China manufacturing slows; India 'has lost' the superbug war; Apple a former darling?; In China, breathing is a risk for kids

1 China manufacturing slows (BBC) Growth in China's manufacturing sector slowed in April, a survey by HSBC showed, adding to concerns about the country's economic recovery. The preliminary reading of HSBC's Purchasing Managers Index (PMI) fell to 50.5, from 51.6 in March. A reading above 50 indicates expansion. A drop in new export orders was blamed for the decline, a sign of weak global demand. Last year, China's economy grew at its slowest pace in 13 years. 

Banks have cut their full-year growth forecasts for China after an unexpected slowdown in the first quarter. Gross domestic product for the first three months of the year declined to 7.7%, compared to 7.9% in the previous three months. The World Bank, as well as private sector banks, said they expected growth to slow to 8% this year, though that is still high by global standards. Analysts said it was unlikely Beijing would introduce another massive stimulus package like it did after the global financial crisis in 2008.

2 India ‘has lost’ superbug war (Joanna Sugden in The Wall Street Journal) India has lost the war against the toughest forms of antibiotic resistance, largely because of poor sanitation, unregulated use of antibiotics and an absence of drug resistance monitoring, according to the man who discovered a type of drug resistance in bacteria in New Delhi. “All these factors add to why it’s going to be so difficult to deal with or even tackle [resistance], you won’t solve it, it’s over,” said Tim Walsh, professor of medical microbiology at Cardiff University in Wales.

In 2010, Mr. Walsh discovered an enzyme that made disease-causing bacteria resistant to antibiotics.  He named the enzyme “New Delhi Metallo 1” (NDM-1) and claims he was banned from working in India after the discovery. Bacteria carrying the NDM-1 enzyme are highly resistant to the most powerful group of antibiotics, known as carbopenems, making infections caused by them extremely difficult to treat.

He estimates that up to 200 million Indians carry NDM-1 on the benign bacteria in their intestines. But a lack of research and scarcity of data make it difficult to gauge in terms of its transfer to disease causing bacteria. In almost three years since he published his research in the Lancet medical journal, Mr. Walsh says that India has failed to respond to the “urgent” need to regulate the sale and use of antibiotics, track the incidence of resistance or improve sanitation.

3 Apple a former darling? (Dawn) Apple, the former darling of Main and Wall Street, rode a seven-fold increase in its stock price in the four years to September 2012. So Apple fans watched with increasing consternation as the shares fell 44% since then, shedding some $280 billion in market value along the way.

That fall was mirrored in the smartphone arena. In 2012, Samsung became No.1 in the global market with a 30.3% share, knocking off Apple – which had a 19.1% share – partly by flooding the market with cheaper devices. The erosion of Apple’s industry and market supremacy over the past year may embolden carrier partners and suppliers, analysts say. That could mean tougher negotiations over component costs and the subsidies carriers pay to stock iPhones.

To be sure, Apple had a record 2012 in sales and profit. Its iPads lead the tablet market, and its Mac computers continue to outperform in a shrinking PC market. Analysts also say slowing growth is inevitable for a company its size. But its recent stock-market descent has unnerved many investors. Some say Apple’s current market malaise is a re-balancing from the years when the stock was celebrated as a sure-fire bet.

The market became “irrational” about Apple with some analysts floating a $1,000 target price a year ago, said one hedge fund manager focused on the technology sector. Investors should have taken note when Apple missed revenue expectations in each of the past three quarters, said the manager, who declined to be identified. “The market is not being irrational with Apple today,” he said. “The market was being irrational with Apple last year, when they kept taking the stock price higher.”

4 In China, breathing is a risk for kids (Edward Wong in The New York Times) Levels of deadly pollutants up to 40 times the recommended exposure limit in Beijing and other cities have struck fear into Chinese parents and led them to take steps that are radically altering the nature of urban life for their children.

Parents are confining sons and daughters to their homes, even if it means keeping them away from friends. Schools are canceling outdoor activities and field trips. Parents with means are choosing schools based on air-filtration systems, and some international schools have built gigantic, futuristic-looking domes over sports fields to ensure healthy breathing. 

Some middle- and upper-class Chinese parents and expatriates have already begun leaving China, a trend that executives say could result in a huge loss of talent and experience. Few developments have eroded trust in the Communist Party as quickly as the realization that the leaders have failed to rein in threats to children’s health and safety. The fury over air pollution is widespread and is just beginning to gain momentum.

Some children’s hospitals in northern China reported a large number of patients with respiratory illnesses this winter, when the air pollution soared. During one bad week in January, Beijing Children’s Hospital admitted up to 9,000 patients a day for emergency visits, half of them for respiratory problems, according to a report by Xinhua, the state news agency. 

Parents have scrambled to buy air purifiers. IQAir, a Swiss company, makes purifiers that cost up to $3,000 here and are displayed in shiny showrooms. Mike Murphy, the chief executive of IQAir China, said sales had tripled in the first three months of 2013 over the same period last year.