Geithner’s Yuan Call Rejected as ‘Horrible Advice’ (Update1)
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By Simon Kennedy
Jan. 29 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner’s call for China to loosen restrictions on its currency was criticized by economists and policy makers at the World Economic Forum.
Allowing the yuan to strengthen would be “economic suicide” amid an economic slump, Stephen Roach, Morgan Stanley’s Asia Chairman, told a panel in Davos, Switzerland, yesterday. “I’ve never seen an economy in recession voluntarily raise their currency. It’s horrible advice.”
Renewed clashes over the yuan threaten to stoke tension between two of the world’s biggest economies and undermine cooperation to counter the global recession. China limited yuan gains against the dollar in July 2008 after the currency rose 21 percent following the end of a peg three years earlier.
“Shouting from Washington to Beijing is not going to make a difference,” said South Africa’s Finance Minister Trevor Manuel on the same panel.
Geithner, who took office this week, said Jan. 22 President Barack Obama believes China is “manipulating its currency,” suggesting the new administration may take a tougher line with the biggest foreign buyer of U.S. government debt.
Early Contact
China’s Premier Wen Jiabao said yesterday in Davos he had expressed interest in having “early contacts” with Obama’s administration.
“A peaceful and harmonious bilateral relationship between these two countries will make both winners,” Wen said. “A confrontational one will make both losers.”
The Bush administration stopped short of using the term in criticizing China’s exchange-rate management. Some U.S. lawmakers are seeking measures to punish trading partners perceived to have undervalued exchange rates.
“Obama -- backed by the conclusions of a broad range of economists -- believes that China is manipulating its currency,” Geithner told Senators in written testimony. “The question is how and when to broach the subject in order to do more good than harm.” Obama’s team will “forge an integrated strategy on how best to achieve currency realignment in the current economic environment.”
China’s commerce ministry said Jan. 24 that the country hasn’t manipulated its currency to promote exports and that accusations of government tampering in foreign exchange will fuel U.S. protectionism. China’s yuan trades at about 6.85 to the dollar.
“It is probably not the right time to focus on the Chinese exchange rate given that it is not a central element of the world crisis,” Olivier Blanchard, the International Monetary Fund’s chief economist, said at a press conference in Washington yesterday. “There are many other things that we should be thinking about.”
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Bankruptcy Lawyers Seek $18.50 a Minute From Court (Update1)
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By Lindsay Fortado and Linda Sandler
Jan. 28 (Bloomberg) -- Lawyers at Kirkland & Ellis LLP, home to former Whitewater prosecutor Ken Starr, are asking as much as $1,110 an hour for bankruptcy work while creditors are recovering less of their loans through company restructurings.
Kirkland requested a top rate equal to $18.50 a minute for advising Tronox Inc. in its bankruptcy, according to court papers filed Jan. 26. Chicago-based Sidley Austin LLP and New York’s Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP also requested hourly rates exceeding $1,000 in the past two months in separate bankruptcy cases, as lenders’ recoveries are forecast by ratings company Moody’s Corp. to drop 22 percent in the recession.
Professionals’ fees in bankruptcy cases are growing at four times the rate of inflation, estimated Lynn LoPucki, a professor of bankruptcy law at the University of California, Los Angeles. Total fees paid for lawyers, accountants and other professionals in bankruptcies from 1998 to 2007 doubled, while the consumer price index rose about 25 percent, he said.
“As the economy gets worse, the bankruptcy lawyers are charging more,” LoPucki said. “It seems that each month one sets a new record for hourly billing rates. $1,110 is, to my knowledge, a record for the debtor’s bankruptcy counsel.”
Lenders’ average recoveries may shrink to 35 cents on the dollar as the worldwide economic slowdown deepens, compared with 45 percent of the face value of corporate debt in previous downturns, Kenneth Emery, Moody’s Investors Service Inc.’s director of corporate default research, said in an interview earlier this month. Bonds of newspaper publisher Tribune Co., which filed for bankruptcy Dec. 8, are trading at 1.5 cents on the dollar to 4.25 cents, signaling bondholders may get no more than the market value.
‘Need Best Team’
“In this environment, you need the best team of advisers you can find,” Robert Gibney, a spokesman for titanium dioxide- maker Tronox, said in an e-mail.
Kirkland’s Richard Cieri, chairman of the firm’s bankruptcy practice, said he’s charging $965 an hour as the lead lawyer advising Tronox, up from his fee of $925 last year. The $1,110- an-hour rate reflects conversion of a U.K.-based partner’s fee from pounds to dollars, Cieri said.
Partners at Sidley, where U.S. President Barack Obama once worked and met his wife Michelle, want to charge as much as $1,100 an hour to advise Tribune Co. on its restructuring, according to a Dec. 26 court filing. Skadden Arps requested as much as $1,050 an hour for partners counseling Circuit City Stores Inc. in its bankruptcy, according to court papers filed Nov. 20.
Lehman Bankruptcy
The top fees quoted by Kirkland, Sidley and Skadden surpass the rates charged by Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP in the Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. case, the largest in history with $613 billion in debt. Weil has asked for $650 to $950 an hour for partners and counsel, and $355 to $595 for associates.
“We do not believe we should be pushing the envelope at the highest edge of hourly rates,” Harvey Miller, a partner at Weil and the lead lawyer advising Lehman, said in an e-mail.
James Conlan, co-chairman of Sidley’s bankruptcy group, didn’t return a call or e-mail seeking comment.
Gregg Galardi, the lead Skadden lawyer on the Circuit City case, said he’s not charging the high rate.
“That’s just our general rates now,” Galardi said. “I’m not sure if anyone on the case is charging that much. I’m not there yet.”
While rates are subject to approval by bankruptcy courts, the judges don’t often deny the law firms’ requests.
‘Glorified Liquidation Tool’
Bankruptcy fees may eventually be challenged on grounds that lawyers are mostly liquidating companies instead of restructuring them, said Stephen Lubben, a professor at Seton Hall University School of Law in Newark, New Jersey.
“There is a limit to how many attorneys can demand these kinds of hourly rates, so long as the credit markets remain tight and Chapter 11 tends to be little more than a glorified liquidation tool,” he said in an e-mail.
Bankruptcy fees continue to rise as the recession shrinks law firm jobs in mergers and acquisitions, structured finance, capital markets and real estate. San Francisco firms Thelen LLP and Heller Ehrman LLP and New York’s Thacher, Proffitt & Wood shut down in the past six months from a lack of business. New York-based Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft and White & Case LLP and Chicago-based Sonnenschein, Nath & Rosenthal have cut lawyers.
New York’s Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP said last year it would freeze 2009 billing rates as its clients struggle during the recession. The firm has five bankruptcy lawyers led by partner Richard Levin.
James Sprayregen, a Kirkland bankruptcy partner who returned to the firm in December after two and a half years as a managing director at Goldman Sachs Group Inc., also charges $965 an hour, Cieri said.
‘Avenues to Object’
“This is a market,” Robert Lawless, a professor at the University of Illinois College of Law, said in an e-mail. “No one is forcing anyone to pay those fees, and creditors do have avenues to object.”
Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP partners are asking as much as $1,050 an hour to advise a committee of unsecured creditors in the bankruptcy of Bally Total Fitness of Greater New York Inc., according to a Jan. 22 filing. The most expensive lawyer with “primary responsibility” for advising the committee is Akin Gump partner David Botter, who charges $825 an hour, according to the papers.
New York-based Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP, special counsel to Lehman, asked the federal bankruptcy court in Manhattan handling the case to approve as much as $1,000 hourly.
Circuit City spokesman Bill Cimino, Tribune spokesman Gary Weitman and Lehman spokeswoman Kimberly Macleod didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.
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Russian Church set to strengthen its role after election of new Patriarch
28.01.2009, 19.17
MOSCOW, January 28 (Itar-Tass) - Russian Orthodox Church is apparently set to increase its role in society as this country’s largest religious denomination after the election of Metropolitan Cyril, a popular caretaker of the Patriarch’s See, to the Office of the Patriarch, even though he will face a host of really knotty problems, experts say.
While in the capacity of the Patriarch, His Beatitude Cyril will have to take upon himself the job of keeping up contacts with government organizations, society at large and other religious denominations and, on top of that, to tackle Moscow Patriarchate’s old headaches, like effectuation of a Church reform, rebuilding of the Patriarchate’s influence in other former Soviet republics, and resolution of the Ukrainian problem.
On the first day of session of the Local Council of the Russian Orthodox Church, Metropolitan Cyril was elected Patriarch by 508 votes (72% delegates). His closest competitor, Metropolitan Clement of Kaluga, received 169 votes.
The post was vacant as of December 5, 2008, when Alexy II, the fifteenth Russian Patriarch passed away. The Holy Synod appointed His Beatitude Cyril Locum Tenens /caretaker/ of the Patriarch’s See December 6.
Metropolitan Cyril, a native of St Petersburg, is widely viewed as a closest disciple and associate of Metropolitan Nicodemus (b. 1929, d. 1978), one of the most outspoken supporters of ecumenism in the Russian Church, who sincerely tried to combine Church practices and Soviet reality and who took a genuine interest in the reforms that Roman Catholicism launched after the Second Vatican Council.
His Beatitude Cyril made an illustrious clerical career – he was ordained bishop while still in his twenties and then occupied the position of director of the Leningrad Theological Academy over many years.
In 1984, the then Most Reverend Cyril was moved to the position of bishop of the Smolensk diocese, where he has been the ruling hierarch ever since.
Metropolitan Cyril has more than once spoken out in favor of stepping up missionary activity in various sections of society, including the youth, as well as in favor of broader contacts with the Vatican in the wake of Pope Benedict XVI’s accession to power there.
The intrigue over the new Patriarch’s election was building up for the past two weeks, as the run-up period was accompanied by struggle between two camps inside the Church. Metropolitan Cyril was often portrayed as the leader of the pro-modernization wing and Metropolitan Clement, as leaders of the conservatives or traditionalists.
Analysts differ in their forecasts for what the future has in store for the Russian Church after Locum Tenens Cyril becomes the full-fledged Patriarch upon the enthronement ceremony this Sunday.
The Moscow-based Kommersant daily believes, for instance, that Patriarch Cyril may splash cold water on the zeal of his reform-minded associates, as he is obviously unwilling to instigate scandals with the traditionalists or to hear more accusations of affliction with ecumenism (mostly made manifest in a rapprochement with Roman Catholics).
His Beatitude Cyril made a tentative mentioning of the impossibility of a close rapport with the Catholics in a report at the Local Council right on the first day of its sessions, the Gazeta newspaper says. “Any compromises with non-Orthodox denominations on the building blocks of the teachings of faith are ruled out,” he said, adding that it is precisely the firmness of belief and the Orthodoxy’s unbending stance that often attracts people from other denominations to it.
Apart from this, Metropolitan Cyril has inherited an extremely complicated situation in the post-Soviet space and Eastern Europe, as Moscow Patriarchate is losing influence in Estonia, Moldova, Greece, and Serbia.
Still, Ukraine will most apparently be the hardest nut to crack for Patriarch Cyril, Kommersant quotes Dr Andreyev Kurayev, a popular spokesman for Orthodox Christianity as saying.
On the one hand, Moscow Patriarchate feels the growing pressure of the Constantinople Patriarchate, which makes a ploy of President Viktor Yushchenko’s support in lobbying the rise of an Autocephalous Ukrainian Church reporting affiliated with the Constantinople Patriarch.
On the other hand, the dissenters inside the Ukrainian Orthodox Church reporting to Moscow Patriarchate have much clout, too. A part of bishops in it insists on a broader autonomy of the Church in Ukraine, although it already enjoys a broad enough autonomy now. This may deal a blow to the Russian-Ukrainian unity in faith.
As Metropolitan Cyril spoke at the Council, he made special accent on relations between the Church and the authorities, and experts believe that the most noticeable changes will most likely occur precisely in that sphere.
“Patriarch Cyril will keep up friendly relations with top state officials but will make polite and gentle reminders to them that policymaking, economy and public life should be driven closer to Christian foundations,” the RBC Daily quotes Viktor Militarev, the president of the Institute for Development foundation.
The expert recalls that Metropolitan Cyril is a conservative in the field of Christian dogmas and canons.
“The authorities will have to reckon with the position that the Church will occupy under Cyril,” says Alexander Ogorodnikov, the director of the Island of Hope Orthodox shelter. “Under his guidance, the Church will position and affirm itself as a full-fledged authoritative social force.”
Maksim Shevchenko, a member of Russia’s Public Chamber, a high-profile consultative public body, believes that Metropolitan Cyril’s election to the post of Patriarch will push up significantly the role of the Church and the role of the religious factor in general.
“There was no serious opposition to him – as a politician of a high professional class, he visibly outdid all of his competitors,” Vedomosti quoted Shevchenko as saying.
The Church is facing momentous tasks, says the daily Trud. According to sociological polls it cites, a total of 75% Russians ascribe themselves to Orthodoxy but only 10% Russians are churchgoers.
Many of those who considered themselves educated and up-to-date might be willing to go to Church, yet they claim that when they come there they have to encounter the orthodoxism of the Russian clergy.
It is widely claimed in certain quarters, including the Church itself, that a need for reform is imminent. The most typical secular complaints suggest that the services are still held in the Old Church Slavonic language, which is ostensibly too hard to comprehend, and that the Church still observes the Julian calendar.
The list of most popular complaints includes the necessity to stand on one’s feet throughout the service.
Also, the Russian Church still does not have a curia-type tribunal that could take upon itself resolution of most problem issues related to ecclesiastical life.
“Russian ecclesiastical laws still abound in problems, are overly complicated and don’t reveal a clear relationship to Russia’s legislation in general,” says Church expert Nikolai Mitrokhin.
Alexei Makarkin, the vice president of the Center for Political Technologies writes at the Daily Journal news portal that His Beatitude Cyril’s success at elections crowned a skilful and professional election campaign, in the course of which he showed in bold relief his qualities of a politician.
But how far Patriarch Cyril will be able to win spiritual authority with the laymen is a real problem now, Makarkin says.
“How much tactfulness will he have in settling the Ukrainian issue?” he writes, recalling that this very issue has a tendency towards recurrent deteriorations.
“How far will he be able to keep together the coalition that was formed in the run-up to the election and that supported him, considering the fact that it included broadly thinking theologians and ardent guardians of traditional purity of the faith including the ones from the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia,” Makarkin says.
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Russia’s agricultural production goes up by 11% in 2008 – statistics
28.01.2009, 23.56
MOSCOW, January 28 (Itar-Tass) -- Russia’s agricultural production went up by 10.8 percent in 2008 to 2,602.7 billion roubles (USD 1 = RUB 33.21), Prime Tass economic news agency said, quoting a regular report drafted by the Federal State Statistics Service.
According to preliminary estimates, the country’s gross grain harvest amounted to 108.1 million tonnes (in weight after processing), thus exceeding the level of 2007 by 32.6 percent, Prime Tass said, adding that in 2007, Russian farmers harvested 81.8 million tonnes of grain.
In 2008, gross harvesting of major industrial crops (sunflower grain and sugar beet) went up, which was caused by the 24.3-percent increase in the yield capacity of sugar beet and 18.9-percent growth of areas under sunflower.
The gross harvesting of potatoes and vegetables went up by 6.2 percent and 12.9 percent respectively owing to the 6.6-percent increase in the yield capacity of potatoes and the 12-percent growth in the yield capacity of vegetables, Prime Tass said.
The flax-fibre output soared by 12 percent owing to the growth of harvested areas by 5.6 percent and the growth of yield by 6.9 percent, Prime Tass said.
As of the end of December, 2008, the cattle population at all farms of Russia’s agricultural producers made up 21.1 million, thus reducing by 2.6 percent versus 2007, Prime Tass said.
Russia’s cow population decreased by 1.3 percent to 9.2 million, the country’s pig population grew by 1.2 percent to 16.3 million, and the population of sheep and goats went up by 2.7 percent to 21.6 million, Prime Tass said.
Besides, 47.5 percent of the total cattle population, 38.8 percent of pigs and 52.1 percent of all sheep and goats were accounted for individual farms, Prime Tass said.
In 2008, the country’s production of meat and poultry increased by 6.5 percent to 9.3 million tonnes, Prime Tass said, adding, milk production grew 1.1 percent to 32.4 million tonnes, while output of eggs dropped by 0.3 percent to 37.8 billion.
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Obama wants too much from Russia
28.01.2009 Source: Pravda.Ru URL: http://english.pravda.ru/world/americas/107025-obama_russia-0
The head of the new US administration is ready to improve relations with Russia and informed his Russian counterpart, Dmitry Medvedev of such an intention. The long-expected meeting of the two new leaders is to take place in the beginning of April. For the time being, it is clear that Obama and Medvedev will discuss the issues of the financial crisis, the missile defense system, the Iranian nuclear program, the recent conflict with Georgia, Ukraine’s NATO membership and many other subjects. Russia has many trump cards to normalize its relations with the United States and defend its views on the above-mentioned subjects.
The pause in the top level talks between Washington and Moscow is now over. The two presidents will meet in April of the current year in an attempt to improve the ties that reached the lowest of the low under Bush’s rule.
It is not clear who of the two presidents was the first to make a phone call, although there is every reason to believe that it was Barack Obama. Dmitry Medvedev has nothing against the normalization of bilateral ties.
“We hope that the new administration will exercise more flexibility and will have a better understanding of Moscow’s concerns regarding NATO’s expansion to the east, the takeover of Georgia and Ukraine or the deployment of the US missile shield in Poland and the Czech Republic. Technically we are on two different paths, but our goals coincide from the strategic point of view. When it goes about world events, it turns out that we have a lot in common, that is why we must use this aspect,” Dmitry Peskov, an official spokesman for Medvedev’s administration said.
What do the Americans need?
First of all, they need to curb Iran’s nuclear program. Secondly, they need to prolong several previous agreements, which restrict Russia’s defense power (START-1, the Treaty of Conventional Armed Forces in Europe) and impose new agreements that will disarm Russia even more (START-2). In addition, the USA wants Russia to provide the constant transit of NATO troops to Afghanistan. Finally, they want to use Russia’s influence in Arab states “to normalize the situation in the Middle East.
The list makes it clear that the Americans want too much. One may assume that Russia will support the idea to prolong the START-1 Treaty, but the country is not likely to even think about START-2 or another nuclear disarmament document that will let Washington take advantage of Russia.
Russia will not interrupt the transit of NATO troops to Afghanistan, Medvedev said. However, it does not mean that Russia will agree to expand the transit which is currently performed by air only. Needless to say that Russia would not let NATO troops travel in cross-country trains, for example.
It goes without saying that Russia is ready to use its influence in Arab countries not to let a further aggravation of the situation in the region. However, it does not mean that Russia will stop selling its weapons to its Arab customers. Russia will not accept the US ideas as far as Iran is concerned. Washington wants Russia, as a constant UN Security Council member to agree upon the introduction of sanctions against the Islamic Republic in an effort to cease its nuclear program.
Russia will lose billions of dollars of profit in this case. What is worse, many other countries will think of Russia as an unreliable partner. Such a step will obviously undermine Russia’s positions in the Islamic world.
At any rate, one should not overestimate the coming talks with Obama: the new president of the United States is open for compromise.
Even if the USA plays an important role in NATO, it will not be able to grant the membership to Ukraine and Georgia without the participation of European members in the process. As a matter of fact, the only problem, which Obama can solve, is the question of the US missile defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic.
Sergei Balmasov
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Russian oil production reaches its peak
28.01.2009 Source: URL: http://english.pravda.ru/business/finance/107024-Russian_oil_production_peak-0
By Gregor Macdonald
The United States reached peak oil production in 1971, as forecasted by M. King Hubbert, the Shell geologist. Before that time the US attained a form of glory in its oil age with spectacular discoveries in Texas, a robust industry, strong exports to the rest of the world and lots of free wildcatting. The oil age in the US also gave rise to novels and films, like Upton Sinclair’s Oil and of course George Steven’s vehicle with James Dean, Giant.
Russia appears to have peaked now without enjoying any such glory. Perhaps the promise of Khodorkovsky’s Yukos, which charged out of the gate and looked to deliver on the dream of a modern, efficient corporation was doomed by the oligarchical terms of its founding. Large mega-projects like Sakhalin also succumbed to the vagaries of the State, and now the bloated Gazprom looks more like a portrait of decay than an instrument of power. It’s not just the volatility in the price of Oil and Gas that was the undoing of Russia. It was Russia’s historical propensity to eat itself.
Russia’s oil industry now resembles the unbuilt buildings of Russia’s futurists, from the 1920’s. Production, which was boosted to new heights in 2007 has now fallen 1.00% in calendar year 2008. But the chatter out of Russia is much darker, than a 1.00% fall would suggest. First, Russia does not have as much easy oil as is found in the Arab states.
This makes Russia’s achievement in this decade, when it was able to match Saudi Arabia in daily production above 9 Mb/day, all the more impressive. But we know that a goodly portion of Russia’s ability to increase production from 2000-2008 comes directly from its previous collapse. In other words, Russia did not discover alot of new oil this decade. It simply went back to mothballed wells, many of which were aging. But while mothballed wells giveth, they also taketh away. They tend to have a surge flow after reopening, only to reach peak quickly thereafter.
More relevant now to the world however is the ability of Russia to export oil. 2008 saw Russian oil exports fall by over 5.00% and the outlook is not pretty from here. The fall in oil prices not only hurt Russia economically. Current prices are simply way too low for great swaths of Russian production to carry on profitably. While GDP per capita is still much lower in Russia than in the OECD, Russia simply does not have the kind of dirt-cheap labor or materials advantage that it enjoyed just 10 years ago. Very few oil producers do. And as a general point, oil at 45.00 continues to set the stage for a supply collapse. Russia is vulnerable to a huge drop in production.
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Russia's space agency plans to build own orbital station
12:39 | 29/ 01/ 2009
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MOSCOW, January 29 (RIA Novosti) - Russia's Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos) will propose to the government the construction of a low-orbit space station to support future exploration of the Moon and Mars, an agency official said Thursday.
"We will soon propose to our government a project to construct a low-orbit complex, which could serve as a foundation for the implementation of the lunar program and later on - the Mars program," Alexei Krasnov, director of manned flight programs at Roscosmos, told a news conference in Moscow.
Krasnov said that Russia, as well as other countries, "is looking at the Moon in a mid-term perspective, and would want not only to go there and come back, but to establish a lunar base, which would allow us to start exploring Mars in the future."
"These are our intentions, but we are working hard to ensure that these plans get adequate financial and legislative support from the government," the official said.
Russia, a pioneer in robotic lunar research, abandoned its lunar exploration program with the end of the Moon race in the mid-1970s, but the idea of exploring the Earth's natural satellite has been revisited recently, due to ambitious international projects to develop the Moon's resources and to use it as a stepping-stone for further space exploration.
Roscosmos earlier said its first unmanned flight to the Moon would include a lunar orbiter to fire 12 penetrators across diverse regions to create a seismic network. These will be used to research the origins of the Moon.
Krasnov also said Roscosmos would propose extending the use of the International Space Station (ISS) until 2020.
The orbital assembly of the ISS began with the launch of the U.S.-funded and Russian-built Zarya module from Kazakhstan on November 20, 1998. Zarya, which means 'dawn,' was the ISS's first component.
The project has taken longer than the planned five years, and as of July 2008 the station was approximately 76% complete.
"We are considering the extension of ISS service life at least until 2020, but this decision must be adopted by the governments of all 15 countries participating in the project," Krasnov said.
The project currently involves NASA, Roscosmos, the Canadian Space Agency, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), and 11 members of the European Space Agency (ESA).
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Russia delivers Mi-171 helicopters to Iran
19:53 | 28/ 01/ 2009
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TEHRAN, January 28 (RIA Novosti) - Russia has started deliveries of Mi-171 Hip transport helicopters to Iran under a $45 million contract, the Fars news agency reported on Wednesday.
They will be operated by Iran's Red Crescent for rescue missions and the evacuation of people injured in natural disasters.
Russia has already delivered two helicopters, and will supply another three to Tehran before the end of March.
The contract was signed with the East Siberian Ulan Ude helicopter plant, which manufactures Mi-171 transport and Mi-171Sh combat/transport helicopters, in October 2007.
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LUKoil, France's Foraco sign $13.9 mln diamond prospecting deal
14:48 | 28/ 01/ 2009
Print version
MOSCOW, January 28 (RIA Novosti) - Russia's largest independent crude producer LUKoil and France's Foraco have signed a deal worth around 10.5 million euros ($13.9 million) to explore for diamonds in northern Russia, LUKoil said Wednesday.
Arkhangelskgeologodobycha, a regional diamond producer owned by LUKoil, and Foraco will drill large-diameter wells at the Grib kimberlite pipe of the Verkhotinskaya diamond field, northwest of Arkhangelsk, the LUKoil press office said.
The Grib kimberlite pipe was opened in early 1996 and is thought to contain over $5 billion worth of diamonds, one of the largest diamond deposits in Europe.
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Former German spy could be nominated to Gazprom board - paper
12:12 | 28/ 01/ 2009
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MOSCOW, January 28 (RIA Novosti) - A former East German intelligence officer and managing director of the Nord Stream gas pipeline project could join the board of Russian energy giant Gazprom, a Russian paper reported on Wednesday.
Matthias Warnig will be nominated to Gazprom's new board of directors, which will be elected on June 26, business daily Vedomosti said, referring to three sources: a Russian government official; an acquaintance of the Nord Stream head; and a manager of Gazprombank, a banking institution related to Gazprom.
Gazprom sought and received Warnig's consent to be nominated, a source close to the Nord Stream managing director confirmed to the paper.
The final list of candidates will be drawn up only late in the week, with nominations open until January 30, and approved by the current Gazprom directors on February 4, the paper said.
Gazprom's and Warnig's representatives declined to comment on the information.
Warnig, 53, is expected to be nominated by Gazprom and the paper said he could take the seat of the sole independent director, former finance minister Boris Fyodorov, who died in November in London.
A former officer of the main intelligence service of East Germany, Warnig has been working in Russia since 1991. He held several posts at Dresdner Bank until 2005 and since 2006 has been the managing director of Nord Stream, the company that operates the project to build a gas pipeline under the Baltic Sea to pump gas from Russia directly to Germany.
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Russian automaker GAZ to assemble trucks in Sudan
17:32 | 27/ 01/ 2009
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NIZHNY NOVGOROD, January 27 (RIA Novosti) - Urals-based truck manufacturer Ural, part of Russia's second largest automaker GAZ Group, plans to organize the assembly of 2,000 trucks in 2010 in Sudan, the GAZ Group press office said Tuesday.
The first batch of 50 vehicle sets will be shipped to the northeastern African country this year, the press office said.
Viktor Korman, head of the GAZ Group truck division, said exports had been declared a priority direction for the automaker in 2009. The Ural auto factory plans to increase the number of trucks exported this year to 1,800 vehicles from 1,728 vehicles in 2008.
GAZ supplies vehicles to 35 countries in the former Soviet Union, Central Europe, Southeast Asia, Africa, Latin America and the Middle East, and produces around 200,000 vehicles annually.
GAZ comprises 18 leading auto-making and machine-building enterprises in Russia and LDV Group in Britain.
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Metropolitan Kirill elected head of Russian Orthodox Church
22:25 | 27/ 01/ 2009
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MOSCOW, January 27 (RIA Novosti) - Metropolitan Kirill has been elected head of the Russian Orthodox Church, becoming the 16th Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia.
Kirill received 508 votes, and the second candidate, Metropolitan Kliment of Kaluga and Borovsk - 169 votes. A total of 700 ballots were cast in the vote, with 23 recognized as invalid.
The Local Council, which is a council of bishops, priests, monks and laymen, including political figures and businessmen, gathered in Moscow earlier on Tuesday to elect the new Russian Orthodox Church leader.
The 700-plus-member group convened for a session to elect a successor to Patriarch Alexy II, who died in December at the age of 79 after leading the revival of the world's largest Orthodox church since 1990. This was the first election of a patriarch since the breakup of the atheist Soviet Union.
Metropolitan Kirill of Smolensk and Kaliningrad, who was the Russian Church's interim leader since the death of Alexy II, was the leading candidate on a shortlist that included two other hierarchs chosen in a secret ballot by the Council of Bishops on Sunday.
Kirill, 62, in charge of the church's external relations, has led dialogue with the Vatican, a sensitive issue for the two churches, which split almost 1,000 years ago. He is well-known in Russia through his weekly television program and frequent public appearances.
Kirill received the most votes, 97, in Sunday's ballot.
The other candidates on the shortlist were Metropolitan Kliment with 32 votes, and Metropolitan Filaret of Minsk and Slutsk, who received 16 votes. They are seen more as traditionalists. Filaret earlier on Tuesday withdrew his candidacy, urging the electors to vote for Kirill.
The Church Council session is taking place in the sumptuous Christ the Savior Cathedral with clergy clad in ceremonial robes. Streets around the cathedral in central Moscow have been closed to traffic.
The new Russian patriarch is expected to be enthroned on Sunday and his term of office is lifelong.
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Russian Orthodox Church to end election council Wednesday
15:09 | 28/ 01/ 2009
Print version
MOSCOW, January 28 (RIA Novosti) - The Local Council of the Russian Orthodox Church will complete its session ahead of time on Wednesday evening, the council said.
The council had been expected to work until Thursday, but on the first day of its work it fulfilled its key task by electing Metropolitan Kirill of Smolensk and Kaliningrad the new Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia.
The Local Council, which is an assembly of bishops, priests, monks and laymen, gathered in Moscow on Tuesday to elect a successor to Patriarch Alexy II, who died in December at the age of 79 after leading the revival of the world's largest Orthodox church since 1990.
The council session is taking place in the Christ the Savior Cathedral in central Moscow.
The new Russian patriarch is expected to be enthroned on Sunday.
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Iran set to launch first domestic satellite by March 20
17:31 | 28/ 01/ 2009
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TEHRAN, January 28 (RIA Novosti) - Iran plans to put its first domestically made communication satellite into orbit by March 19-20, the head of the Iranian space agency has said.
"If we do not run into problems, the first domestic satellite will be put in orbit by the end of this [Iranian solar calendar] year," Reza Taqipour said.
He said that technical experts were working to complete the preparations, adding that the precise launch date for the Omid (Hope) satellite would be announced as it drew nearer.
In November, Iran launched a carrier space rocket, Kavoshgar 2 (Explorer 2), which returned to earth after completing its mission.
The project was part of the country's "strategic space program" and "preparation for scientific and technological developments in space," according to Iran's state TV IRIB.
Last August, Iran successfully launched a carrier rocket Safir (Messenger), capable of putting lightweight satellites into low-earth orbit.
Iran has said it plans to put a "series of satellites" into space by 2010 to aid natural disaster management programs and improve telecommunications.
The launches have aroused concerns throughout the world that Tehran is developing long-range ballistic missile technology that could be used to launch nuclear weapons.
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South Stream's Russian gas for Europe
11:51 | 29/ 01/ 2009
Print version
MOSCOW. (RIA Novosti economic commentator Oleg Mityayev) - The recent gas dispute illustrates the importance of diversifying gas routes to Europe. Apart from this, most experts predict a sizable increase in the demand for gas in Europe in the next one to two decades.
In this context, Gazprom (Russia) and Eni (Italy) have signed an agreement to build a new gas pipeline, South Stream, to link Russia's Black Sea coast with southern and central Europe.
Europe's growing demand for gas requires diversified gas routes.
A long-term trend toward increasing gas consumption in Europe is turning South Stream into an important project. To meet the demand, gas supplies to Europe should be increased at least by 70 billion to 100 billion cubic meters per year by 2020. The European Union of the Natural Gas Industry or Eurogas predicts that by 2030 the European Union's demand for gas will grow from 440 million to 625 million metric tons in the oil equivalent.
Gazprom and Eni signed an agreement in June of 2007 to initiate South Stream feasibility studies. It will run underwater from Russia's Black Sea coast in Dzhubga to Bulgaria's Varna and cross the Adriatic, tentatively, from the Greek coast to the south of Italy.
By land, the pipeline will cross Russia to reach the Black Sea coast and the south and central European countries of Bulgaria, Greece, Serbia, Hungary, Slovenia, and Austria.
Intergovernmental agreements to build the overland segments have already been signed with Bulgaria, Greece, Serbia, and Hungary. A draft agreement with Slovenia is under discussion, and there are plans to sign a similar contract with Austria.
These documents have set up joint ventures to compile a feasibility report for the project, starting with the overall justification of investment (JOI), which will cover overland sections in Russia, Bulgaria, Serbia, Hungary, Slovenia, and Greece, and the Black Sea underwater segment. Once the JOI is completed, a decision will be made on investment.
South Stream's total capacity will be 31 billion cubic meters per year. It will meet the EU's growing energy demand, expand its gas transportation network, make it more flexible, and promote economic cooperation in Europe. It will also enhance energy security in Europe by providing a reliable and alternative transportation route.
Importantly, the project is based on Russia's substantial gas deposits.
Benefits for participating countries
Environmentally conscious Gazprom and Eni are using the latest technology to guarantee compliance with the most rigid environmental and security standards. They have already carried out another complicated project by building the Blue Stream gas line linking Russia and Turkey. It has been operating without a hitch since 2003. The South Stream transit countries have no grounds to fear that South Stream's construction will threaten their environment.
The pipeline will allow south and central European countries to not only reliably meet their growing demand for gas, but will also provide many economic benefits including job creation and tax revenue.
In Bulgaria, a company owned by a 50-50 partnership between Bulgargaz and Gazprom will run the pipeline. They will also own equal parts of Bulgaria's branch lines. Bulgaria will receive hundreds of millions of euros from this operation, new jobs and underground gas storage facilities.
Apart from becoming a reliable source of long-term gas supplies, South Stream will allow Bulgaria to double its gas consumption from 3 billion to 6 billion cubic meters. It will enable Bulgaria to fully meet its gas requirements in the event of force majeure.
In Serbia, preliminary estimates indicate the pipeline's construction will provide 100,000 new jobs and attract 2 billion euros worth of foreign investment. It will receive an annual duty revenue of over 200 million euros from gas transit, and another 100 million euros per year for operating its sections and maintaining its quality. Under the project, an underground gas storage facility at Banatski Dvor will be built providing a major supplement to its gas infrastructure.
Gazprom and the Serbian state-owned gas company Srbijgas have signed an agreement to establish a joint venture to build and operate South Stream's Serbian branch with an annual capacity of 10 billion cubic meters of gas.
In Hungary, Gazprom and the Hungarian Development Bank (MFB) will build and operate the pipeline. Hungary is Gazprom's fifth largest gas consumer (7.5 billion cubic meters per year). Gazprom is studying the possibility of building a co-owned underground gas storage facility in Hungary with a net storage volume of more than 1 billion cubic meter.
South Stream will be a benefit to more than just the countries it will run through. Under the plan, it will reach a major gas transportation hub in Austria, from where it may also supply Germany and Italy, two major gas importers in Europe.
The opinions expressed in this article are the author's and do not necessarily represent those of RIA Novosti.
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琵琶湖の「厄介者」が養鶏のエサに 外来魚、高い栄養価（1/2ページ）
2009年1月29日9時4分
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写真外来魚の加工プラント。加熱処理され、丸１日かけて魚粉ができあがる＝滋賀県日野町
写真外来魚の魚粉入りの飼料をついばむ京都養鶏生産組合の鶏＝京都府城陽市
写真琵琶湖で駆除された外来魚。漁港を巡回する回収車に積まれ、加工施設へ運ばれる＝滋賀県水産課提供
トウモロコシなど輸入穀物の値上がりが続くなか、琵琶湖の外来魚、ブラックバスやブルーギルが養鶏飼料の原料として注目されている。生態系を乱す厄介者扱いだが、栄養価が高く、大量に調達できる点が歓迎され、一風変わった「地産地消」の試みが動き出した。
京都府城陽市の養鶏場。１０万羽のニワトリのうち、約７００羽が魚粉入りの飼料をついばむ。琵琶湖でとれた外来魚を加工した魚粉１に対して、国産の玄米などが３の割合で混ぜ合わされた飼料だ。京都養鶏生産組合が５年前から実験的に与えてきた。
これまでは原料の多くを輸入の大豆やトウモロコシに頼ってきたが、世界的な穀物高でこの２年間でエサ代は約１．３倍に上昇した。農林水産省によると、輸入トウモロコシなどでつくる配合飼料の価格は、０６年９月に１トンあたり約４万３千円だったのが、昨年９月には約６万５千円まで値上がりした。こうした穀物高に加え、魚粉の主原料になってきたイワシも漁獲量が減少し高騰している。
外来魚の魚粉入り飼料も輸入穀物よりまだ５割高で安くはないが、組合の西田敏代表理事は「従来の飼料を与えたニワトリより肉に臭みが少ない。琵琶湖の外来魚がエサだという意外性にも反響がある。琵琶湖の漁師が喜んでくれるのなら一石二鳥だ」と話す。
安定した供給が期待できることも追い風だ。滋賀県水産課によると、琵琶湖には約１６００トンの外来魚が生息し、琵琶湖の固有種でフナずしに使われるニゴロブナなどの漁獲量を激減させてきた。県が補助する県漁連の外来魚駆除事業では、漁師らが毎年４００～５５０トンを捕獲する。かつては埋め立て処分していたが、９９年からは魚粉に加工し、販路を探ってきた。
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外来魚の回収と加工を担う「淡海再資源化協同組合」（本部・大津市）は今年度は約４００トンの外来魚から約１００トンの魚粉をつくり、商社のほか、滋賀や京都の養鶏農家に出荷する計画だ。林市雄事務局長は「駆除対象なので『あら』だけでなく身も使え、高たんぱく質と評判がいい。琵琶湖の外来魚を地元で消費する『地産地消』の取り組みだ」と胸を張る。
外来魚製の魚粉が、ＢＳＥ（牛海綿状脳症）で使用が禁止された牛骨粉に代わる動物性たんぱく質源になることも裏付けられた。
立命館大学びわこ・くさつキャンパス（滋賀県草津市）の久保幹教授（環境微生物学）らの研究グループの実験では、粉砕したブルーギルに、納豆菌の一種を加えて約４８時間発酵させると、栄養の吸収効率が高い飼料ができあがることがわかった。
滋賀県特産の「近江シャモ」３００羽に、この飼料を１４０日間与えたところ、通常のエサよりも体重が約１割増えた。肉の味についても、１００人中６０人以上が「好む」と答えた。久保教授は「従来のエサよりも少量ですみ、コスト削減につながる」と期待している。
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下水汚泥から「金」回収 諏訪湖流域、初回売却益５００万円
2009年1月29日 10時38分
長野県諏訪地域（諏訪市など６市町村）の諏訪湖流域下水道で処理する汚泥焼却灰から、「金」を回収できることが分かった。管理する県諏訪建設事務所は２８日、金属精錬会社への初の売却益が５００万円になり、今後年間１５００万円の収入が見込めると明らかにした。日本下水道事業団（東京）によると、国内で汚泥から貴金属やレアメタル（希少金属）の回収例はない。
同流域下水道には工業用下水も流れ込む。諏訪湖周辺は半導体やメッキなどの産業が集積。温泉や天然ガスがわき、「黒鉱（くろこう）ベルト」と呼ばれる金属鉱床の豊富な地下構造もある。同事業団は「これらの地域特性が絡み合い、微量の金が下水に含まれるようになったのでは」と推測する。
下水道の汚泥は、焼却して出る灰を資源再利用するため、さらに高熱で溶融結晶化。汚泥にたまった金は、この過程で高濃度になる。焼却灰１トンに含有する金３５グラムは、結晶化過程で発生する「溶融飛灰」１トンに１９００グラムと５４倍に濃縮。コスト面で製錬が可能と分かった。
諏訪市にある下水道終末処理場で溶融飛灰をストック。昨年１０月、１・４トンを売り渡したところ２５００グラムの金が含まれており、売却益は５００万円になった。溶融飛灰の年間排出量は５トンで「１５００万円にはなる。金相場が上がればもっと…」と、同事務所は思わぬ副収入に期待する。
同事業団新プロジェクト推進課の弓削田克美さん（４１）は「下水はいろいろなものが流れてくる。汚泥のレアメタル含有分析はほとんど行われておらず、各地域に特有のものがあるかもしれない」と指摘している。
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諏訪・終末処理場：汚泥に金 メッキ工場排水から流入か
長野県諏訪市の「諏訪湖流域下水道豊田終末処理場」の汚泥焼却灰に金が含まれていることが分かり、管理する県諏訪建設事務所は灰を売却して維持管理費に充てる。金価格高騰で抽出する費用を差し引いても採算が合うようになった。
県と、県が汚泥活用法の調査を委託した日本下水道事業団によると、金含有量は、焼却灰を高温で溶かした際に飛散する「溶融飛灰（ひばい）」が１トン当たり１８９０グラムで、優良な金鉱山並みだった。諏訪地方には精密加工工場が多く、周辺の金メッキ工場の排水に金が含まれていた可能性があるという。
県は昨年１０月に溶融飛灰１．４トンを金属精錬会社に売却し、近く代金約５００万円が入る。今年度は計５トン分約１５００万円の収入を見込んでいる。
同事務所の担当者は「金価格は変動があるが、今のところは、灰の年間処理経費を差し引いても、もうけがある」と話している。
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IMF slashes 2009 growth forecasts
By Alan Beattie in Washington
Published: January 28 2009 14:47 | Last updated: January 28 2009 19:44
The International Monetary Fund on Wednesday slashed its global growth forecasts, sharply raised its estimates of losses from bad assets and said that governments needed to take much more radical action to rebuild shattered financial systems.
Olivier Blanchard, the fund’s chief economist, also played down the importance of the politically contentious question of China’s currency policy, saying it was not a high priority in resolving the global economic crisis.
The IMF cut its 2009 global economic growth projection to just 0.5 per cent, a huge downward revision from its previous 2.2 per cent forecast made in November. The rich economies in particular would suffer the sharpest recession since the second world war, the IMF said. The UK was likely to shrink at the fastest rate out of the large industrialised economies – dropping by 2.8 per cent this year – with the US contracting by 1.6 per cent, the eurozone by 2 per cent and Japan by 2.6 per cent.
Although the big emerging market economies would hold up better than in previous downturns, the IMF also revised down growth in the developing world, with China’s economy this year expected to grow 6.7 per cent and India’s by 5.1 per cent.
World trade was particularly badly affected by the global downturn, with the value of global goods trade sliding at an annualised rate of more than 40 per cent towards the end of last year.
The fund said that credit losses from bad assets originating in the US would be $2,200bn (€1,662bn, £1,537bn), a sharp increase from its previous $1,400bn estimate. Banks would be likely to need at least half a trillion dollars in new capital over the next two years simply to prevent their capital position deteriorating further.
Jaime Caruana, head of the IMF’s monetary and capital markets department, said that banks needed to have bad assets cleansed from their balance sheets.
The IMF said new policy initiatives were needed to produce credible loan loss recognition, and banks had to be sorted according to their medium-term financial health.
“For this purpose, new policy initiatives are needed to produce credible loan loss recognition; sort financial companies according to their medium-run viability; and provide public support to viable institutions by injecting capital, and carving out bad assets, including possibly through a ‘bad bank’ approach,” the fund said.
The IMF has come under focus recently for its views on China’s exchange rate policy following the comment by Tim Geithner, the US Treasury secretary, that Beijing was manipulating the renminbi. Mr Blanchard said that while China needed to shift from export-led growth to higher domestic demand, a big shift in exchange rate policy was not an urgent priority.
Mr Blanchard said. “I do not think this is an essential element of the crisis . . . I think it is something we should be thinking about but not obsessing about.”
The IMF has repeatedly warned that policymakers needed to bolster their financial systems with at least as much urgency as they unveiled fiscal stimulus packages to boost demand.
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US and Europe put on the defensive
By Andrew EdgecliffeJohnson and Gillian Tett in Davos
Published: January 29 2009 02:00 | Last updated: January 29 2009 02:00
Vladimir Putin on Wednesday night told his Davos audience it must assess the causes of the first global economic crisis "without gloating" if it was to find solutions.
"In the last few months, virtually every speech on this subject started with criticism of the United States. But I will do nothing of the kind," he said.
The concept of a unipolar world, revolving around US power, was "obsolete", Mr Putin said as he called for an "irreversible switchover" to a system of several strong reserve currencies rather than just the dollar.
"The entire economic growth system, where one regional centre prints money without respite and consumes material wealth, while another regional centre manufactures inexpensive goods and saves money printed by other governments, has suffered a major setback," Mr Putin said.
Wen Jiabao, the Chinese premier, argued in turn that western countries had been dangerously negligent in their policies towards their financial institutions and that this failure, coupled with a culture of "low savings and high consumption", was behind the crisis.
Both men in effect staked their countries' claim to a bigger say in world affairs at the meeting, which has seen the western nations and institutions that once dominated the Davos world view on the defensive. Mr Putin, who has overseen a sharp rise in the state's share of Russia's economy, also cautioned against the "blind belief in the overarching power of the state", just as many of them were nationalising their banks. Foreign investors have fled Russia since the start of the crisis amid concerns of growing state interference, leaving Mr Putin to fight a run on the rouble. Many in the US have blamed China for stoking the credit bubble early in the decade by amassing vast foreign exchange reserves, which were invested in debt markets.
Mr Wen's unapologetic tone, however, suggests China is unlikely to acquiesce in calls from Tim Geithner, US Treasury secretary, that China adopt a more conciliatory exchange rate policy. Mr Geithner last week accused China of manipulating its currency, reflecting concern that Beijing is keeping its currency weak to boost its economy.
Mr Wen on Wednesday commented only that "a confrontational relationship will make both losers".
He insisted China was helping global growth through measures to keep its economy healthy in spite of the "rather big impact" of the global crisis. Mr Wen refrained from directly criticising US management of its banks but made it clear he believed western policy mistakes - rather than Chinese savings surpluses - were key to the crisis, and that Chinese banks were healthier than those of the west.
However unpalatable it may have been to some in the audience, both men's overt message was one echoed throughout Davos: that collaboration between nations would be essential to rebuild the global economic and political system, and that protectionism would be counter-productive.
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Japan faces up to the prospect of ‘peak fish’
By David Pilling
Published: January 28 2009 19:18 | Last updated: January 28 2009 19:18
Japan’s little secret is out. All over Asia, and indeed the rest of the world, people are discovering what the Japanese have known for centuries: fish is good for you.
This may seem a relatively benign discovery as far as cross-border proliferation goes. But in the case of seafood, as with any finite resource, it raises awkward questions about how spoils should be divided and what happens if competing interests cannot be reconciled.
Seafood has formed a crucial part of the Japanese diet for millennia, providing the main source of animal protein for a nation with little tradition of eating meat or drinking milk. Other countries have long prized an aquatic diet; some Chinese cuisine emulates the taste and texture of fish with ingenious use of vegetables. Now, as China and others become richer, they have converted dietary aspiration into reality.
Per capita consumption of fish in China has soared: from a mere 3.6kg in 1970 to 27kg in 2009. That is still some way off Japan, where people on average get through 67kg a year. But it might not be long before China catches up. Can the world sustain such an appetite?
The emergence of Japan as a global force in the 1970s changed the structure of global finance and manufacturing. That foreshadowed the challenges China now presents; only China has 10 times the population of Japan . When it came to Japan’s predilection for fish, globalisation initially worked in its favour. It sent an advanced fishing fleet to trawl the world’s oceans. Japan Airlines began a lucrative trade flying freshly caught tuna from America’s Atlantic seaboard to Tokyo. Until then those fish, highly prized in Japan, were pet food in the US. Such initiatives brought the Japanese a huge variety of fish all year round.
Then the rest of the world realised it could charge Japan for fish caught in its waters. Worse, it developed a taste for the Japanese diet. Sushi has caught on from Houston to New Delhi. Consumption of fresh fish is on the rise the world over.
Japan is still the world’s biggest importer by some way. It has gone from being a net exporter in 1964 to importing more than 40 per cent of its fish requirements today. But Japanese buyers are now regularly outbid in auctions. This month, two sushi bar owners, one from Hong Kong, paid $104,000 (€78,800, £73,800) for a 282lb blue-fin tuna, the highest price in years. (If the artist Damien Hirst had cut it in two, it might have been worth more still.)
Each year, about 100m tonnes of fish, 5 per cent of the 2bn tonnes of seafood biomass, are hauled from the oceans, according to a recent study published in Science. Many conservationists espouse “peak fish” theories, suggesting that catches have reached a limit, or gone beyond.
That may not be true for all species. But for some it is undeniable. In November, the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas, which includes Japan, sliced the 2009 blue-fin quota by a fifth. Japan gobbles 90 per cent of all blue-fin. Some scientists say the quota must be halved to let stocks recover.
Japan’s fishing industry faces crisis. The number of fishermen has sunk to 200,000 from a peak of 1m. That is still too many, compared with 10,000 in Norway. Too many boats chasing too few fish have devastated fish resources. By 2006, according to the Japan Economic and Social Research Institute, more than half of Japan’s fishing grounds had dangerously low stocks. Masayuki Komatsu, professor at the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies, says Japan needs a science-based quota system and a sustainable fisheries plan predicated on the concept that fish are a common property of the Japanese people not bona vacantia, ownerless goods belonging to whoever nets them first. Today’s policies stem from a desire to protect jobs and the notion that fishermen know better than scientists, he says.
It is far from Japan’s problem alone. Lida Pet-Soede of environmental group WWF says the Chinese taste for grouper, a top-predator reef fish, is destroying reefs and imperilling ecosystems. China is still only the world’s sixth biggest importer, producing most of its own fish, a lot on farms. Aquaculture may be part of the solution, though it is no panacea; artificially raised fish also need feeding, whether on marine products or on competing food sources, such as soyabeans. In any case, as the taste of Chinese and other emerging consumers turns to international varieties, fish stocks will come under increasing pressure.
Fish resources are devilishly difficult to manage internationally. Many fish species migrate wantonly across territorial waters. Indonesians have an economic incentive to grab juvenile tuna in their waters before they head for the high seas to be snagged – more rationally – as mature adults by stronger fishing nations. The idea of a war over fish is no more preposterous than that of a conflict over water or petroleum.
Nor, sadly, is the prospect of humans irreparably damaging, even destroying, a renewable resource. Jared Diamond, an evolutionary biologist, wonders what was going through the mind of the Easter Islander who cut down the last tree, thereby condemning his civilization to virtual extinction. It may have been: “We need more research, your proposed ban on logging is premature and driven by fear-mongering,” he speculates in his book, Collapse. It would be a tragedy if we come anywhere near asking the same question about the planet’s fish.
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Hong Kong plan could offer hope for UK banks
Published: January 23 2009 02:00 | Last updated: January 23 2009 02:00
From Mr Paul Serfaty.
Sir, Central banks and policymakers face the problem of how to recapitalise banks so they can lend, without sacrificing public value and making a free gift to private shareholders. At the same time, they do not want to freeze the access of healthy banks to private capital.
Hong Kong resolved a parallel dilemma after it took into public ownership more than 30 per cent of the stock market free float to fend off an attack on the peg linking the Hong Kong dollar and the US dollar. The solution was to offer for sale to the public over a period of years a pool of stocks reflecting the government stock purchases (in turn a reasonable representation of the Hang Seng index).
For the UK, the equivalent is to take into public ownership, at rock-bottom prices, the banks that seem unstable enough to fail, under a commitment to refloat them speedily within a pooled investment fund, to be sold to the public on a tap basis.
This would have three main benefits. It would eliminate doubt as to the banks’ capacity to survive; it would allow investors to re-enter the ownership of such banks on a limited scale but with potentially substantial upside, compensating to some degree for their loss, with the pool mitigating risk; and it would reserve for the public interest the long-term growth in value that could arise as the banks get back to health.
In addition, selling the pool on a tap basis would allow the government to manage pricing (perhaps giving preference to nationalised shareholders), to manage the stock overhang, and thus to avoid crowding out the private sector’s capital-raising efforts.
As with any solution, there will be problems. The most acute may be how to maintain fair competition vis a vis privately held banks outside the framework; but despite that problem in Germany, Deutsche Bank still did better than the Landesbanks. One could consider limiting the role of such banks, to form a future core of “narrow banks”, or restricting salary levels to drive out the excessively entrepreneurial banker. Splitting out better performing banks from the pool might be justified after some years. But whatever limits on business scope, or adjustments to the structure, are proposed, they should be defined early, so investors may understand the risk.
That Mervyn Davies and Adair Turner were colleagues at Standard Chartered Bank, which directly experienced Hong Kong’s 1998 travails, may help the different authorities find a good solution for London.
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Tehran wants US apology for ‘crimes’
By Najmeh Bozorgmehr in Tehran and Daniel Dombey in Washington
Published: January 28 2009 22:47 | Last updated: January 28 2009 22:47
President Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad on Wednesday called on the new US administration to apologise for what he called the “crimes they committed against the Iranian nation” if it truly sought a change in relations.
His comments came just a day after the Arab television channel al-Arabiya broadcast an interview with Barack Obama in which the US president said Washington needed to be willing to talk to Tehran and explore “potential avenues for progress”.
In a speech in the western city of Kermanshah, Mr Ahmadi-Nejad said Iran would welcome change in the US position provided it was “fundamental”, adding that his government would “patiently” look into the new president’s actions.
“Those who talk about change should know change is to apologise the Iranian nation to help make up for their black record and crimes they committed against the Iranian nation,” he said.
But in a reference to former president George W. Bush, Mr Ahmadi-Nejad said that “anyone who speaks to the Iranian nation with Mr Bush’s language, his literature, his spirit and war-mongering, even if new words are employed, should know that the Iranian nation’s response would be the same given to Mr Bush and his stooges”.
Washington severed ties in 1980 after Iran took diplomats hostage at the US embassy in Tehran.
Apologies by Bill Clinton, the former president, and Madeleine Albright, former secretary of state, in 1999 and 2000 for past US conduct – including support for a 1953 coup – failed to lead to warmer ties. Relations subsequently took another downturn with revelations about Iran’s nuclear programme and Mr Bush’s classification of Iran as part of an “axis of evil”.
In his interview with al-Arabiya, Mr Obama acknowledged unspecified US “mistakes” towards the Muslim world.
He added: “As I said during my inauguration speech, if countries like Iran are willing to unclench their fist, they will find an extended hand from us.”
But he set out a similar set of concerns about Iran to the demands of the Bush administration: chiefly what he described as Iran’s “threats against Israel; their pursuit of a nuclear weapon . . . [and] their support of terrorist organisations in the past.”
A state department official said on Wednesday a meeting next week between the permanent five members of the United Nations Security Council and Germany would look at new ways of putting pressure on Iran. The results would feed back into the US administration’s ongoing review of its policy on Iran.
The state department declined to respond to Mr Ahmadi-Nejad’s comments. “We obviously are reviewing our policy toward Iran. We’re certainly interested in having a dialogue with Iran,” it said.
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Saudi Arabia to ease regulations
By Abeer Allam in Riyadh
Published: January 28 2009 11:05 | Last updated: January 28 2009 11:05
As Saudi Arabia competes for foreign direct investment during the global slowdown, the kingdom has committed itself to easing business regulation and facilitating investment in energy-intensive industries this year, a top official said.
Amr al-Dabbagh, governor of the Saudi Arabia General Investment Agency, told the Financial Times earlier this week that new regulatory and procedural reforms are intended to reduce the time and capital needed to start a business. The changes form part of a strategy to place Saudi Arabia among the world’s 10 easiest countries for doing business by next year.
The World Bank’s “Doing Business in the World” survey ranked Saudi Arabia the 16th easiest country for doing business last September, up from 23rd the year before, and up dramatically from 67th in 2004. However, the World Bank noted delays in enforcing contracts and commercial legal procedures as obstacles for Saudi Arabia.
Businessmen also complain about the time it takes to register a business and about the complexity and expense of obtaining visas and permits for themselves and their employees.
“This is a global vote of confidence for us, “ Mr Dabbagh said of the survey. “We will aggressively raise the bar and our forecast is to at least jump by two or three positions in the ranking, and this will be reflect on the value of the investment we receive.”’
Saudi Arabia, the world’s top oil exporter and the Middle East’s biggest economy, has embarked on a series of economic reforms in recent years to curb unemployment and diversify its economy, which has benefited from a windfall in petrodollars.
Last year the kingdom ranked 18th in the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development’s report on foreign direct investment flows, attracting SAR90bn in actual investment in 2007.
Promoting foreign investment in petrochemicals, aluminium, steel and fertilisers will be the main focus of the agency this year, Mr Dabbagh said
“One way to deal with the current global challenges is to relocate to a more cost-effective production location like Saudi Arabia, especially in energy intensive industries,” Mr. Al-Dabbagh said in an interview on the sideline of the Global Competitiveness Forum in Riyadh. “With the availability of debt financing and liquidity in the market, we offer a unique value proposition in a time of global economic turndown.”
Saudi Arabia holds approximately a quarter of the world’s total proven reserves. So far, much of the investment entering the kingdom focuses on energy-intensive industries because of the cheap access to oil.
Fluctuations in oil prices are built into the kingdom’s plans. Saudi Arabia’s economy is projected to grow this year but by far less than the 4.2 percent of last year, and with the finance ministry projecting revenues of SR410bn for 2009 compared with a record SR1,100bn in 2008.
“Saudi Arabia is not isolated from the rest of the world, but we will be the least affected and our banks are still increasing their lending,” Mr. Al-Dabbagh said, adding that local banks will step in fill the financial vacuum as global credit lines dry up.
The kingdom is building four economic cities which are scheduled for completion by 2020, at which time they are expected to contribute $150bn to the kingdom’s gross domestic product and to have created 1.3m jobs, according to Sagia’s targets.
Some critics have questioned the feasibility of such mega-projects, especially given declining oil revenue, but Mr. Al-Dabbagh notes that local and foreign investment continues to flow into the cities, including the $27bn King Abdullah Economic City which attracted SAR130bn in projects last year.
“The country is very focused on attracting investments appropriate to its core competences and competitive advantages, “ he said. “We are confident that the Saudi economy will continue growing and attracting foreign investment this year.”
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Israelis counter qualms with 'grim satisfaction'
By Tobias Buck in Jerusalem
Published: January 26 2009 02:00 | Last updated: January 26 2009 02:00
As the dust settles on three weeks of war, the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip have nothing over which to re-joice: buildings lie in rubble, thousands have been killed or injured and prospects for an end to the misery and violence remain slim.
In Israel, however, the war has left people in very different mood. Whether through pride, relief or even a sense of triumph, there is no doubt that the Gaza conflict has at last made Israelis feel better about themselves, their leaders and their army.
Officials and analysts say they have been surprised by the degree of Israel's national unity and sense of common purpose during the war. After years in which Israel as a whole was ridden by self-doubt and lurched from military setback to political infighting to diplomatic stalemate, the change in attitude is palpable.
Polls show the overwhelming majority of Israelis backed the war, which they saw as a just assault on an implacable and dangerous enemy. The approval ratings of all government politicians have shot up, while much of the country has delighted in the images, splashed across the front pages, of smiling Israeli soldiers riding home on tanks in victory pose.
"There is a sense of grim satisfaction that the army has returned to itself," says Yossi Klein Halevy, a fellow at the Jerusalem-based Shalem Centre. "The soldiers fought with more motivation than at any time since the 1973 Yom Kippur war, the home front bore up with weeks of shelling without complaint and the country was unified. Even most of the Israeli left supported the operation."
Analysts say the key to understanding the Israeli elation lies in the country's botched 2006 war in Lebanon. The conflict against Hizbollah, the Lebanese Shia group, exposed serious failings among Israel's politicians, generals and soldiers. It ended inconclusively but was perceived by Israelis as an embarrassing failure, and one that did much to undermine the country's power of deterrence in the region.
As it happened, Hizbollah turned out to be sufficiently deterred not to open a second front as Israel pounded Hamas over the past month. But few doubt that the Lebanon war dealt a heavy psychological blow to a country that takes distinct pride in its armed forces and in which society and military are closely intertwined.
David Grossman, one of Israel's best-known novelists, sees the Gaza war almost as a kind of exorcism for the collective conscience. In a front-page essay for the Haaretz newspaper, he wrote last week: "A whole country eagerly hypnotised itself, because it needed so badly to believe that Gaza would cure it of 'Lebanonitis'." As a result, he argued, the images of civilian suffering among the Palestinians in Gaza now lie buried beneath a "wave of nationalist hyperbole".
The contrast between Israeli perceptions of the war and the worldwide outrage at the country's assault on an already impoverished territory is striking. Outside Israel, the attention has focused above all on the hundreds of dead civilians and on incidents where Israeli fire hit schools, UN compounds and hospitals. The apparent use of controversial ammunition such as white phosphorus has been condemned vociferously.
Several human rights groups have called for Israeli politicians and soldiers to be prosecuted for war crimes, sparking an indignant response from the government and promises of legal aid to any officers targeted in courts outside the country. The gulf separating Israel from much of the rest of the world - not just on the Gaza war - has not escaped the country's notice. "There is a sense of radical disconnect that most of us feel between our moral perceptions and those of the international community," says Mr Klein Halevy. Far from shaking Israeli certitudes, he says, the international condemnation has been met with "rage" and "contempt". The question posed by Israelis is simple: "Don't you people realise the nature of the enemy we are facing?"
Israel, he says, will indeed have to examine whether the use of overwhelming firepower against a target such as Gaza was appropriate. But "we knew that we risked turning ourselves into a pariah, because there is no clean way to fight such a war if you want to win".
Mr Grossman, who lost his son in the Lebanon war, believes Israel will eventually come to share the international mood. "When the guns fall completely silent, and the full scope of the killing and destruction becomes known, to the point where even the most self-righteous and sophisticated of the Israeli psyche's defence mechanism are overcome, perhaps some kind of lesson will imprint itself on our brain," he argues.
For the time being, however, the lesson that Israelis take away from three weeks of war is one that has echoed throughout the country's history: that being strong is always preferable to being popular.
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Islamic-style Turkish bonds fail to appeal
By Delphine Strauss in Ankara
Published: January 29 2009 02:00 | Last updated: January 29 2009 02:00
Turkey's launch of bonds designed to appeal to Islamic investors fell flat yesterday, raising only a quarter of the 1.89bn Turkish lira ($1.17bn) the Treasury had hoped for.
Banks bought TL420.7m and $49.1m worth of the revenue-linked bonds, which rely on income from state bodies such as the airports authority and Turkish Petroleum Corporation rather than on interest rates, the Treasury said.
Turkey's ruling Justice & Development (AK) party prefers not to term the new instrument "sukuk", though it is aimed at meeting Islamic rules forbidding interest payments.
The government, which is seeking help from the International Monetary Fund to close an external financing gap estimated at between $15bn and $30bn in 2009, is keen to diversify borrowing and tap new sources of foreign capital.
Yesterday's sovereign issue was Turkey's first suitable for Islamic investors since a brief venture in the 1990s, and the lacklustre reception is a setback to its efforts to win a bigger share of Gulf petrodollars.
Domestic investors hold most of Turkey's sovereign debt. Much of the interest may have come from Turkish "participation banks" - the term for those offering Islamic finance - unable to join in previous Treasury debt auctions.
Albaraka Turk, one of the bigger participation banks, said it bought TL100m and $5m worth of bonds. It had previously invested in sukuk bonds issued by Bahrain.
Senay Ugur Ustay, at Ata Invest, said: "This is a very illiquid product," adding that many investors would be deterred by the lack of a secondary market. She said most preferred short-term instruments, while the new bonds have a maturity of more than three years.
Banks could also be waiting until big government debt redemptions next month set a benchmark for prices.
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Farmers tighten stranglehold on Greece
By Kerin Hope in Athens
Published: January 27 2009 14:38 | Last updated: January 27 2009 18:13
Greek farmers on Tuesday extended a blockade of the country’s main roads that is starving the capital of food and medicine, stalling exports and straining relations with neighbouring countries.
More than 9,000 tractors have blocked the main route for trucks carrying goods to and from western Europe. Farmers are demanding that the government increases a €500m ($660m, £465m) support package.
The eight-day blockade is gradually moving closer to Athens. It highlights widening social unrest in Greece as the centre-right government of Costas Karamanlis, prime minister, struggles to restore credibility following last month’s student riots in Athens.
Mr Karamanlis said the government was “open to dialogue” but only when the roads were open again.
“You cannot hold prisoner a whole society that works to provide the resources to subsidise farming, and burden the economy even further,” he said.
Wholesalers in Athens warned on Tuesday that supermarkets and pharmacies were starting to run short of supplies.
Kostas Michalos, chairman of the Athens chamber of commerce, said: “Exports and trade generally are taking a disastrous hit. Other sectors of the economy should be allowed to meet contracts in these difficult economic times.”
The Bulgarian government appealed to the European Commission to intervene to lift the blockade after tractors surrounded customs posts at all three border crossings with Greece, leaving more than 500 trucks on the Bulgarian side.
Transit traffic at crossings with Macedonia and Turkey were also affected. Customs officials at the Kipi crossing with Turkey said on Tuesday that scuffles had broken out between lorry drivers and farmers.
Bulgaria’s truckers’ association said that it would take legal action against Greek authorities if the protests continued.
The government’s offer to farmers consists of €300m in compensation for crop damage caused by fires and floods last year, and another €200m of extra subsidies for olive oil, wheat and cotton growers who are facing increased input costs.
The farmers want the package to be increased. They also want it to exclude people who cultivate small landholdings in time off from other jobs. About 12 per cent of the Greek workforce are registered as farmers but this number includes many “urban farmers” who have second jobs in the public sector or in tourism.
Greece’s system of fragmented holdings makes farming uncompetitive compared with other Mediterranean producers such as Spain and Italy.
Large tracts of land that were once used mainly for olive growing in southern Greece have been abandoned or offered for building second homes as young people have left for service sector jobs in the cities.
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Gaddafi threat to nationalise energy assets
By Mark Mulligan in Madrid
Published: January 25 2009 20:37 | Last updated: January 25 2009 20:37
Colonel Muammer Gaddafi, the Libyan leader, has threatened to nationalise the country’s vast hydrocarbon reserves as a measure against continued weakness in oil prices.
Mr Gaddafi told King Juan Carlos of Spain and a Spanish business delegation at the weekend that by taking full control of its energy assets, Libya could better adjust production and influence prices. He described as “very dangerous” the fact that oil prices had fallen so sharply last year, while the cost of Libyan imports had barely changed.
“If we end up taking this decision, it will be because we didn’t have any choice,” he was quoted as saying in the Spanish press on Sunday.
It was the second time in less than a week that Mr Gaddafi had proposed such a move. He raised the issue in a video conference with Georgetown University in the US on Wednesday, telling students oil prices would have to rebound to $100 (€77, £73bn) a barrel before the threat of energy nationalisation was removed.
His latest comments, during a dinner in Tripoli, the Libyan capital, appeared directed at executives of Repsol, Spain’s biggest oil and gas group and the largest single investor in Libya’s hydrocarbons sector.
The company produces 300,000 barrels a day in the country, although it books about 50,000 of that under its royalty and tax agreement with the state. This is about 5 per cent of Repsol’s total world production.
The company’s upstream assets in Bolivia have already been nationalised and it has been forced by Buenos Aires to sell part of Argentine subsidiary YPF to local investors.
Antonio Brufau, Repsol chairman, played down the threat of nationalisation in Libya, describing Mr Gaddafi’s words as a “reflection spoken out loud”.
However, he did not discount the possibility of a policy change in the future.
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National groups bear brunt of change in fortunes
By Carola Hoyos
Published: January 26 2009 02:00 | Last updated: January 26 2009 02:00
Little more than a year ago PetroChina, the oil company largely owned by the Chinese government, surpassed ExxonMobil to become the world's biggest listed energy group. It was the first time in oil's history that a national oil company had boasted the industry's largest market capitalisation.
Months later, Alexei Miller, chief executive of Gazprom, confidently asserted that within a decade the Kremlin-controlled gas monopoly he headed would be the world's largest energy company.
What a difference a credit crisis makes. By the end of last year, after oil prices had fallen dramatically, ExxonMobil again found itself on the top rung as international oil companies started to see opportunities that had not existed a year ago. Every international energy group in the top 10 of a study to be published today by PFC Energy, the Washington-based consulting group - ExxonMobil, Royal Dutch Shell, Chevron, BP, and Total - gained in ranking.
In contrast, PetroChina, Petrobras, Gazprom and Sinopec all tumbled, with the last two companies slipping out of the top 10 altogether.
Their swift change in fortune increases the risk that some of the world's biggest oil and gas projects will be delayed as technological requirements mount and funding becomes more difficult and expensive to secure. This leaves some national oil companies' customers worrying there will be too little oil and gas available in the middle of the next decade.
Gazprom controls 25 per cent of the world's gas reserves. This includes the frigid and remote Yamal peninsula. But Gazprom's debt burden and the far higher cost of credit could delay necessary investments, analysts said. All this means Europe, Russia's biggest customer, will have to brace itself for gas shortages far more entrenched than gaps caused by the pricing dispute between Gazprom and Ukraine, analysts and European diplomats warn.
Oswald Clint, analyst at Sanford Bernstein, said possible two-year delays at Yamal were material enough to "tip the supply/demand dynamics across Russia and more importantly Europe firmly into a deficit position".
Meanwhile, on the other side of the globe, Petrobras recently discovered the world's most promising new oil deposits buried under thick layers of salt in the deep waters off its south-eastern coast. After months of delays, Petrobras last week came out with its strategic review that paints an optimistic picture of the company's ability to tap its riches. But some oil company executives are less sure and note that much will depend on the legal framework still being debated that will govern the field's development. Further exacerbating the issue is the downturn in the oil services sector. Shares of Schlumberger, the world's biggest oil services company, have fallen 57 per cent.
Such a dramatic reversal in fortunes brings with it the potential of new opportunities for the relatively robust international oil companies. Until recently, oil-rich countries aggressively rewrote their contracts with international oil companies ending their majority ownership, squeezing them out of leadership positions, reducing their profit share and denying them new opportunities. The countries turned instead to national oil companies and oil services groups, leaving international oil companies struggling to expand their production.
In Libya, that attitude appears not to have changed, with Muammer Gaddafi last week raising the possibility of nationalising the country's oil sector. But other countries, including Venezuela, once the most aggressive oil-rich nation, have begun to approach international oil company executives for new deals.
Ironically, the success of national energy groups, such as Gazprom and Petrobras, lie largely in how quickly they realise the tide has turned against them. Whether the world has enough oil and gas to fuel its economic recovery could rest on their willingness to embrace technology and foreign expertise.
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Survive the credit crisis the Alpine way
By Peter Marsh
Published: January 28 2009 19:11 | Last updated: January 28 2009 19:11
Draw on a map a circle of 200km radius and centred on Lucerne, Switzerland, and you see the Alpine Ring. What this represents holds valuable lessons for the world as it tries to fight its way out of the economic crisis.
The Ring takes in most of Switzerland and parts of Germany, Italy, France and Austria. Inside this circle – bounded roughly by Stuttgart and Bergamo to the north and south, and Imst and Besançon to the east and west – are some 3,000 predominantly small to mid-sized companies in specialised areas of engineering. Nearly all, employing 200,000 people, are privately owned. Many have been run by the same family for generations. The sectors they represent include some that have been important for centuries, such as watch-making, plus newer fields including microelectronics, medical implants and aircraft parts.
In today’s uncertain climate, many of the companies are islands of stability. While few are likely to expand hugely in the next year or so, most of them, helped by their long-term owners and with relatively low debts, will almost certainly survive the current traumas.
They will be in a good position to do well when demand picks up. The companies include a smattering of relatively well-known businesses, such as the Swiss watch company, Audemars Piguet, and Zucchetti, an Italian maker of bath fittings, as well as countless others hardly anyone knows about.
Many can trace their roots to old industries of iron-making and wood-working that flourished in the valleys of the Alps and the rolling Swabian hills close to Stuttgart from the 14th century onwards. But as well as tapping into local skills, the businesses have a history of using ideas from further afield, often brought by outsiders.
The Swiss watch industry is still the world’s biggest, more than 100 years after first achieving this position. It was initially nurtured by the skills of predominantly Protestant craftsmen fleeing from other areas of Europe during the Reformation. The sector gained its current dominance partly by capitalising in the early 19th century on ideas in making high-quality steel in small quantities, devised by the British metals pioneer Benjamin Huntsman. It was revitalised in the 1980s by new thinking introduced by Nicolas Hayek, a Lebanese-born consultant with no previous knowledge of the sector and the brains behind the Swatch brand.
Based on precision engineering skills built up over centuries from the watch sector, a clutch of companies in newer fields has sprung up in the Ring in the past 70 years, in sectors from sensors to medical instrumentation. A surgical instruments cluster has taken shape in Tuttlingen in southern Germany. Similarly, a concentrated industry in small metal parts, based on modern machining know-how and used in sectors such as aerospace, has evolved in the Arves valley close to Mont Blanc in France.
The companies have generally been flexible, capable of using their skills to operate in different industries over time. Obe, a Pforzheim-based company that for many years supplied decorative jewellery, is now one of the two biggest companies supplying specialist hinges for spectacle frames. Precimed, a Swiss business spun out from the Swatch watch company, has moved into hip and knee implants.
In northern Italy, in the region of Lake Orta, a series of companies in taps and valves has appeared in the past 50 years, based on centuries of know-how in the area drawn from expertise in brass-working, used to make bells for local churches. In spite of intense competition from countries such as China, the Lake Orta companies have stayed strong, helped by efforts to introduce new ideas, for instance, in labour-saving automation. In close-by Brianza, a local cluster of furniture companies remains robust, helped by an amalgamation of old skills in wood with newer ones in plastics processing and 21st century design.
Many Alpine Ring businesses have built their strengths over a long time, using conservative accounting principles and borrowing only when they need to. To stay competitive, they have tapped into both local and global networks of knowledge transfer. They have shown that old-established areas of industry are capable of producing new sources of jobs and wealth if managers and employees are adaptable.
As it happens the centre of the Ring is not too far from Davos, where many top business people and politicians are meeting. As policymakers try to rebuild the world economy, they may want to use the lessons from the Ring to lay the basis for strengthening existing companies and creating new ones.
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France braced for mass strikes
By Ben Hall in Paris
Published: January 29 2009 09:11 | Last updated: January 29 2009 09:11
Passengers get on a metro at the Paris Saint-Lazare station
Hundreds of thousands of French workers are staging a one-day national strike on Thurday, bringing widespread disruption to public transport and air travel and shutting down schools and other public services.
All of France’s trade unions are taking part in the day of industrial action in protest at job cuts, temporary lay-offs, the government’s economic and welfare reforms and the lack of fiscal stimulus measures aimed directly at helping households.
The strike is set to be the biggest since President Nicolas Sarkozy took power in May 2007 and is a sign of rising social discontent as the eurozone’s second largest economy sinks into recession.
In July Mr Sarkozy remarked that “when people go on strike nobody notices”. He may come to regret such hubris.
The strike is a challenge to Mr Sarkozy’s economic policy and reform programme. But how big a challenge depends on how many people take part and to what extent employees in the private sector - where union membership is lower than in many other developed economies - join in.
Unions have called on workers at carmakers Renault and PSA Peugeot-Citröen to join the strike in protest at job cuts in the auto industry.
Strike notices have also been submitted at banks LCL, Crédit Agricole and Caisse d’Epargne, at NYSE-Euronext, the stock market operator, and at retailer Auchan.
The impact, however, will be most evident in the public sector despite a new law forcing public transport and schools to provide a minimum service.
Forty per cent of high speed trains and up to 70 per cent of regional train services are expected to be cancelled. There will be major disruption on the Paris metro and to local transport services around the country.
Thirty per cent of departures and arrivals at Paris Orly airport and 10 per cent at Roissy Charles de Gaulle were expected to be cancelled.
Two-thirds of teachers are planning to strike. Employees at the Bank of France, the post office, France’s statistical agency, other civil servants, magistrates and judges are also expected to walk out.
Numerous theatres and the Paris opera have already cancelled performances scheduled for Thursday.
Unions taking part in the day of protest have put forward myriad grievances to explain their strike action, reflecting the huge range of employees called upon to stike.
Complaints include the reduction of civil service posts, the funding of public sector television, the abolition of investigating magistrates.
But the underlying purpose of the protest is to send a message to Mr Sarkozy that France’s employees must not be taken for granted and that the social malaise gripping France is becoming more acute as the recession takes hold.
Centre-right governments are still haunted by the events of May 1968, when protesting students and a general strike combined to rock the political establishment. Widespread demonstrations also crippled governments in 1995 and 2005.
Mr Sarkozy is determined to avoid such a fate. Last month he shelved a plan to reform the lycée system, or high schools, after a highly organised protest movement by pupils threatened to become violent.
The president insists his reform programme will continue. But he is raising controversial social reforms with no economic impact - such as judicial reform - up the agenda, while putting ones with an impact on jobs, such as civil service reform, quietly on ice.
“Should we be increasing the sense of insecurity?,” one minister told the FT last week. “Things are sensitive enough in the public sector already.”
However, some people on the right of Mr Sarkozy’s UMP party want the president to get tough with strikers, most of whom public sector workers and therefore protected from the sharp economic downturn.
“How much is this day going to cost France?” said Jean-Pierre Gorge, a UMP deputy. “It is going to make the situation worse. It is irresponsible.”
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Total bids for Canadian oil sands company
ByCarola Hoyos in London
Published: January 28 2009 13:53 | Last updated: January 28 2009 13:53
Total, the French energy group, on Wednesday launched a public offer worth C$617m (US$502m) to acquire UTS Energy, a Canadian company with oil sands assets.
The cash offer, which is 57 per cent above UTS Energy’s closing price on Tuesday, highlights the French company’s confidence in its own balance sheet and its belief that oil prices will again rise significantly.
UTS Energy’s main asset is its 20 per cent stake in the Fort Hills project in the Athabasca oil sands. The mining project is operated by PetroCanada, which has a 60 per cent stake, with Teck Cominco, the mining company, holding the remaining 20 per cent.
Analysts said Total’s offer for UTS, though small for a company with a market capitalisation of $144bn, fit well into Total’s strategy despite the depressed oil price and the fact that Canadian oil sands developments generally cost more than conventional projects.
The companies behind the Fort Hills project have been re-evaluating it since October 2008, when oil prices began their rapid descent from $147 a barrel in July to around $40 a barrel today.
Delivery has been delayed by about three years to 2013. When Teck Cominco entered the project in 2005, the total cost of the project was estimated at C$5bn, with initial production to start in 2010 and eventually reaching 190,000 barrels of bitumen a day. Production costs were estimated at C$12-C$18 a barrel.
Christophe de Margerie, Total’s chief executive, believes oil prices will again rise as an oil supply crunch develops anew because companies are putting off projects that are no longer viable at current oil prices.
Gordon Gray, analyst at Collins Stewart, said the deal sent an important signal about Total’s confidence in its balance sheet strength, adding that Total’s net debt at the end of the third quarter stood at €8.2bn, a net debt to equity ration of 16 per cent.
He said: “Our recent study stress-testing the [oil companies] under prolonged $40/bbl oil prices showed Total to be one of the big-caps best able to withstand this scenario, thanks in part to likely sales of its €8bn stake in Sanofi Aventis.”
Total has two other projects in the Athabasca oil sands: Northern Lights and Joslyn, whose development plan Total is reassessing.
Total shares were up 1.6 per cent on Wednesday.
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Hint of growth in demand for raw materials
By Esther Bintliff
Published: January 27 2009 10:45 | Last updated: January 27 2009 18:47
The cost of shipping dry bulk commodities such as iron ore, coal and grains rose to its highest level in three months, recovering 51 per cent from its December low, on signs of a tentative renewal in demand for raw materials.
The Baltic Dry Index, the market benchmark often seen as a leading indicator of commodities demand and global economic activity, climbed above 1,000 points for the first time since October, reaching 1,004 points in its sixth consecutive session of gains.
The Baltic Dry has now risen by 51.4 per cent since plumbing a 22-year low of 663 points in December, when the onset of recession across the developed and many developing economies savaged demand for commodities. But the index remains well below last May’s all-time high of 11,793 points.
Analysts said the rally in shipping costs could be an early sign that global trade was beginning to revive from the paralysis that took hold late last year, which led to many ships lying empty.
Peter Norfolk, director of research at Simpson, Spence and Young shipbrokers, said the improvement in the market had been driven by a surge in chartering of the world’s biggest ships, known as capesize vessels, which are used to move iron ore. The bulk of demand has come from Chinese steel mills and iron ore traders.
“Steel and iron ore prices seem to have stabilised a little, especially in China,” said Mr Norfolk.
“We’ve been through a period of significant destocking and the Chinese steel mills have been encouraged by the fact that prices seem to have hit a floor, so they’re finally coming back in to buy up some raw materials.”
But Mr Norfolk said: “The fundamentals are still gloomy and in order for the rally to be sustained even just in the near-term, we’ll need more activity, particularly from the Far East charterers.”
The Baltic’s rise was a rare bright spot in commodity markets, with most other products weakening as traders booked profits.
Base metals fell sharply across the board, as further builds in inventories at London Metal Exchange warehouses deepened the gloom surrounding the sector.
Copper plunged 5.6 per cent to $3,315 a tonne. It was in retreat after touching an eight-week high of $3,603.75 , lifted by short-covering in a thinly traded market due to the Chinese new year.
Copper inventories rose by 12,375 tonnes to a fresh five-year high of 451,800 tonnes, according to LME data.
Robin Bhar, senior metals analyst at Calyon, said: “The scale of demand destruction and destocking is such that inventories will continue to rise unless they are matched by production cuts.”
Aluminium sank 2.7 per cent to $1,341 a tonne, tin was 6.1 per cent lower at $11,550 and nickel dived 4.8 per cent to $11,201 a tonne.
Oil prices also fell, reversing early gains, with ICE March Brent losing $2.46 to $44.50, having touched an intraday high of $48.40. Nymex March West Texas Intermediate dropped $2.33 to $43.44 a barrel.
The Centre for Global Energy Studies, a London-based consultancy, said Opec’s output cuts had “tightened the market”, but added: “Opec’s attempts to push oil prices back up to $75 a barrel and keep them there may be thwarted by the weakness of the global economy.”
Gold softened slightly, but was still hovering around $900 a troy ounce.
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Economic pain to be ‘worst for 60 years’
By Krishna Guha and Alan Beattie in Washington and Chris Giles in Davos
Published: January 28 2009 19:23 | Last updated: January 28 2009 20:48
The world economy will this year suffer its worst performance for more than 60 years with a serious risk that 50m people will lose their jobs, international organisations warned on Wednesday.
The warnings came as the Federal Reserve expressed fresh concern about deflation, noting that the US economy had “weakened further” since its last policy meeting in December.
The US central bank made no immediate move to purchase Treasury securities – disappointing some in the markets – and signalled that its preference is to expand targeted credit operations instead. The Fed said it would “assess whether expansions of or modifications to lending facilities would serve to further support credit markets”.
Earlier, the International Monetary Fund increased its estimate of credit losses on US-based assets from $1,400bn to $2,200bn. It also said world output, measured at market exchange rates, would fall in 2009 for the first time since the second world war. Weighted by purchasing power, growth would be very slightly positive.
The new growth forecasts mark a huge revision – down by more than 1.5 percentage points – from the IMF’s previous forecast for the year in spite of the inclusion of the fiscal stimulus efforts by governments into its predictions for the first time. Advanced economies, the IMF predicted, would contract 2 per cent in 2009 with the UK hit hardest.
In Geneva, the International Labour Organization said the global recession would lead to a “dramatic increase” in unemployment this year, which would certainly lead to 18m-30m additional unemployed and more than 50m “if the situation continues to deteriorate”.
The forecasts helped frame a sombre and gloomy mood as executives and policymakers started the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, with leaders stressing the sharp and synchronised nature of the downturn, expressing concern about global policy co-ordination, and some scepticism that fiscal interventions would ensure a recovery.
Barack Obama, US president, meanwhile hosted a meeting with corporate leaders to rally support for a fiscal stimulus – which may now exceed $825bn – amid resistance from Republicans opposed to massive government spending. Werner Wenning, chairman of Bayer, the German pharmaceuticals group, was among several saying he did not expect solutions to be found during the week-long event. The problem, said Stephen Roach, chairman of Morgan Stanley Asia, was that the US consumer was only in the first stages of a rebalancing that would take a number of years and reduce consumption and increase saving. In the meantime, China, the world’s workshop, would find it difficult to expand production and, “as the Chinese economy has hit a wall, so has the rest of Asia”.
US bank stocks rallied on hopes that the Obama administration was moving ahead with plans for an “aggregator” bank that would buy toxic assets. Remarks by Tim Geithner, the new Treasury secretary, who played down the prospect of nationalisation, helped to buoy investor sentiment. In New York, Wells Fargo was up 30.9 per cent, Citigroup 18.6 per cent, Bank of America 13.7 per cent and JPMorgan Chase 10.4 per cent
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Anglogold sells stake in Australian mine for $1bn
By Tom Burgis in Johannesburg
Published: January 28 2009 11:50 | Last updated: January 28 2009 11:50
Newmont Mining, the world’s second-biggest gold miner, is paying $1bn to buy out Anglogold Ashanti’s minority share in what is set to become Australia’s biggest gold mine.
The transaction will give Colorado-based Newmont 100 per cent control of Boddington Gold Mine in Western Australia, an asset it believes will be relatively cheap to mine.
For Anglogold, formerly the gold arm of mining giant Anglo American and the world’s third-largest producer of the yellow metal, the bulk of the cash will be used to pay down a ”substantial” part of the $1bn bridging loan it agreed with a syndicate of banks late last year.
The Johannesburg-based company is also looking to divest what it sees as non-core assets, focusing on operations in Africa and elsewhere. It says it needs to ensure ”financial flexibility” during a stormy time for commodity companies.
“This transaction leaves the company positioned extremely well to take advantage of any new opportunities in the current economic and financing environment,” said Mark Cutifani, Anglogold’s chief executive.
The deal increases Newmont’s share of proven and probable gold reserves at Boddington by 6.6m ounces to 20.1m ounces . At Wednesday’s gold price of nearly $887 an ounce, the additional reserves would have a gross value of $5.9bn.
Newmont expects the nearly completed mine, located 130km outside Perth, to yield about 1m ounces a year once it is fully operational at costs of some $300 an ounce, making extraction there relatively cheap compared with deeper or wetter mines elsewhere.
Anglogold will be able to use $750m of the proceeds to cut its net debt from $1.3bn as of September to $550m with immediate effect and the balance will follow either in cash or Newmont shares in December.
The ratio of Anglogold’s net debt to earnings before interest, tax, amortisation and depreciation would be reduced from 1.13:1 to 0.5:1.
The company is still wrestling with a large hedge book of unattractive forward sales contracts it acquired along with the purchase of Ashanti in 2004. The improved ratio will, the company hopes, allow it to reduce its cost of capital should it need to borrow more to reduce the hedge book or invest elsewhere.
Anglogold’s Johannesburg-listed shares were up fractionally despite a fall in the gold price on Wednesday.
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Sovereign investment offered for Ugandan oil pipeline
By William MacNamara
Published: January 27 2009 20:53 | Last updated: January 27 2009 20:53
Asian and Middle East backers have offered to fund and build a 1,300km pipeline needed by Tullow Oil and Heritage Oil to exploit a large Ugandan oil find, according to the finance director of Heritage.
Shares in London-listed Heritage and in Tullow, its FTSE 100 partner in developing the Albert basin oilfield in Uganda, have risen in recent months on excitement about the discoveries.
Heritage, which started exploring the fields in 1997, is calling the Albert basin the largest onshore oil discovery in sub-Saharan Africa in the past 20 years.
There have been concerns about how the companies would get the oil from the centre of Africa to the Kenyan coast – which could cost up to $2bn.
However, these worries have – “ironically” – been eased by the global economic downturn, according to Paul Atherton, Heritage’s finance director.
Asian governments are, he says, seeking an outlet for their surplus steel, idle engineers and uninvested cash.
Infrastructure projects on the scale proposed by Heritage and Tullow – a pipeline from Uganda to the Kenyan port of Mombasa on the Indian Ocean – are attractive because of their scarcity.
“We are being approached by consortia of engineering companies with access to soft loans from governments”, Mr Atherton says.
“There is a lot of steel in these countries, and lots of engineers, and the host countries’ governments feel a need to employ their people.”
He declined to specify which countries have made approaches, but China and Japan are the most probable.
China has stepped up efforts in recent years to secure reliable supplies of oil as the country rapidly industrialises, while Japan and South Korea rely on imports because they have no domestic supply.
Tullow, Heritage’s 50-50 partner in exploring two oil blocks around Lake Albert in western Uganda, says it is too early to discuss who will develop the pipeline, and how it might be funded.
Until late last year, many were sceptical about the pipeline scheme.
At least 400m barrels of oil will need to be forthcoming from the remote Ugandan fields to justify such an expensive export project, analysts say.
That threshold was passed this month, when a large strike indicated 400m barrels of recoverable oil in a single section of one exploration block.
Several analysts suggest that the basin’s oil reserves, which Tullow estimates at 600m barrels so far, could grow to several billion barrels by the time exploration is completed.
Heritage and Tullow stand to be transformed by the discoveries – but only if a pipeline is built.
Mr Atherton says a government-backed Asian consortium could finance and engineer the pipeline, either owning it outright or taking a large stake. The consortium could also take an equity stake in the joint venture company set up to produce oil from the fields.
Additionally, he says, the government involved could take a portion of the oil flowing through the Albert basin pipeline.
“To have a state-backed company finance the pipeline is ideal”, says Richard Griffith, an oil analyst at Evolution Securities, noting that neither Heritage nor Tullow have the resources of an oil major such as Royal Dutch Shell to execute a project of such scale. “You can offload the financing to someone else, and don’t have to go through endless credit committees at banks in this market.”
Mr Griffith adds: “This could place Heritage and Tullow in an enviable position not just with national oil companies [such as Sinopec of China] but with international oil companies [such as Shell], if they don’t get too cute in their negotiations.”
Mr Atherton says Heritage will press for whichever development plan will get the pipeline built soon. He estimates construction time of three years, after two years of planning.
He is similarly pragmatic about the question of Heritage becoming a takeover target for major oil companies – or Tullow. Heritage’s prospects are not limited to Uganda: the company is also drilling a field in the Kurdistan region of Iraq that has indicated large oil reserves.
“We would consider any option that created value for shareholders,” he says, adding that he and Tony Buckingham, chief executive, “have been here since 1992”.
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英外相「“テロとの戦い”は誤り」演説要旨
2009.1.29 20:37
【ミリバンド英外相がインド・ムンバイで行った演説要旨】
２００１年９月１１日の米中枢同時テロから７年余がたった現在、過激主義とその恐るべき拡大、テロリストの暴力を防ぐための取り組みを根本的に見直す必要があるのは明白だ。
「テロとの戦い（対テロ戦争）」という概念はテロを取り巻く環境を形作った。この語句にはいくつかの効用があった。脅威の深刻さ、団結と迅速な対応、時には武力も行使する必要性を世界にわからせたことだ。しかし、結局は誤った概念で誤解を招いている。
この概念は、統一された多国籍の敵がいる印象を与えてしまった。現実にはテロリストの動機や正体はばらばらだ。それをひとくくりにし穏健か過激主義か、善か悪かの戦いという構図を描けば描くほど、共通項の少ないテロリストを統合しようとする集団の術中にはまる。「イスラムへの抑圧」を主張するウサマ・ビンラーディンと国際テロ組織アルカーイダの思惑通りである。
必要なのは、テロリストの武器と資金源を根絶し、主張の浅はかさを露見させ、支援者を民主政治に向かわせることだ。
「対テロ戦争」という言葉には、まず軍事がテロへの正しい対応であるという含意があった。だが、民主的な社会を支える法の支配を二の次にするのではなく、擁護することでテロに対抗しなければならない。
「対テロ戦争」のよびかけは、唯一の敵に対する戦いへの結束を築く試みだった。しかし国民と国家の結束の礎は、誰が敵かではなく、私たちの価値観に基づくべきである。
テロリストが成功を収めるのは、分断と憎悪の種をまき、暴力と抑圧で対抗するように国家を追い込んだときなのだ。
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東証、新市場「ＴＯＫＹＯ ＡＩＭ」の概要発表
東京証券取引所は29日、新たに創設するプロ投資家向け新市場「ＴＯＫＹＯ ＡＩＭ（エイム）」の概要を発表した。上場に際しては一定の利益などの数値基準を設けないほか、審査は証券会社に委ねるのが特徴。ルールを大幅に緩和して国内外の新興企業を呼び込む。十分に資金の行き届かない小規模企業の育成につなげる狙いだが、市場は冷え込んでおり逆風下の船出になりそうだ。
「産業資本を提供するための基地にしたい」。東証の斉藤惇社長は29日、記者会見でこう発言し、新市場にかける意気込みを示した。東証は新興企業向けの市場「ＡＩＭ」を運営するロンドン証券取引所と4月に合弁会社を設立する。早ければ5月に上場企業が登場する見通しだ。
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メタンハイドレートなど海洋資源、開発へ10年計画 経産省など
経済産業省を中心に検討している「海洋エネルギー・鉱物資源開発計画案」が28日分かった。長期的に資源需給が引き締まる可能性があり、排他的経済水域（ＥＥＺ）などに眠る資源の2018年度までの開発工程を盛り込んだ。次世代エネルギーと期待されるメタンハイドレートは15年度までに陸上・海洋での産出試験を実施し、その後3年で商業化に向けた技術を整備する。
同計画は、昨年３月に閣議決定した「海洋基本計画」に今年度中に策定すると盛り込まれている。29日の総合資源エネルギー調査会石油分科会、30日の鉱業分科会で議論し、パブリックコメントを募集したうえでまとめる。(07:00)
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12月の建機出荷額、32.3％減 落ち込み幅過去最大に
日本建設機械工業会（木川理二郎会長）が29日まとめた12月の建設機械出荷額は、前年同月比32.3％減の1551億円と1998年以来、10年ぶりの低水準に落ち込んだ。欧州の需要の激減に加え新興国の土木工事向けも急ブレーキがかかり、単月の落ち込み幅としてはは90年の統計開始以来、過去最大を記録した。2008年通年では前年比0.5％増の2兆5939億円。
輸出は32.6％減の1054億円。金融不安を背景に欧州で80.2％減と、インフラ整備など土木工事向けが極度の不振に陥った。アフリカも鉱山開発向けで設備投資の手控えが広がり、46.2％減。大型都市開発ラッシュで好調だった中近東も8カ月ぶりに伸び率が一ケタに落ち込み、中国も伸び率が前月比 26ポイント減るなど、新興国での成長鈍化も鮮明になった。
国内は31.5％減の497億円と9カ月連続の減少。公共事業の低迷や金融不安からレンタル業者の間で新車購入を抑制する動きが強まった。(20:48)
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工作機械受注、２月も厳しく 業界短観
日本工作機械工業会は29日、企業の設備投資マインドを予測する「工作機械短期受注観測調査」の1月の結果をまとめた。受注総額の判断指数（ＤＩ＝受注が「増加」と回答した企業の割合から「減少」を引いた値）は、マイナス13.4となった。2月の見通しはマイナス11.9で、引き続き厳しい状況が続くとの見方が多かった。
2月の見通しは、内需の受注水準がマイナス16.4。自動車産業を中心に設備投資が落ち込み、一般機械、自動車、電気・精密の全業種とも受注の不振が続くと見ている。外需もマイナス7.9となり、「世界中の設備投資が止まったような状況」（調査企画部）としている。
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12月の都市ガス販売量、6.9％減
日本ガス協会が29日発表した2008年12月の都市ガス販売量実績は前年同月比6.9％減の29億5300万立方メートルと3カ月連続で前年を下回った。景気減速で販売先のメーカーの生産活動が低迷し、工業用が8.6％減と落ち込んだ。家庭用は5.3％減、ビルなど商業用も7.0％減だった。
08年1―12月累計では前年比2.0％増の357億2600万立方メートル。前半の伸びが大きかった工業用が2.7％増加し、家庭用も1.9％増。商業用は0.4％減だった。(19:32)
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ヤクルト本社、タイに「第２工場」 生産能力２割増へ
ヤクルト本社は29日、持ち分法適用会社のタイヤクルト（バンコク）を通じて、アユタヤに乳酸菌飲料「ヤクルト」の新工場を建設したと発表した。投資額は約20億バーツ（約51億円）で、2月に生産を始める。当初の生産能力は1日あたり40万本。販売状況を見ながら生産ラインを増設し、130万本まで引き上げる考えだ。
これでバンコクにある工場と合わせたタイでの生産能力は1日230万本となり、ほぼ2割拡大する。タイヤクルトは約3000人の訪問販売員を抱え、08 年は1日平均190万本を販売した。今後の販売地域の拡大などに対応するには生産能力が十分でなかったという。ヤクルト本社は、タイヤクルトに 25.29％を出資している。(17:55)
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新日鉄、君津の高炉休止へ 08年度の減産420万トンに
新日本製鉄は29日、君津製鉄所（千葉県君津市）の第2高炉を3月上旬までに休止すると発表した。改修に伴って3月に休止することにしていた大分製鉄所（大分市）の第1高炉は、休止開始を1カ月強早める。大幅な鉄鋼需要の減少に対応するもので、2008年度の生産量は2890万トン程度となり、前年度より約420万トン減る見通しだ。
君津の高炉の休止期間は未定。高炉への送風を止め、炉内の温度をいったん常温まで戻す「バンキング」という形で行うため、再稼働に1カ月程度はかかるという。
高炉の休止に伴い、原料のコークスを作るコークス炉も一部休止する。君津、名古屋（愛知県東海市）、八幡（福岡県北九州市）、大分の各製鉄所で行うが、休止期間や数は未定としている。(16:27)
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漢検が６億円で土地・建物購入
漢字能力の検定試験を通じて多額の利益を上げていた財団法人「日本漢字能力検定協会」（京都市、大久保昇理事長）が、同市左京区の土地・建物を約6億7000万円で購入していたことが文部科学省の調査で分かった。
文科省によると、同協会は「漢字資料館にするために購入した」と説明しているが、土地の用途を宅地のまま変更していないとみられるという。また同協会は同市右京区の宝厳院に、亡くなった幹部向けの供養塔も購入していたという。
文科省は「漢字の検定試験を行う公益法人の目的に沿った適切なものなのか、詳しく調べたい」（生涯学習推進課）として、2月中旬にも立ち入り調査する方針。(20:01)
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日本脳炎：厚労省が新ワクチン承認へ 予防接種再開を検討
副作用の恐れから定期予防接種が事実上中断している日本脳炎について、新型のワクチンが年度内に承認される見通しになった。２９日に開かれた厚生労働省の薬事・食品衛生審議会部会が製造販売を了承した。厚労省は集団接種の安全性を検討したうえで、今夏の流行シーズンまでに定期接種を再開するかどうか決める。
日本脳炎は、予防接種法に基づく定期接種の対象だが、０５年に重い副作用例が報告されたため、厚労省の「積極的に勧奨しない」との通知に従って定期接種を中止する自治体が相次いだ。ワクチン製造もストップし、年間数件に抑えられている感染者の増加を懸念する声が出ていた。
新型のワクチンは、財団法人・阪大微生物病研究会が、感染させたマウスの脳を使う従来の方法ではなく、細胞培養技術を使って開発した。臨床試験で重い副作用はなかったが、数百万人規模で接種した場合の安全性は不明なため、副作用の情報収集と対応の徹底が承認条件とされた。
厚労省は承認後、専門家検討会の議論を経て定期接種の再開を判断するが「いきなり１００万人単位に接種するのではなく、臨床試験などで規模を調整しながら安全性を確認していきたい」（結核感染症課）としている。
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オムロン：５工場閉鎖へ 社長報酬６割カット
オムロンは２９日、国内外の４９工場のうち、主力の電子部品などを生産する５工場を１１年３月までに閉鎖すると発表した。世界的な景気の急減速が原因。不採算事業を整理して収益基盤の強化を図る。対象の５工場は明らかにしていないが、勤務する社員は配置転換で対応する。
オムロンは同日、０９年３月期連結業績予想を修正した。本業のもうけを示す営業利益は、昨年１０月時点と比べて、８１％減の７０億円、最終（当期）利益は同９５％減の１０億円と、大幅ダウンを見込んだ。
これを受け、１０年３月までの１４カ月間で約４００億円のコスト削減に取り組む。執行役員以上の報酬と課長職以上の管理職の給与をカットする。役員報酬は１月から、管理職は２月からで、いずれも当面の間実施する。作田久男社長は年収に換算して０８年比約６割、管理職は同２割のカットとなる見込み。
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東芝：半導体苦境 西田社長「業界再編も」
東芝が半導体事業の不振で大幅な営業赤字に陥る見通しになったことで、半導体業界の苦境が一層鮮明化してきた。半導体業界は多数のメーカーが競合している上、デジタル家電の需要低迷や急激な価格下落で厳しい環境に直面しており、東芝は業界再編も視野に、半導体事業の構造改革に乗り出す。
東芝は、０９年３月期の連結営業損益が過去最高の２８００億円の赤字に転落するが、半導体事業だけで２９００億円の営業赤字になる見通し。半導体事業に集中投資しているだけに、電機大手の中でも「景気後退や円高に加え、半導体不況というトリプルパンチを受けた」（村岡富美雄専務）形だ。
業界は、自動車や携帯電話、パソコンなどの需要低迷と価格急落で「世界的な半導体不況」が続く。好況時の積極投資のツケも重くのしかかっている。
このため、東芝は競合が激しいデジタル家電用の「システムＬＳＩ」や個別半導体「ディスクリート」については組み立てなど「後工程」の分野で国内生産を縮小し、東南アジアの工場生産を拡大する。また、強みを持つ携帯電話など向けの「ＮＡＮＤ型フラッシュメモリー」は、提携先の米サンディスクと総額１兆７０００億円を投じて建設予定だった四日市工場（三重県）と北上工場（岩手県）の着工を半年以上延期し、コスト削減を図る考えだ。
半導体は、研究開発力やコスト競争力維持のため、年間１０００億円以上という大規模投資が必要。世界半導体市場統計は、０９年の世界需要が前年比２．２％減と８年ぶりの減少を予測し、市場回復は当面見込めない。
半導体大手のＮＥＣエレクトロニクスも２９日、０９年３月期に５５０億円の営業赤字に転落する見通しを発表。富士通の半導体子会社やエルピーダメモリなども軒並み大幅な赤字に陥る見通しだ。
同日会見した東芝の西田厚聰社長は「東芝の半導体の生き残りは日本の生き残りにつながる」とした上で「システムＬＳＩをはじめ、業界には多くのメーカーが存在する。積極的に再編を進めていきたい」と述べ、東芝主導での再編に意欲を見せた。
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全日空：ロス往復２万１４００円 欧米線で大幅割引
全日本空輸は２９日、４～５月に日本を出発する欧米線での大幅な割引運賃「エコ割春一番」を発表した。最も安い便はロサンゼルス、サンフランシスコ線が往復２万１４００円、ニューヨーク、ロンドン、パリ線などが３万１４００円。ただ、別に燃油特別付加運賃（サーチャージ）と航空保険特別料金の計４万４６００円がかかる。また、予約・購入は３月３１日まで▽平日出発のみ▽４月２９日～５月３日出発は対象外－－などの条件がある。
同社は４月以降に発券する航空券で燃油サーチャージを大幅に引き下げる予定。大幅割引で利用者の負担軽減を前倒しし、需要を喚起することを狙っている。
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小麦：４月に１割値下げへ
政府が製粉会社に売り渡す輸入小麦（主要５銘柄）の価格が４月に１割程度値下げされる見通しになった。国際相場の下落が背景。値上がりが続いていた小麦粉、パン、めん類などの値下げにつながりそうだ。
小麦の政府売り渡し価格は０７年度から毎年４、１０月の２回改定するルールになり、国際価格上昇を背景に、それ以降４期連続で引き上げられてきた。農林水産省は国際相場を迅速に反映させるため改定回数を増やす方向で検討しているが、製粉業界などの反対が強く、今年４月は従来通りのルールが適用される見通しが強い。
現行ルールだと、昨年６月から今年１月まで８カ月間の輸入価格の平均に小麦農家への補助金などを上乗せした価格になる。小麦の国際相場は昨年２月にピークをつけた後、値下がりに転じている。１２月までの７カ月分を基に計算すると、昨年１０月の売り渡し価格（１トンあたり７万６０３０円）より１割程度は下がりそうだ。
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ＯＤＡ実績：日本は前年比３１％減 ＯＥＣＤ加盟国中５位
外務省は２９日、０８年版「政府開発援助（ＯＤＡ）白書」をまとめた。日本の０７年のＯＤＡ実績は前年比３１％減の約７６億７８９５万ドル（約６９１２億円）で、前年の経済協力開発機構（ＯＥＣＤ）加盟国中３位から５位に転落した。減少は２年連続で、過去１０年で最高だった００年と比べると６割弱。０１年に米国に１位の座を明け渡して以来、順位の低下が続いており、外交力の低下を懸念する声が一層高まりそうだ。
白書は中曽根弘文外相が２月３日の閣議で報告する。０６年は日本は米国、英国に次ぐＯＤＡ実績だったが、０７年はドイツ、フランスにも抜かれた。白書は減少要因として「国際機関向けの出資・拠出や債務救済の減少」を挙げている。
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光触媒：新材料を開発 室内照明でも効果発揮 ＮＥＤＯ
新エネルギー・産業技術総合開発機構（ＮＥＤＯ）は２８日、可視光でも高い効果を発揮する光触媒の新材料を開発したと発表した。酸化チタンを使った従来の材料は、可視光への反応が悪かった。新材料は室内の照明でも高い光触媒効果を発揮するため、新型インフルエンザウイルスも分解する空気清浄機などへの応用が期待できるという。３年後の製品化を目指す。
光触媒は紫外光を当てると強い酸化力が発生する化学反応で、有機物や細菌などを分解する。太陽光で汚れを分解できることから、建物の外壁材などに広く使われている。
橋本和仁・東京大教授（環境エネルギー材料）らのチームは、紫外光より波長が長い可視光でも高い効果を発揮させるため、酸化タングステンの微粒子の表面に銅イオンを付けた新しい光触媒材料を開発。可視光下では、従来の窒素を添加した酸化チタンの約１６倍の活性を示した。新材料を内壁材に使ったモデルハウスを東京大キャンパス内に建設し実証試験で空気の浄化効果を確かめる一方、民間企業が量産化する。
橋本教授は「タングステンは希少金属のため高価だが、量産化によってコストは抑えられる。将来的には安い酸化チタンを原料として、同じ反応レベルの光触媒材料を開発したい」と話す。
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14:58 GMT, Wednesday, 28 January 2009
IAEA head boycotts BBC over Gaza
Mohammed ElBaradei (file image from January 2005)
The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency has cancelled interviews with the BBC over its decision not to broadcast a charity appeal for Gaza.
Mohamed ElBaradei believed that the BBC's decision broke "the rules of basic human decency", his spokeswoman said.
BBC director general Mark Thompson had said airing the appeal would compromise the BBC's impartiality.
In a statement, the BBC said that it regretted Mr ElBaradei's move.
The IAEA chief had been due to take part in interviews with the BBC at the World Economic Forum in Davos.
But Mr ElBaradei cancelled them over the corporation's decision not to broadcast a three-minute appeal by the Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC) - an umbrella group for major UK charities - for humanitarian aid funding for Gaza.
"He believes this decision violates the rules of basic human decency which are there to help vulnerable people irrespective of who is right or wrong," his spokeswoman said.
The BBC said it hoped Mr ElBaradei would accept an interview invitation at another time.
Britain's three other terrestrial broadcasters, ITV, Channel 4 and Five, showed the appeal on Monday.
But Sky News also chose not to air it, saying it would be "incompatible" with its objective role.
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01:02 GMT, Thursday, 29 January 2009
Chemicals 'may reduce fertility'
Pregnant woman
Chemicals commonly found in food packaging, upholstery and carpets may be damaging women's fertility, say US scientists.
A study published in the journal Human Reproduction measured levels of perfluorinated chemicals (PFCs) in the blood of 1,240 women.
Those with higher levels were more likely to take longer to become pregnant.
UK experts said more research was needed to confirm a link.
PFCs are useful in industry because they are resistant to heat, and have the ability to repel water and oil.
However, high concentrations have been linked to organ damage in animals, and the chemicals have the ability to persist for long periods in the body.
"It is an important finding and certainly warrants further detailed research, particularly in those trying for a family"
Tony Rutherford
British Fertility Society
The researchers, from the University of California in Los Angeles, analysed blood samples taken at the time of the woman's first antenatal visit, then interviewed the women about whether the pregnancy was planned, and how long it had taken them to get pregnant.
The levels of the chemicals varied from 6.4 nanograms per millilitre of blood - a nanogram is a billionth of a gram - to 106.4 nanograms per ml.
When the group of women were divided into four groups depending on these levels, they found that, compared to women in the group with the lowest readings, the likelihood of infertility - taking more than a year or IVF to get pregnant - was significantly higher for women with higher levels of PFCs in their bloodstream.
Dr Chunyuan Fei, one of the researchers, said that earlier studies had suggested that PFCs might impair the growth of babies in the womb.
She said that more women in the groups with higher exposure to PFCs had problems with irregular menstrual cycles , which might suggest that interference with hormones was the reason.
'Tenuous link'
Professor Jorn Olsen, who led the study, said that the team were now waiting for further studies to confirm the link between fertility problems and PFCs.
Tony Rutherford, chairman of the British Fertility Society, said that the findings were "interesting".
"This research shows a tenuous link in the delay to conception in women with the highest levels of two commonly-used perfluorinated chemicals.
"It is an important finding and certainly warrants further detailed research, particularly in those trying for a family.
"The study emphasises the importance of remaining vigilant to potential environmental factors that may impact on fertility."
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02:17 GMT, Wednesday, 28 January 2009
Confusion on acupuncture benefit
Acupuncture
A major review of the effectiveness of acupuncture has concluded that it is hard to find a difference between "true" and "sham" versions.
The research comes just a week after a similar review suggested that both could prevent headache.
It looked at trials involving 3,000 patients with arthritis, migraine, low back pain and post-operative pain.
The results questioned the "traditional foundation" of acupuncture, the British Medical Journal study concluded.
"Sham acupuncture often consists of superficial, off point needling, but this may still have a physiological effect"
Dr Adrian White
Peninsula Medical School
The value of acupuncture remains highly controversial, with conflicting results from many studies.
Much of the argument surrounds the status of "sham" acupuncture, which is frequently used in trials against traditional acupuncture.
While traditional acupuncturists insert needles in acupuncture points located along what they describe as "energy meridians" - a concept for which many scientists say there is no evidence - sham acupuncture places needles away from these points.
However, the needles are still inserted beneath the skin in both varieties, and proponents of non-traditional acupuncture suggest that both varieties may be having a physiological effect - just not in the manner suggested by traditionalists.
The latest review, compiled by the Nordic Cochrane Centre in Copenhagen, found no "clinical relevance" to the differences between traditional and "sham" acupuncture, but found that patients given "sham" acupuncture did experience a small amount pain relief compared to those who had received no treatment.
Genuine effect
The authors said that future trials should be trying to work out how much of this effect was due to "placebo" - the effect of undergoing the acupuncture ritual - and how much was a genuine physiological effect.
They said that the findings cast doubt on both traditional acupuncture, and the theory that acupuncture had an important effect on pain.
However, a similar trial carried out by the Cochrane Collaboration last week into the effects of acupuncture in preventing headache and migraine concluded that both sham and traditional acupuncture offered more benefits than conventional painkillers.
Dr Adrian White, a researcher into acupuncture at the Peninsula Medical School in south west England, said that "sham" acupuncture might well be having an effect rather than acting as a simple placebo version of the treatment.
"Sham acupuncture often consists of superficial, off point needling, but this may still have a physiological effect.
"Sham controlled studies are of little value in estimating benefits to patients."
The British Acupuncture Council described the treatment as "a beneficial and effective therapy for a variety of conditions".
Mike O'Farrell, the chief executive, said the latest study contradicted the majority of previous research in the area.
He said: "Acupuncture does work and research results consistently demonstrate the positive outcomes of treatment on patients."
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07:42 GMT, Tuesday, 27 January 2009
Cutting calories 'boosts memory'
Healthy food
Reducing what you eat by nearly a third may improve memory, according to German researchers.
They introduced the diet to 50 elderly volunteers, then gave them a memory test three months later.
The study, reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences journal, found significant improvements.
However, a dietician said the reduction could harm health unless care was taken.
"To our knowledge, the current results provide first experimental evidence in humans that caloric restriction improves memory in the elderly"
Munster University researchers
There is growing interest in the potential benefits of calorie restricted diets, after research in animals suggested they might be able to improve lifespan and delay the onset of age-related disease.
However, it is still not certain whether this would be the case in humans - and the the levels of "caloric restriction" involved are severe.
The precise mechanism which may deliver these benefits is still being investigated, with theories ranging from a reduction in the production of "free radical" chemicals which can cause damage, to a fall in inflammation which can have the same result.
The researchers from the University of Munster carried out the human study after results in rats suggested that memory could be boosted by a diet containing 30% fewer calories than normal.
The study volunteers, who had an average age of 60, were split into three groups - the first had a balanced diet containing the normal number of calories, the second had a similar diet but with a higher proportion of unsaturated fatty acids, such as those found in olive oil and fish.
The final group were given the calorie restricted diet.
After three months, there was no difference in memory scores in the first two groups, but the 50 in the third group performed better.
Diet warning
They also showed other signs of physical improvement, with decreased levels of insulin and fewer signs of inflammation.
The researchers said that these changes could explain the better memory scores, by keeping brain cells in better health.
They wrote: "To our knowledge, the current results provide first experimental evidence in humans that caloric restriction improves memory in the elderly.
"The present findings may help to develop new prevention and treatment strategies for maintaining cognitive health into old age."
However, care was taken to make sure that the volunteers, despite eating a restricted diet in terms of calories, carried on eating the right amount of vitamins and other nutrients.
Dr Leigh Gibson, from Roehampton University, said that the drop in insulin levels were one plausible reason why mental performance might improve.
The hormone was known to act on parts of the brain related to memory, he said, and the higher levels found in people with poorly controlled type II diabetes had been directly linked to worse memory and cognitive function.
A spokesman for the British Dietetic Association said that people, particularly those already at normal or low weight, should be "extremely careful" about attempting such a diet.
She said: "There is other evidence that, far from enhancing memory, dieting or removing meals can interfere with memory and brain function.
"A drop of 30% in calories is a significant one for someone who is not overweight, and should not be undertaken lightly.
"It could even be dangerous if the person is already underweight."
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ヨン様の店が原因？ あの高級韓国料理店が閉店のワケ
韓流“冬のジン”
韓国焼酎の代表格「眞露（じんろ）」日本法人が経営していた東京・六本木の有名韓国料理店「ジンロガーデン」が昨年末、ひっそりと閉店した。高級路線が「時代についていけなかった」（関係者）というが、その流れをくむ、あの韓流スターの店も、人ごとではいられない！？
「ジンロガーデン」は東京・六本木４丁目の東京ミッドタウンのすぐ横に位置し、１４年前に開業。１階にテーブル席、２階には李朝家具や韓国古民芸品を配置した個室があり、約１００席を擁する大箱として有名な店だった。
眞露といえば庶民的な焼酎のイメージがあるが、同店のコース料理は眞露飲み放題付きでテーブル席が６０００円から、個室は１万円以上と高級志向。常連客の１人は「韓国の大手電機メーカーや政府関係者が接待に使ったり、皇室関係者も利用したことがあると聞いた。ただ、個室メニューは、とにかく高いという印象だった」と振り返る。
閉店について眞露ジャパンは「焼酎ビジネスに特化するため閉店した。業績不振ではない」と話すが、韓国料理店に詳しい関係者は「ウォン安とは直接関係ないが、景気悪化で顧客の財布のひもが固くなったのに安価なメニューを出さず、目新しさにも欠けた」と指摘する。
韓国食品の輸入会社社長も「サントリーが輸入販売する韓国焼酎『鏡月グリーン』がシェアを伸ばす中、『肝心の酒を売らないで何をしているのか』との反発の声が（社内外で）以前からあった。眞露ジャパンとしては、これから本業に力を入れるということだろう」と語る。
いずれにしても、老舗の高級韓国料理店が１軒消えてしまったわけだ。そこで気になるのが、同じく高級韓国料理を売り物にしているアノ店。そう、韓国俳優のぺ・ヨンジュンがプロデュースした東京・白金の「高矢禮（ゴシレ）」である。
「実は、ジンロガーデンの料理の責任者は閉店前にヨン様の店に移籍しているんです。それはつまり、ゴシレが高級路線を続けていくということです」と前出の関係者は語る。たしかに、ゴシレはディナーコースが１万５００円からという値段設定にもかかわらず、開店した２００６年当時は数カ月先の予約まで埋まるほどの人気だった。だが最近はブームも一段落し、予約も比較的取りやすくなっているようだ。
韓国フードジャーナリスト、高●（＝火へんに玄）美さんは一般論として「高級韓国料理は日本人に受けなくなってきたのではないか」と語る。理由は「東京・新大久保などに韓国からの新規店が次々とできたことにある」という。
「新規店の影響で、安くておいしく庶民的な料理に目覚める人が増えた。古くからある在日の焼き肉店も淘汰されつつあり、日本人ウケする企画のできる店が残る時代になった」と高さん。ジンロガーデンの閉店は、韓国料理の老舗や高級店が岐路に立たされている象徴だというのだ。
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腐った肉に生徒数千人抗議…中国・広東省の高校食堂
２９日付の香港紙、明報によると、中国広東省茂名市の高校で今月中旬、校内食堂で使用された豚肉が腐っていたことに抗議し、生徒ら数千人がデモを行った。興奮した生徒らは爆竹を鳴らしたり、食堂にある売店の棚を壊すなどした。
生徒らが１７日、食堂の職員に対し、料理に入っている豚肉から腐臭がすると追及。職員が「あなたたちは既に１カ月間、腐った肉を食べている」と認めたため、怒った生徒らが「健康を返せ」「人権を取り戻そう」などと叫んだ。
さらに１８日にも、多数の生徒が食堂に集まり抗議活動を展開。学校側が改善を約束し、ようやく事態が収拾したという。
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