year earlier. The numbers would mark the South
Korean firm's first quarterly profit growth in two years. The company's full
results will be released later this month.
Samsung has recently been facing stiff competition
for its top-end smartphones made by its main rival, Apple, while its bottom-end
smartphones have been struggling against Chinese smartphone makers such as
Xiaomi.
Analysts have said the firm's positive third quarter
guidance numbers probably reflect stronger smartphone earnings from a year
earlier - particularly thanks to the launch of the firm's Galaxy Note 5 in
August. Improved sales of televisions and semiconductors are also expected to
have given a boost to the firm's profits, together with a weaker won which
makes its products cheaper to buy overseas.
2 South Africa business confidence at 22-year low
(Johannesburg Times) South Africa's business confidence index fell to its
lowest in 22 years in September, a survey has shown, reflecting companies'
worries about sub-par domestic and global economic growth.
The Business Confidence Index slid to 81.6 from 84.3
in August, reaching its weakest level since July 1993, the South African
Chamber of Commerce and Industry (SACCI) said. "Apart from subdued
domestic economic performance, global financial market nervousness as well as
global economic uncertainty continued to prevail," SACCI said.
3 Harvard debate team loses to New York prison
inmates (The Guardian) Months after winning a national title, Harvard’s debate
team has fallen to a group of New York prison inmates. The showdown took place
at the Eastern Correctional Facility in New York, a maximum-security prison
where convicts can take courses taught by faculty from nearby Bard college, and
where inmates have formed a popular debate club.
Last month they invited the Ivy League
undergraduates and this year’s national debate champions over for a friendly
competition.The Harvard debate team was crowned world champions in 2014. In the
two years since they started a debate club, the prisoners have beaten teams
from the US military academy at West Point and the University of Vermont. The
competition with West Point, which is now an annual affair, has grown into a
rivalry.
At Bard, those who helped teach the inmates were not
particularly surprised by their success. “Students in the prison are held to
the exact same standards, levels of rigor and expectation as students on Bard’s
main campus,” said Max Kenner, executive director of the Bard prison
initiative, which operates in six New York prisons.
Students on the Harvard team posted a comment on a
team Facebook page. “There are few teams we are prouder of having lost a debate
to than the phenomenally intelligent and articulate team we faced this
weekend,” they wrote.
Against Harvard the inmates had to defend a position
they opposed: they had to argue that public schools should be allowed to turn
away students whose parents entered the US illegally. The inmates brought up
arguments that the Harvard team had not considered. Three students from
Harvard’s team responded, and a panel of neutral judges declared the inmates
victorious.
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