1 Eurozone faces second recession (BBC) The eurozone's economy is set to contract by 0.5%-0.6% in the July to September quarter, tipping it into its second recession in three years, a closely-watched survey suggests. The Markit Flash Eurozone PMI Composite Output Index, which measures new orders in manufacturing and services, was 46.6 in August, compared with 46.5 in July. A score below 50 indicates contraction. Output declined in both the manufacturing and services sectors, Markit said. This is the seventh consecutive month of contraction in the eurozone's private sector.
Even Germany, the eurozone's strongest economy, showed an accelerating decline in output, with its Composite Output Index falling to a 38-month low of 47.0, down from 47.5 in July. German blue-chip companies ThyssenKrupp and Opel are reducing working hours because of weaker demand, while Bosch has announced it is negotiating reduced working hours with its workforce. The findings contrast with more positive news relating to Germany's public finances, which were back in the black for the first six months of the year, according to Destatis, the country's federal statistics office.
2 Coal scam darkens India prospects (The Wall Street Journal) An impasse between the government and opposition parties in India over a controversial allocation of coal blocks from 2004 to 2011 has dimmed prospects of economic reforms that economists say are vital to revive growth. Global investors and the Indian industry have been clamoring for the government to move on key issues such as easing foreign investment rules to attract overseas capital in industries such as aviation, insurance and retail.
Government officials repeatedly have suggested that several moves were imminent. But the reform efforts have been abruptly halted by a standoff in what is known as the monsoon session of Parliament that started earlier this month and is scheduled to run until Sept. 7. On Thursday, for the third successive day, opposition parties blocked all legislative proceedings as they continued to demand the resignation of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh over the coal allocations. The furor was sparked by a report from the Comptroller and Auditor General which questioned the government's policy of allocating rights for mining coal without a competitive auction, a strategy that the auditor claimed cost the treasury several billion dollars in potential revenue.
3 China confronts a pile of unsold goods (The New York Times) After three decades of torrid growth, China is encountering an unfamiliar problem with its newly struggling economy: a huge buildup of unsold goods that is cluttering shop floors, clogging car dealerships and filling factory warehouses. The glut of everything from steel and household appliances to cars and apartments is hampering China’s efforts to emerge from a sharp economic slowdown. It has also produced a series of price wars and has led manufacturers to redouble efforts to export what they cannot sell at home.
The severity of China’s inventory overhang has been carefully masked by the blocking or adjusting of economic data by the Chinese government — all part of an effort to prop up confidence in the economy among business managers and investors. But the main nongovernment survey of manufacturers in China showed on Thursday that inventories of finished goods rose much faster in August than in any month since the survey began in April 2004.
4 Housing bust in world's carpet capital (The New York Times)
It’s lemonade time here in Dalton, Ga., a town that calls itself the carpet capital of the world. How else can you look at it when you have recently shed more jobs than any other metropolitan area in America? This stretch of carpet mills and floor covering outlets between Atlanta and Chattanooga lost 4,600 jobs, or 6.9%, from June 2011 to June 2012, according to a new report from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Not that long ago, the mills that once produced nearly half the world’s carpets could not find enough workers. The road along the Interstate was jammed with out-of-towners who drove hundreds of miles to find bargains amid the rolls of remnants and stacks of samples. More than a million new homes a year were being sold by the mid-2000s, and they all needed fresh carpet. By 2008, the housing boom was over. The town’s unemployment rate, once about 4%, nearly doubled in a blink, and is now more than 12%.
5 Rather clean toilets than have a new password (San Francisco Chronicle) You know that sense of dread that fills your body when a website asks you to create a new user name, or when your company’s IT department sends another e-mail reminding you that it’s time to change your password again? Turns out you’re not alone. A new survey commissioned by social software services company Janrain found that 38% of Americans would rather clean a toilet or come up with a plan for world peace than think of a new online password. And that’s because most of us already have five unique passwords to remember and it taxes our memory.
"With all of the different websites consumers login to on a regular basis – from email and social networks to online banking and e-commerce sites – it’s no wonder people are struggling to remember such a large number of passwords," Janrain CEO Larry Drebes said in a news release. "What’s surprising is that consumers think cleaning their bathroom, or in the extreme cases trying to solve world peace, sounds preferable to adding yet another password to the list."
The survey found that: 38% of adults would rather do household chores "like cleaning the toilet or doing the dishes" than have to come up with another user name or password. 38% of adults also believe it’s easier to solve world peace than to remember all their passwords. 58% of adults have to remember five or more unique online passwords, while 30% have 10 passwords. And 8% have to memorize at least 21 passwords.
6 SA society failing at many levels (Johannesburg Times editorial) If the chairman of platinum miner Lonmin, Roger Phillimore, was not on a plane to South Africa on Friday evening, he should be ashamed of himself. In the wake of easily the worst state-on-citizen violence in South Africa since we became a democracy in 1994, protesting mineworkers at Lonmin’s Marikana mine near Rustenburg have shattered the company’s share price and sharply inflated the global price of platinum. That is almost a sideshow to the nearly 50 deaths that the strike has triggered so far — 34, according to the most recent confirmed figures, in a hail of police bullets at the mine on Thursday afternoon.
Lonmin may not be directly responsible for the violence accompanying the strike, but it has wide and deep duties that it is spectacularly failing to fulfil. It has a duty to its shareholders, to its customers, to its staff, to the mining industry in South Africa generally and, ultimately, to all South Africans. But it is nowhere to be seen. Its CEO, Ian Farmer, is ill in hospital. Its spokesman appears not to be available. The chairman resides in England. Is he on holiday along with the rest of Europe?
The strike and the tragedy of Thursday will be with us for a very long time. It represented a failure of our new society on many levels, most strikingly the inability of the majority black establishment (of which the NUM and the ruling African National Congress and union umbrella Cosatu are leaders) to come to terms with the majority of black, marginalised, poor and desperate people.
7 Swat Valley: The paradise that was (Dawn) The Valley of Swat is famous for its fruit laden orchards, fertile lands, snowcapped peaks, the mighty and zigzagging River Swat, waterfalls, lush green pastures, azure lakes and not the least, the relics of Gandhara and Darada civilisations. But extremists distorted its hospitable image by their activities. It is rightly called Switzerland of Pakistan. In 2002, a Swiss tourist declared Swat more beautiful than her homeland.
8 Finding a spouse in China (Straits Times) Young Chinese women in swishy dresses and strappy sandals sit in a row clutching forms that list their weight and measurements as they wait for an interview with the "appearance consultant". Dressed as if for a beauty contest, they are among more than 1,000 bidding to make it to the next stage of this bizarre competition - the chance to join an exclusive group of 50 vying for marriage to a multimillionaire.
The testing process screens everything from looks and education to family background and astrological compatibility. The 50 lucky qualifiers win the chance to meet 32 men worth at least 100 million yuan (S$19.7 million). Although it is at the extreme end of the scale, the matchmaking event arranged by the China Entrepreneur Club for Singles in Beijing reflects the growing challenges of finding a spouse in modern China.
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