Tag Archives: education
200 cars join parade for Syrian refugees
200 cars join parade for Syrian refugees Lily B. Libo-on / 21 June 2013 More than 200 vintage and old fancy cars took part in a parade along the Buheira Corniche to drum up awareness about the plight of the 1.65 million Syrian refugees — 805,000 of whom are children needing food, health, security, education and shelter. Organised by the Union Club in support of the “Big Heart Campaign” launched by Shaikha Jawaher bint Mohammed Al Qasimi on Friday, the parade was expected to raise awareness and needed funds for the Syrian refugees. The parade started from the Sharjah Chamber of Commerce and Sharjah Expo Centre area, and after going along Buheira Corniche, it went back to where it started. Vintage and fancy vehicles take part in the awareness parade in Sharjah. — KT photo by M. Sajjad To raise funds, scarves and flags commemorating the campaign were distributed to the Car Parade drivers. By wearing the scarf, sold for Dh150, from June 20 to 27, people will be showing their support for the cause and to Syrian refugee children who need shelter, security, health and education. The flags, being sold for Dh50, are desktop and hand held. Noura Ahmed Al Noman, director-general of the Her Highness Executive Office (HHEO), said the campaign aimed to assist the child refugees, most of whom arrived in Lebanon and other neighboring countries without parents. They constitute 51 percent of the total Syrian refugees. Through this Big Heart Campaign, Al Noman said, the HHEO will be able to raise funds for the 7,000 daily refugees taken care of by the UNHCR. “Every 14 seconds, a refugee is leaving Syria, and Her Highness Big Heart Campaign is the first initiative to raise awareness in the Arab world…itself, instead of relying on aid from the international community.” Al Noman said that Her Highness, now the Eminent Advocate for Refugees, needs to do this campaign because of the enormity of the Syrian refugee problem and to keep channels open to know where they are. lily@khaleejtimes.com Continue reading
Echoes Of Mao In China Cash Crunch
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/1c2f126c-d982-11e2-bab1-00144feab7de.html#ixzz2WqmbUIgr June 20, 2013 11:51 am Echoes of Mao in China cash crunch By Simon Rabinovitch in Shanghai As China’s credit crunch takes a turn for the worse, the question of why the central bank has permitted market conditions to deteriorate so suddenly and so sharply looms ever larger. Short-term money market rates surged to more than 10 per cent on Thursday, a record high and nearly triple their level just two weeks ago, after the central bank refused to inject extra funds into the strained financial system. Analysts have mostly viewed the squeeze in economic terms, as a warning to lenders that they must rein in dangerously fast credit growth. But in the midst of the extreme market stress, a statement issued late Wednesday by the central bank raised the possibility that politics are also playing an important role. Bankers had been calling for the central bank to ease the pressure and a few investors had even predicted that it might cut interest rates. Instead, the People’s Bank of China ordered a thorough implementation of the new “mass line education” campaign launched this week by President Xi Jinping – a campaign that in its propaganda-style and potential scope carries echoes of the Mao era. The Communist party cadres that run the central bank were told to attack the “four winds” of “formalism, bureaucracy, hedonism and extravagance”, as demanded by Mr Xi. “It is quite possible that the central bank’s policies have some connection to Xi’s campaign,” said Willy Lam, an expert on Chinese politics at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. “It seems to be much more serious than the short anti-corruption campaigns launched by Hu Jintao and Jiang Zemin [Mr Xi’s predecessors over the past two decades].” In monetary policy terms, the central bank could certainly be said to be waging war on hedonism and extravagance. The seven-day bond repurchase rate, a key gauge of liquidity in China, surged 270 basis points to more than 10.8 per cent on Thursday – a punitively high rate that could force cash-hungry banks to call in the riskiest of their loans. “There are definitely political calculations,” said Ken Peng, an economist with BNP Paribas. “The senior leadership is much more worried about ‘correcting behaviour’ and political considerations than just protecting their 7.5 per cent growth target.” Unlike the cash crunch that occurred in developed markets when the global financial crisis erupted in 2008, the squeeze in China has been almost entirely self-inflicted, a deliberate move by the central bank. Market players had hoped the central bank might inject extra cash in the economy at a scheduled auction on Thursday. But it rebuffed the pleas for help, putting more pressure on overstretched lenders. Concerns about financial risks appear to be the immediate trigger for the central bank’s actions. A surge in credit growth at the start of this year, despite a slowdown in the economy, has alarmed regulators. The central bank wants to send a message to banks to be more cautious in their risk control and to improve their own liquidity management – Peng Wensheng, China International Capital Corp The overall credit-to-gross domestic product ratio in China has jumped from roughly 120 per cent five years ago to closer to 200 per cent today, an indication of rising leverage throughout the economy. Song Yu, an economist with Goldman Sachs, said the tightening was “aimed at preventing the leverage ratio from reaching an even higher level”. With money market rates soaring, interbank rates have also shot up over the past two weeks. This has punished lenders that have used their privileged access to the stable, central bank-controlled interbank market to fund purchases of risky, high-yielding bonds. “The central bank wants to send a message to banks to be more cautious in their risk control and to improve their own liquidity management,” said Peng Wensheng, an economist with China International Capital Corp. “It is saying that you cannot expand credit as you like, and then simply rely on the central bank to back you up.” But the risk of dangerously fast credit growth in China is not new. The biggest change over the past half year has been political, with the ascension of Mr Xi as the country’s new paramount leader. Zhou Xiaochuan, central bank governor, is believed to have a good personal relationship with Mr Xi. Both are “princeling” sons of Communist revolutionary leaders. Mr Zhou had been expected to retire this year, having reached the mandatory retirement age, but Mr Xi allowed him a special dispensation to remain in office. Mr Xi’s campaign against the “four winds” was officially announced on Tuesday. The order that central bank cadres across China should study and implement the campaign was transmitted less than 24 hours later, ahead of virtually all other government units. Continue reading
Brazil’s Unrest: Should Investors Worry?
http://blogs.ft.com/beyond-brics/2013/06/19/brazils-unrest-should-investors-worry/#ixzz2WqmHIlTT Jun 19, 2013 4:11pm by Jonathan Wheatley The scenes have been extraordinary. Not only the size of public demonstrations in Brazil’s major cities over the past week but also the violence with which they were met by supposedly elite police units have made for surprising and shocking viewing. Are investors worried? And should they be? The short answer to the first question is, apparently, No. To be sure, Brazilian stocks have had a rough ride lately but equity investors are far more worried about the US Federal Reserve than they are about protesters, and the Bovespa index has been heading south since long before they took to the streets. The same is true of the currency and other assets. Beyondbrics has not seen a single analyst make any connection between the demonstrations and asset prices (we would be more than interested to be advised otherwise). To the second question, though, the answer must surely be, Yes. “What is going on is the result of slow growth and that is unlikely to go away,” says Alfredo Behrens, a professor of management at FIA, a business school in São Paulo. Which about sums it up. As one articulate young video blogger puts it, this month’s protests are about more than the 20 centavo increase in bus and metro fares that initially sparked them: “If everything was working, health, education, public transport itself,” she says, “nobody would be on the streets demonstrating.” Parallels have been drawn with the recent protests in Turkey (indeed, protesters in São Paulo and Istanbul saluted each other). Other parallels could be drawn with recent demonstrations in Chile, and even with the upper middle class protesters of Moscow and Chinese micro-bloggers. In all cases, newly economically-enfranchised people, the much-cited new middle classes, are looking about and finding themselves dissatisfied, often because their taxes are not being properly spent. They may feel their freedoms are being curtailed in other ways, too, but common among them is a sense of getting the bad side of a bargain with the state. Many have been quick to point out that Brazil’s protesters may be more privileged than the newly-enfranchised “classe C”. As newspaper Folha de S.Paulo noted on Wednesday, three quarters of the demonstrators have university degrees and more than half are aged under 25. But to dismiss them as a bunch of upper crust urbanites with nothing better to do would be a serious mistake. The educated young have led big revolutions in Brazil in the past (and around the world). And the first thing on the shopping lists of many joining the classe C has been a university eduction for their children. Why should investors worry? One threat to their interests is that the government may react in an overly placatory manner. Reversing the increase in transport fares would be fiscally irresponsible. (Doing what some protesters demand and making public transport free would be fiscal suicide.) The government may be doubly tempted to damp down the protests with floods of cash by the fact that next year is election year – and voter support for President Dilma Rousseff, until recently seen as a shoo-in for re-election, has slipped severely in recent weeks. Another threat is that the government may simply ignore the protests, assuming they calm down over time. That would leave Brazil stuck in its low-growth rut. This may no longer be as appealing to policy-makers as it once was. Slow growth of around 2.5 per cent is probably enough to keep unemployment at a level acceptable for voters. But voters are getting upset all the same. Ideally, of course, the government will listen to the voices from the streets and take energetic action to fight corruption and inefficiency in the public service. On the evidence of recent performance, the chances of that are slim. Even the leading Brazilian politicians who were convicted last year for corruption in a landmark case have yet to actually do any time. Continue reading
