The Star Online: World Updates
The Star Online: World Updates |
- Pakistani government denies talks with Taliban
- China workshops struggle, but tougher times ahead
- Ex-Panama strongman Noriega returns home to prison
| Pakistani government denies talks with Taliban Posted: 11 Dec 2011 08:42 PM PST ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Pakistan's interior minister and prime minister have both denied the government is holding peace talks with its homegrown Taliban, according to media, saying it would do so only if the militants first disarmed and surrendered. The deputy commander of the Pakistan Taliban, who have been waging a four-year war against the government in Islamabad, said Saturday that the two sides were holding talks, a move that could further fray the U.S.-Pakistan relationship. But both Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani and Interior Minister Rehman Malik denied the reports. "Categorically, I'm telling on behalf of the government, no dialogue," Malik told reporters in Islamabad. Gilani left the door open to negotiations. "Whosoever surrenders and denounces violence, they are acceptable to us," Gilani said in an interview with the BBC. At the end of September, Pakistan's government pledged to "give peace a chance" and talk with its homegrown militants. Maulvi Faqir Mohammad, the deputy commander of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), also known as the Pakistani Taliban, told Reuters Saturday that talks for an end to the insurgency were under way. (Writing by Chris Allbritton; Additional reporting by Jibran Ahmad in PESHAWAR and Qasim Nauman in ISLAMABAD; Editing by Nick Macfie) Copyright © 2011 Reuters Full content generated by Get Full RSS. | ||
| China workshops struggle, but tougher times ahead Posted: 11 Dec 2011 08:29 PM PST BEIJING (Reuters) - A broad and bruising downturn is sweeping through China's giant manufacturing sector, ensnaring thousands of factories already fighting for survival in the face of plunging profit margins.
While the misery has not yet reached levels seen in 2008 when global financial turmoil caused trade to seize up, Chinese exporters across industries are battling hard times as Europe's crisis and tight credit conditions at home pummel sales. The tough times are clear from China's trade data released this weekend, which showed exports growth in November at its most sluggish in two years. Sales to Europe, China's biggest market, rose in single digits for the third straight month, a sharp slowdown considering growth averaged more than 18 percent in the first eight months of 2011. "I expect next year to be even worse," said Danny Lau, chairman of Hong Kong's Small and Medium Enterprises Association, whose members include China factory owners. He said factories already report a 15 percent annual drop in orders. "It's like the whole of Europe has no water, no money. If this continues, it will be extremely troublesome for us." Most think the worst can be avoided if Europe survives its troubles, but the stakes are nonetheless high: millions of factory jobs are on the line and retrenchment would bring unwanted social instability to China ahead of a once-a-decade transition of China's top leadership due late next year. Already, a wave of industrial disputes has hit factories around the country, from the manufacturing heartland Pearl River Delta in southern Guangdong province to the Yangtze river Delta near the country's financial capital Shanghai in the east. Beijing is not taking any chances. It signalled a shift in monetary policy in November by cutting for the first time in three years the amount of cash banks have to keep in reserve to soothe a local credit crunch mostly punishing smaller firms. It is not clear if the policy turnaround can stem factory closures in China, the world's top exporter in 2010, but Lau is not hopeful. Twelve other company officials Reuters spoke to from sectors ranging from steel to textile were also not optimistic. China may use a downswing to push manufacturers up the value chain by letting labour-intensive factories shut to make way for more capital-intensive ones, Lau said. "Officials tell you they won't sacrifice us, but in reality they are sacrificing us," he said. "There's nothing we can do." NOWHERE TO HIDE On the ground, few businesses appear immune to a swooning economy -- even those that rely on domestic demand -- thanks to massive increases in the price of raw materials and the inability of firms to pass them onto price-savvy consumers. Price increases among China's raw materials suppliers have averaged 9.7 percent over the last nine months. Consumer goods makers have had to absorb more than half of that, managing an average price increase of just 4.4 percent in the same period. As was the case in 2008, manufacturers high up the supply chain such as raw material producers, were first to feel the headwinds of cooling demand. "Our orders for December will fall 10 to 15 percent from November as customers' demand has shrunk," said an official at China's Maanshan Iron & Steel, one of China's largest state-owned steelmakers. "We are trying to accept small bookings, such as even a 50-tonne deal in an effort to retain the market, but this also leads to higher cost." In better times, large Chinese steel mills typically take bookings of at least a few thousand tonnes. The gloom percolates down the supply chain. Taiyuan Heavy Co Ltd, which sells machines to Chinese factories including steel makers, said demand is flat because its customers are struggling. With businesses suffering, workers are shopping less, and firms from textile mills to car makers feel the squeeze. Alibaba.com, China's biggest e-commerce firm that sells everything from doors to sweets, had its worst quarter in almost two years from July to September. It expects Chinese consumption to take "considerable time" to rebound. Textile makers are also worried. "We are not optimistic about next year," said Chen Shiwei at Jiangsu Miaotong Textile Co. Ltd, a textile mill in China's eastern province of Jiangsu. "Production will definitely slow." Chinese cotton prices already betray the strain, down 40 percent from February's record peaks. THE ODD SPARKLE To be sure, the downtrend is not hitting all firms evenly. Those favoured by Beijing in subsidised, "strategic" sectors such as green technology have a buffer from economic anxieties, said Keith Olson, director at Environmental Investment Services Asia Ltd, a regional fund focused on environment and clean energy. Luxury consumption is another bright spot. Diamond seller Pluczenik Group reckons that China's growing rich make diamonds "a necessity, not a luxury purchase." "Diamonds aren't like televisions or refrigerators. The demand is fuelled mainly from weddings," said Pluczenik's Chief Executive Tzvi Pluczenik. Shipping firms are wincing from slowing trade. Maersk Line, the world's top container shipping firm, expects to be in the red this year. In some ways, the latest wobble in China's economy resembles that in 2008-09, said Rob Subbaraman, chief Asia economist at Nomura in Hong Kong. First exports slow, then firms cut investment, and finally consumers trim spending. But there are also worrisome differences: major economies have little room to cut interest rates; weak global demand is aggravated by China's tight credit conditions; and Beijing is less prone to big-bang stimulus compared to three years ago. This means China cannot count on a repeat of 2009 when exports surged on global monetary and fiscal stimulus and spurred an economic recovery, Subbaraman said. Instead, Chinese consumers need to pull their weight and bolster China's economy. Yet with shoppers elsewhere staying at home, it would be hard to coax typically thrifty Chinese to spend their way into growth. And not all factories can afford the time. "A lot of factories have gone bankrupt," said Liu Shengqiang, manager of Chiyuan Clothing Factory in Guangzhou. "My customers in Denmark say one-third of the clothing stores there are closing, so they're not buying. It's the same in the Netherlands and Spain and Italy, and the credit situation is even worse." (Additional reporting by Terril Yue Jones and Fang Yan in BEIJING,; Melanie Lee, Ruby Lian in SHANGHAI, James Pomfret, Donny Kwok, Alison Leung, Farah Master, Lee Chyen Yee and Leonora Walet in HONG KONG; Editing by Brian Rhoads, Don Durfee and Kim Coghill) Copyright © 2011 Reuters Full content generated by Get Full RSS. | ||
| Ex-Panama strongman Noriega returns home to prison Posted: 11 Dec 2011 08:14 PM PST GAMBOA, Panama (Reuters) - Manuel Noriega, Panama's drug-running military dictator of the 1980s, was extradited back to the country on Sunday and taken straight to prison to serve a 20-year sentence for the murders of opponents during his rule.
Noriega, now 77, was toppled in a U.S. invasion of Panama in 1989 and has spent the last two decades behind bars, first in Florida and then in France after being convicted for drug trafficking and money laundering. Accompanied by Panama's attorney general and a doctor, he was extradited from France to Panama on a commercial flight and flown in a helicopter to the outskirts of a jungle-surrounded penitentiary beside the Panama Canal. The former strongman arrived at the prison in a police convoy and was whisked into the building in a wheelchair. About half an hour earlier, another convoy had arrived with a wheelchair-bound passenger in an apparent decoy manoeuvre. "We had to be sure of his security," Interior Minister Roxana Mendez told reporters outside the prison. The doctor who accompanied Noriega on the plane said he was suffering from hypertension and could not walk unassisted. Noriega did not speak to waiting media, but Reuters photographs showed him at the prison reception area, in a wheelchair and wearing a red shirt. A physically diminished shadow of the man once known for waving a machete while delivering fiery speeches, Noriega's return is unlikely to have a major political impact on a country that has enjoyed an economic boom in recent years. Widely reviled when he was Panama's de facto leader from 1983 until 1989, his small cadre of remaining supporters has kept a low profile and even bitter opponents dismiss Noriega as part of a distant, shadowy past. Much of the focus on Noriega will be on whether he sheds any light on the dictatorship's mysteries, including some 100 unsolved killings or disappearances in the period of army rule from 1968 to 1989. Noriega was convicted in absentia in three homicide cases involving 11 murders, including the 1985 beheading of Hugo Spadafora, a physician who threatened to reveal Noriega's drug ties, and the 1989 execution-style slaying of nine officers who staged a failed coup. Sentenced to 20 years in each case, he will serve the terms concurrently. Official photographs of the facility prepared for him at the El Renacer prison showed a spartan, beige-painted cell with a bathroom, table and small bed. Noriega will also face charges over the 1970 murder of Heliodoro Portugal, an opponent of Panama's military leaders. "We hope he talks and says where the rest of the disappeared are, what happened to those who were killed," said Portugal's daughter, Patria Portugal. BITTER MEMORIES Noriega qualifies for house arrest due to his age but the decision rests with the government. His lawyer, Julio Berrios, said house arrest would also imply an acceptance of his sentence and mean Noriega could not launch a legal challenge. Leaders of a civilian movement that protested Noriega's regime in the late 1980s urged the government to keep him in prison, equating house arrest with virtual freedom. "People who have ... been accused and sentenced for killing people have to serve their sentences, independently of their age," said Aurelio Barria, a businessman who spent the last years of Noriega's rule in exile in fear for his life. Originally a Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) protege, Noriega fell out with Washington over his ties to Colombian drug traffickers and his rigging of elections. The U.S. invasion in December 1989 came soon after a botched coup that the United States could have used to capture Noriega, who was briefly held by rebel officers. His return stirs bitter memories for many Panamanians who suffered under his regime or lost family in the invasion. "All of Panama was happy when he left," said Osvaldo Quintero, 37, who lives by Noriega's dilapidated mansion in the upscale San Francisco neighborhood and says neighbors oppose his return to the house. Once the site of parties for high-ranking members of Panama's now-disbanded armed forces, the mansion is crumbling, with neighbors complaining of squatters, rats and mosquitoes. "For those who have lived here for a long time (Noriega) brings bad memories. It was a political era of this country that we want to forget," said Quintero. But some miss the security that came with Noriega's iron hand, for example in the El Chorrillo district which was the base for Noriega's central command and has since disintegrated into a gunfire-punctuated gangland chaos. "Noriega had absolute control of Panama," said Cesar Duran, outside his parked taxi that sports a Noriega sticker on the rear beside the Spanish word for freedom. "We knew he was a dictator ... but there was much more security than now." (Additional reporting by Lucien Libert and John Irish in Paris and Veronica Gomez in Mexico City; Editing by Sandra Maler) Copyright © 2011 Reuters Full content generated by Get Full RSS. |
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