IMF says Greece needs debt relief over bailout; Biggest crackdown on UK trade unions in 30 years; Climate change, Daesh top global worry list

1 IMF says Greece needs debt relief over bailout (BBC) The International Monetary Fund has attacked the bailout deal offered by eurozone leaders to Greece. The creditor said Greece's public debt had become "highly unsustainable" and it needed relief from its debts.

The IMF suggested options including writing down the debt - a move most fiercely resisted by creditors. The Greek parliament must pass four pieces of legislation on Wednesday. It is the first requirement of the deal offered after hours of negotiation in Brussels on Monday.

The measures - which face resistance from Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras' own MPs - include taxation increases and pension curbs. Greece owes about 10% of its debt - €1.6bn to the IMF. It has missed two deadlines for repayment to the fund and is the first EU country ever to do so.

BBC economics editor Robert Peston says the IMF's assessment makes it much harder for Mr Tsipras to persuade the Athens parliament to back the measures needed in Wednesday's votes. It brings into question the validity of the reform measures demanded by the eurozone and endorses the kind of debt write-offs the Greek public have been arguing for.

http://www.bbc.com/news/business-33531845

2 Biggest crackdown on UK trade unions in 30 years (Patrick Wintour in The Guardian) The biggest crackdown on trade union rights for 30 years is being unveiled on Wednesday, including new plans to criminalise picketing, permit employers to hire strike-breaking agency staff and choke off the flow of union funds to the Labour party.

The scale of the reforms goes far wider than the previously trailed plan for strikes to be made unlawful unless 50% of those being asked to strike vote in the ballot. In a set of proposals on a par with those introduced by Norman Tebbit in 1985, Sajid Javid, the business secretary, is also to require that at least 40% of those asked to vote support the strike in most key public service.

In the case of 100 teachers asked to strike, the action would only be lawful if at least 50 teachers voted and 40 of them backed the strike. The double threshold would have to be met in any strike called in health, education, fire, transport, border security and energy sectors – including the Border Force and nuclear decommissioning.

The leader of the train drivers’ union Aslef, Mick Whelan, has likened the attack on union rights as resonant of fascist Germany. Paul Kenny, the GMB general secretary, warned the reforms would poison industrial relations in the UK since they removed all incentives for employers to heed their own workers and settle disputes.

Kenny said: “It is clear the Tory party high command intend to make the Labour party bankrupt by cutting off the main source of funding that they have relied on since the 1930s. This is aimed at undermining political campaigning by unions on behalf of their members and communities.”

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/jul/15/trade-unions-conservative-offensive-decades-strikes-labour

3 Climate change, Daesh top list of global worries (Khaleej Times) Climate change is a big worry in Latin America, Asia and Africa, but Daesh spells more anxiety among Europeans and North Americans, a global opinion poll released suggests. The Pew Research Center in Washington said it interviewed 45,435 respondents in 40 countries to see what issues were most likely to keep them awake at night.

Sixty-one percent in Latin America identified climate change as their biggest worry, the highest proportion of any region. Concern was greatest in Peru and Brazil, running at 75 percent in both nations.

Fear of Daesh was shared by respondents in the Middle East, where 84 percent of Lebanese - including 90 percent of its Sunnis and 87 percent of its Shias - said they were very concerned by the group's proliferation. Sixty-two percent of respondents in Jordan and 54 percent in the Palestinian territories agreed with that concern.

Climate change was the top concern for 59 percent of Africans surveyed in nine countries, with fear expressed most frequently in Burkina Faso (79 percent), Uganda (74 percent) and Ghana (71 percent). In the Asia-Pacific region, a majority in half of the 10 countries surveyed identified climate change as the top issue, with the proportion running as high as 73 percent in India and 72 percent in the Philippines.

Daesh was also the leading worry in Europe, where 70 percent expressed serious concern about the threat that it represents. Sixty-eight percent of Americans and 58 percent of Canadians felt likewise, and Daesh was also the top concern for a majority of respondents in South Korea, Japan, Australia and Indonesia.

http://khaleejtimes.com/climate-change-daesh-top-list-of-global-worries-pew-poll

Greece minister warns of recession; India, South Korea bright spots as US, China head for slowdown; A robot that gives undivided attention

1 Greece minister warns of recession (BBC) Eurozone leaders have agreed to offer Greece a third bailout, after marathon talks in Brussels. But a senior minister has said that European institutions will not immediately provide more emergency lending to Greek banks.

Rania Antonopoulos said the banks would remain closed until at least Wednesday night, after the parliament in Athens votes on the new rescue package. She said the combination of austerity measures, and the temporary closure of Greek banks, would tip the country back into serious recession.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-33512608

2 India, South Korea bright spots as US, China head for slowdown (Camille Accad in Khaleej Times) The world economy has been on a path of deceleration in the past 12 months, but at the country level, economies have experienced a variety of trends. Growth in developed countries has been sluggish, despite the US labour market showing some signs of recovery and the eurozone economy stabilising.

In emerging Asia, China has been on a gradual slowdown while India is in recovery following years of lacklustre growth. The rest of emerging Asia did not experience a clear trend in growth either, but from the major economies, only South Korea and Hong Kong witnessed a notable decline in economic growth.

The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, or OECD, publishes the composite leading indicators, or CLI, aimed at providing early signals of changes in economic trends, between six and nine months in advance. According to the OECD, developed economies will maintain their sluggish run and slow further, mainly due to a slowdown in the US.

The leading indiators show that after a few more months of stability, the US economy will cool down. However, eurozone output is expected to pick up again. In Asia, China's economic activity is expected to continue softening further in the next three quarters.

The CLI also shows the Indian economy maintaining its acceleration. In the other two emerging Asian economies assessed by the OECD, South Korea is expected to recover following more than one year of slowdown while Indonesia will soon begin to cool down.

The resurgence of the Indian economy and the ongoing Chinese slowdown are in line with consensus. If these projections are accurate, then, in the case of the US, the Federal Reserve may have to postpone its rate hike to next year. Similarly, the slowdown in China, if materialised, will probably lead to further monetary easing.

http://khaleejtimes.com/business/economy/us-china-to-slow-down

3 A robot that give undivided attention (San Francisco Chronicle) Pepper, the new companion robot from Tokyo-based technology company Softbank Corp., delivers cuteness like you've never seen. What's striking is the absolutely ardent attention it gives you — frankly a lot better than some real-life people.

It's another matter entirely whether it's worth the price tag of 198,000 yen ($1,600), plus the maintenance and insurance costs that ownership entails, adding up to some 1.2 million yen ($10,000) for an estimated three-year lifespan.

Pepper has cameras, lasers and infrared in its hairless head so it can detect human faces. Whatever direction you move, its cocked head will also move, intently looking into your face with its big eyes, like a puppy. Except this pet can talk. As long as you don't walk too far from it, removing yourself from its attention, Pepper will prattle on and on, switching from one small talk topic to another, gesticulating at times with its five-fingered soft hands for effect.

Yes, the conversations do sometimes repeat themselves, but so does human dialogue. It's attracting regular technology fans but also a kindergarten, a cafe and people who're buying it for their elderly parents. The kind of patient interaction Pepper excels at is recommended for people with dementia. So Pepper might come to the rescue of stressed out families.

Equipped with artificial intelligence by Aldebaran of France, Pepper has what Softbank calls an emotional engine, meaning it reacts to what it interprets as anger or sorrow in humans around it by deciphering voice tones, facial expressions and language.

This is not some slapped together toy of a robot. It's the first convincing semblance of a step toward artificial intelligence fantasized in science fiction movies that's affordable for the regular home. It isn't for everyone. You have to have an open mind. The way it's designed, Pepper is basically about human relationships. Pepper is imperfect. But so are human beings.

http://www.sfgate.com/business/technology/article/Attentive-Japan-robot-has-small-talk-though-it-6380933.php

Euro leaders turn pressure on Greece; China GDP seen dipping; US, Japan in giant robot battle

1 Euro leaders turn pressure on Greece (Ian Traynor, Jennifer Rankin & Helena Smith in The Guardian) European leaders have confronted the Greek government with a draconian package of austerity measures entailing a surrender of fiscal sovereignty as the price of avoiding financial collapse and being ejected from the single currency bloc.

A weekend of high tension that threatened to break Europe in two climaxed on Sunday night at a summit of eurozone leaders in Brussels where the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, and President François Hollande of France presented Greece’s radical prime minister, Alexis Tsipras, with an ultimatum.

In what a senior EU official described as an “exercise in extensive mental waterboarding” to secure Greek acquiescence to talks on a third bailout in five years worth up to €86bn, the two leaders pressed for absolute certainty from Tsipras that he would honour what was on offer.

Two days of high-stakes negotiations between the finance ministers of the currency bloc resulted in a four-page document that included controversial German elements. Those measures included Greece leaving the euro temporarily by taking a “time-out” from the currency bloc if it refuses terms for talks on the new bailout or, in the event of agreement, that Greece sets aside €50bn worth of assets as collateral for new loans and for eventual privatisation. Both passages, however, did not enjoy a consensus among eurozone leaders.

The Eurogroup document said experts from the troika of creditors – the International Monetary FUND, European Commission and European Central Bank – would be on the ground in Athens to monitor the proposed bailout programme. The trio would also have a say in all relevant Greek draft legislation before it is presented to parliament. Furthermore, the Greeks will have to amend all legislation already passed by the Syriza government this year that had not been agreed with the creditors.

The German news magazine Der Spiegel called Sunday the biggest day of Merkel’s 10-year chancellorship and appealed to her to “show greatness” and save Europe. If Der Spiegel was right about the momentousness of Merkel’s day, the same could be said for Hollande of France who, with his government and officials, has been campaigning tirelessly in recent weeks to keep Greece in the euro, helping Athens to draft its proposals. A decision to go ahead with a so-called Grexit would be a shattering failure for Holland, say observers.

http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/jul/12/greek-crisis-surrender-fiscal-sovereignty-in-return-for-bailout-merkel-tells-tsipras

2 China GDP seen dipping (Khaleej Times) China's GDP growth likely slowed further in the second quarter, a survey has found, as a slowdown in investment and trade weighed on the world's second-largest economy. The median forecast in a poll of 14 economists indicates gross domestic product expanded 6.9 per cent in April-June, marginally down from seven per cent in the first three months of this year.

That would be the worst quarterly result since the first three months of 2009, in the depths of the global financial crisis, when China's economy expanded by 6.6 per cent. China's volatile stock markets have grabbed headlines this month after the benchmark Shanghai Composite Index fell more than 30 per cent in less than four weeks, before reversing course in the last two trading days.

Chinese authorities want investment to slow as part of their plan to diversify economic growth away from big-ticket projects to increasingly wealthy consumers. But too fast a deceleration can be harmful. The stock market turmoil could also create new risks in China's financial system, which faces numerous other challenges such as high corporate debt and an opaque "shadow banking" sector.

China last year recorded its slowest annual growth since 1990, expanding 7.4 per cent, down from 7.7 per cent in 2013. The International Monetary Fund lowered its 2015 global economic growth forecast on Thursday, citing a quarterly contraction early this year in the US, the world's biggest economy. Economists see positive effects to come from authorities' efforts to put a floor on the slowdown.  

http://khaleejtimes.com/business/economy/china-gdp-seen-down-afp-survey

3 US, Japan in giant robot battle (Emily Price in San Francisco Chronicle) San Francisco-based robot maker MegaBots has challenged the Japanese company Suidobashi Heavy Industry in a YouTube video last month to a robot duel, and Suidobashi has accepted.

The challenge was simple: “Suidobashi Heavy Industries! MegaBots, Inc. challenges you to a duel! You have a giant robot, we have a giant robot – we have a duty to the science fiction lovers of this world to fight them to the death,” reads the description on the YouTube page.

The battle will pit MegaBot’s 12,000 lb. Mark II robot against the Kuratas created by Suidobashi. The MegaBot takes two pilots to operate and is loaded with a number of guns, some capable of shooting a 3 lb. paint cannon at a speed of more than 100 mph. The Kuratas weighs in slightly lighter at 9,000 lbs.

In its acceptance video, Suidobashi agreed to the fight, noting that “giant robots are Japanese culture,” with one stipulation: the fight has to be hands-to-hand combat, with no guns used by either party. He says that building something and strapping guns on it is “Super American” and suggests that MegaBot should “make something cooler.”

Suidobashi has left the organization of the battle in the hands of MegaBots. The fight is expected to take place a year from now, which gives everyone time to fine-tune their robots and prepare them for battle. No matter who wins, it should certainly be something to watch.

http://blog.sfgate.com/techchron/2015/07/10/u-s-will-take-on-japan-in-giant-robot-battle/

Global growth outlook downgraded to 3.3%; Oil prices could fall further; Many more Greeces in the world

1 Global growth outlook downgraded to 3.3% (San Francisco Chronicle) The US economy's stumble at the start of 2015 is dragging down the world's growth to the lowest level since the Great Recession, the International Monetary Fund has said. The IMF forecasts 3.3 percent global growth this year, down from the 3.5 percent it predicted in April. That would be slowest pace of global growth since the world economy shrank slightly in the recession year 2009.

The main culprit: The American economy, world's biggest, shrank at a 0.2 percent annual rate from January to March, hurt by nasty weather. The IMF last month cut the outlook for US growth to 2.5 percent in 2015, from April's 3.1 percent. The US economy grew 2.4 percent in 2014. The fund expects the US economy to grow 3 percent in 2016. IMF research chief Olivier Blanchard downplayed the wider economic impact of the Greek debt crisis and the possibility that Greece could be forced to abandon the euro currency. "The effects on the rest of the world economy are likely to be limited," he said.

The IMF expects global growth to improve to 3.8 percent next year. The multinational lending agency kept its forecast for China's economic growth unchanged at 6.8 percent this year and 6.3 percent in 2016. The Chinese stock market has plunged, with the Shanghai Composite index down 30 percent from its peak less than a month ago. But Blanchard said: "We don't see it as a major macroeconomic issue." The IMF predicts the eurozone will grow 1.5 percent this year, unchanged from April's forecast; Japan will grow 0.8 percent, down from an April forecast of 1 percent; and the Brazilian economy will shrink 1.5 percent, a downgrade from April's forecast for a 1 percent drop.

http://www.sfgate.com/news/world/article/IMF-downgrades-2015-outlook-for-global-growth-to-6374964.php

2 Oil prices could fall further (BBC) Oil prices may have further to fall despite stabilising in recent months - and even beginning to rise modestly - because of a massive oversupply the International Energy Agency (IEA) has said. The IEA said lower oil prices were likely to last well into 2016. The agency added the world oil market was unable to absorb the huge volumes of oil now being produced. It follows the massive drop in prices which started last summer.

The price of Brent crude fell sharply last year from $115 a barrel in June to $45 a barrel in January. The current price of Brent crude is $59 a barrel. The fall in prices has led oil firms to cut back investment in exploration, while North Sea oil has come under significant pressure. All seven major global oil firms have also reported annual declines in profit as a result of lower oil prices. Core members of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec) have continued to produce the same level of oil in the past year despite falling oil prices in an attempt to regain market share.

US oil production has also soared in recent years, as fracking - or the process of extracting oil from shale rock by injecting fluids into the ground - has revolutionised oil production in the country. 

Opec's response to the fall in prices was to refuse to cut production. Many Opec nations are able to tolerate a lower oil price despite losing money. For other nations such as Russia the lower oil price is doing substantial harm to economic growth The IEA said Opec crude oil production rose 340,000 barrels per day (BPD) in June to 31.7 million barrels a day, a three-year high, led by record output from Iraq, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

The IEA trimmed its forecast for global oil demand growth this year slightly to 1.39 million BPD and said it expected global demand growth to slow to 1.2 million BPD in 2016. The agency added non-Opec supply growth was expected to grind to a halt in 2016 as lower oil prices and spending cuts take their toll. It forecast zero growth in non-Opec oil supply in 2016 after an increase of 1 million bpd in 2015.

http://www.bbc.com/news/business-33476508

3 Many more Greeces in the world (Heather Stewart in The Guardian) The plight of Greece, brought to its knees by a crippling debt burden, has been gripping and heartbreaking in equal measure: a full-blown sovereign debt crisis on the doorstep of some of the wealthiest countries in the world. Yet new analysis by the Jubilee Debt Campaign reveals that Greece’s plight is far from unique: more than 20 other countries are also wrestling with their own debt crises. Many more, from Senegal to Laos, lie in a debt danger zone, where an economic downturn or a sudden jump in interest rates on world debt markets could lead to disaster.

One of the lessons from the 2008 crash was that hefty debt levels can leave countries vulnerable to sudden shifts in market mood. But Jubilee reports that the rock-bottom interest rates across major economies, which have been a key response to the crisis, have in many cases prompted governments, firms and consumers to go on a fresh borrowing binge, storing up potential problems for the future. Judith Tyson of the Overseas Development Institute thinktank says the flipside of the latest round of borrowing has been investors and lenders in the west looking for bigger returns than they could get at home, a process known in the markets as a “search for yield”.

She warns that a number of countries have “loaded up” on debt – and while some governments had invested the money wisely, diversifying their economies and improving infrastructure, others have not. She points to Ghana, in west Africa, where a sharp increase in borrowing has been spent on what she calls “pork-barrel politics. They’ve spent it in a frivolous way.” Jubilee’s analysis defines countries as at high risk of a government debt crisis if they have net debt higher than 30% of GDP, a current-account deficit of over 5% of GDP and future debt repayments worth more than 10% of government revenue. “We estimate that 14 countries are rapidly heading towards new government debt crises, based on their large external debts, large and persistent current account deficits, and high projected future government debt payments,” it says.

Falling commodity prices as growth in China slows, as well as the strong dollar – a danger because much of African governments’ borrowing is dollar-denominated – will create pressures on many other developing countries. But it’s not just in the developing world where low interest rates and the legacy of the crisis have increased the temptation to paper over the cracks with borrowed money. Jubilee found that net cross-border lending worldwide, including the private sector as well as governments, has increased from $11.3 trillion in 2011 to $13.8tn in 2014 – and forecasts that it will reach $14.7tn this year.

Countries at high risk of government external debt crisis: Bhutan, Cape Verde, Dominica, Ethiopia, Ghana, Laos, Mauritania, Mongolia, Mozambique, Samoa, Sao Tome e Principe, Senegal, Tanzania and Uganda. Countries currently in government external debt crisis: Armenia, Belize, Costa Rica, Croatia, Cyprus, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, The Gambia, Greece, Grenada, Ireland, Jamaica, Lebanon, Macedonia, Marshall Islands, Montenegro, Portugal, Spain, Sri Lanka, St Vincent and the Grenadines, Tunisia, Ukraine, Sudan and Zimbabwe.

http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/jul/11/beyond-greece-world-filled-debt-crises

Six-month share sale ban for China's major share holders; Greece extends bank closures; Microsoft cuts 7,800 jobs

1 Six-month share sale ban for China’s major share holders (The Guardian) China’s securities regulator has taken the drastic step of banning shareholders with stakes of more than 5% from selling shares for the next six months in a bid to halt a plunge in stock prices that is starting to roil global financial markets.

The China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) said on Wednesday that it would deal severely with any shareholders who violated the rule. The prohibition is also seen applying to foreign investors who hold stakes in Shanghai- or Shenzhen-listed companies, although most of their holdings are below 5%.

China’s stock markets opened down again Thursday morning. The Shanghai Composite Index was down 2% while the Shenzhen Component Index opened down just over 1%. The announcements came after China’s stock market showed signs of seizing up on Wednesday, as companies scrambled to escape the rout by having their shares suspended and the CSRC warned of “panic sentiment” gripping investors.

More than 30% has been knocked off the value of Chinese shares since mid-June, and for some global investors the fear that China’s market turmoil will destabilise the real economy is now a bigger risk than the crisis in Greece. More than 500 China-listed companies announced trading halts on the Shanghai and Shenzhen exchanges on Wednesday, taking total suspensions to about 1,300 – 45% of the market or roughly $2.4tn worth of stock – as companies sought to sit out the carnage.

The plunge in China’s previously booming stock markets, which had more than doubled in the year to mid-June, is a major headache for the president, Xi Jinping, and China’s top leaders, who are already grappling with slowing growth. China’s cabinet said it planned to spend 250bn yuan ($40.3bn) to foster growth in areas of the economy most in need of support and would accelerate construction of big public services projects.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jul/09/china-bans-major-shareholders-from-selling-their-stakes-for-next-six-months

2 Greece extends bank closures (BBC) The Greek government has extended bank closures and a €60 (£43; $66) daily limit on ATM withdrawals until Monday. The curbs were imposed on 28 June, after a deadlock in bailout talks with creditors led a rush of withdrawals. The European Central Bank has decided not to increase support for Greek banks until the debt crisis is resolved.

Greek PM Alexis Tsipras says he will submit "credible" reform plans on Thursday - ahead of a Sunday deadline by the EU to find a solution. An emergency summit will involve all 28 EU members - not just the 19 eurozone countries. European Council President Donald Tusk has warned that this was now the "most critical moment in the history of the eurozone".

Greece is desperate for a third bailout to avoid bankruptcy and possibly crashing out of the euro currency. Greece's last international bailout programme expired on 30 June and it missed an International Monetary Fund (IMF) payment. Mr Tsipras criticised previous bailouts for turning Greece into an "austerity laboratory".

IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde reiterated that debt restructuring alongside a programme of reforms was the only way forward for the stricken Greek economy. Greece's creditors - the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund - have already provided more than €200bn in two bailouts since a rescue plan began five years ago.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-33456182

3 Microsoft cuts 7,800 jobs (San Francisco Chronicle) Microsoft is cutting 7,800 jobs and writing off $7.6 billion in connection with its purchase of Nokia's phone business, as the giant software maker tries to narrow its focus and pull back from a series of ill-fated forays onto rival tech companies' turf.

The cuts come on top of 18,000 jobs that Microsoft trimmed last year, just months after the company paid $7.3 billion for Nokia in the hope of expanding its footprint in the smartphone hardware business where Apple and Samsung are market leaders.

Three years ago, Microsoft wrote off another big sum, $6.2 billion, on its purchase of digital advertising firm aQuantive. Microsoft bought aQuantive for $6.3 billion in a bid to increase its role in the online ad sector that was dominated by the likes of Google and Yahoo.

Both the Nokia and aQuantive deals were engineered by former CEO Steve Ballmer, who sought to compete against younger, faster-growing tech companies by expanding beyond Microsoft's original business of making software for desktop computers.

But Microsoft's new boss, Satya Nadella, has been pulling back from phone hardware and digital advertising after seeing weak returns on those ventures. Last month, he announced a deal to hand over most of Microsoft's remaining display advertising business to AOL Inc.

Wall Street seems to prefer Nadella's strategy of focusing on software and Internet services. Analysts have said the Nokia business was a drag on Microsoft's profits. That doesn't mean Microsoft is out of the woods. The company has struggled to adapt as consumers have increasingly turned away from personal computers, in favor of smartphones and tablets that run software made by Apple and Google.

http://www.sfgate.com/business/technology/article/Microsoft-cuts-7-800-jobs-as-phone-sales-flag-6372554.php

Greek dilemma: Deal or exit; US Army 'to cut 40,000 troops' by 2017; Alibaba shares hit low point in China sell-off

1 Greek dilemma: Deal or exit (Ian Traynor & Larry Elliott in The Guardian) Greece has 48 hours to strike a new bailout deal with its eurozone creditors or face a banking collapse, a humanitarian emergency, and the start of an exit from the single currency, European leaders have decided.

Unless Athens presents convincing details entailing more austerity as the basis for its third bailout in five years, all 28 national EU leaders, not just those of the eurozone, are to gather in Brussels on Sunday in emergency session to discuss how to contain the fallout from Greece’s financial collapse.

The stark ultimatum emerged from a special eurozone summit in Brussels on Tuesday where the Greek prime minister, Alexis Tsipras, was pressed to explain to the other leaders how he wanted to proceed following his victory in a referendum on Sunday when his country voted no to eurozone austerity measures as the price of staying in the euro.

The Greek leadership exasperated EU leaders by failing to present new bailout proposals on Tuesday. It is to present a formal application on Wednesday for a new rescue package from the European Stability Mechanism (ESM), the eurozone’s permanent bailout fund.

If Berlin, Paris, Brussels and other key creditor capitals can agree the terms and timings with Athens, Greece would be offered a stay of execution in the euro. Sunday’s summit would then be of the 19 eurozone leaders. If not, the summit of all 28 leaders, including David Cameron and heads of government of other non-euro countries, would instead convene to deal with the consequences of a Greece cut loose from the eurozone financial system.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jul/07/greece-crisis-eurozone-tsipras-banking-collapse

2 US Army ‘to cut 40,000 troops’ by 2017 (BBC) The US Army is to reduce the size of its force by 40,000 soldiers over the next two years, according to US media. The cost-cutting exercise will also see an additional 17,000 civilian employees cut from the army. The plan, which could be officially announced later this week, would see the US troop level drop to about 450,000 soldiers by the end of 2017.

The US army had about 570,000 troops in 2012 at the height of the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. A drastic cut like this has long been on the table - in early 2014, the then Pentagon chief Chuck Hagel proposed trimming the active-duty Army to 450,000 personnel, after two costly foreign wars.

The planned army staffing levels would be the lowest since 1940, a year before the US entered World War Two, when it employed about 270,000 active-duty soldiers. A year before the 11 September 2001 attacks, the level was about 480,000. The army would have to cut a further 30,000 troops if automatic budget cuts known as sequestration come into effect in October, according to USA Today.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-33437533

3 Alibaba shares hit low point in China sell-off (Fortune) Shares of Alibaba Group hit their lowest point since the e-commerce company’s September IPO, as the broader Chinese market plummeted on Tuesday.

Alibaba’s stock dropped more than 4% at one point during Tuesday trading, dropping as low as $76.21 per share, which represents the company’s lowest share price since going public less than a year ago. (The company’s stock more recently rebounded slightly to sit just below $80.)

The Chinese company began trading on the New York stock Exchange at a price of $68 in mid-September and closed its first day of trading at $93.89. Alibaba’s stock peaked at $120 in November before retreating earlier this year, including a large drop-off that knocked billions of dollars off the company’s market value after a Chinese regulator criticized the authenticity of some products sold on Alibaba’s websites.

Tuesday’s low-point comes amid a massive sell-off for the Chinese market that is weighing down the Chinese economy and injecting even more volatility into global markets that were already unstable due to the uncertainty over the Greek debt crisis. The Chinese market crash has resulted in $3 trillion evaporating from the Chinese stock market in the past month, with the Shanghai Composite Index falling roughly 25% from last month’s peak.

Shares of Yahoo also dropped on Tuesday and were recently down more than 1%. Yahoo is in the process of spinning off a stake in Alibaba that has been valued at nearly $40 billion.

http://fortune.com/2015/07/07/alibaba-shares-low-point/

Eurozone struggles for a response to Greece; UK June car sales at record high; Uber as the way forward

1 Eurozone struggles for a response to Greece (Ian Traynor in The Guardian) Germany and France have scrambled to avoid a major split over Greece as the eurozone delivered a damning verdict on Alexis Tsipras’s landslide referendum victory and Angela Merkel demanded that the Greek prime minister put down new proposals to break the deadlock.

As concerns mount that Greek banks will run out of cash, and about the damage being inflicted on the country’s economy, hopes for a breakthrough faded. EU leaders voiced despair and descended into recrimination over how to respond to Sunday’s overwhelming rejection of eurozone austerity terms as the price for keeping Greece in the currency.

Tsipras, meanwhile, moved to insure himself against purported eurozone plots to topple him and force regime change by engineering a national consensus of the country’s five mainstream parties behind his negotiating strategy, focused on securing debt relief. Tsipras also sacrificed his controversial finance minister Yanis Varoufakis, in what was seen as a conciliatory signal towards Greece’s creditors.

In Paris, Chancellor Angela Merkel and President François Hollande tried to plot a common strategy after Greeks returned a resounding no to five years of eurozone-scripted austerity. The two leaders were trying to find a joint approach to the growing crisis. But Merkel said there was no current basis for negotiating with the Greek side and called on Tsipras to make the next move.

As eurozone leaders prepared for today’s emergency summit in Brussels, the heads of government were at odds. France, Italy and Spain are impatient for a deal while Germany, the European Commission and northern Europe seem content to let Greece stew and allow the euphoria following Sunday’s vote to give way to the sobering realities of bank closures, cash shortages and isolation.

http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/jul/06/eurozone-struggles-joint-response-greek-referendum

2 UK June car sales at record high (BBC) UK new car sales in the year to June rose at the fastest rate on record, a motor industry survey has found. The Society of Motoring Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) said there was a 7% rise in new car sales in the first six months of the year, taking the total to more than 1.3 million.

In June alone, there was a 12.9% surge in car sales compared with a year ago, amounting to 257,817 sales. About 15% of buyers chose a UK-manufactured vehicle, the SMMT said. That was the highest level in five years, it added. However, it said it expected slower growth in the next six months.

Low interest rates, attractive finance deals and the launch of new models continued to encourage consumers to buy new cars. SMMT also reported a strong surge in demand for alternatively fuelled vehicles in June. The Ford Fiesta remained the top-selling car last month, as it has all year, selling 12,543 units in June and 71,990 in the year to date.

http://www.bbc.com/news/business-33405946

3 Uber as the way forward (Johannesburg Times) Protests and legal action against Uber have increased exponentially as the online ride-sharing service - created in 2010 by two Silicon Valley entrepreneurs frustrated by existing taxi services - has expanded around the world. Uber is banned in several countries and faces lawsuits, even prosecution, in others.

In France last week existing taxi operators rioted in several cities in an effort to force the government to crack down on it. Following the riots, and the arrests of two Uber executives, the company has suspended its UberPOP ride-hailing service in France.

Similar protests took place in London in April, and in just about every city where the app-based service operates it faces threats or legal trouble. Protests by established taxi operators have also occurred in Cape Town, South Africa where Uber drivers are struggling to secure provincial vehicle operating permits timeously and have had their vehicles impounded.

In Johannesburg, protests against Uber turned violent as metered-taxi drivers harassed their Uber counterparts . Some passengers were even pulled out of Uber cars and manhandled. And yet, the reason Uber has expanded, in just five years, to about 300 cities worldwide and has a valuation of about $50-billion is because millions of passengers find it cheap, quick, efficient and convenient.

The world is changing and metered-taxi operators need to change too. Provided that the company is acting lawfully and that its operators have the requisite permits, it is incumbent on the police and local authorities to protect Uber's drivers and its passengers.

http://www.timeslive.co.za/thetimes/2015/07/07/Quick-efficient-and-convenient-Uber-is-the-way-of-the-future