Eurozone youth joblessness at record 24%; Rio Tinto cuts 1,000 jobs, cripples town; China's Moon-fixation

1 Eurozone youth joblessness at record 24% (Phillip Inman in The Guardian) The crisis facing the younger generation across the Eurozone worsened last month as youth unemployment hit a new record high of 24.4% with under-25s in Spain, Italy and Portugal finding it harder to get jobs. The grim news on employment came as the Netherlands was stripped of its prized AAA credit rating despite the country's recent exit from a year-long recession. Jeroen Dijsselbloem, the Dutch finance minister, said S&P's downgrade to AA+ was disappointing when the economy had returned to growth.

S&P's action leaves only three members of the eurozone with a top rating from all three agencies – Germany, Luxembourg and Finland. The Eurozone jobless data showed Spain's youth unemployment rate has now increased to 57.4%, only marginally below Greece's August high of 58% - which remains the highest rate of youth unemployment for any country in the eurozone's history. Italy's youth unemployment rate rose to 41.2%, from 40.5% the previous month. In Portugal, it rose to 36.5% from 36.2%.

The startling figures from southern Europe contrast with rates in the north where Germany has a 7.8% youth unemployment rate and the Netherlands an 11.6% rate. Italy's credit rating is perilously close to entering junk status and Rome is lobbying hard in Brussels for more time to cut the country's annual deficit. While the adult unemployment rate fell across the eurozone from 12.2 to 12.1%, 3.6m under-25s are now unemployed, an increase of 15,000 on the previous month.

http://www.theguardian.com/business/2013/nov/29/eurozone-youth-unemployment-record-high-under-25s

2 Rio Tinto cuts 1,000 jobs, cripples town (Angela Macdonald-Smith in Sydney Morning Herald) Australia's struggling manufacturing sector has taken another hit with Rio Tinto deciding to mothball alumina production at its loss-making Gove site in Arnhem Land with the expected loss of about 1,000 jobs. The long-expected decision deals a severe blow to the fragile economy of the region around the remote town of Nhulunbuy, which is reliant on the bauxite and alumina operation at Gove for its existence.

The strong Australian dollar, low alumina prices and high energy costs have crippled the plant, with losses estimated at $1 billion for Rio since 2007, a period when the miner also invested $700 million at the site. Efforts to save the plant by shoring up gas to allow it to switch from hugely expensive fuel oil came to nought when Rio rejected the gas option this week. Rio chief executive Sam Walsh said ''Our aluminium business is facing challenging market conditions and tough decisions are needed, but those decisions are so much harder when our employees and local communities are affected as they are in Nhulunbuy.'' 

http://www.smh.com.au/business/rio-tinto-pulls-out-of-gove-and-1000-jobs-go-with-it-20131129-2yh6p.html

3 China's Moon-fixation (David Shukman on BBC) The Moon could be a "beautiful" source of minerals and energy, a top Chinese scientist has said. Exotic materials including helium-3 and the potential for solar power could prove invaluable for humankind, he says. The comments come from Prof Ouyang Ziyuan of the department of lunar and deep space exploration. 

Prof Ouyang was speaking ahead of the first Chinese attempt to land an unmanned spacecraft on the lunar surface.  It will be the first to make a soft touchdown on the Moon since an unmanned Russian mission in 1976. No humans have set foot on the lunar surface since America's Apollo missions ended in 1972. Prof Ouyang said the forthcoming venture would land in an ancient crater 400km wide called Sinus Iridum, thought to be relatively flat and clear of rocks, and explore its geology.

He explained that there were three motivations behind the drive to investigate the Moon. "First, to develop our technology because lunar exploration requires many types of technology, including communications, computers, all kinds of IT skills and the use of different kinds of materials. Second, in terms of the science, besides Earth we also need to know our brothers and sisters like the Moon, its origin and evolution and then from that we can know about our Earth. And third, in terms of the talents, China needs its own intellectual team who can explore the whole lunar and solar system - that is also our main purpose."

The Moon is also "so rich" in helium-3, which is a possible fuel for nuclear fusion, that this could "solve human beings' energy demand for around 10,000 years at least. "The Moon is full of resources - mainly rare earth elements, titanium, and uranium, which the Earth is really short of, and these resources can be used without limitation. But it's unnecessary to get them now because it's very costly." Prof Ouyang summed up his vision for the goal of lunar exploration: "There are so many potential developments - it's beautiful - so we hope we can fully utilize the Moon to support sustainable development for humans and society."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/25141597