Oil exports from southern Iraq shut down
Basra: Attacks on oil pipelines have forced oil exports from southern Iraq to a complete halt, according to a senior Iraqi oil official. The official said that exports were not likely to resume for at least one week.

Iraq's southern pipelines export 90 per cent of Iraq's oil. Exports out of the south normally average about 1.85 million barrels a day. Saboteurs blew up a cluster of pipelines yesterday in southern Iraq in one of the latest attacks targeting the country's crucial oil industry.

The pipeline, which connects the Rumeila oilfields with export storage tanks in the Faw peninsula, was set ablaze after the attack and emergency workers were struggling to put the fire out. On Saturday, insurgents blew up another pipeline in the West Qurna oilfields, about 90 miles north of Basra. (AP)
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World Bank: Pak economy to grow over 6 per cent
Islamabad: Pakistan's economy is set to grow more than six per cent this fiscal year, despite the threat of inflation, a weakening currency and pressure on its balance of payments, a World Bank official said today.

The Asian Development Bank warned last week that inflation might exceed the government's target of five per cent for the current fiscal year that began July 1. Inflation hit 9.3 per cent in July - it's highest pace in six years.

Pakistan has seen a swift economic turnaround in the last two years, with its highest growth in a decade - but still a third of the people live in poverty.
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The India Perspective: Global insurance outsourcing
Dublin, Ireland: Research and Markets has announced the addition of Global Insurance Outsourcing - The India Perspective: Overview, Trends, Insights and Competitor Profiles to their offering.

Insurance companies have traditionally been among the slowest adopters of outsourcing/off shoring. However shrinking margins, higher claims disbursement and increasing competition in recent years, especially post 9/11, have forced insurance companies to look at outsourcing/offshoring to improve efficiencies and channelize resources towards the core functions of product development and innovation.

The sheer size of the insurance industry with over 1500 P&C insurance companies and 1300 health insurance companies in the US alone makes insurance outsourcing an attractive market. The success of the early adopters will determine future growth rates. Several niche providers with relevant domain expertise are emerging, encouraging insurance companies to outsource more value-added services.

Some of the key drivers of insurance off shoring include:

Cost saving, Focus on core processes, Speed to market, Technology risk, Better quality through specialized services, Insurance regulation and statutory documentation in the US, Deregulation of insurance markets, HMOs move their processes offshore, Availability of credible service providers, Minimizing risk through multiple delivery locations

Factors inhibiting insurance companies from off shoring include:

Cultural differences and Perception of loss of control
The banking, financial services and insurance (BFSI) vertical is among the fastest growing segments in the outsourcing industry and the Indian off shoring industry is particularly strong in this vertical. India's BFSI outsourcing revenues in 2003 stood at $1.1 billion, which constituted 2.5 percent of global BFSI outsourcing, while its share of the overall global BPO market was only 0.41 percent. For the top 5 Indian vendors in the BFSI space, the insurance vertical accounts for 49 percent of revenues.

India has several advantages as a leading insurance outsourcing destination:

Low cost advantage, Established destination for outsourcing, Indian companies offer near-shore services, Indian IT outsourcers can leverage existing relationships with large insurers, Indian vendors are expanding organically and inorganically to establish a multi-location presence to de-risk their business

Indian insurance outsourcing revenues for 2003 are estimated at $367 million of which, 63 per cent came from the US, 22 per cent from EMEA and 15 per cent from the rest of the world. By 2007, the Indian insurance outsourcing revenues are expected to grow to $790 million.
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Patch Care: Centralized security patch service
Tokyo, Japan: Internet Initiative Japan Inc., one of Japan's leading Internet access and comprehensive network solutions providers, has announced that on September 1, 2004, its subsidiary, Net Care, Inc., will release Patch Care, a centralized security patch management service.

Microsoft Product Support Services issues patches under the name Hot Fix, and these patches address certain security issues for a customer. For Patch Care customers, the Network Care Operation Center remotely installs Critical and Important Hot Fixes for Windows XP Pro and Windows 2000 Pro on PCs connected to the customer's network.

As dramatically demonstrated by the Blaster virus, which ravaged the world in August 2003, the number of attacks targeting Windows security holes has been increasing in recent years. These events have raised awareness of the extreme importance of installing Hot Fix patches. However, installing these patches is a serious responsibility. It requires IT administrators to know which Hot Fixes to install, in what order, on each computer in the entire organization, and any mistakes in this order may make Windows unstable, or in the worst case, even reduce the overall security level.

With Patch Care, the customer's computing environment, from small LANs to large corporate networks, is connected to the Net Care Operation Center (NOC) via VPN. When information on a vulnerability or Hot Fix is released, the NOC sends it immediately to the customer and takes the following actions.

1. The NOC reports the Hot Fix information to the customer
2. The customer's system administrator gives the okay to install the patch
3. A check is made for reports on performance problems associated with the Hot Fix
4. The appropriate operations are performed on the customer's PCs that have agent software installed

System administrators do not need to worry about installing Hot Fixes and they can operate their systems with the comfort of knowing that a secure computing environment supports them. Used in tandem with firewalls and anti-virus software, Patch Care provides an effective defense against hackers that try to exploit these types of security holes.

Net Care, Inc. was established in February 1998, with Internet Initiative Japan Inc., CRC Solutions, Inc., and JGC Corporation as major shareholders. Net Care is an outsourcing supplier that provides needed services to the highest specifications-Outsource on Demand Solutions.

Founded in 1992, Internet Initiative Japan Inc. is one of Japan's leading Internet-access and comprehensive network solutions providers. The company has built one of the largest Internet backbone networks in Japan, and between Japan and the United States. IIJ and its group of companies provide total network solutions that mainly cater to high-end corporate customers. The company's services include high-quality systems integration and security services, Internet access, hosting/housing, and content design.
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