YONGBYON RESTARTED

NORTH KOREA'S YONGBYON REACTOR 'NEARING OPERATION'

Steam has been seen rising from North Korea's Yongbyon nuclear facility, suggesting that the reactor has been restarted, a US institute says.

BBC News, September 12, 2013

The colour and volume of the steam indicated that the reactor was in or nearing operation, the institute said.

Pyongyang vowed to restart facilities at its main Yongbyon nuclear complex in April, amid high regional tensions.

The reactor can produce plutonium, which North Korea could use to make nuclear weapons.

Analysts believe North Korea already possesses between four and 10 nuclear weapons, based on plutonium produced at the Yongbyon reactor prior to mid-2007, when the facility was closed down.

(...) [article here]

FACTORIES IN BANGLADESH

HELL FOR LEATHER: BANGLADESH’S TOXIC TANNERIES RAVAGE LIVES AND ENVIRONMENT

Jason Motlagh / Dhaka

Time, September 3, 2013

Inside the factory, shirtless workers stretch freshly dyed sheets of goat leather across industrial drying racks. Sleek and durable, the leather is in great demand at fashion houses from Italy to Hong Kong, feeding a global appetite for Bangladesh-made clothing that has boosted the country’s export earnings more than 20% in the past year. But outside, under the glaring sun, it’s clear who’s paying the price. Toxic runoff, the color of crude oil, is discharged into open gutters that course their way through jam-packed streets and makeshift housing, en route to city waterways. Seated by one of the gutters on his tea break is a gaunt Saddam Hossein — he is 23, but looking 10 years older and his hands are scarred from processing chemicals. “It’s hard labor,” he says. “But what else can I do?”

Bangladesh has become synonymous with cheap, ready-made garments and — in the wake of April’s Rana Plaza disaster — the appalling cost of fast fashion. Less notorious but no less grim is its booming leather industry, where workers and environment are degraded to sustain a billion-dollar business. Nearly all the country’s 206 tanneries are concentrated in one area — Hazaribagh, a cramped, filthy neighborhood in southwestern Dhaka, the sprawling capital.

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CHINA’S AGING AND MEDICAL CARE

CHINA SEEKS WESTERN-STYLE CARE AMID EXPLOSION OF ELDERLY

Natasha Khan

Bloomberg, August 28, 2013

The Chinese increasingly eat, shop and play in ways their Western counterparts would instantly recognize. They’re aging like them too, living longer lives that are often limited by debilitating illnesses.

As the almost 200 million population of over-60s more than doubles in the next 40 years, China faces a deluge of infirm elderly who can’t live alone. Nor can they rely on Confucian tradition of children caring for their parents: the country’s one-child policy has left fewer offspring to share the load, while more Chinese are moving away from home to study or work.

While China spent 1.1 trillion yuan ($179.7 billion) over the past four years to cut the cost of drugs and provide basic medical coverage for more than 90 percent of its 1.3 billion people, services for the elderly have fallen behind. To plug the gap, Premier Li Keqiang said Aug. 16 the government will cut red tape and costs to spur foreign investment into the type of privately funded care that is common in the West.

“They’re going to be struggling with an enormous burden in terms of caring for their elderly,” said Benjamin Shobert, managing director of Rubicon Strategy Group in Seattle, which advises companies on how to enter Asian health-care markets. “They don’t really have two bites of the apple. Purely from a time-frame point of view, the next 10 years are critical.”

(...) [article here]

THE INDIAN RUPEE DECLINE

RUPEE BREACHES 67: FOUR MYTHS ABOUT INDIA AND THE POLITICS OF PESSIMISM

Rajesh Pandathil

Firstpost, August 28, 2013

Why this panic about the rupee decline, asked Paul Krugman on 20 August, a day when the currency hit 64.13 forcing the RBI to intervene to pull it back to 63.25 levels at the close.

His contention was that a panic was unwarranted now as India's dollar denominated debt situation is not like the Asian crisis countries of 1997-1998 or Argentina in 2001 and the fall in the rupee was in line with the emerging market currencies.

“Now, the depreciation of the rupee will presumably lead to a spike in inflation - but it should be temporary. So at first examination this doesn't look like as big a deal as some headlines are suggesting. What am I missing?,” he said in his blog.

But then the rupee's record low was 64.13, a level which now looks like a strong one. The rupee has fallen 65 and 66 in a matter of 7-8 days and looks set to reach 70 faster than expected.

The Indian rupee breached the 67-mark in early trade Wednesday, hitting a record low of 67.98 against the dollar in a couple of minutes of trade.

(...) [article here]

SIX-WAY TALKS

10 YEARS AFTER LAUNCH, SIX-WAY TALKS REMAIN EFFECTIVE TOOL TO DENUKE NORTH

Yonhap, August 27, 2013

SEOUL. Aug. 27 (Yonhap) -- Ten years after the six-party talks' launch, the multilateral dialogue has fallen short of disarming North Korea, but the now long-stalled talks are still seen as an effective tool to denuclearize the communist country, analysts said Tuesday.

On Aug. 27, 2003, six nations - the two Koreas, the United States, China, Russia and Japan -- opened their first negotiations in Beijing in multilateral efforts to end the North's nuclear program, deemed a security threat to the region.

The advent of the six-party talks followed escalating security concerns surrounding the reclusive North's growing nuclear capacities.

Amid rising U.S. allegations that the North started an illegal enriched uranium weapons program, the North withdrew in January 2003 from the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty, an international treaty to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons, triggering anxieties among neighbors over the North's nuclear ambitions.

Washington's previous attempts to denuclearize the North also ended in failure when the North defaulted in 2002 on the Agreed Framework, under which the North agreed in 1994 with the U.S. to freeze its plutonium-producing nuclear facilities.

(...) [article here]

CHINA’S SHADOW BANKING

CASH CRUNCH? CHINA'S TRUE CRUNCH TIME IS YET TO COME

China's 'shadow banking' sector could pose serious problems for the country in future

Linda Yueh

BBC News, June 24, 2013

How can a largely state-owned banking system experience a credit crunch? When the central bank decides to rein back credit.

The Chinese central bank has been reining back credit for some time now as it has sought to control housing prices. But, when the cheap money from the rest of the world began reversing (see my post on Great Reversal part II) due to the Fed signalling an end date for the era of cheap money, funds leaving emerging economies like China have made the situation more apparent.

Last week, the overnight lending rate between banks jumped to exceed 25% as banks became reluctant to lend to each other. But the lending rates fell again when the state-owned banks fell into line and resumed lending to each other.

Now, the Chinese central bank says that liquidity is "ample" and essentially indicated that it will not inject more cash, holding firm on the line of controlling credit growth in the economy.

As a result, the Chinese stock market fell into bear market territory led by the decline of banks. In other words, banks can't count on the central bank for cheap cash. In fact, the central bank wants to root out the poorly performing banks - especially those in the so-called shadow banking system.

(...) [article here]

JAPAN’S FISCAL STIMULUS

JAPAN TO CONSIDER FISCAL STEPS TO COUNTER HIT FROM TAX RISE

Mayumi Otsuma and Kyoko Shimodoi

Bloomberg, June 20, 2013

Japan’s government is ready to provide extra spending if a sales-tax increase next year damps economic growth, a senior finance ministry official said.

“We must take appropriate action to counter” any decline in economic growth after the tax increase planned for April, Yuzuru Takeuchi, 54, parliamentary secretary for finance and a lower house legislator, said in an interview today in Tokyo. The government will also create a panel to encourage companies to raise wages, he said.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is rolling out fiscal and monetary stimulus to help pull the economy out of a more than decade-long deflationary malaise. The government is grappling with supporting growth while trying to slow the increase in Japan’s debt burden, the developed world’s largest.

“If the government doesn’t announce a further fiscal package, we’re likely to see some payback” in growth from the boost in 2013 from government spending, said Masaaki Kanno, chief Japan economist at JPMorgan Chase & Co. in Tokyo.

The economy may shrink an annualized 3.9 percent in the second quarter of 2014 after the sales tax is raised to 8 percent from its current 5 percent, according to the median forecast of economists surveyed by Bloomberg News. The tax will be further increased to 10 percent in 2015.

(...) [article here]