1. Energy-hungry China scours the globe to secure future
supplies
CNN May 28, 2013
Russia's President
Vladimir Putin and China President Xi Jinping signing energy deal on March 22.
·
China's
new leader has taken extraordinary steps to secure future energy supplies
·
President
Xi Jinping's first state visit was to ink an energy deal with Russia
·
Follows a
spate of Chinese oil and gas investments in Africa, the Middle East and
Australia
·
China
overtook the United States as the world's biggest energy user in 2009
(CNN) -- China's energy imports are so fundamental to its
survival and development that China's new leadership has taken extraordinary
steps to secure future supplies.
In a flurry of official
visits over the past two months involving President Xi Jinping, Premier Li
Keqiang and Foreign Minister Wang Yi, China has sought to bolster its energy
relations with big strategic neighbors Russia and India, key energy exporters
Indonesia, Brunei and South Africa, emerging resources suppliers such as
Tanzania and the Republic of Congo in Africa, and renewable energy pioneer
Germany.
In addition, China
hosted a visit by Australian leader Julia Gillard, whose discussions with Xi
and Li touched on clean energy expertise and the burgeoning resources trade
between the two countries.
China's push for energy
security and its willingness to buy assets around the globe may drive up costs
for other energy importers like India, Japan, South Korea and Europe. They will
have to compete with China through a combination of co-operation, conservation
and technological advances.
But Xi maintains that
China's investments are creating development opportunities for the rest of Asia
and the world.
"The rest of Asia
and the world cannot enjoy prosperity and stability without China," Xi
told the Boao Forum held on the Chinese island of Hainan island last month.
Next week, Xi will visit
the oil and gas-rich countries of Mexico and Trinidad & Tobago. He will
follow that with a two-day summit with U.S. President Barack Obama in
California on June 7-8, where a packed agenda of political and commercial
issues almost certainly will touch on energy.
China's big three
state-owned oil and gas entities CNPC, CNOOC and Sinopec already are investors
in North American energy assets.
There has been a spate
of Chinese oil and gas investments in Africa, the Middle East, Russia and
Australia -- part of a multi-pronged push for the world's second largest
economy to meet its energy needs.
2. Mr. Abe's
'Third Arrow'
The Wall Street Journal May 17, 2013
Japan's gains from monetary policy will be fleeting
without major economic reform.
Japanese
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe enjoyed more good fortune Thursday as GDP for the
first quarter of 2013 showed surprisingly strong growth of 3.5% on an annual
basis. While this recovery began last year, Mr. Abe will claim he helped it
along by forcing the Bank of Japan to print more money. The question is whether
he will use this window of recovery to press the economic reforms that would
unleash Japan's potential after 20 years of stagnation.
The
rising Japanese stock market is another sign that economic expectations are
starting to shift and animal spirits to stir. But the history of monetary
easing is that it can lift asset prices and confidence for a time, but it
cannot sustain an expansion. The risk is that the monetary boost will be as
temporary as the gains from 20 years of Keynesian deficit spending have proven
to be.
Mr.
Abe's real opportunity is to use these short-term gains in political capital to
pursue more far-reaching reform. This is what Mr. Abe calls the "third
arrow" of his economic program, after monetary easing and additional
spending on public works. It is by far the most important.
While
exporters like Toyota have always been world-class, behind them lies a
sheltered world of laggards leeching away the lifeblood of Japan's economy.
During Japan's boom years, increasing inputs of capital and labor guaranteed
growth. Now Japan needs productivity gains to grow, and this means opening
domestic manufacturing and services to more competition.
Mr.
Abe may want to avoid difficult reforms ahead of parliamentary upper house
elections in July. And so far when the Prime Minister has tried to advance he
has ended up retreating—for example, on plans to make it easier for firms to
fire full-time employees.
3. Anti-government protests spread across Turkey
Two days of anti-government rioting left damage in Istanbul and Ankara.
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USA TODAY June 2, 2013
Amnesty International said two
were killed and more than 1,000 injured in clashes.
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
· Spontaneous demonstrations rocked
Istanbul, Ankara and Izmir over the weekend
·
Interior Minister
Muammer Guler said Saturday that more than 900 people were detained
·
Crowds chanted
"Tayyip resign!" while marching in Istanbul on Sunday
ISTANBUL —
Thousands of anti-government protesters continued demonstrations Sunday in
Istanbul and several major cities across Turkey, speaking against rising
authoritarianism and calling for the government to resign after police used
violence against demonstrators marching against plans to demolish a local park.
Demonstrators say they are alarmed with the rising power
of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, whose Islamist-rooted Justice and
Development Party has won plaudits for its democratic and economic reforms but
has recently become more restrictive on social issues.
A bill creating far-reaching restrictions on alcohol was
hastily passed last month, and Erdogan has also publicly stated women should
have at least three children.
That's alarmed secular Turks such as Filiz Polat who,
along with more than 100,000 demonstrators, have defied the prime minister and
marched on the city center since last week.
"The government interferes with what we need to eat,
what we need to drink, how we should sleep with our partner, how many kids that
we should have," Polat said. "This is getting beyond
reasonable."
Spontaneous demonstrations rocked Istanbul, Ankara and
Izmir over the weekend with clashes between protesters that Amnesty
International said resulted in at least two deaths and more than 1,000 injured.
Interior Minister Muammer Guler announced on Turkish
state TV on Saturday that 939 people in 90 separate protests across Turkey had
been arrested in connection with the demonstrations, but some of them have
already been released.
Heavy rains early Sunday appeared to dampen spirits but
by afternoon, crowds paraded up Istiklal Avenue — a major pedestrian shopping
street that's been the scene of vandalism and clashes — chanting "Tayyip
resign!" as throngs of shoppers returned to the battered city center.
Meanwhile, groups of protesters arrived with trash bags to help clean up litter
and debris from the demonstrations.
4. Scientists taking Chinese medicine West
CNN May
28, 2013
Chinese medicine looks to go mainstream
STORY
HIGHLIGHTS
·
Chi-Med
and Nestle working to get FDA approval for some Chinese medicine
·
Phase III
trials have started on HMPL-004 -- used to treat stomach problems
·
It's final
round of trials before FDA approval to enter the $7B IBD market
Hong Kong
(CNN) -- At Chi-Med's labs in Shanghai, a
group of 70 chemists has been working for a decade to try and crack the
mysteries of Chinese medicine.
The company's scientists
are attempting to break 1,300 medicinal herbs into their component parts and
then test them for global use against diseases.
It's an ambitious effort
and one that looks close to paying off. Chi-Med, in partnership with Nestle,
has started the first worldwide phase III clinical testing trials -- the final
step before approval for sale -- for a botanical drug based on Chinese
Traditional Medicine.
If Chi-Med and Nestle
succeed in winning U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval, the
companies will be at the forefront of efforts to export Chinese medicine beyond
its loyal following at home. They'll also have tackled the central problem in
taking Chinese medicine global: how do you get a centuries-old remedy through
the rigors of modern government regulation?
Bosideng in the UK
"The simpler the product, the better at this
stage," says Chi-Med CEO Christian Hogg. "The more similar it is to
conventional drugs, the better from the FDA standpoint."
