1 ECB adds half a trillion euros in stimulus (San
Francisco Chronicle) The European
Central Bank will pour another half-trillion euros ($579 billion) in newly
printed money into the eurozone economy to support its recovery as the currency
union heads into what could be a tumultuous election year.
The bank's 25-member governing council extended the
duration of its bond-buying stimulus program by at least nine months, from
March until December next year. But the council startled markets by reducing
the monthly amount of bonds it will buy after March, to 60 billion euros ($64
billion) from 80 billion euros currently.
ECB President Mario Draghi said the reduction did
not mean the bank was tapering, or phasing out, the stimulus. He said the
central bank could increase the monthly purchases if needed and that there is
still no firm end date for the stimulus program. He noted, however, that the
economy could get by with less monthly stimulus now because the danger of
deflation — falling prices that kill off growth and investment — had passed.
The bond purchases pump freshly created money into
the banking system in hopes of increasing weak inflation and encouraging
growth. The flood of cash also helps keep financial markets calmer as Europe
faces elections in the Netherlands and France next year where anti-EU, populist
candidates are expected to do well.
2 Japan growth revised down (BBC) Japan's economy
grew much slower than initially estimated in the third quarter of the year,
figures have revealed, as business investment fell. The Cabinet Office said the
economy grew 1.3% in the three months to the end of September, compared to the
same period a year ago. However, that was sharply lower than the previous
estimate of 2.2%.
The new data indicated that investment by companies
in the quarter had been weaker than initially estimated. Just over a quarter of
the growth came from net exports. Economists are hopeful that exports will pick
up following the rise in the value of the dollar since Donald Trump's election
as US president.
Japan's economy has been struggling for several
years, raising questions about Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's strategy to revive
the Japanese economy. Mr Abe took office in late 2012, launching a growth plan
that included three main elements - pumping more money into the economy,
boosting government spending and cutting red tape.
3 We are to blame for giraffe decline and only we
can save them (Jules Howard in The Guardian) Imagine entering a museum of the
future. You are in the shadow of an enormous towering skeleton of an extinct
creature which stands almost 20ft high, with a long neck upon which a horny
skull sits, within which would have been a tongue almost as long as a human
arm.
“On whose watch did such a creature face
extinction?” those future museum visitors might ask. Our watch. For today is
the day giraffes first became listed as a threatened species, the day we
learned from the International Union for the Conservation of Nature that
giraffes are to be listed as “vulnerable” in their international Red List
update. And the day we have to start doing something more to help.
According to the IUCN, giraffe populations have
fallen from about 157,000 in 1985 to 97,500 today – a population drop of almost
40%. But the causes of these declines are nothing new: they include the
conversion of grasslands to farmland, deforestation and the impact of civil
wars, not forgetting the occasional crazed American tourist with a big gun
fetish.
Giraffes are now split across Africa into discreet
populations that no longer mix – they are nine isolated islands of life being
increasingly squeezed from all sides. This year’s IUCN Red List does not only
include giraffes; there are a host of creatures threatened by similar
fragmentation. They include the African grey parrot and the spectacular sunset
lorikeet and the eastern gorilla, as well as (my personal favourite) the
geometric tortoise.
But this is a day for us to consider giraffes.
Theirs is a story, quite frankly, that few conservationists (including me) saw
coming. I am the first to admit that yesterday, before the IUCN update, I had
giraffes pegged as beautiful food for lions. Now they, like so many others,
have become more; they have become food for thought.
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