Don't resort to sorcerers - Oman Daily Observer

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20 PANORAMA OMAN DAILY Observer SATURDAY, JANUARY 26, 2013 THE peloton ride during the 126.5km stage 4 of the Tour Down Under in Adelaide, Australia, yesterday. The six-stage Tour Down Under takes place from January 20 to 27. — AFP EUROPEAN Space Agency astronaut Alexander Gerst (R), US astronaut Gregory Wiseman (L) and Russian cosmonaut Maxim Suraev take part in a survival training exercise near the Russian cosmonaut training facility in Star City outside Moscow yesterday. They are preparing for a mission to the International Space Station in May 2014. — Reuters A PAKISTANI man rides a decorated bicycle in Lahore yesterday. — Reuters Held in morgue for three years BEIJING — A Chinese woman was held in an abandoned morgue for three years after serving hard labour for complaining about her husband’s own detention, state-run media said yesterday. Chen Qingxia was guarded by sanitation workers at the facility in the northeastern province of Heilongjiang, the Global Times said. Her difficulties began in 2003 when her husband was sentenced to “reeducation through labour” for attempting to escape quarantine during a SARS epidemic. — AFP Explorer pistol up for auction SYDNEY— A pistol owned by explorer Captain James Cook, who first claimed Australia for Britain nearly two and a half centuries ago, will go on the auction block next month in Melbourne. The brass pistol, an early 18th century Continental Flintlock holster pistol with a 13-bore barrel made by Dutch gunmaker Godefroi Corbau Le Jeune, is expected to fetch between A$100,000 to $200,000 ($105,0700 to $210,000) at the February 14 sale. One of a rare handful of personal effects remaining from the explorer, who claimed Australia for Britain in 1770, the gun — handed down through generations of Cook’s family — is a symbol of his relationship to the vast continent, said auctioneer Leski Auctions. A SICHUAN Opera artist breathes fire during a performance to celebrate the Chinese New Year, in Tiantai village of Chongqing municipality. — Reuters New device to protect identity TOKYO — A “privacy visor” that uses infra-red light to interfere with facial recognition technology has been developed in Japan for people worried about being spotted by computers. The goggles are useful for anyone who wants to avoid their identity being detected by hidden cameras, the inventors say. “Measures for preventing the invasion of privacy caused by photographs taken in secret... are now required,” said Isao Echizen of Tokyo’s National Institute of Informatics. The goggles, which are made of clear plastic, have lines of lights that emit near infra-red rays. Echizen says this is enough to throw software off the scent, rendering a face invisible to a computer. However, the large plastic structures, complete with glowing lights and a sizeable power pack, may make the wearer somewhat conspicuous to the naked eye. A SYRIAN girl from the northern Syrian town of Ras al Ain walks at the border line as she is pictured from the Turkish border town of Ceylanpinar, Sanliurfa province yesterday. — Reuters A FOUNTAIN partially frozen into ice is seen in New York. Frigid arctic air held the US Midwest and Northeast in its icy grip, with the cold so dangerous that emergency warming centres opened up and ski resorts shut down. — Reuters Sailing on twig raft to Australia SYDNEY — A Polish man was lucky to be alive yesterday after sailing from Papua New Guinea to a north Australian island on a raft made of twigs and sticks, through crocodile and shark-infested waters, during a cyclone. The man was found washed up in mangroves on Saibai Island in the Torres Strait, a treacherous stretch of water.What made his survival even more miraculous was that he attempted the trip in the aftermath of Cyclone Oswald, with 1.5 metre swells and 40 knot winds, rescue authorities said. A WALRUS and its tamer perform during a show presenting the new programme “From Heart to Heart” at the National circus in the Ukrainian capital Kiev. — Reuters
Whitman Capital founder gets two years jail Page 23 BEIJING — China's recovery from its longest slowdown in growth since the global financial crisis is being driven by the two forces posing the biggest risks to the economy's increasingly urgent need to rebalance investment and property. The central government wants to raise consumption's share in the economy as the cornerstone effort to close one of the world's widest gaps between rich and poor and quell the discontent among those Chinese who feel they missed out on the country's blistering expansion of the past three decades. The economy picked up in the fourth quarter as a spurt of infrastructure spending orchestrated by Beijing broke seven straight quarters of a slowdown. Consumption's contribution to growth fell in the fourth quarter for the third straight quarter even though retail sales were rising in each of the last three months. Short-term policies to drive the recovery may well explain that because the biggest improvements were real estate-related, casting doubt on whether Xi Jinping and Li Keqiang — President- and Premierin-waiting, respectively — can really rebalance the economy and lever Boeing probe far from complete US safety regulators are nowhere near finishing a probe into a battery fire on the Boeing Co 787, a top official said. Deborah Hersman, chairman of the NTSB, made clear that investigators have found a series of “symptoms” in the battery damaged in a Boston fire, but not the underlying cause of the problem. Page 22 its giant size to deliver widespread wealth. "While the recent turn in the economy is real, the true test for China's new leadership is not whether they can manage the cycle, but whether they can put longer-term growth on a stronger footing," Janet Zhang, an analyst at consultancy, GK Dragonomics, wrote in a note to clients. Dependence on investment spending — now at around 50 per cent of GDP — for three decades of development has created huge industrial overcapacity in China, eroding economic efficiency despite some of the world's lowest labor costs and requiring increasing amounts of capital to deliver diminishing returns. That worries investors and makes the International Monetary Fund fret about the risk of a capacity glut that could have global consequences. Analysis by HSBC shows investment growth is contributing more to the economy than at any time since 2009 — the year in which China injected the bulk of a 4 trillion yuan ($640 billion) stimulus to counter the impact of the global financial crisis. Economists at UBS noted mean- Saturday, January 26, 2013 while that growth in December's retail sales may have been strongerthan-expected at an eight-month high of 15.2 per cent year-on-year, but the pickup was on household goods, furniture and construction materials tied to rising property transactions. It serves to emphasise how hard it is for Beijing to shift the economy's underlying growth Asian stock markets remain mixed ASIAN markets were mixed yesterday, with Tokyo’s Nikkei surging to a near three-year high on the back of a weaker yen, while Wall Street provided an uneven lead. The yen resumed its downtrend after a brief rally. Tokyo surged 2.88 per cent to 10,926.65.Sydney was 0.42 per cent higher. Page 24 UK economy shrinks anew, flirts with ‘triple dip’ LONDON — Britain's economy shrank more than expected at the end of 2012 with a slump in North Sea oil production, lower factory output and a hangover from the London Olympics pushing it perilously close to a "triple-dip" recession. Britain's gross domestic product fell 0.3 per cent in the fourth quarter, the Office for Chinese recovery underlines need to rebalance economy ANALYSIS National Statistics said yesterday, a sharper fall than the 0.1 per cent decline seen by analysts. The news is a blow for Britain's Conservative-led BoJ governor says tough to meet inflation target TOKYO — Japan's top central banker yesterday said the new inflation target that his organisation set earlier this week would be difficult to achieve unless the country undergoes tough economic reforms. Bank of Japan Governor Masaaki Shirakawa (pictured) said the BoJ would seek one per cent inflation "for the time being" just days after it had adopted a two-per cent target under pressure from the government. The two per cent goal was set on Tuesday when the BoJ also launched an open-ended easing plan to start next year, following a relentless campaign by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe for the bank to usher in more aggressive policy measures. Abe hailed Tuesday's move, designed to beat Japan's long-running deflation, as an "epoch-making" shift in setting monetary policy. But Shirakawa's comments Friday appeared to push back once more against the two-per cent inflation target. "For the Bank of Japan, 'price stability' means the positive area between two per cent (inflation) and zero. The Bank will seek one per cent for the time being," Shirakawa told the National Press Club in Tokyo yesterday. "It will take radical efforts from...the government, central bank and the private sector in order to achieve the two-per cent inflation target." Tensions have run high between BoJ policymakers and Abe's administration, with the 58-year-old premier having openly said he would like to turf out Shirakawa, whose term ends in April, and threatening to change a law mandating the bank's independence if it does not fall into line. — AFP government, which only a day earlier defended its austerity programme against criticism from the International Monetary Fund and needs solid growth to ensure it meets Certificates of deposit tender results MUSCAT — Certificates of deposit (Issue No 801) tender was held at the Central Bank of Oman (CBO) last week. The total amount allotted was RO 82 million. A bulletin issued by the CBO stated that the average interest rate of these certificates was 0.11 per cent while the maximum accepted interest rate was 0.12 per cent. The tenor of these certificates is 28 days and their maturity date is on February 20. The certificates of deposit are issued to licensed banks by the CBO as a monetary policy instrument aimed at absorbing excess liquidity at the banking sector. The Repo rate during January 23 to 29th is 1 per cent. — ONA budget targets and keeps its triple-A debt rating. Sterling fell to its lowest in 13½ months against the euro and hit a five-month low against the dollar in response while British government bonds reversed losses. The euro was also buoyed by a stronger-than-expected German Ifo sentiment survey. "This is a very disappointing outturn," said Philip Shaw, economist at Investec in London. "Clearly now the talk will focus on whether we are in a triple dip recession. Certainly the news is unwanted." Britain's economy is now 3.3 per cent smaller than its peak in Q1 2008, having recovered only about half the output lost during the financial crisis — a worse performance than most other major economies. The country slipped back into recession in the last three months of 2011, and only emerged from it in the third quarter of 2012, after a boost from the London Olympics. After a bout of inclem- DAVOS — The head of the European Central Bank said yesterday that the embattled euro had been relaunched but that more had to be done to boost the euro zone's recession-wracked economy. Speaking to the world's top business and political leaders at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Mario Draghi (Pictured) also said that austerity measures being taken in crisishit countries were "unavoidable" despite the impact on growth. "If one has to find a common denominator... for defining why 2012 is going to be remembered, I think one would say it's the year of the relaunching of the euro," Draghi said in his well-attended and hotly anticipated speech. Draghi outlined three "extraordinary" steps taken by European leaders and institu- A CONSTRUCTION site of a residential compound is reflected on the glass facades of an office building in Taiyuan, Shanxi province. — Reuters ent snowy weather in January — which is likely to have hit spending and output — the risk is that the economy will continue to shrink in the first three months of this year, technically pushing it into a rare and unwelcome "triple dip" recession. Britain's biggest department store group, John Lewis JLPUL, said earlier yesterday that snow was responsible for its sales growth stalling in the latest week. In economic terms, the picture remains an unchanged one of stagnation over the past year. But politically, the latest dip in national output is more incendiary. Finance minister George Osborne stuck fast to his austerity plan on Thursday, rejecting suggestions the International Monetary Fund's chief economist that he should consider slowing his deficit reduction plan. Prime Minister David Cameron this week staked his political future on offering a referendum on Britain's place in tions to battle the three-year sovereign debt crisis that has pitched the 17-nation bloc into recession. Governments have pushed through structural reforms with "urgency" and these are "now bearing fruit," said the ECB boss. European leaders had recognised structural flaws inherent in the single currency and drivers. Consumption might have been the biggest single contributor to 2012's full-year GDP growth of 7.8 per cent, but its 51.8 per cent share remains far below the 70-80 the European Union. But it is Osborne's gamble that austerity will deliver strong growth before a 2015 election that will be crucial in determining his Conservative party's chance of winning. After the figures were released, the Treasury conceded that Britain still faced a "very difficult economic situation". "While the economy is healing, it is still a difficult road," it said in a statement. Britain's chief central banker Mervyn King expects no more than a "gentle recovery" this year, while this week the IMF cut its 2013 forecast for British economic growth to 1.0 per cent from 1.1 per cent predicted in October. However economists and business groups warn that even such lackluster growth could be derailed by a hit to firms' and consumers' confidence from talk of a triple-dip recession. That prospect will also add to pressure on the ruling coalition of Conservatives and Liberal Democrats to loosen its deficit-cutting drive and were now pushing for greater integration. And finally, his own institution had undertaken actions that broke the monetary policy mould, including providing one trillion euros ($1.33 trillion) in liquidity for banks. The ECB also announced a programme to buy the bonds of debt-wracked countries which had proved "very helpful" in reducing the perception that the euro was on the point of collapse, Draghi said. However, he said it was too early to declare the battle over. "Are we satisfied for that? I think to say the least, the jury is still out. Because all in all, we haven't seen an equal momentum on the real side of the economy and that's where we will have to do much more," he said. Nevertheless, Draghi hailed what he called a period of "relative tranquility" on the per cent typical in developed rich economies. preading the benefits of China's ascent to its position as a global economic powerhouse is seen as the best way of quelling the risk of revolt. Even a newly recalibrated official index last week indicated the wealth gap was so wide that serious social dissatisfaction may be brewing. Chinese officials are likely to be agonising anew over the headstrong property market in the wake of GDP data that showed fourth-quarter growth rebounding to a strongerthan-expected 7.9 per cent alongside a pronounced upswing in real estate sales, housing starts, investment and home prices. Real estate is a hot-button topic for the government because many Chinese complain that prices are out of their reach. House prices in their own central Beijing backyard are zooming towards record highs, despite three years of steady policy action to reinin rises and stifle speculation. Apartments in the Champion Court housing estate that is a 15-minute walk from the headquarters of the People's Bank of China are selling at all-time-high prices of between 80,000-100,000 yuan ($12,900-$16,100) per square meter. Prices have jumped 10 per cent in the past year, data from China's bolster the economy as finance minister George Osborne prepares his 2013 budget, due in March. The biggest driver for the fourth-quarter fall in GDP was a 10.2 per cent drop in mining and quarrying output, the biggest since records began in 1997, driven by disruption from extended maintenance affecting North Sea oil and gas fields. This knocked 0.18 per cent off GDP, while slightly smaller amounts of damage were done by falls in factory output and in the 'government and other services' category, where the Olympics had boosted sports and recreation services in the third quarter. Yesterday's figures showed that output in Britain's service sector — which makes up more than three quarters of GDP — was flat in the fourth quarter after rising 1.2 per cent in the third. Industrial output was 1.8 per cent lower, while construction — which accounts for less than 7 per cent of GDP — grew by 0.3 per cent. — Reuters ECB chief hails euro ‘relaunch’ financial markets and said: "All the indices point to a substantial improvement of financial conditions." "It is a situation where you have what I called once positive contagion on the financial markets... but we don't see this being transmitted into the real economy yet," complained the central banker. The European Central Bank has forecast the euro zone economy will contract by 0.3 per cent this year but rebound to register GDP growth of 1.2 per cent in 2014. Draghi urged governments not to let up on the momentum of reforms just because the pressure from the markets had been reduced. "We can have a positive development if national governments would persevere in their actions, both in fiscal consolidation but especially now in the field of structural reforms," he said. — AFP largest online real estate firm Soufun Holdings showed, as Champion Court's proximity to China's financial center draw buyers who think they can benefit from its location. Official data shows monthly rises in the country's top 70 cities for five of the last six months, the latest in December. "To be honest, I think prices are unthinkable," said a property agent surnamed Jin who declined to give his full name. Jin's firm specialises in property in Beijing's financial district and around 60 per cent of the homes it sells are paid for immediately in cash, he said. Champion Court's eye-watering prices belie a dreary exterior, suggesting Beijing faces a long slog in curbing property inflation despite limits on home purchases and hefty down payment rules. An 80-square-metre (860 sq ft), one-bedroom Champion Court flat was on the market last week for 7.2 million yuan ($1.16 million) when Reuters visited. The bathroom had a rusty tub and a hole in the wall. Built in 2004, the price of Champion Court apartments — which give buyers 61 years of ownership rights — have galloped 10-fold since, said Zeng, a property agent who also declined to give her full name. — Reuters
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