China's best-known eco-city now has 6,000 residents

Tianjin Eco-City, the best known eco-city project in China, now has about 6,000 residents five years after its construction, according to Ho Tong Yen, chief executive officer of Sino-Singapore Tianjin Eco-city Investment and Development Co., Ltd, the project's developer.

In a recent interview with Xinhua, Ho said that he has started to see long queues at the canteen for lunch in the eco-city.

"Now we have some 4,000 people working there and some 6,000 residents that include employees of companies located in the site and the local government. What we have seen is that the place is becoming lively day by day," he said.

Ho said that that they don't have a specific number of people who would eventually live in the eco-city but the environment- friendly metropolis could accommodate as many as 350,000 people when it is fully completed in 2020.

The Tianjin Eco-City was the result of a joint proposal in 2007 by then Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao and Singapore's former Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong to build a city that is socially harmonious, environmentally-friendly, resource-efficient and a model for sustainable development.

Unlike most eco-cities elsewhere in the world that are usually small pilot projects, the Tianjin eco-city, located 40 km from the center of China's northeastern coastal megacity of Tianjin, is planned to become a full city on a land of 30 square kilometers.

According to Ho, so far eight square kilometers, or about a fourth of the total land area in the eco-city has been developed but not all of the developed areas are occupied since many lots are reserved for future use.

Though still a fledgling town, the Tianjin eco-city is regarded as one closest to the concept of an ecological city that has been envisioned by Richard Register, an American author.

During the interview, Ho showed aerial shots of the eco-city as well as its green spaces, restored wetland, an eco-valley, bicycle tracks, wind turbines, skating park, an international school, kindergarten and office buildings.

Before its development, the site was barren land with some salt beds and a polluted body of water that includes a 2.6 square kilometers of wastewater pond.

There are now some 1,000 companies registered in the eco-city, Ho said, adding that he expects more commercial establishments and residents to move in especially when a light rail system is already in place.

The city has amenities for modern living such as a golf course and a lot of open spaces with a lot of greeneries to encourage people to walk.

When asked to name the place he likes best in the Tianjin Eco- City, Ho said that he is proud of the entire city, block by block. "It's like seeing a baby growing up," he said.

Ho, who took over as CEO of the joint venture in 2010, said that the construction of the Tianjin Eco-City is aimed at realizing the vision of both China and Singapore to achieve sustainable development without harming the environment.

The eco-city has a set of 22 quantitative and four qualitative indicators covering various aspects of sustainable development and all buildings will have to comply with green standards, Ho said.

For example, one of the schools in the eco-city has a wall that indicates the amount of energy the building uses so that the kids will have anactual experience on how to lead an ecological life.

"The emphasis is different depending on our progress in buildingthe city. At first it may be the design, and then technologies, and the policies, and eventually it would be more important to advocate amore sustainable way of living when more and more people move in," Hosaid.

Despite its somewhat high-tech name, the Tianjin Eco-City is closest to the Tampines, a new town in Singapore, Ho said.

"We are, in a sense, quite like other cities, that is, if you don't look into the details, like the materials we use," he said.

The eco-city is planned for 350,000 people, with about 40 percent of the land for residential purposes, 10 percent for sustainable industries and 3 percent for commercial businesses.

Source: Xinhua

China achieves first of UN Millennium Development Goals: FAO chief

China is among the 62 countries that have achieved the first Millennium Development Goal, namely halving extreme poverty rates by 2015, chief of the Rome-based UN food agency has told Xinhua in an exclusive interview recently.

"This is an outstanding achievement," Director General of the UN Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) Jose Graziano da Silva said, adding that "The numbers of China, on the whole, are very impressive: the country feeds around 20 percent of the world's population with only 9 percent of arable land and 6 percent of freshwater. This is a very good example."

"I can really say that it was basically due to China's achievements if we were able to push down the total number of undernourished people in the world from 1 billion to 840 million over the last years," he said.

This year marks the 40th anniversary of cooperation between the FAO and China, which has been solid and successful, said Graziano da Silva.

Throughout the four decades, FAO has been supporting more than 400 projects in China in many sectors such as agriculture, fishery, forestry.

China's expertise in combining rice farming and fish production is a successful model that would be of great help to the global fight against malnutrition, Graziano da Silva said.

"This peculiar combination of aquaculture and rice production is very rare, such expertise belongs only to a few countries like China, Vietnam and Laos," he said.

"It is really a perfect approach to the food security because it combines rice that is one of the staple food in the world and protein that is needed to avoid malnutrition especially in children," Graziano da Silva said. "We would like to improve this combination in African countries and also in other Asian countries, and China could help much in this," he added.

Meanwhile, Graziano da Silva highlighted the importance of China as one of the major supporters of FAO programs for food security. "It has been one of the most important countries supporting the changes FAO has been trying to implement in the world," he told Xinhua.

The ongoing partnership between FAO and China could act as a stepping-stone toward achieving greater success in the future, and an important stage will be the Milan Expo 2015, Graziano da Silva said.

"Milan Expo 2015 is really going to be an international appointment. Our approach during the Expo will be focused on one issue - how we can feed the world in a sustainable manner - and this is quite related to China because, as I said, China is a good example of achieving such a goal.

Source: Xinhua

China making positive investment moves in New Zealand agriculture: farming leader

nvestment capital from China and other foreign sources is essential for New Zealand's agriculture sector to expand to meet growing international demand for food, the head of New Zealand's farming industry group said Thursday.

Federated Farmers President Bruce Wills, who is attending the World Trade Organization Ministerial Conference in Bali as part of the Cairns Group of 19 agricultural exporting countries, said New Zealand was "working through" issues behind controversies such as Shanghai Pengxin Group's purchase of 16 North Island dairy farms last year.

The purchase of pastoral land in New Zealand was "a sensitive area," but recent moves such as Shanghai Pengxin's takeover of South Island-based Synlait Farms indicated a more positive approach to the issue, Wills said in an interview with Xinhua.

"Agriculture in New Zealand is growing rapidly. We need capital to grow it as rapidly as we would like to grow it. We have a lack of capital in New Zealand, so we are reliant on money coming from somewhere. It either comes through debt or through equity investment from offshore," Wills said.

Federated Farmers had to balance between two groups of members: those who wanted the freedom to sell their farms to whomever they wanted; and those who aspired to help their children buy farms and were struggling to compete against foreign investors with large checkbooks.

However, New Zealand law and the requirements set by the Overseas Investment Office helped maintain an acceptable balance.

"I'm told that we're one of the toughest countries now in the OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) to be able to get approval to buy pastoral rural property, so I'm reasonably comfortable that the balance is pretty good," said Wills.

Shanghai Pengxin's purchase of the 13 Synlait Farms with two New Zealand partners and plans to upgrade the properties was a good example of positive overseas investment.

"Talk of doing positive things for the environment; talk of enhancing the New Zealand farming system, giving opportunities to young New Zealanders to work on the farms I think those sorts of things will help ease the passage of potential buyers coming in," he said.

"New Zealand farmers are unashamed free traders and we talk with great pride about our 2008 free trade agreement with China, and that's been an absolute win-win."

Source: Xinhua

SoftBank to merge Willcom with eAccess

SoftBank is merging subsidiaries Willcom and eAccess. Since January this year, both companies already supported each other's products at their respective outlets and they have now reached an agreement to merge.

The merger, which will see eAccess absorb Willcom, is expected to become effective on 1 April 2014. The merged entity will serve over 10 million subscribers and will expand mobile and fixed broadband services as well as Willcom's PHS service.

Source: Xinhua

Ex-Mitsui exec arrested over bribery involving Deutsche Bank unit

Police arrested Thursday a former executive of the Mitsui & Co. group and an employee of Deutsche Bank AG's investment banking arm in Tokyo over an alleged bribery case, they said.

Yutaka Tsurisawa, 60, former Mitsui managing director in charge of handling a corporate pension fund, is suspected of having received bribes from Deutsche Securities Inc. employee Shigeru Echigo, 36, in return for purchasing 1 billion yen worth financial products, according to the Tokyo police.Echigo allegedly provided Tsurisawa with entertainment such as overseas travel, golfing and dining totaling around 900,000 yen between April and August last year, the police said.

Source: NewsOnJapan

Developing Asia needs to invest in disaster management

Developing Asian countries need to invest in disaster risk management as climate change is threatening sustained growth and poverty reduction.

This is especially crucial as typhoon Haiyan, locally named " Yolanda," has shown the devastation wrought by an extreme weather event caused by climate change. Haiyan killed over 5,000 people and damaged more than 30 billion pesos (685.40 million U.S. dollars) worth of crops and property in central Philippines. The country's economic managers also capped its growth target for the Philippines, hailed as one of the fastest rising emerging economies, to 7 percent this year in light of the damages caused by Haiyan.

Michel Jarraud, secretary-general of the World Meteorological Organization said while Haiyan's severity can't be definitively linked to climate change, the extensive damage caused by the storm surge resulted from climate related sea-level rise.

Charlotte Benson, senior disaster risk management specialist at the Asian Development Bank (ADB).said the problem with investing on climate change is that policy makers tend to invest on projects that will bring immediate relief, instead of planning for the long term.

"A lot of it comes down to money. If you have a choice between spending on something that reaps immediate benefits -- say, a new health clinic -- or something that may not reap benefits for many years -- such as building a sea wall .

Benson said there's a need to educate all stakeholders -- policy makers, the private sector, affected communities -- that investing in disaster risk reduction is important and will save lives -- and money -- in the long run.

Haiyan's devastation may in fact be the wake up call that the policy makers in Asia need to integrate climate change into their long term development plans.

Source: Xinhua

Seoul sees Biden's China trip for its stance in ADIZ conflict

After holding talks with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, U.S. Vice President Joseph Biden said in Tokyo, the first leg of his week-long trip to East Asia, Tuesday that China and Japan should set up a bilateral "crisis management mechanism" to prevent current tensions from escalating further.

Biden said Washington's priority lied at easing tensions in the region. He fell short of publicly calling for China's immediate withdrawal of its air defense identification zone (ADIZ), which Japan had hoped the visiting U.S. official could mention during the joint press conference.

Discrepancy between Tokyo and Washington was spotted in their responses to the newly-declared ADIZ over the East China Sea.

Japan told its airlines to defy the Chinese demand of notifying flight plants when aircraft, military or commercial, pass through the said airspace. In contrast, the U.S. aviation authorities instructed commercial airliners to file flight plans with the Chinese authorities.

In South Korea, at an early stage of the controversy, the foreign ministry expressed its official regrets over China's ADIZ, but signs were detected in the presidential office Cheong Wa Dae that Seoul may seek to take cautious stance on the ADIZ issue.

According to local media reports, President Park instructed officials to review various options, including expanding its own air defense zone (KADIZ), and her chief security advisor Kim Jang- soo convened an emergency meeting pertaining to the matter on Sunday.

Senior presidential press secretary Lee Jung-hyun told reporters that basic guidelines were discussed during the security meeting, but local reports said that a tentative conclusion was reached on how to enlarge the 60-year-old KADIZ southward.

To finalize its position on the KADIZ expansion, the Seoul government officials were originally scheduled to hold a consultation meeting on Tuesday with the ruling Saenuri Party lawmakers, but the meeting was abruptly delayed amid speculation that Seoul may have sought to monitor Biden's trip to Japan and China before deciding on it.

After holding talks in Beijing with Chinese President Xi Jinping, Biden was slated to arrive in Seoul late Thursday to complete his week-long East Asian tour and meet with President Park, with whom Biden would exchange views over China's ADIZ issue.

Given the so-called "balanced diplomacy" preached by President Park, South Korea was not expected to go so far as to expand its air defense zone without consultations with its neighboring countries, or at least advance notice, as the expansion may cause backlashes from China as well as the United States that were seeking to prevent tensions in the region from escalating further.

As the White House said in a statement, Biden's trip to Japan, China and South Korea was intended to reassure its strong commitment to "rebalancing U.S. foreign policy towards the Asia- Pacific," not delivering its official protest to Beijing.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang said last Friday that the newly-established ADIZ will not cause regional tension.

"China's ADIZ over the East China Sea is not aimed at any specific country nor target. It's absolutely a measure designated to exercise the right of defense effectively," Qin told a regular press briefing, adding that if some worry has emerged about the situation, it's agitated by some individual countries.

The United States has supported Japan's pursuit of collective self-defense right, which caused strong backlashes from China and South Korea as it was reminiscent of Japan's militaristic past, but Washington seemed to have no intention to damage its bilateral ties with Beijing, betting both on Beijing and Tokyo to maintain its presence in the region.

Seoul and Tokyo have been at odds over historical perception. South Korean Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se said in late November that ties between the two countries strained due mainly to Japanese leaderships' unrepentant attitude toward its militaristic past, noting that one who tied a knot should untie it.

South Korean President Park Geun-hye has harshly denounced the Japanese leadership for no repentance over its atrocities under the colonial rule from 1910 to 1945, refusing to hold summit talks until now with Abe since her inauguration in February this year.

Source: Xinhua

David Cameron, Jack Ma Talk Business, Take Selfies

''In a 15-minute closed-door meeting Tuesday, Messrs. Ma and Cameron—joined by Alibaba Group Chief Executive Jonathan Lu and British Ambassador to China Sebastian Wood—discussed ways to raise the profile of British brands on Alibaba’s popular e-commerce sites as well as strategies for increasing bilateral trade, according to a post on Alibaba’s official blog.

The two also presided over the signing of a memorandum of understanding between Alibaba and the U.K. Trade & Investment department to promote the sale of British goods on Alibaba’s Tmall.com, an e-commerce site that allows brands to open storefronts and sell directly to Chinese consumers.

Alibaba opened a London office in 2009 and one of its sites, which puts manufacturers in touch with buyers, has more than 2 million U.K. members, according to the Alibaba blog.

Alibaba’s growing interest in overseas markets comes at a time when the company is talking to the NYSE Exchange and the Nasdaq  Market about a possible IPO, after talks with Hong Kong’s stock exchange recently broke down. Although Alibaba hasn’t made a final decision on a listing venue, its market debut could be the largest Internet IPO since Facebook Inc.’s  $16 billion listing last year.

So far, most of Alibaba’s operations are in China, where its Taobao and Tmall online marketplaces with hundreds of millions of users dominate the country’s fast-growing e-commerce market. But over the past several months, the company has made a few notable steps into the U.S. market. Alibaba recently invested in a few U.S. companies, includingShopRunner Inc. , a competitor to Amazon.com Inc Inc.,Quixey Inc , a search engine that allows users to find apps by searching for what they want to do.

Still the real gem of the event must have been the photo. On Twitter after the meeting, Mr. Cameron said on his official account: “Jack Ma took a #selfie of us together, which I promised to share!”

Though it seems like it was Mr. Ma’s idea, Mr. Cameron is not on virgin political territory''. 

From; WSJ

Bank of Ireland to repay state 1.9 billion euros

Bank of Ireland (BoI)  raised 580 million euros ($788 million) through a share sale as part of a milestone deal to repay 1.9 billion euros to the state, handing the government a timely financial boost.

The redemption of preference shares issued when the part state-owned lender was rescued in 2009 cuts its reliance on the government less than two weeks before Ireland is set to become the first euro zone  country to exit an EU/IMF bailout.

The announcement comes after Reuters cited a source familiar with the deal as saying Bank of Ireland would raise between 500 and 600 million euros of new equity as early as this week and would repay the rest through issuing debt.

The deal also follows a steady stream of more positive economic news in Ireland, including the fastest fall in unemployment in four years, that convinced Dublin to make a clean break from its bailout program.

BoI, the only Irish lender to escape nationalization, had faced a March 2014 deadline to pay back the state before a clause under its 4.8 billion euro bailout increased the cost of buying the shares back by 25 percent, or 450 million euros.

Source: Reuters

Moody's revises Spain government bond outlook to stable from negative

Moody's Investors Service on Wednesday revised the outlook on Spain's government bond rating to stable from negative, citing a rebalancing of and a brighter medium-term view for the country's economy.

Moody's also affirmed Spain's Baa3 government bond rating.

Among the key drivers behind the outlook revision, Moody's said in a statement, were "evidence of a sustained rebalancing of the Spanish economy and improving medium-term economic prospects, which supports Moody's view that Spain's public finances are on a slowly improving trend."

Source; Reuters

Techcrunch . Leaked Uber Numbers, Which We’ve Confirmed, Point To Over $1B Gross, $213M Revenue

''Today, Valleywag got its hands on leaked screenshotsof Uber's dashboard, along with a series of numbers from two weeks ago that show raw revenue, signups, active clients and ride request/completion ratios.  TechCrunch has verified with a source that this is Uber's official dashboard.

TechCrunch also contacted Uber, who said that they would ‘take action' against the leaker. They did not deny the authenticity of the screenshots and The numbers span a period of between mid-October and mid-November of 2013 and allow us to form a picture, though incomplete, of Uber's income and user statistics over the period. According to our calculations based on the information laid out in the dashboard screenshots - and assuming some similarity in numbers for the rest of the year - the car service should be pulling in over $1B a year in gross bookings. At a rough 20% cut, a figure Valleywag notes Kalanick has alluded to, that would place Uber's slice of the revenue around $213M a year.

The five week period also showed over 11% in revenue growth, with over 398,000 new signups in aggregate at just under 80k each week. Uber is also clocking around 1M requests every week and completing around 800k each week. The data points to a healthy business which maintains a strong ratio of continuing users to new signups and big ‘conversion' rates between people who look at the app and people who actually use it.

A recent filingat All Things D  put Uber's valuation at $3.5B, and sources had pegged revenue for 2013 at around $125M. Going by that, Uber is doing significantly better than estimated.

Note, of course, that the interpretation of the data is not confirmed, and we're only working off of leaked information here. The math is rough, to say the least and whatever this is, it's likely not a complete snapshot of Uber as a company. If the readings by Valleywag, and our own crunching, are correct though, Uber is in fantastic shape''.

Source: techcrunch

What's really behind sluggish economic growth?

At a recent International Monetary Fund (IMF) conference, former US Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers argued that today's growth blues have deep roots that pre-date the global financial crisis. Summers placed particular emphasis on the need for more infrastructure investment, a sentiment that most economists wholeheartedly share, especially if one is referring to genuinely productive investment.
Jeffrey Sachs, for example, has argued that the US economy needs to confront a plethora of structural impediments to sustained growth, including offshoring, skill mismatches, and decaying infrastructure.

The internet entrepreneur Peter Thiel and the chess champion Garry Kasparov have suggested that the malaise runs even deeper, as has the economist Robert Gordon. They argue that the technology engine that has driven mankind from one economic plateau to the next over the past 200 years is running out of steam. Simply put, the internet may be cool, but it is hardly as essential as running water, electrification, or the internal combustion engine.
  The Gordon-Kasparov-Thiel thesis is extremely interesting, though I have challenged their negative conclusions, both in print and in a debate at Oxford. Personally, I think the greater risk is that the pace of technological progress will accelerate too much for societies to adapt, though the experience so far has basically been positive.
Certainly, today's advanced economies urgently need to address all kinds of technological, social, and political deficiencies. Nevertheless, the subpar growth of the past half-decade still bears all the hallmarks of a typical sluggish recovery from a deep systemic financial crisis, as Carmen Reinhart and I documented in our 2009 book This Time is Different.
Of course, structural reform is essential after a financial crisis, as are policies to maintain aggregate demand while the economy heals. To my mind, the biggest failure of post-2008 economic policy has consisted in governments' inability to find creative ways to write down unsustainable debts, for example in US mortgage markets, and in Europe's periphery. This includes the failure to issue public debt where necessary to facilitate restructuring, particularly if overall economy-wide (or eurozone-wide) debt could be reduced in the same operation.
But Summers is certainly right that productive infrastructure investment is the low-hanging fruit. Of course, governments should be concerned about the long-term trajectory of public debt, all politically charged and polemical nonsense to the contrary. But productive infrastructure investment that generates long-term growth pays for itself, so there need not be any conflict between short-term stabilisation and risks to long-term debt sustainability. 
It is also far from clear why virtually all infrastructure needs to be publicly financed. There are still huge pools of private wealth sitting on the sidelines that can be rapidly mobilised to support productive infrastructure. The government needs to help with rights of way before construction, and with strong regulation to protect the public interest afterwards.
The important point is that the case for expanding productive infrastructure investment does not rest on one narrow ideological viewpoint or economic theory. Whether Summers is right about secular stagnation in advanced economies, or whether we are still mainly suffering the aftermath of the financial crisis, it is time to break the political gridlock and restore growth.

Keneth Rogoff
Former chief economist of the IMF
Professor of economics and public policy at Harvard University.

China is now ready to turn on the world’s biggest 4G network

"We knew that China will get 4G starting on December 18 , but there remained the not so trivial matter of government-issued LTE operating licenses. Today that issue is finally cleared up, with all three of China’s telcos getting their licenses.

According to the Shanghai Daily, China Mobile gets the homegrown TD-LTE license, while rivals China Telecom and China Unicom  are assigned both domestically developed TD-LTE and the more international FDD-LTE licenses.

Lots of major Chinese cities have had 4G trials for the past couple of years, but December 18 marks China’s official ‘nationwide’ 4G turn-on. However, only major cities like Beijing, Guangzhou, and Chongqing will get 4G on that day, with more cities being added gradually. China Mobile aims to have its new 4G network cover 100 cities and 500 million people soon, but it’s not fully ready to roll on day one.

China Mobile, the world’s biggest telco by subscriber base, is the most 4G ready, with China Telecom and China Unicom not ready to roll out nationwide services on the 18th.

Big boost for Apple

China Mobile’s awkward 3G TD-SCDMA network meant it could never support the iPhone, so 4G means a new era of Apple compatibility for the telco. Some analysts expect China Mobile to start official iPhone sales on December 18, but the company has remained silent on that matter".

Source: TECHINASIA

Dow, S&P 500 drop for fourth straight day; Fed a concern

The Dow and the S&P 500 finished lower for the fourth consecutive session on Wednesday after investors found few reasons to make big moves, with uncertainty remaining over when the Federal Reserve will start to slow its stimulus.

Stocks fell for much of the session, but edged closer to break-even levels in the last hour of trading. Still, the losses were broad, with eight of the 10 S&P 500 sector indexes ending lower for the day on concerns that the market's recent rally to record levels was not justified.

About 60 percent of the shares traded on the New York Stock Exchange closed lower for the day, while 56 percent of Nasdaq-listed stocks closed down.

Many market participants expect the Fed to announce a cut in its $85 billion in monthly bond purchases in March, but recent economic data increased expectations that the move may come sooner. The Fed has said it would slow its stimulus program when certain economic measures meet its targets, including a decline in the U.S. unemployment rate.

The ADP National Employment Report showed private-sector employers added 215,000 jobs in November, more than expected. This was the latest in a string of reports suggesting that the economy's outlook was brightening.

Source: Reuters

Future World Energy demand driven by trends in Developing Countries

EIA's International Energy Outlook 2013 (IEO2013) projects that growth in world energy use largely comes from countries outside of the  OECD. Energy use patterns for countries inside the OECD are relatively stable between 2010 and 2040 as primary energy use is projected to grow by 0.5% per year, roughly the same rate as population growth in those countries. In non-OECD countries, faster growing economies and changing habits in highly concentrated populations drive significant increases in energy use. Energy use in non-OECD countries is projected to grow by 2.2% per year, and the share of non-OECD energy use is expected to rise from 54% of total world energy use in 2010 to 65% in 2040.

Between 2010 and 2040, IEO2013, shows that primary energy use per capita is expected to change little from its 2010 level of 196 million British thermal units (MMBtu) in the OECD but grows from 50 MMBtu to 73 MMBtu per capita in non-OECD countries. In addition to already being home to most of the world's population in 2010, the non-OECD countries are also expected to experience most of the world's population growth through 2040. Population growth is most pronounced in African countries, but energy use per capita is low across the continent and is projected to stay almost constant through 2040. India also accounts for a large portion of world population growth—adding more than twice as many people as expected to be added in the entire group of OECD countries between 2010 and 2040. Unlike African countries, India's energy use per capita is expected to grow during the period.

In 2040, the total gross domestic product (GDP), measured in purchasing power parity (PPP), of non-OECD countries is projected to be much higher than the GDP of OECD countries, but the amount of energy used per unit of GDP is virtually the same. At the same time, the ratio of GDP relative to population remains much higher in OECD countries. This higher GDP-to-population ratio allows citizens in OECD countries to spend more resources on energy-consuming services that provide productivity, leisure, and comfort, and keeps energy consumption on a per capita basis much higher in the OECD. As the economies in the non-OECD countries continue to experience relatively fast growth, those countries will also be able to spend more for energy-consuming services.

Source: EIA

Drilling for oil in the Falklands now punishable with 15 years in jail

"The Argentinian government has dramatically increased the pressure on British companies drilling for oil off the disputed Falkland Islands by passing laws that could impose 15-year jail sentences on their executives.
A statement provided by the Argentinian embassy in London said "the law provides for prison sentences for the duration of up to 15 years; fines equivalent to the value of 1.5m barrels of oil; the banning of individuals and companies from operating in Argentina; and the confiscation of equipment and any hydrocarbons that would have been illegally extracted".
The Falklands have been at the centre of a sovereignty dispute between Britain and Argentina for almost 200 years, with the two countries going to war in 1982.

But the Falklands row has been exacerbated by Premier moving towards the first oil development project – known as Sea Lion.

The independent oil and gas company has said it hoped to extract 284m barrels of oil from the north part of the field before moving on to get a further 110m barrels from the south.

Most of the oil "majors" such as BP have so far steered clear of the area fearing it could jeopardise their chances of working on the mainland".

Source: theguardian

Growth Signs Pick Up Ahead of Key Fed Meeting

   According to a to an article published today on the Wall Street Journal,the central bank's beige book, which assesses the economic environment in the Fed's 12 districts, cited strength in the U.S. manufacturing sector and consumer spending. Seven districts reported steady growth rates and four districts indicated a less robust expansion than the others. One region simply said economic activity continued to expand.

The snapshot, based on information gathered from early October through Nov. 22, comes two weeks before the Fed's Dec. 17-18 policy meeting. The Fed will decide at that meeting whether to start pulling back its $85 billion-a-month bond-buying program, which is aimed at lowering borrowing costs to spur stronger spending, hiring and growth.

Uncertainty about the Fed's next steps remains a key risk hanging over investors and employers. Fed officials expect to start scaling back the program "in coming months," if the overall economy and labor market continue to improve, according to minutes from its last policy meeting in October.

A separate survey released Wednesday by the Business Roundtable, a group of top corporate executives, found CEOs the most bullish they've been about the economy in almost two years. The survey's economic-outlook index for the fourth quarter rose to its highest point since early 2012. Executives said clearer signals from Washington could help the economy accelerate.

"We have an economy that is on the cusp of growing at more than the 2-to-3% we've seen," said Boeing Co. CEO Jim McNerney, who is chairman of the group. 

"They've chosen to keep interest rates very low, to keep the economy in a very highly liquid state," he said. "I think we're all mindful of the fact that tapering does need to happen somewhere along the line or we're going to have a very difficult inflationary environment here. Exactly when, we don't know."

  The overall economy is beginning to stabilize,new home sales rose 25% in October from the prior month to an annual rate of 444,000. 

Private-sector jobs rose by 215,000 last month, while the October increase was revised to 184,000 from 130,000 reported a month ago.

The Fed will decide at its December 17-18 policy meeting, whether to start pulling back its $85 billion-a-month bond-buying program, which is aimed at lowering borrowing costs to spur stronger spending, hiring and growth.

Iran names big oil companies it wants to welcome back

"Iran has named western oil companies it wants back in its vast oil and gas fields once international sanctions are lifted. The oil minister, Bijan Zanganeh, said contract terms would be offered next April. The seven companies named are: Total of France, Royal Dutch Shell, Italy's ENI, Norway's Statoil, Britain's BP and US companies Exxon Mobil and ConocoPhillips.

Iran has the world's fourth largest proved national reserves of oil – most of it cheap to produce – and is also home to the biggest proved reserves of natural gas, some 18% of the global total. But the oil companies were thrown out in a nationalisation programme following the 1979 revolution. Iran's share of world oil production fell from 55% in the 1970s to below 40% by 1997. Its gas output was negligible.

Oil companies from around the world drifted back in the 1990s, and Zanganeh oversaw their return as minister under the reformist government of 1997-2005.

Total returned to onshore fields in 1997 and Shell in 1999, both while Zanganeh was minister and both in defiance of the US sanctions of the time, even though in 1995 the then president, Bill Clinton, had blocked a Conoco project.

But Iran's production stagnated through the 2000s amid growing international tensions over its nuclear programme. The more effective sanctions instituted in 2012 have choked out foreign investment and sent output down to 2.65m barrels a day in November from an average of 4.3m in 2011.

Iran last month reached an interim deal with six western powers to limit its nuclear programme, under which sanctions on oil investment and trade with Iran may be lifted next year.

Speaking at an Opec meeting, Zanganeh said he was already talking with some companies, although so far not those from the US"

Source: theguardian.

President Calls on Congress to Increase Minimum Wage

   According to a report from the Wall Street Journal,''Liberal groups and many Democrats in Congress have long sought measures to address income inequality and pushed for an increase in the minimum wage''. Mr. Obama used his 2013 State of the Union address to urge Congress to increase the federal minimum wage to $9 an hour and index it to inflation. 

The president listed a series of statistics to highlight what he said was troubling economic inequality in the U.S. "Since 1979, when I graduated from high school, our productivity is up by more than 90%, but the income of the typical family has increased by less than 8%," he said.

He said inequality has also made it difficult for Americans to improve their economic standing, and noted that it is easier for people in countries such as Canada, Germany and France to move up.

Mr. Obama echoed many of the ideas he's offered before: closing tax loopholes and using the increased revenue for infrastructure projects; unwinding the across-the-board spending cuts known as the sequester; and raising the federal minimum wage, now at $7.25 an hour.

Internetworldstats: INTERNET USAGE STATISTICS The Internet Big Picture

INTERNET USAGE STATISTICS The Internet Big Picture World Internet Users and Population Stats

WORLD INTERNET USAGE AND POPULATION STATISTICS June 30, 2012 World Regions Population ( 2012 Est.) Internet Users Dec. 31, 2000 Internet Users Latest Data Penetration (% Population) Growth 2000-2012 Users % of Table Africa 1,073,380,925 4,514,400 167,335,676 15.6 % 3,606.7 % 7.0 % Asia 3,922,066,987 114,304,000 1,076,681,059 27.5 % 841.9 % 44.8 % Europe 820,918,446 105,096,093 518,512,109 63.2 % 393.4 % 21.5 % Middle East 223,608,203 3,284,800 90,000,455 40.2 % 2,639.9 % 3.7 % North America 348,280,154 108,096,800 273,785,413 78.6 % 153.3 % 11.4 % Latin America / Caribbean 593,688,638 18,068,919 254,915,745 42.9 % 1,310.8 % 10.6 % Oceania / Australia 35,903,569 7,620,480 24,287,919 67.6 % 218.7 % 1.0 % WORLD TOTAL 7,017,846,922 360,985,492 2,405,518,376 34.3 % 566.4 % 100.0 % NOTES: (1) Internet Usage and World Population Statistics are for June 30, 2012. (2) CLICK on each world region name for detailed regional usage information. (3) Demographic (Population) numbers are based on data from the US Census Bureau and local census agencies. (4) Internet usage information comes from data published by Nielsen Online, by the International Telecommunications Union, by GfK, local ICT Regulators and other reliable sources. (5) For definitions, disclaimers, navigation help and methodology, please refer to the Site Surfing Guide. (6) Information in this site may be cited, giving the due credit towww.internetworldstats.com. Copyright © 2001 - 2013, Miniwatts Marketing Group. All rights reserved worldwide.

the guardian Editorial. Britain and China: the wheel turns

"China's first stretch of railway track was built by a British firm in 1876, but soon dismantled on the orders of Chinese imperial officials who regarded it as a fiendish foreign invention. The second was built in 1881 under the supervision of Claude Kinder, an English civil engineer. This one survived, and its first locomotive, in tribute to Robert Stephenson, was called the Rocket of China.

Kinder went on to become one of the men, many British, who shaped the extensive steam railway system that transformed the Chinese economy and ushered Chinese society into the modern age. Kinder, created a mandarin of the Red Button by the imperial government for his services would no doubt be amazed at the thought that Chinese engineers could soon be on their way to Britain to help build a railway here. How the wheel turns! Britain has almost completely lost the skills that made us the first railway nation and which we exported on a vast scale, while the Chinese are in the process of gaining them.

The Chinese bullet train network was created with help from German, Japanese and Canadian firms, but its newer trains and track are to its own design, and it is now poised to sell them to the rest of the world.

Whether David Cameron, who sometimes seems lacking in a sense of history, had any thought for this bitter dimension when he announced in Beijing, with the Chinese prime minister, Li Keqiang, standing next to him, that Britain welcomed Chinese investment in our own HS2 project, we cannot know.

What applies to railways applies with equal force to nuclear science, where Britain was within living memory a pioneer, but now must turn to others, including China, for help with new power stations. Yet this turning of the technological tables can be overemphasised. Comparative advantage shifts, as it always does. Britain is not so far gone, scientifically and industrially, and China is not so far advanced as a black and white comparison between 1881 and 2013 might suggest.

That is why, among other reasons, it is regrettable that the British approach to China under the coalition has come to have about it something mendicant, cap in hand, and unduly deferential. Mr Cameron began in office determined to stand up to China on human rights issues and to indicate disapproval of China's policies in Tibet. He even met the Dalai Lama. The Chinese, of course, regard any encounter with a man who is widely regarded as among the sanest and most decent people on the planet as a vicious outrage that must be immediately punished, and Britain was duly shoved out and cold-shouldered.

The British government then changed its position on Tibet, and was rewarded with permission for the large trade mission that arrived in China on Monday. The prime minister chose to herald the trip withanartcleina Chinese publication, claiming that Britain was China's best friend, most assiduous advocate, and most willing partner in the world. If this is not fawning, it is pretty close to it.

True, Britain is not alone in this pro-Chinese litany. Every member of the European Union has sung the same song at one time or another, all discarding principle as they sought to secure a share of the Chinese market and, these days, a share of the money China now has to invest abroad. Much sniggering behind the menu card at the Chinese foreign trade banquet can be heard as competitors blot their copybooks on human rights matters. Britain struggled for years, for example, to get the best possible deal for the people of Hong Kong while other countries resolutely looked the other way.

Japan now has less support on South China Sea issues than it should have, for the same reason, which is that the approach of trade-hungry nations to China positively invites a divide and rule response.

There may be poetic justice in the fact that once upon a time European nations divided China and now China finds it easy to divide us. But it  is not in the end good for either side that this should be so".

U.S. The trade deficit improved in October

The trade deficit improved in October and for the right reason-exports were up. The October trade gap narrowed to $40.6 billion from $43.0 billion in September. October was close to analysts' expectations for a $40.2 billion deficit. Exports rebounded 1.8 percent after slipping 0.1 percent in September. Imports rose 0.4 percent in October, following a 1.6 percent increase the month before.

The shrinking of the trade shortfall was led by goods excluding petroleum which narrowed to $39.3 billion from $41.8 billion in September. The petroleum deficit nudged down to $19.6 billion from $19.9 billion in September. The services surplus improved to $19.6 billion from $19.4 billion. 

On a not seasonally adjusted basis, the October figures show surpluses, in billions of dollars, with Hong Kong $2.8 ($3.2 for September), Brazil $1.7 ($1.0), and Australia $1.4 ($1.5), among others. Deficits were recorded, in billions of dollars, with China $28.9 ($30.5), European Union $14.3 ($8.0), Germany $6.9 ($6.1), Japan $6.4 ($5.5), OPEC $5.6 ($5.9), Mexico $4.1 ($5.3), Ireland $3.2 ($1.8), Saudi Arabia $3.1 ($3.2), and Canada $3.0 ($3.2) among others.

The October trade numbers indicate that the recovery may be benefitting again from exports. This likely will result in upward revisions to forecasts for fourth quarter GDP growth.

Source: Bloomberg

Private-sector employment picked up in November, as employers added 215,000 jobs

Private-sector employment picked up in November, as employers added 215,000 jobs, Automatic Data Processing Inc. reported Wednesday. Economists use ADP'sdata to get a feeling for the U.S. Labor Department's employment report, which will be released Friday and covers government jobs in addition to the private sector.

Source: MarketWatch

Biden calls for trust with China amid airspace dispute

U.S. Vice President Joe Biden said on Wednesday that relations between Washington and Beijing had to be based on trust, amid a dispute over a new Chinese air defence zone which has rattled nerves regionally.

Beijing's decision to declare an air defence identification zone in an area that includes disputed islands has triggered protests from the United States, Japan and South Korea and dominated Biden's talks in Tokyo on Tuesday.

The United States has made clear it will stand by treaty obligations that require it to defend the Japanese-controlled islands, but it is also reluctant to get dragged into any military clash between rivals Japan and China.

Biden told Chinese President Xi Jinping he believed Xi was a candid and constructive person.

Xi said the international situation and regional landscape were "undergoing profound and complex changes".

"Regional issues keep cropping up and there are more pronounced global challenges such as climate change and energy security. The world is not tranquil," he added.

As Biden arrived, the official English-language China Daily, said in a strongly worded editorial that he "should not expect any substantial headway if he comes simply to repeat his government's previous erroneous and one-sided remarks".

"If the U.S. is truly committed to lowering tensions in the region, it must first stop acquiescing to Tokyo's dangerous brinkmanship. It must stop emboldening belligerent Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to constantly push the envelope of Japan's encroachments and provocations."

 The Global Times, published by the Communist Party's official People's Daily, noted that Biden had not come down heavily on Japan's side, saying he failed to "sate Japan's appetite" for strong words.

"Biden needs to be reminded that Japan holds the key to peacefully solving the East China Sea dispute, because it is the Abe administration's recalcitrant denial of the existence of a dispute that has prevented Beijing and Tokyo from conducting meaningful communication and crisis control," it said.

Source: Reuters

EU Commission to fine banks 1.7 billion euros for benchmark rigging

A group of leading European and American banks will be fined a record 1.7 billion euros (£1.4 billion) by the European Commission for the rigging of interest-rate benchmarks, a source familiar with the matter told Reuters on Wednesday.

The penalty is the biggest yet to be handed down to banks for rigging the benchmarks used to determine the cost of lending, one of the most brazen violations of conduct seen during the financial crisis.

The banks to be fined are Citigroup, Deutsche Bank, Royal Bank of Scotland, JPMorgan, Barclays and Societe Generale, sources have said.

Source:  Reuters