1 ‘Australia faces years of low growth’ (Michael
Koziol in Sydney Morning Herald) Australia
will suffer sub-trend growth for years to come as economies transition from a
pre-Lehman to a post-Lehman world, JPMorgan's top markets watcher says. John
Normand, the bank's head of FX and international rates strategy, said Australia
was part of a large contingent of nations undergoing a lingering structural
adjustment in the wake of the financial crisis, which could take years to
complete.
"In Australia, going from pre-Lehman to
post-Lehman means living with less mining activity as a driver of growth,"
he said. Sluggish growth was the new normal, Mr Normand said, with the US, UK,
New Zealand and potentially Mexico the only countries growing at an above-trend
rate. "That's it. It's a small club."
Last week's Federal Open Market Committee announced
the end of quantitative easing and expressed confidence about employment and
the domestic economy. The Fed might still worried about the non-US world, but
it didn't rate a mention. "These non-US economies are going to lag the US
economy in terms of growth [and] non-US central banks will lag the fed in terms
of raising rates."
Other areas that had big transitions to make in the
"post-Lehman world" were China, where reliance on fixed investment
would need to give way to domestic consumption, and Europe, where
corporate-driven growth would have to replace debt-driven models, Mr Normand
said.
2 India air pollution cuts crop yields (Azeen Ghorayshi
in The Guardian) Air pollution in India has become so severe that yields of
crops are being cut by almost half, scientists have found. Researchers analysed
yields for wheat and rice alongside pollution data, and concluded significant
decreases in yield could be attributed to two air pollutants, black carbon and
ground level ozone. The finding has implications for global food security as
India is a major rice exporter.
Black carbon is mostly caused by rural cookstoves,
and ozone forms as a result of motor vehicle exhaust, industrial emissions, and
chemical solvents reacting in the atmosphere in the presence of sunlight. Both
are “short-lived climate pollutants” that exist locally in the atmosphere for
weeks to months, with ozone damaging plants’ leaves and black carbon reducing
the amount of sunlight they receive.
Comparing crop yields in 2010 to what they would be
expected to be if temperature, rainfall and pollution remained at their 1980
levels, the researchers showed that crop yields for wheat were on average 36% lower
than they otherwise would have been, while rice production decreased by up to
20%. In some higher population states, wheat yields were as much as 50% lower.
Using modelling to account for the effects of
temperature increase and precipitation changes in that time, they were able to
show that 90% of this loss is attributable to the impact of the two pollutants.
The results are specific to India’s seasonal patterns, the crops, and its high
pollution levels, but may extend to other places with similar problems, such as
China.
3 One World Trade Center open for business (BBC) More
than 13 years after the original towers were destroyed in the 9/11 attacks, New
York's World Trade Center has re-opened for business. Employees at publishing
giant Conde Nast are starting to move into the 104-storey One World Trade
Center.
The $3.8bn skyscraper took eight years to build and
is now the tallest building in the US. It is 60% leased and the government's
General Services Administration has signed up for 275,000 square feet. "The
New York City skyline is whole again," Patrick Foye, executive director of
the Port Authority, which owns the restored site, said in a statement.
The 1,776ft (541m) tall skyscraper is at the centre
of the site, which includes a memorial in the footprints of the old towers and
a museum, opened this year. An observation deck at the top of the building will
eventually be open to the public.
TJ Gottesdiener of the Skidmore, Owings &
Merrill firm that produced the final design said the high-rise went beyond the
city's existing building code, and was built with steel-reinforced concrete. The
new World Trade Center is the centrepiece of the 16-acre site where the twin
towers once stood, before they came crashing down, killing more than 2,700
people.
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