• Shares of Sony in Japan were up 6.69% on Thursday afternoon in Tokyo.
  
• On Wednesday, Sony raised its forecast for its operating income by 13% to 700 billion yen (approx. $6.7 billion).
  
• Jefferies Asia’s Atul Goyal told CNBC he’s “extremely bullish” on Sony. The firm owns the stock and currently has a buy rating on Sony, with a price target of 13,230 yen per share — more than 50% higher than where the price currently sits.
  

China's aggressive policy of planting trees is likely playing a significant role in tempering its climate impacts.

An international team has identified two areas in the country where the scale of carbon dioxide absorption by new forests has been underestimated.

Taken together, these areas account for a little over 35% of China's entire land carbon "sink", the group says.

The researchers' analysis, based on ground and satellite observations, is reported in Nature journal.


A carbon sink is any reservoir - such as peatlands, or forests - that absorbs more carbon than it releases, thereby lowering the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere.

China is the world's biggest source of human-produced carbon dioxide, responsible for around 28% of global emissions.

But it recently stated an intention to peak those emissions before 2030 and then to move to carbon neutrality by 2060.

The specifics of how the country would reach these goals is not clear, but it inevitably has to include not only deep cuts in fossil fuel use but ways also to pull carbon out of the atmosphere.

"Achieving China's net-zero target by 2060, recently announced by the Chinese President Xi Jinping, will involve a massive change in energy production and also the growth of sustainable land carbon sinks," said co-author Prof Yi Liu at the Institute of Atmospheric Physics (IAP), Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China.

"The afforestation activities described in [our Nature] paper will play a role in achieving that target," he told BBC News.

China's increasing leafiness has been evident for some time. Billions of trees have been planted in recent decades, to tackle desertification and soil loss, and to establish vibrant timber and paper industries.

The new study refines estimates for how much CO2 all these extra trees could be taking up as they grow.



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PETALING JAYA: Umno will be subverting its own interest if it accepts a deputy prime minister’s (DPM) position for one of its leaders, according to political analyst Awang Azman Pawi of Universiti Malaya.

“It’s short-term gain and long-term pain,” he told FMT in a comment on reports that Umno was considering several names to be proposed as its nominee for the DPM’s post. These includes Umno president Ahmad Zahid Hamidi, vice-president Ismail Sabri Yaakob and Sembrong MP Hishammuddin Hussein.

Awang Azman said Umno would complicate matters both within itself and in its relations with PPBM if it was given the post.

He said the rejection of Zahid’s nomination would be a major blow to the party because it would be as if the position of PPBM president was superior to that of the Umno president when PPBM was, in fact, depending on Umno’s support for its political survival.


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Q: Why did the witches' team lose the baseball game?

A: Their bats flew away.

A boy asks his father, "Dad, are bugs good to eat?" "That's disgusting. Don't talk about things like that over dinner," the dad replies. After dinner the father asks, "Now, son, what did you want to ask me?" "Oh, nothing," the boy says. "There was a bug in your soup, but now it’s gone."

KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 29 — When the news broke that Tawfik Ismail, former Sungai Benut MP, will return to politics as an independent, political observers dismissed his chances in an arena dominated by Malay parties.

However, some activists have expressed hope that Tawfik, eldest son of the late Tun Dr Ismail Abdul Rahman, Malaysia’s second deputy prime minister, could shake up the traditional power structure.

Malay Mail met with him and the aligned Gerak Independent joint initiative headed by Malaysian Action for Justice and Unity Foundation (Maju) and other NGOs pushing for independent candidates in the 15th general election.

Tawfik was only 35 when he won the Sungai Benut seat in 1986, but the 69-year-old is finally ready to return to politics.


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PETALING JAYA: A party insider said Umno has gone back to the drawing board over its nominee for the deputy prime minister’s (DPM) post in the Perikatan Nasional (PN)-led government.

Prior to this, a source said Umno only put forth one nominee, party president Ahmad Zahid Hamidi.

The majority of Umno’s 39 MPs are said to be aligned to the Bagan Datuk MP and want him to reassume the DPM role as part of Umno’s “new conditions” for its continued support for the PN government.

“Our choice was Zahid as he has the experience and was the deputy prime minister too,” said a source in the know.


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