1 US trade gap
smallest since 2009 (BBC) The
US trade deficit fell by 22.4% to $34.2bn in June, the smallest gap since
October 2009. The percentage contraction was
also the largest since February 2009. The three-month average of the trade
deficit, which irons out monthly volatility, also fell to $39.5bn in the three
months to June from $40.5bn in the previous period.
Meanwhile, May's trade shortfall was revised to $44.1bn
from the previously reported $45.0bn. The smaller June deficit could lead the
government to revise economic growth for the April-to-June quarter up from its
initial estimated annual rate of 1.7%. In June, imports of goods and services
fell by 2.5% to $225.4bn, mainly because of large declines in petrol imports
and of industrial supplies and materials.
Exports of
goods and services increased 2.2% to a record $191.2bn. Of those, exports to
the 27-nation European Union rose by 1.5%, while exports to China increased by
4.5% in June.
2 Pakistan’s existential fight
(Jonathan Power in Khaleej Times) Pakistan
has no choice but to exterminate the militants. There
is an “in” political word “blowback”. Pakistan certainly has it. We can also
call it “the chickens coming home to roost” or the “sins of the fathers visited
upon the children”. The question is can the new Prime Minister, Nawaz Sharif,
do anything about it? His predecessor wasn’t able to do much and neither could
the military government of General Pervez Musharraf, which preceded him. Now we
have to see if Sharif can find a solution. If he fails Pakistan might rip
itself apart.
“Blowback”
is happening because the shots are increasingly being called in political life
by the extremist Islamist fighting units that the now threatened Pakistan
political establishment itself created. Going way back to soon after the nation
was born in 1947 when it split off from India to form an independent Muslim
country the military’s Inter Service Intelligence agency has funded and
supplied the jihadists to do what the army could not do more publicly.
The
targets remain the same: first Kashmir and later Afghanistan. In Kashmir the
objective has been to wrest the Muslim-dominated province out of the hands of
India. In Afghanistan the initial purpose was to aid the Taleban take over
after the withdrawal of the Soviet occupation forces in 1989. Today, as the US
and Nato troops prepare to leave, the militants are geared to supporting the
Taleban to gain control of the country once again.
The
militants are prepared to go to any length to fulfill their aims and after
becoming more financially and militarily independent act increasingly without
the backing of the ISI. Sharif will have to fight not just for the soul of
Pakistan, but for its very being as a unitary state.
3 Asia slowdown hits UK banks (Max Colchester in The
Wall Street Journal) Asia's economic slowdown is
threatening to bring two of Europe's highest-flying banks back down to earth.
Standard Chartered PLC said net profit
fell 24% in the first half of the year, as weakening growth in Asian markets
and a $1 billion write-down at its South Korean business put a brake on earnings.
The announcement came after HSBC Holdings PLC's said underlying profit before
tax stagnated at its Asia-Pacific unit, which excludes Hong Kong, and warned it
was bracing for slower growth in China.
4 Why India has a sand mafia (Joanna
Sugden in The Wall Street Journal) Illegal sand
mining in India is something of an open secret but it has been brought under
the scanner in recent days after a civil servant named Durga Shakti Nagpal was suspended from her post late last
month. Ms. Nagpal had gained attention from the Indian media for her efforts to clamp down on the
practice in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh.
The sand-hungry construction industry
uses the material to mix with concrete and for making bricks. Almost all of this mining is happening without licenses because
the demand is unbridled and the regulatory consequences are minimal. The environmental consequences of such mining, though, can be
serious. These can include increased flooding as miners cart away the sand
holding back river waters.
The Supreme Court in February 2011 ruled that “sand mining on either side of rivers instream or upstream is
one of the causes of environmental degradation and also a threat to
biodiversity.” But it still happens. Construction
contributed 8.9% to India’s gross domestic product in 2009, up from 7.4% in
2005. According to the Planning Commission, investment in infrastructure needs
to increase to 10% of GDP by the fiscal year ending March 31, 2017, from 8%
five years earlier, if India is to continue to grow.
Sand is considered a “minor mineral”
under Indian law, unlike coal, diamonds or gold which are classed as major
minerals. The extraction of minor minerals is governed by state rather
than federal laws. The state governments have the power to make rules
preventing illegal mining, and regulating the transportation and storage of
minerals like sand. These can include putting in posts for checking
minerals in transit and weighing the quantity being transported. The punishment
for mining sand without permission is imprisonment for up to two years or a
fine of up to 25,000 rupees (about $410), or both.
According to Debi Goenka, of the
Conservation Action Trust, even when miners get permission to extract a certain
amount of sand, they often take around 100 times more than they are permitted. The
problem with trying to halt illegal sand-mining is that there aren’t many
substitutes for sand in construction. One possibility is to use crushed
construction debris, said Mr. Goenka, a practice that is starting to
be adopted in the US and Canada, but that is not yet commonplace
because separating out what’s usable from what’s not, is a complex process. “The
trick is to find an enviromentally-friendly subsitute for sand,” he said. Until
then, expect illegal sand mining in India to continue.
No comments:
Post a Comment