France fears triple-dip recession; Italy on the brink; Motorola Mobility cutting 1,200 jobs

1 France fears triple-dip recession (Phillip Inman in The Guardian) France appears to be heading for a triple dip recession amid concerns that political deadlock in Italy could drag the eurozone back into crisis. French industrial production dropped by 1.2% in January despite a strong rebound in German imports that some analysts believed might rescue some of its neighbours.

Official figures from Paris showed that a longstanding slump in car buying across much of the eurozone has undermined efforts to maintain a 0.9% rise in December. Car-making dropped by 13.5% in January after a revised 8.8% increase in December. Peugeot Citroen and Renault have suffered a steep fall in sales during the last year and cut production at many of their factories. Analysts said the drop in overall output was a further sign that France's €2tn economy could slip into recession after contracting 0.3% in the final quarter of 2012 and following a series of weak data this year.

Italy has proved a particular graveyard for car sellers, prompting the boss of Fiat to say production in Turin may stop if the slide continues for much longer. Fiat, which owns Chrysler, has expanded production in the US while restricting output in the eurozone. Rome was battling to maintain some stability after figures showed its recession is likely to run into 2014 even with a resolution to the electoral stalemate. One analyst said Italy posed a "near and present danger" for the eurozone.

2 Italy on the brink (Liz Alderman in The New York Times) Since a government austerity plan took hold last year, the Italian economy has tumbled into one of the worst recessions of any euro zone country. Businesses of all sizes have been going belly up at the rate of 1,000 a day over the last year; especially hard hit among Italy’s estimated six million companies are the small and midsize companies that represent the backbone of Italy’s $2 trillion economy.

Economists worry that the pace of business closings may accelerate as long as the country lacks a functioning government. The departing prime minister, Mario Monti, was ousted by austerity-weary voters, but the election left Parliament gridlocked. With the European Union standing as America’s largest trading partner, the economic problems that plague Italy — and the rest of stagnating Europe — are felt across the Atlantic.

“This underscores the likelihood of Italy having a Japan-like decade with phenomenally slow growth,” said Kenneth S. Rogoff, a professor at Harvard and a former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund. “And it raises painful questions about the long-run stability of growth in the euro zone over all.” 

The afflictions of Italy’s economy, one of Europe’s largest, are not new, of course: a lumbering bureaucracy, stifling labor regulations and an eroding ability to compete in the global marketplace. As the economy of the 17 members of the European Union that use the euro as their currency was expanding at a weak average of 1% a year for much of the last decade, Italy grew at only half that rate, according to the International Monetary Fund. 

But Italy’s longstanding problems have grown worse in the last year as tax increases and spending cuts were pressed by Mr. Monti, who took over as prime minister in November 2011 after the euro crisis forced out Silvio Berlusconi. Last year the economy shrank 2.4%. One in two small companies cannot pay its employees on time, according to CGIA di Mestre, a research institute. With layoffs surging, unemployment rose to 11.7% in January. Youth unemployment has jumped to 38.7%. 

3 Motorola Mobility cuts 1,200 jobs (BBC) Google's Motorola Mobility Unit has said it is cutting 1,200 jobs, or more than 10% of its workforce. It follows a 4,000 jobs cut last August as Google aims to turn around the loss-making business it acquired last year for $12.5bn. The layoffs are expected to affect the US, China and India, according to a company email. The Motorola unit was bought for its Android-operating mobile devices and access to more than 17,000 patents.

"These cuts are a continuation of the reductions we announced last summer," Google spokeswoman Niki Fenwick said. An internal email published by the Wall Street Journal said: "Our costs are too high, we're operating in markets where we're not competitive and we're losing money." Motorola, which once dominated the mobile phone market, has fallen behind its competitors, including Apple and Samsung.

Motorola Mobility was created in 2011 when Motorola Inc split the company into a mobile devices unit and a government and public safety division known as Motorola Solutions.

The price of marriage in China; When dad is absent; 'Decline' of India Muslims

1 The price of marriage in China (Brook Larmer in The New York Times) Three decades of combustive economic growth have reshaped the landscape of marriage in China. A generation ago, China was one of the world’s most equal nations, in both gender and wealth. Most people were poor, and tight controls over housing, employment, travel and family life simplified the search for a suitable match — what the Chinese call mendang hudui, meaning roughly “family doors of equal size.”

China’s transition to a market economy has swept away many restrictions in people’s lives. But of all the new freedoms the Chinese enjoy today — making money, owning a house, choosing a career — there is one that has become an unexpected burden: seeking a spouse. This may be a time of sexual and romantic liberation in China, but the solemn task of finding a husband or wife is proving to be a vexing proposition for rich and poor alike.

The confusion surrounding marriage in China reflects a country in frenzied transition. Sharp inequalities of wealth have created new fault lines in society, while the largest rural-to-urban migration in history has blurred many of the old ones. As many as 300 million rural Chinese have moved to cities in the last three decades. Uprooted and without nearby relatives to help arrange meetings with potential partners, these migrants are often lost in the swell of the big city. 

Demographic changes, too, are creating complications. Not only are many more Chinese women postponing marriage to pursue careers, but China’s gender gap — 118 boys are born for every 100 girls — has become one of the world’s widest, fueled in large part by the government’s restrictive one-child policy. By the end of this decade, Chinese researchers estimate, the country will have a surplus of 24 million unmarried men. 

Single men have a hard time making the list if they don’t own a house or an apartment, which in cities like Beijing are extremely expensive. And despite the gender imbalance, Chinese women face intense pressure to be married before the age of 28, lest they be rejected and stigmatized as “leftover women.” 

2 When dad is absent (Jackie May in Johannesburg Times) A friend once told me the best thing a father can do for his children is to love their mother. There are obvious benefits: harmony in the home and good romantic role modelling for the children. Between 1996 and 2010 there was an increase in absent living fathers in South Africa from 41.6% to 47.4%. That's almost half of fathers who don't live with their children, and who don't share the daily responsibility of taking care of their children.

I've seen how fathers, who don't actively parent, if they can afford it, send a cellphone as a gift once a year or buy clothes for their children at Christmas time. But these rare acts of generosity don't replace the parenting that is lost when parents don't live at home. I have seen the bitterness that creeps in after years of receiving gifts without real caring. Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook, in a piece for this week's Time magazine wrote that "a truly equal world would be one where women ran half our countries and companies and men ran half our homes".

Her book Lean In has caused a stir in the US, with women criticising her for being an elitist, but her words and advice are wise: "We need men to lean into their families more, especially since research has consistently found that children with involved and loving fathers have higher levels of psychological wellbeing and better cognitive abilities". For men to take more care of their children may mean giving up alcohol, girlfriends, power or whatever it is that makes them absent. But they might find they actually enjoy the job, and we know that society would certainly benefit from it.

3 ‘Decline’ of India Muslims (Irfan Husain in Dawn) Traditionally, Muslims in India were urban, with rulers from the Sultanate period to the Mughals settling in cities that were expanded and beautified. Even when they began acquiring jagirs or large rural estates, the aristocrats were reluctant to move far from the seats of power. In his magisterial The Last Mughal, William Dalrymple documents the dismantling of the Indian Muslim aristocracy in the bloody aftermath of the revolution of 1857.

Even though Bahadur Shah Zafar, the last Mughal, was a reluctant figurehead for the anti-British movement, the Muslim community as a whole was held responsible by a vengeful British Empire. Entire neighbourhoods in Delhi were levelled, and thousands of Muslim hanged, shot or blown from the mouths of canons. Many others, including Bahadur Shah, were exiled to die in penury.

Traumatised, Muslims turned inwards. As western education became a requirement for government jobs, few Muslims could compete. Psychologically, many traditional Muslims felt they would be formally acknowledging their defeat by accepting the ways of their conquerors. Hindus, on the other hand, had no such hang-ups and were soon manning many positions in the bureaucracy.

When partition came, a large section of the Muslim leadership and the professional class moved to the newly created state of Pakistan. Tensions and wars between India and Pakistan did nothing to improve the lot of Indian Muslims who were suspected by the majority of secretly supporting Pakistan. Even though the present generation is largely indifferent to their neighbour, their religion still sets them apart. Indeed, watching the rising tide of violence here, several Muslim readers from India have expressed their relief that their families stayed put in 1947.

An Economist article asks: “… are Muslims better off? Wajahat Habibullah, who heads the National Commission for Minorities in Delhi sees only faint reasons for cheer. Muslims in India outperform their neighbours in Pakistan on some social indicators, such as having lower fertility rates and infant mortality, and higher literacy and life expectancy.” But sadly, comparisons with the national average for India present a far bleaker picture.

Italy credit rating in trouble; Don't be fooled about US jobs growth; Life after Pol Pot

1 Italy credit rating in trouble (Phillip Inman & Dominic Rushe in The Guardian) The gap in fortunes between Europe and the US widened on Friday after the unemployment rate in the US tumbled while Italy suffered the humiliation of another downgrade in its credit status.

Beating the expectations of most analysts, the US economy added 236,000 new jobs in February as the unemployment rate edged down to 7.7%, its lowest level since December 2008. The figures cheered US stock markets, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average rising 67.58 points, or 0.5%, to 14,397.07 – its sixth-straight daily gain, and a new record high.

Italy was downgraded by ratings agency Fitch, amid continuing uncertainty over whether its squabbling politicians will be able to form a government after last month's inconclusive election. Germany added to the eurozone's woes after a survey showed production stagnated in February. In the UK official figures showed construction output dived in January by more than first thought.

Several analysts have argued that a spate of good news from the US means a sustained recovery is under way. It was the 29th consecutive month that the US added jobs. On average, 183,000 jobs were added each month in 2012, with about 195,000 a month on average in the past three months.

2 Don’t be fooled about US jobs growth (Dean Baker in The Guardian) More than five years into the downturn, it doesn't take much to get people excited about the state of the economy. The Labor Department's February employment report showing the economy generated a better than expected 236,000 jobs and the unemployment rate had fallen 0.2 percentage points to 7.7% was sufficient to get the optimists' blood flowing. Unfortunately, they are likely to be disappointed.

First off, if the 236,000 jobs number sounds good to you, then you probably are not old enough to remember the 271,000 number reported last February, or the 311,000 number reported in January of 2012. The strong winter job growth in 2011-2012 was followed by a dismal spring, in which job growth slowed to a trickle. While most economic measures implied that the economy had suddenly shifted from hot to cold, the more obvious explanation was that unusually good winter weather in the US northeast and the midwest had pulled hiring forward. This is likely part of the story this year, as well. 

The drop in the unemployment rate is also not as good news as it may initially seem. The Labor Department reported that 130,000 people left the labor force during the month – so they are no longer counted as unemployed. 

A big hit to the economy will be from the sequester, which will pull roughly $80bn in federal spending out of the economy. The forecasts from the Congressional Budget Office and others show the sequester slowing growth by 0.5-0.6 percentage points. The economy has not even begun to feel the impact of these cuts, most of which will not start to make their effects felt until April.

In short, we have an economy that had been growing at a not-very-healthy pace through the second half of 2012 – and which is virtually certain to be slowed by contractionary fiscal policy through the rest of 2013. Unless there is a rapid reversal of policy, the 7.7% unemployment rate is likely to represent a low we may not see again for some time. While the economy is not likely to fall into a recession and send the unemployment rate soaring, the economy is not growing fast enough to meet the need for jobs from a growing labor force. As a result, unemployment will be going in the wrong direction for the rest of the year.

3 Life after Pol Pot (Jonathan Power in Khaleej Times) Cambodia has lain for too long under the black umbrella of its past. But Cambodia is waking up, has looked the evil one in its eye and, re-born, found its strength.Cambodia has been to hell and back — two million of its people killed out of population of 8 million, with 500,000 of them executed, the consequence of a fanatical communist movement, the Khmer Rouge, led by Pol Pot and a group of henchmen now being tried in the UN War Crimes Court. (Pol Pot himself is dead.)

The Khmer Rouge violently took power in 1975 and fell in 1979. They wanted a classless society. They abolished money, property and religious practices. Family relationships were criticised and people were forbidden from even showing the slightest affection. The workday in the fields was 12 hours long without pause. Torture and the bullet were the instant punishment for deviance. Anybody educated was singled out for death.

In the late 1970s, the neighbouring Vietnamese, despite having in the early 1970s supported the Khmer Rouge, fought their way into Cambodia and in January 1979 overthrew the Khmer Rouge, capturing Phnom Penh.

In the 1980s ninety per cent of the people lived in poverty. Today it is only 20%, a remarkable achievement. It is one of the largest poverty reductions in the world, says the World Bank representative — far better than its neighbour, Thailand. Nutrition rates are up. So are hygiene and the availability of clean water. Most children are now inoculated and infant mortality has fallen fast. Unemployment is very low. Cambodia is fifth in the world in terms of attaining the Millennium Development Goals (that measure social progress).

But educational improvement goes too slowly. Corruption is pervasive. Manufacturing is only just getting under way. In July there will be a general election. Hun Sen will win. He has the organisation and the money. Perhaps then he will loosen up a bit more. A prosperous democracy could be, if he willed it, not too far away.

US trade deficit widens in Jan; One millionth Syrian refugee; Is college really necessary?

1 US trade deficit widens in Jan (BBC) The gap between the value of imports to the US and exports from the US widened in January. The trade deficit grew to $44.45bn in January from December's figure of $38.14bn, the Commerce Department said.  There was better news on unemployment, with a fall in the number of initial claims for unemployment benefits. The Labour Department said the number of initial claims for state benefits fell 7,000 to 340,000. 

Much of the rise in imports came from a 12% increase in imports of oil. The trade deficit for the whole of 2012 was revised down slightly to $539.5bn, which was 3.6% below the level from 2011. Analysts said that the trade figures would cut the country's economic growth in the first three months of 2013.

2 One millionth Syrian refugee (Antonio Guterres in Khaleej Times) This week, my colleagues registered the one millionth Syrian refugee. A milestone in human tragedy. The exodus from Syria has accelerated dramatically in recent weeks. In early December, some 20 months after the crisis began, refugee figures stood at 500,000. It has only taken three months for that number to double. As violence in Syria spirals out of control, more than 7,000 people arrive in Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey and Iraq every single day. Others make their way to Egypt and Europe. Three quarters of the refugees are women and children.

They have lost all they owned, and family members they loved. But at least in exile they are safe and cared for. The violent Syria they left behind is causing suffering on an unimaginable scale. At least two million people have sought precarious safety in other parts of the country. Syria’s children are the worst affected. The horrors they have witnessed are unspeakable, and many boys and girls are traumatised for life. We are increasingly receiving reports of children being deliberately targeted, abused, beaten, raped and killed. Women also tell harrowing stories of sexual violence, a pattern that indicates rape is being used as a weapon of war.

The Syria crisis would be an enormous disaster anywhere in the world. But this conflict is taking place in a region so fragile that it risks being destabilised beyond control if the fighting spills across borders. What happens in Syria has a direct impact on the rising sectarian violence in Iraq. There are warnings of a potential civil war if the Syria conflict continues. Lebanon is increasingly threatened by instability, with security incidents unsettling its borders. Jordan, long a pillar of stability in the Middle East, is facing a dramatic economic situation that could trigger social unrest. The Palestinian-Israeli conflict is looming nearby, and the Strait of Hormuz, one of the world’s most sensitive places, is just around the corner.

If the world does not act now, we might soon face an explosion that no international response could manage. This must not be allowed. The Syrian crisis is now at a tipping point. Humanitarian organisations can save lives and ease suffering, but it is up to those who have political responsibilities to stop this war before it is too late.

3 Is college really necessary? (Dale J Stephens in The New York Times) All your life, parents, teachers, and guidance counselors have drilled the idea into your head that you must go to college. It has been made clear that if you don’t get good grades and attend a four-year college, the rest of your life will be a dismal failure. I’m arguing that all of this is wrong. The social cues that defined what you thought about education ought to be questioned.

There is a community of people who are making a different choice. Instead of going into debt, they are taking the future into their own hands. They are using the real world to find mentors and learn practical skills. They are traveling, volunteering, interning and apprenticing. While many might see this path as extremely risky, I argue that going to school and graduating with an average of $26,000-plus in debt is at least as risky in today’s uncertain job market.

Massive open online courses, commonly referred to as MOOCs, are now replacing lecture halls. Students don’t have to sit in a classroom anymore; they can learn on their own terms, at their own pace. Self-directed learners, or hackademics as I’d like to call them, aren’t just learning for a fraction of the cost. In many cases, they’re doing it for absolutely free.

We need to see college as a choice, not a requisite. Social norms dictate that we all need to go to college — but if you look through history, how many times have social norms steered us in the wrong direction? The rules are being rewritten, and colleges aren’t taking action. In fact, it seems that they aren’t even taking notice. Now, life is on you. Now, I’d argue, is the best time to take charge of your education. And by doing so, you might just be taking charge of your life.

Thomas Cook axes 2,500 jobs; When reading declines; City with the world's worst air quality

1 Thomas Cook axes 2,500 jobs (Rupert Neate in The Guardian) Thomas Cook, the world's oldest travel firm, is cutting 2,500 British jobs and closing 195 of its high street travel agencies. Peter Fankhauser, Thomas Cook's Europe and UK chief executive, said it was "never easy" to make job cuts but insisted the company had to make sure its administrative costs were "as low as possible".

The company, which has already cut more than 1,100 jobs over the past year, will shed up to 1,600 jobs in its high street shops with the remainder coming from administrative positions. The new jobs cuts represent more than 15% of Thomas Cook's 15,500 staff. Having recently shut 149 stores, Thomas Cook will be left with 874 travel agencies across the UK and Northern Ireland.

Thomas Cook, which has been struggling since the 2011 Arab spring uprisings in the Middle East and north Africa put off holidaymakers, lost £590m in the year to the end of September 2012. The company, which was founded by cabinet maker Thomas Cook in 1841, has debts of more than £1.5bn. Thomas Cook takes 23 million people from across Europe on holiday every year.

2 Decline in reading (David Toscana in The New York Times) Nowadays more children attend school than ever before, but they learn much less. They learn almost nothing. The proportion of the Mexican population that is literate is going up, but in absolute numbers, there are more illiterate people in Mexico now than there were 12 years ago. Even if baseline literacy, the ability to read a street sign or news bulletin, is rising, the practice of reading an actual book is not. Once a reasonably well-educated country, Mexico took the penultimate spot, out of 108 countries, in a Unesco assessment of reading habits a few years ago.

One cannot help but ask the Mexican educational system, “How is it possible that I hand over a child for six hours every day, five days a week, and you give me back someone who is basically illiterate?” Mexico is floundering socially, politically and economically because so many of its citizens do not read. Upon taking office in December, our new president, Enrique Peña Nieto, immediately announced a program to improve education. This is typical. All presidents do this upon taking office.

For many years now, the job of the education secretary has been not to educate Mexicans but to deal with the teachers and their labor issues. Nobody in Mexico organizes as many strikes as the teachers’ union. And, sadly, many teachers, who often buy or inherit their jobs, are lacking in education themselves.

3 City with the world’s worst air quality (John Upton in The Sydney Morning Herald) The New York Times’ India Ink blog reported that air pollution was more than twice as bad in Delhi on January 31 as it was in Beijing. There are 46 cities, in such countries as the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, India, Mexico, and Nigeria, where average pollution levels exceed those of Beijing. Overall, India recently ranked last in a list of 132 countries surveyed for their air quality.

Most of the pollution that I inhale in Delhi comes from diesel-burning trucks and buses. Other aerial filth that enters my lungs broke away from petrol as it combusted incompletely in cars and from natural gas burned by auto rickshaws. Coal-fired power plants and agricultural burning take a toll, as do makeshift campfires that line the streets at night during the winter, where everything from leaf litter and cow dung to rubber motorcycle saddles are burned for warmth.

It's not that officials here don't care. Efforts to cut pollution from vehicles in Delhi in the late 1990s and early 2000s, by taking such steps as switching auto rickshaws over to natural gas and requiring annual vehicle inspections, helped clear the air. But as the city's wealth grows, it is experiencing an explosion in the number of cars and other vehicles on its roads, pushing air pollution levels back up again.