Today’s collection of headlines from the realm of human transactions and their consequences begins with the jaded avocations of the big winners. From The Guardian:
Super rich shift their thrills from luxury goods to costly experiences
Gourmet dining, private flights, bespoke safaris, slimming clinics and art auctions emerging as top status symbols
They say money can’t buy happiness but the world’s super rich are still giving it their best shot, spending $1.8tn (£1.1tn)last year on luxury goods and services – with extreme holidays, gourmet dining and art auctions emerging as the status symbols du jour.
“Luxury is shifting rapidly from ‘having’ to ‘being’ – that is, consumers are moving from owning a luxury product to experiencing a luxury,” said BCG senior partner Antonella Mei-Pochtler. “They already have the luxury toys; the cars and the jewellery.”
Of the $1.8tn spent on luxuries in 2013, according to BCG an estimated $1tn went on services – from private airline flights to luxury slimming clinics, to a five-star hospital stay where the patient will be waited on by a butler and the en-suite facilities include a marble bath.
The £1.1tn spent is slightly more than the wealth controlled by the poorest half of the world’s population – 3.5 billion people. Oxfam recently estimated their combined wealth at £1tn in a report on inequality, where it pointed out that this sum was the same as the wealth controlled by the world’s richest 85 billionaires.
Warnings of things to come from the London Telegraph:
Currency crisis at Chinese banks ‘could trigger global meltdown’
A rise in foreign funding at China’s banks poses a threat for international lenders
The growing problems in the Chinese banking system could spill over into a wider financial crisis, one of the most respected analysts of China’s lenders has warned.
Charlene Chu, a former senior analyst at Fitch in Beijing and now the head of Asian research at Autonomous Research, said the rapid expansion of foreign-currency borrowing meant a crisis in China’s financial system was becoming a bigger risk for international banks.
“One of the reasons why the situation in China has been so stable up to this point is that, unlike many emerging markets, there is very, very little reliance on foreign funding. As that changes, it obviously increases their vulnerability to swings in foreign investor appetite,” said Ms Chu in an interview with The Telegraph.
Reuters covers losses:
Emerging market funds lose $9 billion in past week: data
Investors yanked $9 billion from emerging stock and bond funds during a turbulent past week, with equities seeing their biggest outflow in 2-1/2 years, banks said on Friday citing data from Boston-based fund tracker EPFR Global.
EPFR had released data to clients late on Thursday showing emerging equity funds lost $6.3 billion in the week to January 29, the biggest weekly outflow since August 2011.
This week has seen some major falls in emerging currencies’ exchange rates, with central banks forced into rate rises or market interventions to limit the swings. Those currency losses and rate rises have put pressure on bond and stock holdings, forcing exits.
The New York Times brings it closer to Casa esnl:
Parched, California Cuts Off Tap to Agencies
Acting in one of the worst droughts in California’s history, state officials announced on Friday that they would cut off the water that it provides to local agencies serving 25 million residents and about 750,000 acres of farmland.
With no end in sight for the dry spell and reservoirs at historic lows, Mark Cowin, director of the California Department of Water Resources, said his agency needed to preserve what little water remained so it could be used “as wisely as possible.”
It is the first time in the 54-year history of the State Water Project that water allocations to all of the public water agencies it serves have been cut to zero. That decision will force 29 local agencies to look elsewhere for water. Most have other sources they can draw from, such as groundwater and local reservoirs.
But the drought has already taken a toll on those supplies, and some cities, particularly in the eastern San Francisco Bay Area, rely almost exclusively on the State Water Project, Mr. Cowin said.
MintPress News eases up:
CA Law Enforcement Proposes Softening Drug Laws
If passed, those convicted for drug possession would be sent to substance-abuse treatment centers, sentenced to probation or ordered to perform community service, instead of being incarcerated.
For decades, law enforcement officers across the U.S. have fought the war on drugs by locking users behind bars. But since that strategy hasn’t proven to be successful in the slightest, some officers in California have come together to propose reducing charges for the simple possession of all drugs from a felony to a misdemeanor.
One of the proposal’s biggest supporters is San Francisco District Attorney George Gascón, who is working with San Diego Police Chief Bill Lansdowne to push for the inclusion of such a measure on the state ballot this fall.
If passed, those convicted for drug possession, including heroin, would be sent to substance-abuse treatment centers, sentenced to probation or ordered to perform community service, instead of being locked behind bars. Unlike a felony, a misdemeanor charge would not appear on an individual’s permanent record.
The Guardian condescends to profit:
US newspapers fall out over ‘dead peasant’ insurance
Two weeks ago, the publisher of two Californian newspapers – the Orange County Register and Riverside Press-Enterprise – laid off 39 employees, including eight full-time newsroom staff and four part-time sub-editors and designers.
It was part of a restructuring programme by Freedom Communications, following 42 redundancies in December, as it seeks to centralise Press-Enterprise production at the Register’s offices.
Then Freedom followed up that bad news by sending an email to the staff who remain informing them that the company wishes to buy life insurance for them.
But the beneficiaries of the million-dollar-plus policies will not be the employees or their families, but the company’s pension scheme.
A writer in the Los Angles Times (the Register’s rival), Michael Hiltzik, referred to the plan as a “ghoulish corporate strategy”. He went on to explain that it is not illegal – it’s known formally as COLI (“company owned life insurance”).
More losers from Al Jazeera America:
More jobless Americans losing benefits every week
Unemployment rate remains stubbornly high, as Congress fails to renew payments for more than 1.5 million on the dole
The lifeline of long-term unemployment benefits ended for at least 1.5 million Americans at the end of December, and more will see their payments cut each week that Congress fails to act. Almost 38 percent of the unemployed had been out of work for 27 weeks or more as of December, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. While the unemployment rate is down to 6.7 percent from 10 percent in October 2008, at the height of the recession, 10.4 million people remained out of work in December.
The Guardian loads up the money bin:
Google reports 17% revenue rise for fourth quarter
Results come a day after search giant sells Motorola Mobile
Low-cost mobile ads chip away at the price for online ads
Google’s revenues climbed 17% in the final quarter of 2013, the company announced Thursday, but low-cost mobile ads chipped away at the price the tech giant commands for online ads.
The company’s results came a day after it announced it was selling Motorola Mobile for a fraction of its purchase price. Google’s consolidated revenue, which includes the money-losing Motorola smartphone business, rose to $16.86bn for the quarter from $14.42bn in the fourth quarter of 2012. Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters had expected $16.75bn. Profits rose 17% to $3.38bn, or $9.90 a share, up from $2.89bn, or $8.62 per share, for the same period last year.
From The Hill, Hillary-ous idiocy:
Mont. House candidate calls Hillary Clinton ‘Antichrist’
Montana House candidate Ryan Zinke, the early Republican front-runner for Montana’s open House seat, called former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton the “Antichrist” in a recent campaign appearance, according to a local newspaper.
“We need to focus on the real enemy,” he said referring to Clinton, according to the Big Fork Eagle, before calling her the Antichrist.
Zinke, a former Navy SEAL, is one of six Republicans in a crowded field to replace Rep. Steve Daines (R-Mont.), who is running for the Senate. He’s emerged as the early front-runner in the GOP primary due to his fundraising prowess. Zinke raised $450,000 in the last three months of 2013 and has $350,000 in the bank.
Bloomberg plays the middle:
House Republicans’ Economic Agenda Targets Middle Class
U.S. House Republican leaders are preparing an economic agenda that includes energy proposals aimed at lowering utility bills and countering President Barack Obama’s focus on income inequality, according to a document obtained by Bloomberg News.
The agenda includes voting on an alternative measure to Obama’s health-care law and re-authorizing a funding program for career and technical education. The framework is designed to reach middle-class voters whose wages have remained stagnant even as the U.S. economy improves.
The broad outline was distributed to Republicans yesterday at a private meeting in Cambridge, Maryland, where lawmakers are concluding a three-day policy retreat today. Republicans, largely blamed for the 16-day partial government shutdown in October, want their positions to be seen as an alternative to those of Obama and the Democrats.
The Guardian spots the flaw:
The problem with retirement savings: making enough money to save
The president’s new MyRA plan is a tiny, positive step for Americans, but it won’t help so long as wages are shrinking
Americans don’t have a problem saving for retirement. The real issue is that Americans aren’t making enough money.
There’s no question that a retirement crisis is looming. The numbers just don’t work for many Americans right now. For instance, do you think you can live on only $575 a month? That’s for rent, food, utilities, and transportation as well as any fun you may want to have. Probably not: an income of $575 a month is well below the federal poverty line. Yet that’s the estimate of how much the average American with a 401k plan will be able to earn from his or her nest egg. And about half of all Americans don’t even have a 401k plan, often because their employer doesn’t offer one.
Across the Atlantic with Europe Online:
Annual eurozone inflation unexpectedly falls in January
Annual eurozone inflation unexpectedly fell in January, according to data released Friday, adding to deflation fears and increasing pressure on the European Central Bank to deliver a new interest rate cut.
The cost of living in the 18-member currency bloc dropped to 0.7 per cent in January, from 0.8 per cent in December, the European Statistics Office Eurostat said.
The fall in consumer prices took inflation further away from the ECB’s annual inflation target of below but close to 2 per cent.
Bothering BBC News:
Fall in eurozone inflation rate fuels deflation concerns
Calls for European Central Bank action to help protect the eurozone’s fragile recovery have grown after the release of inflation and jobless data.
Official figures showed that eurozone inflation fell to 0.7% in January, down from 0.8% in December and further below the ECB’s 2% target.
It has fuelled worries about whether the euro bloc could suffer deflation, potentially de-railing economic growth.
Separate data showed the unemployment rate in December was unchanged at 12%.
Edible insecurity from EurActiv:
Food security hindered by seed market dominance, MEPs warn
The EU seed market is dominated by a few large seed businesses rather than a diverse range of smaller companies, which has implications for the continent’s food security, says a report commissioned by European Parliament Green group.
Five companies control about 95% of the vegetable seed sector and 75% of the maize market share specifically, according to the report, presented in the European Parliament on Wednesday (29 January).
The assertion goes against European Commission and seed industry’s position that the market, and the five dominant companies, is made up of some 7000 mainly small and medium-sized entreprises, allowing for healthy competition.
“This is simply not true. The EU seed market is not healthy. It is not diversified,” said Bart Staes, a Green MEP from Belgium who presented the report, ‘Concentration of market power in the EU seed market’.
On to Britain with The Guardian:
Real wages have been falling for longest period for at least 50 years, ONS says
Real wages have been falling by 2.2% a year in the longest sustained period of falling real wages in the UK on record
Real wages have been falling consistently since 2010, the longest period for 50 years, according to the Office for National Statistics, adding that low productivity growth seems to be pushing wages down.
Real wage growth averaged 2.9% in the 1970s and 1980s, 1.5% in the 1990s, 1.2% in 2000s, but has fallen to minus 2.2% since the first quarter of 2010, the ONS figures showed.
TUC general secretary Frances O’Grady said: “Over the last four years British workers have suffered an unprecedented real wage squeeze.
All or none with EUbusiness:
British PM pledges renewed EU referendum push
British Prime Minister David Cameron pledged Friday to force through parliament a bill guaranteeing an in-or-out referendum on EU membership by the end of 2017, after the upper house killed off legislation.
He pledged to wield the Parliament Act, which enforces the supremacy of the elected lower House of Commons over the appointed upper House of Lords.
The act is only rarely used to overcome the Lords blocking the will of the Commons. It has only ever been enacted a handful of times since it was introduced in 1911.
Norway next, with an exclusive from TheLocal.no:
Norway oil fund blacklists Israeli firms
Norway’s huge sovereign wealth fund, the world’s largest, blacklisted two Israeli companies involved in construction of settlements in East Jerusalem, the country’s finance ministry said Thursday.
The ban on investing in the firms revived a three-year prohibition on them that the Government Pension Fund of Norway had dropped in August last year.
The companies are Africa Israel Investments, an Israeli real estate developer, and its construction subsidiary Danya Cerbus.
The ministry cited the company’s alleged “contribution to serious violations of individual rights in war or conflict through the construction of settlements in East Jerusalem,” a territory where Israel’s claims are not recognised by the international community.
On to Amsterdam and an austerian retreat from DutchNews.nl:
Single parents on welfare benefits ‘won’t have to apply for jobs’
The government has agreed to drop plans to force single mothers with young children and on welfare benefits to apply for jobs.
Kees van der Staaij, leader of the orthodox Christian party SGP, broke the news during a debate organised by the religious paper Nederlands Dagblad. Talks between junior social affairs minister Jetta Klijnsma and opposition parties on reaching a compromise on the reforms are currently ongoing.
Klijnsma wants to shake up the welfare system by making sure claimants are actively looking for work and introducing work for welfare schemes. But she needs the support of opposition parties to get the changes through the upper house of parliament, where the government does not have a majority.
Germany next, first with TheLocal.de:
US view of Germany ‘better than ever’
Despite America’s reputation in Germany taking a hit over the NSA spying scandal, Americans have a more positive impression of Germany than at any time in the last 12 years, according to a study released on Thursday.
The annual Magid study, which has been conducted every year since 2002, included questions on US-German relations as well as Germany’s role in Europe.
Carried out at the end of 2013, it found 60 percent of Americans had an excellent or good impression of Germany, particularly on economics, education and technology.
Germany was also seen as an economic leader and was chosen as the country best suited to lead Europe out of its debt crisis, followed by Great Britain and the US.
Europe Online declines:
German Christmas retail sales unexpectedly slump
German retail sales fell during the key Christmas shopping season, according to data released Friday, setting back hopes of private consumption emerging as a driving force behind growth in Europe’s biggest economy.
Retail sales fell 2.5 per cent in real terms in December, after gaining 0.9 per cent in November. Analysts had expected retail sales to increase by 0.2 per cent.
Year-on-year, retail sales also posted a surprise fall, dropping by 2.4 per cent in December, compared with a 1.1-per-cent rise in November.
Another decline from RFI:
France deports fewer illegal immigrants in 2013
French Interior minister Manuel Valls has announced that 27,000 illegal immigrants were deported in 2013, 9,000 fewer than in 2012. The right-wing opposition slammed the Socialist government’s performance as “laxism”.
Some 46,000 undocumented immigrants were given papers to stay, 10,000 more than the previous year, the figures, published Friday, showed.
Parliamentary elections 2012
They are the first official review of government migration policy since François Hollande came to power in May 2012.
TheLocal.fr hits the bricks:
Thousands march for traditional family values
Tens of thousands of people marched in Paris and Lyon on Sunday against new laws easing abortion restrictions and legalising gay marriage, accusing French President Francois Hollande’s government of “family phobia”.
Police said 80,000 people took to the streets of the French capital, creating a sea of blue, white and pink – the colours of the lead organising movement LMPT (Protest for Everyone) – who gave a far higher turnout figure of half a million.
Demonstrator Philippe Blin, a pastor from nearby Sevres, said he felt a “relentlessness against the family” in France.
At least 20,000 rallied in Lyon, many of them ferried in aboard dozens of buses, waving placards reading “Mom and Dad, There’s Nothing Better for a Child” and “Two Fathers, Two Mothers, Children With No Bearings” — a slogan that rhymes in French.
While France 24 notes odd political bedfellows:
Muslims join Paris protest against gender equality drive in schools
Tens of thousands of supporters of the conservative “Manif pour Tous” movement gathered in Paris on Sunday to protest against gender equality teaching in schools and fertility treatment for same-sex couples.
Sunday’s march included a prominent Muslim contribution in a protest movement, originally opposed to gay marriage legislation that was passed in 2013, that has so far been overwhelmingly linked to far-right political parties and to conservative Catholic groups.
The “Manif Pour Tous” (MPT) mounted huge protests before legislation was passed in 2013 allowing gay marriages. Its focus now is on a family law, due to be debated later in the spring, which would allow for medically-assisted procreation (MAP) and IVF treatment for same-sex couples.
Many protesters also told FRANCE 24 they were worried about the state’s role in sex education, and the supposed “gender theory” lurking behind an “ABCD of equality” initiative aimed at breaking down gender stereotypes in schools.
From Spain, a countermarch from TheLocal.es:
Thousands join Madrid abortion-rights rally
Thousands of pro-choice campaigners converged on the Spanish capital Saturday to voice their opposition to a government plan to restrict access to abortion in the mainly Catholic country.
Demonstrators shouting slogans and carrying banners that read “It’s my right, It’s my life” crowded around a Madrid station to greet a “freedom train” of activists from northern Spain for the country’s first major protest against the plan.
Under pressure from the Catholic Church, Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy’s conservative government announced on December 20th it would roll back a 2010 law that allows women to opt freely for abortion in the first 14 weeks of pregnancy.
The new law — yet to pass parliament, where the ruling People’s Party enjoys an absolute majority — would allow abortion only in cases of rape or a threat to the physical or psychological health of the mother.
Xinhua takes vows:
Spanish PM Rajoy promises fiscal reform, tax cuts
Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy promised on Sunday to see through a program of fiscal reform in the remaining two years of his mandate.
Speaking to close the national convention of his ruling Popular Party (PP), Rajoy said he would continue with the program of reforms his party have introduced in the slightly over two years since they have been in power.
“We will carry out fiscal reform: of course we will,” said Rajoy, who said it would be “an integral reform which will stimulate growth and employment in line with the recovery of the country.”
The ultimate human austerian cost from TheLocal.es:
Spain’s suicide rate highest in eight years
Figures from Spain’s National Institute of Statistics (INE) show a surge in the suicide rate but heart attacks remain the leading cause of death.
The most recent data from 2012, released on Friday, reveals that 402,950 people died in Spain, some 15,039 (3.9 percent) more than in 2011.
There were 3539 suicides (2,724 men and 815 women), up 11.3 percent from the year before, a rate of 7.6 per 100,000 inhabitants. The figures were the highest since 2005.
According to official broadcaster RTVE, suicide was second only to cancer (15 percent of deaths) in the overall 25-34 age group, but the leading cause of death in young men (17.8 percent).
A Fourth Estate loss from TheLocal.es:
Corruption-probing newspaper chief sacked
Spain’s leading centre-right newspaper El Mundo said on Thursday it was dismissing its director Pedro J. Ramirez, under whose leadership the daily broke a series of political corruption stories.
Ramirez’s scoops included a report last year of alleged secret payments to members of Spain’s ruling party, which forced Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy to fight off calls to resign.
The paper has vigorously pursued stories of corruption on the right and left, including allegations of fraud involving former officials in the Socialist-run southern region of Andalusia.
The usual suspects, doing quite well, via TheLocal.es:
Spain’s top banks enjoy 2013 profit surge
Top Spanish banks have reported a 2013 profit surge, predicting better times ahead after taking hefty losses in Spain and other crisis-hit eurozone nations.
Santander, BBVA and CaixaBank said they had emerged stronger from banking troubles that led to a 41-billion-euro ($56 billion) rescue of their weaker rivals in Spain.
All Spanish banks have had to set aside money for losses on assets, pounded by the collapse in 2008 of a decade-long property boom.
At the same time, they have been obliged to boost the ratio of rock-solid core capital on their balance sheets.
Analysts say risks remain in the sector, with doubtful loans rising in November to 13.08 percent of all credit extended by Spanish banks, the highest since records began in their existing form in 1962.
Xinhua takes us to Portugal:
Portuguese protest against gov’t austerity measures
Thousands of Portuguese staged a protest Saturday against government austerity measures in the downtown of capital Lisbon.
General Confederation of the Portuguese Workers, or CGTP, who organized the demonstration, called for the Portuguese to struggle against the government, oppose the exploitation and poverty and demand for salary rise, employment and welfare.
Raising high placards, the demonstrators marched from Cais Sodre railway station towards Restaurante Square in downtown Lisbon, chanting slogans against government austerity measures and calling for the government to step down.
Italy next, and a populist movement critiqued via AGI:
M5S has been shown ‘excessive’ tolerance, says Letta
Italy’s Prime Minister, Enrico Letta, said “excessive levels of tolerance” had been shown to the anti-establishment Five Star Movement (M5S) following recent controversy.
The group promised to never sit peacefully in parliament again after the President of the Chamber of Deputies, Laura Boldrini, used the hotly debated ‘guillotine’ to swiftly convert a decree on the IMU property tax into law, culminating in the group demanding her resignation, as well as the impeachment of Italian President Giorgio Napolitano.
“I think there has been an excessive level of tolerance towards methods falling outside those allowed by democratic rules”, Letta stated during a press conference. “Both the accusations towards President Napolitano and behaviour in parliament must be strongly and clearly condemned”.
After the jump, the ongoing Greek crisis, Ukrainian posturing, Argentine financial woes, Indian uncertainty, Thai electoral turmoil, Malaysian misery, mixed signals from China, Japanese anxieties, ecological disasters, and Fuksuhimapocalypse Now!. . .
Greek Reporter gives the first Hellenic headline:
German Document Reveals New Greek Aid Package
German magazine “ Der Spiegel” reported on Saturday that Germany is preparing a new aid package for Greece . According to a five-page document of the German Finance Ministry presented in the magazine the new package will be in the range of 10 to 20 billion euros.
This aid package is expected to force the Greek government to proceed with new measures and reforms and help the country meet its borrowing needs for the next two years. However, it won’t have the form of a third memorandum in order to avoid political reactions.
According to the article, the new aid package will be released before European Elections in May. At the same time, it is estimated that there will be an extension of repayment of the current debt with lower interest rates.
To Vima hits a high note:
Eurostat shows Greece has highest unemployment rate (27.8%) in Europe
Greece also has the highest youth unemployment rate amongst the EU and Eurozone member states
The European statistics authority Eurostat has announced that according to its latest set of figures, the rate of unemployment in Greece during October 2013 climbed to 27.8% from the 27.7% rate in September. Overall the rate of unemployment in the Eurozone between October and December 2013 remained stable at 12%, while the rate of unemployment during December in the EU dropped to 10.7%, from 10.8% in November.
In absolute numbers, for December 2013, Eurostat documented 26.2 million unemployed in the EU and 19.01 million euros in the Eurozone. Compared to November 2013, there were 162,000 fewer unemployed in the EU and 129,000 fewer unemployed in the Eurozone.
ANSAmed charts an uptick:
Greece: retail sales rise in Nov. for 1st time in four years
Greek retail sales rebounded in November for the first time since April 2010, Kathimerini online reports quoting data released on Friday by Hellenic statistics service (Elstat).
Retail sales by volume rose 2.9% year-on-year after a downwardly revised 1.1% annual drop in October. The November rise was mostly due to a 30% jump in apparel and footwear sales.
Hit by the country’s deep recession and record unemployment, retail sales declined by an average annual clip of 8.3% between January and November, compared to a 12% drop in the full year of 2012. The sector has shrunk by 34% in 2009-2012.
Kathimerini English notes stumbling blocks:
Greece has long list of bailout actions still pending
Greece is behind in the implementation of 153 actions demanded by its lenders, according to a timetable compiled by the Finance Ministry, Kathimerini has learned.
Of the outstanding actions, 57 are the responsibility of the Finance Ministry, 17 fall to the Development Ministry, another 17 to the Labor Ministry and eight to the Administrative Reform Ministry. The rest are divided among other ministries.
Among the Finance Ministry’s key tasks is to scrap third-party levies. It has sent a proposal on this to the troika and is waiting for a response. For the Development Ministry, one of the main goals is to implement the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’s (OECD) proposals for removing barriers to competition, also known as the tool-kit. The Administrative Reform Ministry still has 12,500 civil servants to place in a mobility scheme. More than 7,000 of these will come from positions being scrapped at healthcare provider EOPYY. For the Labor Ministry, reducing social security contributions and changing regulations on mass dismissals are among the outstanding items.
Greek Reporter campaigns:
Recent headlines from the German newspaper “Bild” have started a new propagandistic campaign against Greece. The newspaper claims that the Greeks have a lot more money than the German people and should pay wealth tax to recover from the crisis.
“We got used to it. For years the Germans have to pay for the bankrupt Greeks. The excuse is that apparently Greeks cannot help themselves. However, the truth seems to be different. Actually, Greeks have a lot more money than us.” the article states, noting that while a German household has an average income of 51,4000 euros, a Greek household has an income of 101,900 euros.
The article, commenting on the Germany’s Bundesbank proposal that countries about to go bankrupt should impose their citizens a one-off capital levy before asking other states for help, said that “wealthy Greeks should be paying for their own debts.”
EnetEnglish.gr ups the rhetorical ante in the hard times intolerance sweepstakes:
Refugees are ‘unarmed invaders’ sent by the Turks, says govt MP
Comments follow minister’s complaints of low ‘quality’ of Greece’s migrants
Sofia Voultepsi, a New Democracy MP for Greater Athens, says ‘refugees … are, ultimately, unarmed invaders, weapons in the hands of the Turks’
Migrants like these people who survived the incident at Farmakonissi are ‘unarmed invaders’ in the eyes of a New Democracy MP (Photo: AFP) Migrants like these people who survived the incident at Farmakonissi are ‘unarmed invaders’ in the eyes of a New Democracy MP (Photo: AFP) Migrants are “unarmed invaders, weapons in the hands of the Turks”, a New Democracy MP has alleged, less than two weeks after 12 women and children drowned in a controversial coastguard operation near the islet of Farmakonisi in the eastern Aegean.
Sofia Voultepsi, who has represented the Greater Athens constituency for the conservative party since 2004, singled out Farmakonisi, during a live panel discussion on Mega television.
Attacking Syriza for its involvement in the case, she said the main opposition party has “driven us crazy since the Farmakonisi shipwreck. They’ve shut down Athens. They’ve paraded Afghans, Pakistanis (and) Bangladeshis around.”
The Guardian covers a neo-Nazi identity crisis:
Greece’s Golden Dawn to form new party if banned from polls
Far-right activists say they will form National Dawn to contest elections if they are prevented from standing in elections
After months of lying low, Greece’s neofascist Golden Dawn party has returned to the streets, vowing to contest local and European elections under a new name to circumvent a possible ban.
The Greek far-right party, Europe’s most violent political force, announced they would form a new outfit called National Dawn if they are prevented from participating in the poll because of an ongoing inquiry into alleged criminal activities.
“Patriots will have a party to vote for in the next election if (authorities) go ahead with the coup to ban Golden Dawn,” the MP and leading light of the party Ilias Kasidiaris told thousands of black-clad supporters gathered in central Athens.
Kathimerini English campaigns:
SYRIZA, New Democracy prepare for key electoral battle on May 25
As the government announced Saturday that European Parliament elections will be held on the same day as the second round of Greece’s local elections, leftist opposition SYRIZA sought to up the ante ahead of the polls.
During a meeting of SYRIZA’s central committee on Saturday, party leader Alexis Tsipras appeared confident of victory in the late May ballots which he described as “a referendum against the government of the memorandum.”
Tsipras, who has called for a snap vote several times in the past few months, said that Prime Minister Antonis Samaras’s repeated assurances that election will take place after the government has completed its four-year term in 2016 cannot disguise his unease about the conservative party’s decline.
On to the Ukraine and bombast from BBC News:
Ukraine unrest: EU and US clash with Russia in Munich
Ukraine’s future has sparked angry exchanges at a summit in Munich.
European Council President Herman Van Rompuy said the “future of Ukraine belongs with the EU” while US Secretary of State John Kerry said the US backed Ukraine’s “fight for democracy”.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov accused Western countries of double standards over violent protests.
Ukraine has been in turmoil since November, when it scrapped an EU accord in favour of a Russian bailout.
The Guardian takes a semantic stance:
US and Europe stand with people of Ukraine, says John Kerry
US secretary of state speaks at Munich conference amid growing fears that military will use force against protesters
The US secretary of state, John Kerry, has said that the US and Europe stand with the people of Ukraine as fears that the Ukrainian army could be deployed against anti-government protesters grow.
Speaking in Munich, Kerry said: “Nowhere is the fight for a democratic, European future more important today than in Ukraine,” Kerry told political, diplomatic and military leaders at a Munich security conference. The United States and EU stand with the people of Ukraine in that fight.”
Leaders of the opposition were due to meet Kerry in Munich, hours after the Ukrainian army called on the president, Viktor Yanukovych, to act to end the crisis. Moscow also warned Yanukovych that he would lose power if he failed to “quash the rebellion”.
Time charts a trend:
Right-Wing Thugs Are Hijacking Ukraine’s Liberal Uprising
The liberal, pro–European Union protests that first rocked Kiev have taken a darker turn, with right-wing vigilante groups rising to prominence amid violence and police crackdowns
Not long before midnight on Sunday, a few dozen men in ski masks and camouflage surrounded the headquarters of the Ministry of Justice in the center of Kiev, the capital of Ukraine, and smashed out the first floor windows with baseball bats. They made short work of the bars over the windows, prying them out of the walls with their clubs, and climbed inside. It was the third federal ministry the group had seized in a week.
Calling themselves members of Spilna Sprava, or Common Cause, the group has emerged as one of about a dozen obscure organizations competing for distinction, if not outright leadership, in the uprising against President Viktor Yanukovych. These groups range from right-wing radicals and soccer hooligans to military veterans and mobs of stick-wielding goons. And to the gall of more-established opposition figures, like the world boxing champion Vitali Klitschko, they have become the revolution’s most commanding presence. Anyone with a stake in resolving Ukraine’s political crisis — including the diplomats watching fretfully from the E.U. and U.S. — will likely have to reckon with the role of these groups. But they are becoming increasingly hard to control.
Latin America next, and a digital dismissal from the Argentina Star:
Argentine politician fires 170 civil servants via YouTube video
An Argentine politician has fired half of his 340 provincial officials via a YouTube video.
Alberto Weretilneck, Governor of Rio Negro province, posted a video message explaining that austerity measures had made 170 layoffs necessary to deal with budget shortfalls, the Journal.ie reported.
He further added that the salaries of the remaining employees will be reduced by 15 percent.
MercoPress covers monetary misery:
Argentina’s financial hot summer: record devaluation of the Peso, record loss of reserves
The Argentine currency ended trading on Friday, the first month of 2014, at 8.01 Pesos to the US dollar with an accumulated devaluation in January of 18.63%, the greatest loss in a single month since 2002. However market analysts described the situation as a depreciation ‘sustained and managed’ by the government of President Cristina Fernandez.
The peso devaluation concentrated on 23/24 January when the exchange rate jumped from 6.92 to 8.0183 Pesos to the dollar with peaks of 8.40. But then the Central bank intervened and balanced the dollar exchange rate in the range of 8 Pesos. Since January 2013 when the US dollar was selling at 4.9768 Pesos the Argentine currency lost 60.95% of its value in the official market.
But despite the soaring price for the dollar, according to primary data, the Central bank on Friday lost 170 million dollars, totaling in January an erosion of 2.499 million dollars which means the level of international reserves now stands at 28.100bn. January is now the worst month in eight years for reserves.
Fiscal impotency from AFP:
Argentina powerless in the face of peso fall
Argentina appears powerless in the face of the hemorrhage of the peso, as the central bank reported Thursday it had burned through $2.1 billion in reserves in January alone.
The government is struggling to beat back a mounting rush into dollars that has stoked 26 percent inflation despite price controls on many items and pressure on businesses to avoid price increases.
Foreign reserves, crucial to service foreign debts and pay for needed imports like fuels, have tumbled from $52 billion at the beginning of 2011 to $28.5 billion as of January 30, according to Central Bank data.
The London Telegraph minimizes:
Argentina is no danger to the world – but the eurozone is
Emerging markets are making headlines as they jack up interest rates to defend their currencies, but it is the eurozone that is still in a really bad way
On to Asia and the first of three Indian headlines from the Financial Express:
Fiscal deficit in India creates mammoth challenge for FM P. Chidambaram in poll year
Fiscal deficit in India in the first three quarters inched closer to the budgeted target for the whole year, suggesting P. Chidambaram, Finance Minister of Asia’s third-largest economy, faces a challenge to meet the target.
The government is facing a shortfall in tax collections and revenue receipts from the sale of government shares in state-run companies as economic growth slows to less than 5 percent this fiscal year, from near double digits before the 2008 global crisis.
However, the subsidy bill – mainly for selling oil, fertiliser and food at cheaper rates – is likely to touch near 3 trillion rupees ($48 billion), against a budgeted target of 2.21 trillion rupees.
A second from the Financial Express:
After Walmart, Amazon lobbies in US for Indian FDI
After supermarket giant Walmart, it is online retail major Amazon which has begun lobbying with the US lawmakers to seek their support for facilitating its “foreign direct investment in India”.
According to lobby disclosure reports filed with the US Senate, Amazon.com and its group entities including Amazon Corporate LLC have been lobbying on various issues since at least year 2000.
However, it was only in the last quarter, ended December 31, 2013, when its lobbying issues included “foreign direct investment in India”, shows the latest disclosure report dated January 22, 2014.
One last time, the Financial Express:
Infrastructure output growth in India slows to 2.1 pct: Govt
Poor performance of coal, petroleum refinery products and natural gas pulled down the core (infrastructure) sector growth in India to 2.1 per cent in December, 2013 from 7.5 per cent in the same month a year ago.
It is, however, better than in the previous two months. The eight core industries had contracted by 0.6 per cent in October and grew by a modest 1.7 per cent in November.
The core sector growth is 2.5 per cent during the April-December period of this fiscal compared to 6.8 per cent in the same period of 2012-13.
Thai troubles from The Observer:
Bangkok rocked by gunfire and bombs as protests grow on eve of poll
Opposition demonstrators clashed violently with pro-government ‘red shirts’ in the capital ahead of the snap election called today by the Thai prime minister
Gunfire and explosions rocked Bangkok following clashes between pro-government “red shirts” and protesters, leading to fears of further violence as Thais head to the polls.
Witnesses near the ballot distribution centre in Lak Si, in the north of the capital, described a chaotic scene in which explosions and sporadic gunfire lasting an hour echoed through the air, forcing people to seek shelter in a nearby shopping centre.
The BBC reported that as many as six people, including one journalist, may have been injured in the clashes, although it was unclear whether the injured were pro- or anti-government demonstrators.
An update from BBC News:
Thailand election disrupted by protests
Protests have disrupted Thailand’s general election, halting voting in parts of Bangkok and the south, but officials say that 89% of polling stations operated normally.
Some six million registered voters were affected by the closures, the Election Commission said.
PM Yingluck Shinawatra called the vote to head off weeks of mass protests.
Her party is widely expected to win but legal challenges and a lack of a quorum of MPs may create a political limbo.
And the final update from Kyodo News:
Thai election ends peacefully, results to be delayed
Thais voted in a controversial general election Sunday that was generally free of violence, but official results will be delayed by voting difficulties in some parts of the country.
Polling stations around the country, which opened at 8 a.m., closed at 3 p.m., and vote counting began immediately.
In some districts of Bangkok, polling stations could not open as antigovernment protesters occupied the district offices.
Another complication from Xinhua:
Thai court approves arrest warrant for protest leader
Arrest warrants have been announced for three Thai anti-government protesters who interfered advance voting on Jan. 26, including a People’s Democratic Reform Committee (PDRC) leader.
Thai Criminal Court has approved arrest warrants for PDRC leader Issara Somchai, a man known as “Little Saddam”, and another man who was photographed trying to strangle a man who had tried to cast his vote on Jan. 26.
The court later on Wednesday would decide whether to arrest other 19 anti-government protest leaders, including Suthep Thaugsuban, a PDRC top leader, reported Bangkok Post on Saturday.
On to Malaysia and a troubling picture from Nikkei Asian Review:
Malaysia’s ethnic tensions rise as its economy declines
Robust economic growth has long played a key role in smoothing over tensions between Malaysia’s different ethnic groups. But with that growth sputtering, resentment over the government’s preferential treatment of ethnic Malays may soon boil over.
The rift between Chinese Malaysians, who account for less than 30% of the country’s population, and the ethnic Malay majority of 60% deepened sharply after the general election last May, which saw the government of Prime Minister Najib Razak declare victory. The slowing economy has deepened the underlying mistrust between these two groups, and the premier, looking to solidify his support base among Malay voters, appears to be turning a blind eye to the escalating tensions.
China next, starting with profits from Want China Times:
Online currency funds report high returns in China
Following the introduction of Yu’ebao, the investment service launched by Alipay in China, many other online financial products have been launched, with their returns said to be higher than traditional banks, according to the Chinese-language Business Value magazine.
In addition to Yu’ebao, which accumulated 250 billion yuan (US$41.32 billion) from 49 million users, Licaitong, a financial service launched by Tencent through its social networking app WeChat, reported 800 million yuan (US$132.1 million) in assets since it was introduced on Jan. 22. Licaitong has an annualized seven day yield of 7.529%, which is higher than Yu’ebao’s 6.398%.
The yields of these new financial products have grown from 5% to 8% or even higher.
An opposite trend from the Global Times:
Chinese property developers face downward cycle: Deloitte
Nearly 60 percent of listed Chinese mainland real estate companies registered a decline in net profit margin in 2012, reflecting the beginning of a downward profitability cycle, according to a research report from Deloitte.
The accountancy firm compared the financial data of 174 property companies listed in Shanghai, Shenzhen and Hong Kong in 2012 against 168 companies in the previous year.
The report, published last week, said the sampled property companies achieved an average total revenue of 7.91 billion HK dollars (1.02 billion US dollars) in the reported period in 2012, against 6.35 billion HK dollars in 2011.
Net profit margin dropped 2.65 percent from 2010, albeit a slight increase of 0.5 percent from 2011. A reduction pattern has emerged for returns on equity, which weakened to 9.98 percent in 2012, against 10.72 percent in 2011 and 11.5 percent in 2010, according to the report.
Xinhua charts another decline:
China’s manufacturing PMI drops to 50.5 pct in January
China’s purchasing managers’ index (PMI) for the manufacturing sector dropped to five-month low to 50.5 percent in January, according to official data released on Saturday.
January continued December’s decline and marked the lowest factory activity since August 2013, according to a statement jointly released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) and the China Federation of Logistics and Purchasing (CFLP).
In January, the sub-index for production stood at 53 percent, down 0.9 percentage points from December, while the sub-index for new orders lost 1.1 percentage points to 50.9 percent, said the statement.
Want China Times hedges:
Listed Chinese firms expand hedging operations against commodity price falls
In 2013, international gold prices tumbled nearly 30%, while some listed companies may be facing their most profitable year in hedging against commodity risks, the Beijing-based Economic Observer reports.
Several listed companies have expanded their hedging operations, with Hengbang and Zhejiang Gangtai Holding showing positive profits in their hedging operations in 2013.
Hengbang’s futures director Liu Dawei declined to reveal the firm’s hedging profits in 2013, but information from related sources show the company attained a futures closing transaction profit of 180 million yuan (US$29.7 million) with open position profit of 140 million yuan (US$23.1 million).
In 2012, Hengbang made a net profit of just 339 million yuan (US$55.9 million), up 15% from a year earlier. One unnamed Hengbang official said the firm in 2011 had a loss in hedging operations of more than 100 million yuan (US$16.5 million).
China Daily debuts in a big way:
Largest Chinese Internet IPO yet
JD.com, China’s second-biggest electronic commerce company, filed to raise $1.5 billion in a US initial public offering that would be the largest by a Chinese Internet company, reflecting China’s booming online retail market.
“Investors are very hungry for the piece of consumer e-commerce space in China,” Francis Gaskins, a partner at IPO research company IPODesktop.com, was quoted by Reuters. US investors regained their appetite for Chinese stocks late in 2013 after accounting scandals froze demand. The number of US-listed Chinese stocks peaked at 40 in 2010.
Baidu Inc, China’s largest search-engine company, raised $122 million in a 2005 New York IPO.
As in America, so in China, via Want China Times:
Electronics malls crumbling under online shopping boom in China
Operators of giant shopping malls housing electronics shops in China are swiftly losing customers and vendors as tenants disappear in the shadow of stiff competition from the booming e-commerce sector, reports the Chinese-language China Business Journal.
“Traditional malls selling tech products are barely weathering the impact of e-commerce, declining at an annual rate of 20% with no end in sight,” according to one survey.
Half of the shops located in two leading malls in Beijing’s Zhongguancun have shut down, even though the area’s name had been well-known even down the stretches of the Yangtze in the past, said Qi Bo, secretary-general of the Chamber of Beijing Zhongguancun Electronic Trade.
Tenants were no longer willing to rent spaces in a mall, despite heavy discounts of up to 50% on rent being offered.
The Global Times has preferences:
Chinese prefer buying German, British companies: study
Germany and Britain are by far the most popular investment destinations of Chinese investors, a study showed on Friday.
According to the study of the economic consultancy Ernst & Young published Friday in Dusseldorf, Chinese investors have made 25 acquisitions in 2013 in Germany and Britain respectively.
Overall, buyers from the Chinese mainland and Hong Kong have taken over 120 companies and shareholdings in Europe in the past year, said the study.
According to the study, the interest of Chinese companies in Europe has increased significantly over the past 10 years, as the number of transactions has more than tripled.
In 2004, only 34 investments from China in Europe were counted, whereas, the number with 119 acquisitions in 2012 is almost as high as in 2013.
South China Morning Post has a conflict:
Effort to build a nation of consumers meets resistance from budget-minded shoppers
Leaders’ efforts to transform mainland from factory to shopping mall is meeting resistance
Combined with an export boom, a flood of spending on new factories, highways and other assets powered the past decade of explosive growth. That helped China rebound quickly from the 2008 global crisis. But it was paid for with a surge in borrowing that economists warn looks like debt booms in other developing countries that spiralled into financial crises.
As urgency for change mounts, so do potential hurdles. Consumer spending accounts for only about 35 per cent of gross domestic product, well below neighbouring India’s 60 per cent, and that percentage declined last year. Curbs on investment will mean less money flows to wages in construction and building materials industries such as steel and cement.
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