Category:

South Sudan Budgeted $850 Million to Crush Rebellion, UN Says

South Sudan, one of the world’s most corrupt and least developed countries, prepared an $850 million budget to crush a rebellion shortly after the insurgency began almost two years ago, the United Nations said. The supply of Israeli automatic rifles, Chinese missiles, Russian attack helicopters and amphibious vehicles “has been instrumental in prolonging and escalating the war,” now in its 21st month, and enabled large-scale violations of humanitarian law, according to a yet to be published interim report by the UN Panel of Experts on South Sudan. South Sudan’s pursuit of “greater air and riverine capacity” is part of a strategy against a mobile insurgency that relies on small arms, the UN says in the report, obtained by Bloomberg from a person who asked not to be identified because it hasn’t yet been made public. South Sudan army spokesman Philip Aguer said the military needed more weapons, gunships and […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
Category:

Beijing capitulates after spending $200bn to prop up equities

Sign up for quick access to a wealth of global business news, including: Beijing capitulates after spending $200bn to prop up equities Newspaper + Premium online Newspaper + Premium online Premium Full FT.com subscription Premium Full FT.com subscription Standard Full news & archive Standard Full news & archive Trial Try Premium online Trial Try Premium online Price Monthly Annual $66.30 $11.77 per week $53.00 $9.25 per week $36.00 $6.45 per week $1.00 for 4 weeks $1.00 for 4 weeks FT Alphaville plus selected FT blogs yes yes yes yes Unlimited FT.com article access yes yes yes yes Unlimited mobile and tablet access yes yes yes yes Unlimited fast FT yes yes yes yes 5 year company financials archive yes yes yes yes The LEX column yes yes no yes ePaper access yes yes no yes Three exclusive weekly emails yes yes no yes Daily newspaper delivery yes no no […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
Category:

China’s ghost towns point to nation’s waning fortunes

Factory workers go about their jobs at a Shenyang machine tool company. (Adam Dean/For The Washington Post) SHENFU, China — Giant skyscrapers tower unfinished and abandoned around a lake that forms the centerpiece of this new town. The wind blows through the empty hulk of what was supposed to be a multi-story hotel and restaurant complex. A salesman insists that people have moved into one of the few housing complexes to be completed around the shore, but as dusk falls only a handful of lights blink on. He offers to throw in a free car with every apartment purchased. This is Shenfu New Town in the northeastern province of Liaoning, built to handle the overflow from the once-booming industrial cities of Shenyang and Fushun. “Build it and they will come,” the saying goes, but here, in China’s industrial heartland, people are leaving instead of coming. For much of the […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
Category:

China stocks plunge to eight-month lows before paring losses

A passerby walks past a panel displaying China stock indexes at the financial Central district in Hong Kong, China August 24, 2015. China’s major stock indexes slumped more than 6 percent to 8-month lows in early trade on Tuesday before paring losses, after a catastrophic Monday that destabilized financial markets around the world. By 0200 GMT (10 p.m. ET Monday), the CSI300 index .CSI300 was down 4.4 percent at 3,132.26 points, while the Shanghai Composite Index .SSEC Shanghai composite lost 4.8 percent to 3,057.04 points. Chinese stocks plunged more than 8 percent on Monday in panic selling, with flagship indexes smashing key support levels and posting their biggest one-day percentage losses since the height of the global financial crisis in 2007. Stock futures pointed to expectations of further losses. China CSI300 stock index futures CIFc1 for September fell 2.6 percent to 3,053.4, 78.86 points below the current value of […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
Category:

China’s yuan weakens as stock market extends decline

A man walks past an advertisement promoting China’s renminbi (RMB) or yuan, U.S. dollar and Euro exchange services at foreign exchange store in Hong Kong, China, August 13, 2015. SHANGHAI， China’s yuan dipped against the dollar on Tuesday after closing at its weakest level since 2011 on Monday, hit by another slump in the mainland’s stock market and a weak central bank midpoint. Traders said they believed the yuan’s current range between 6.29 and 6.43 to the dollar was well accepted by the market after the currency’s recent volatility once threatened a sharper depreciation. "The yuan is unlikely to depreciate to 6.50," said a trader at a foreign bank in Shanghai, adding that the central bank was likely to intervene to slow down the depreciation. China’s major stock indexes slumped more than 6 percent to 8-month lows in early trade on Tuesday before paring some losses by midday, continuing […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
Category:

China oil rig to keep drilling in waters disputed with Vietnam

Chinese ships are seen on the horizon guarding the Haiyang Shiyou 981, known in Vietnam as HD-981, oil rig (2nd R) in the South China Sea, July 15, 2014. A Chinese oil rig at the center of last year’s standoff between China and Vietnam will continue drilling not far from Vietnam’s coast, China’s maritime safety authorities said on Tuesday. The deployment of the $1 billion deepwater rig last year about 120 nautical miles off Vietnam’s coast, in what Vietnam considers its exclusive economic zone (EEZ), led to the worst breakdown in relations since a brief border war in 1979. China said at the time the rig was operating completely within its waters. The rig, called the Haiyang Shiyou 981, was removed last July, but returned to the area in June of this year to explore for oil and gas. A notice from China’s Maritime Safety Administration said at the […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
Category:

For All Its Heft, China’s Economy Is a Black Box

For sheer clout, China’s economy outweighs every country in the world save the U.S. But on transparency, it remains distinctly an emerging market, with murky politics, unreliable data and opaque decision making. This veil dims the understanding of China’s economy and is an important reason its recent slowdown has produced so much turmoil. Economists widely doubt that China grew at a robust 7% pace in the second quarter, as the country’s official statistics say. Citing other data, such as power generation and passenger travel, some think the rate might be as little as half that. Similarly, when the People’s Bank of China devalued its currency two weeks ago, a step that sparked much of the recent market upheaval, officials couched the move as part of a long-term effort to align the yuan’s value more closely with market forces. Some outside analysts, noting that the PBOC isn’t independent, saw a […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
Category:

Shanghai index falls another 7.6%

Sign up for quick access to a wealth of global business news, including: Shanghai index falls another 7.6% Newspaper + Premium online Newspaper + Premium online Premium Full FT.com subscription Premium Full FT.com subscription Standard Full news & archive Standard Full news & archive Trial Try Premium online Trial Try Premium online Price Monthly Annual $66.30 $11.77 per week $53.00 $9.25 per week $36.00 $6.45 per week $1.00 for 4 weeks $1.00 for 4 weeks FT Alphaville plus selected FT blogs yes yes yes yes Unlimited FT.com article access yes yes yes yes Unlimited mobile and tablet access yes yes yes yes Unlimited fast FT yes yes yes yes 5 year company financials archive yes yes yes yes The LEX column yes yes no yes ePaper access yes yes no yes Three exclusive weekly emails yes yes no yes Daily newspaper delivery yes no no For 4 weeks receive […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
Category:

A Warning on China Seems Prescient

Photo Kenneth Rogoff, a crisis expert. Credit Gleb Shchelkunov/Kommersant Photo, via Getty Images Kenneth Rogoff has long warned of a potential financial crisis in China. Mr. Rogoff, a professor of economics at Harvard University, accurately predicted the eurozone debt crisis and for years has been telling anyone who would listen that China posed the next big threat to the global economy. He is starting to look right, again. “In economics, things take longer to happen than you think they will, and then they happen faster than you thought they could,” Mr. Rogoff said on Monday from Cambridge, Mass., repeating a favorite line from Rudi Dornbusch, the German economist. (Mr. Rogoff sat in on Mr. Dornbusch’s class at M.I.T. in 1977.) Mr. Rogoff, who is a chess grandmaster, has made a career of studying financial crises. After the 2008 financial crisis, Mr. Rogoff co-wrote “This Time Is Different,” a seminal […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple