1 Asia stock sell-off continues (BBC) Asian shares
have opened lower again as concerns over China's slowing growth continue to
haunt investors. Chinese mainland shares have fallen more 16% since the
beginning of the week, sending shockwaves through global markets.
The fall came despite Beijing's latest efforts to
boost growth and reassure traders by cutting interest rates. The People's Bank
of China cut its key lending rate by 0.25 percentage points to 4.6% in an
effort to calm stock markets after two days of turmoil. It is the fifth
interest rate cut since November last year.
The Nikkei's fall on Wednesday added to an already
painful week for the Tokyo index which has already shed more than 8% so far. Elsewhere
in Asia, investors were equally hesitant sending Australia's S&P/ASX 200
down by 0.5% to 5,109.90 while South Korea's Kospi index was flat.
Overnight, European and US markets saw another
session of volatile trading. Wall Street's Dow Jones closed 1.3% down, marking
the sixth consecutive day of falls for US stocks. London's FTSE 100 index
closed up 3%. Major markets in France and Germany both gained more than 4%.
2 China 2015: Beware the links with 1929 (Larry
Elliott in The Guardian) On day one the stock market fell by 13%. On day two it
fell by a further 12%. On day three hopes were high the storm had blown over
after equity prices recouped the previous session’s losses. Let this be a
cautionary tale. These figures relate not to the Shanghai Composite index in
August 2015 but the Dow Jones Industrial Average in October 1929.
Even in the most savage bear markets prices never
fall in a straight line. Instead, within a downward trend big daily falls are
punctuated by sizeable daily rallies. Events of the past few days conform to
this pattern, at least in Europe. Shares in London, Frankfurt and Paris fell
heavily on Friday and Monday, then recovered on Tuesday.
For a good while, there was every indication that
New York would follow the same pattern. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up
more than 400 points at one stage only to suffer a bout of jitters in the last
hour of trading to close more than 200 points lower.
This is a bad omen. Markets were not over-impressed
when China hit the panic button by both cutting interest rates and allowing
banks to lend more money. Wall Street’s late loss of nerve suggests there is a
lot more turbulence to come, with attention firmly focused on China. It is not
just that the growth rate of the world’s second biggest economy is faltering,
it is that the quality of that growth is deteriorating.
Mike Riddell of M&G notes that the share of
gross domestic product accounted for by investment rose from just over 40% in
2007, to 48% between 2008 and 2013, to 54% last year. A higher investment rate
is normally associated with higher growth; in China’s case it has been
associated with lower growth.
Riddell’s conclusion is that much of the investment
has been wasteful and that China is “trying to hit unsustainably high GDP
growth rates by generating bigger and bigger credit and investment bubbles”.
3 Indian, Muslim and female (Rafia Zakaria in Dawn) Amid
all the hubbub over talks between India and Pakistan, news emerged last week
about a survey done by the Indian Muslim women’s rights organisation Bharatiya
Muslim Mahila Andolan (BMMA). The survey revealed that over 90pc of Indian
Muslim women surveyed want a ban on polygamy, oral talaq (divorce) and child
marriage.
The results of the survey have since spurred a debate
regarding the need for the reform of personal status laws that currently govern
marriage and divorce for Indian Muslim women. Like so much else that ails the
contemporary subcontinent, the personal status laws originated in the British
era.
Under the veneer of their attempts at equal
treatment, the British ensured that Hindus and Muslims, now governed by the
laws that they had codified, would, in the years to come, begin to believe that
religious difference was something crucial, never to be transcended. The Indian
Muslim woman living in the now, however, cannot sate herself with the colonial
origins of inhabiting the uncomfortable position of being a minority within a
minority.
Surveys like the one produced by BMMA reveal the depth
of the conundrum they face. The complexity of the situation should not,
however, deter Indian Muslim women from either action or advocacy. Indian
Muslims have the opportunity to lead change from within, championing the
empowerment of their own women without state intervention.
The point is simple: If Indian Muslims — like
British Muslims or American Muslims — dislike state intervention in matters of
religious law, they must create and enact processes that promote the
empowerment of Muslim women within their communities.
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