1 China emerges as global arms player (Edward Wong and Nicola Clark in The Wall Street Journal) In the past, Chinese companies have been known mainly as suppliers of small arms, but that is changing quickly. From drones to frigates to fighter jets, the companies are aggressively pushing foreign sales of high-tech hardware, mostly in the developing world. Russian companies are feeling the greatest pressure, but American and other Western companies are also increasingly running into the Chinese.
“China will be competing with us in many, many domains,
and in the high end,” said Marwan Lahoud, the head of strategy and marketing at
European Aeronautic Defense and Space, Europe’s largest aerospace company. “Out
of 100 campaigns, that is, the commercial prospects we have, we may have the
Chinese in front of us among the competitors in about three or four. They have
the full range of capabilities, and they are offering them.”
The Stockholm institute released a report this year on
global weapons transfers that found the volume of Chinese conventional weapons
exports — which included high-end aircraft, missiles, ships and artillery —
jumped by 162 percent from 2008 to 2012, compared with the previous five years.
Pakistan is the leading customer. The institute now estimates that China is the
fifth-largest arms exporter in the world, ahead of Britain. From 2003 to 2007,
China ranked eighth.
China’s foreign arms sales are also rising fast in
dollar terms. According to IHS Jane's, an industry consulting and analysis
company, Chinese exports have nearly doubled over the past five years to $2.2
billion, surpassing Canada and Sweden, and making China the world’s
eighth-largest exporter by value. The total global arms trade revenue in 2012
was estimated to be $73.5 billion, and the United States had a 39 percent
share, according to IHS Jane’s.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/21/world/asia/chinas-arms-industry-makes-global-inroads.html?hp&_r=0
2 Greenspan sees more debt threat (BBC) Former US Federal
Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan has said that a repeat of the crisis that
brought the country close to default is "perfectly conceivable". He
said he had not seen another situation in Washington where
"compromise" seemed so far away. Mr Greenspan confessed to sympathies
with the economic aims of the Tea Party, the faction that fought the government
during debt ceiling talks. But the former central banker said the Party's
tactics were "undemocratic".
The
former Fed chief had strong words for those who thought the eurozone crisis was
over. The crisis is likely to continue until the eurozone sees "consolidation
politically. I think that's where we are going". He said: "The
culture of Greece is not the same as the culture of Germany, and to fuse them
into a single unit is extremely difficult. "The only way you can do it is
by political union, like with East and West Germany, and even that is not
working as well as it should be." But he was optimistic about the UK's
attempt to revive its economy.
Mr
Greenspan, 87, who now runs his own consultancy business, also criticised a
growing "crony capitalism" in the US. He said: "Crony capitalism
is essentially a condition in which… public officials are giving favours to
people in the private sector in payment of political favours." He said it
was prevalent in China and Russia, but had not been common in the US or the UK.
But he added: "I am beginning to worry that we are starting in that
direction."
On China,
he said that growth rates would begin to slow unless the country could be more
innovative. "One of the major problems with China is that its innovation
is largely borrowed technology. "There was a recent Reuters study where
they listed the top 100 most innovative companies. Forty were American, none
were Chinese.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-24602273
3 India's gold dig rush (Omar Rashid in The Hindu) Even as the
Archaeological Survey of India digs for gold under the dilapidated fort of Raja
Ram Baksh Singh in Unnao, visitors are trickling to another tiny village
in neighbouring Fatehpur, where an even bigger amount of the yellow treasure is
believed to be buried.
This second flow of gold-curiosity comes after Shobhan Sarkar,
the priest who had a “dream” that 1,000 tonnes of gold were buried under the
fort in Daundia Khera village, dreamt of another treasure. His emissary Swami
Om says that no less than 2,500 tonnes of gold is hidden in the ruins in
Adampur village, which like Daundi Khera is on the banks of the Ganga. The
Swami has submitted a representation to the district administration to
commission digging at the site, which like Unnao featured in the 1857
mutiny.
After the news of the second “dream” reached Adampur, last night
some “miscreants dug through the pucca platform of the ancient Shiva temple on
the main ghat of the Ganga in search of gold”. “This is the third time we are hearing about
the gold,” said Kandhai, a labourer. “Some 30 years ago, a Naga (sadhu) had
claimed that there was a treasure hidden at the site. No digging could take
place as he didn’t specify whether it was gold or silver, and where it would be
found.”
http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/other-states/after-unnao-gold-rush-in-adampur/article5254345.ece?homepage=true
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