26.01.10 / News / Author: timepasss / Comments: (0)
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has raised its projection for how much the global economy will grow in 2010.
It now predicts that the worldwide economy will expand by 3.9% this year, up from the 3.1% estimate it published back in October.
The new figure came in the IMF’s latest World Economic Outlook report, which said the growth was being led by China and other developing nations.
It said some advanced economies were seeing more sluggish growth.
However, it now expects the US – the world’s largest economy – to expand 2.7% this year, up from its previous estimate of 1.5% expansion.
‘Different speeds’
For China, the IMF predicts growth of 10% this year, slowing slightly to 9.7% in 2011.
“The global recovery is off to a stronger start than anticipated earlier but is proceeding at different speeds in the various regions,” said the IMF.
IMF managing director Dominique Strauss-Kahn warned earlier this month that the global economy could experience another downturn – a so-called double-dip recession.
As a result, he said countries should not exit too quickly from stimulus packages that had bolstered growth through huge amounts of government spending.
26.01.10 / News / Author: timepasss / Comments: (0)
A Chinese mountain has reportedly been renamed in honour of the sci-fi film Avatar, after claims it had inspired scenery in the fantasy blockbuster.
The Southern Sky Column in Zhangjiajie, Hunan province, will now be known as the Avatar Hallelujah Mountain.
Local officials said photographs of the mountain had been used as the basis for Avatar’s fictional world of Pandora.
Avatar has become the most popular film ever in China, making $80m (£50m) at the box office so far.
Xiaoxiang Morning News said the mountain was officially renamed at a ceremony on Monday.
The paper said a photographer from Hollywood had visited the Wulingyuan Scenic Area, the location of the mountain, in 2008.
“Many pictures he took then become prototypes for various elements in the Avatar movie, including the ‘Hallelujah Mountains’,” Reuters quoted the website as saying.
Avatar tours
The renaming of the mountain is one of the several attempts by Zhangjiajie to capitalise on the success of Avatar.
The film has been a huge success throughout China
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The municipal government website has also adopted the slogan “Pandora is far but Zhangjiajie is near”, while tourists are being offered tours of the locations which allegedly inspired the film, Reuters reports.
Avatar follows the plight of the blue N’avi people as they fight to protect their land from a mining operation.
The film has been showing on 2,500 screens across China. One-third were Imax and 3D screens while the rest were regular 2D screens.
But earlier this month, China pulled 2D versions of the film from cinemas, saying they were not doing well commercially.
Critics said the move was to make way for domestic films – especially the state-backed biopic of the philosopher Confucius – and because the plot too closely mirrored forced land evictions in the country.
26.01.10 / News / Author: timepasss / Comments: (0)
Sri Lankans have voted in the country’s first presidential election since Tamil Tiger rebels were defeated after more than 25 years of civil war.
The day passed largely peacefully but there were several minor bomb blasts.
President Mahinda Rajapaksa faces a close contest against his bitter rival, former army chief Gen Sarath Fonseka.
The former allies fell out after the defeat of the rebels last year. Results are expected on Wednesday. Turnout was put at more than 60%.
BBC correspondents say with the ethnic Sinhalese vote split between the two men, Tamil and Muslim minorities could play a decisive part in the outcome.
If no candidate has 50% plus one vote after the first count, second preferences will be tallied and the candidate with the greatest number of votes wins.
‘Better tomorrow’
After a violent and acrimonious campaign, many had feared the worst on election day.
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AT THE SCENE
Ethirajan Anbarasan, BBC News, Colombo
Gun-wielding policemen were posted outside most polling stations while soldiers patrolled the streets. There were fears of violence on polling day.
Elderly women, nuns and professionals queued to cast their ballots. Sinhalese, Christians, Muslims and Tamils all came out to vote – reflecting the ethnic diversity of this island nation.
Some of the voters said this was a crucial election and that the country had to move on after the war. “We need to move forward, capitalise on whatever we have missed out on, and hopefully have a better future for all of us in Sri Lanka,” said a businessman in Colombo.
Joy William, a poll monitor, said except for some stray incidents polling had been peaceful and brisk. Soon Sri Lankan political leaders will know whether the voters have chosen continuity or change.
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The two-month-long campaign left four people dead and hundreds wounded. Nearly 68,000 police were deployed to protect polling stations.
In the event, however, large numbers turned out to vote in a mostly peaceful atmosphere, says the BBC’s Charles Haviland in Colombo.
But there were serious exceptions, especially in the Tamil-populated north. In the city of Jaffna, the private Centre for Monitoring Election Violence said there were at least six explosions before and just after voting began.
Later there were two blasts in Vavuniya, the town near the huge camps for people displaced by the war. The organisation said it feared this was a systematic attempt to scare people away from voting.
Reports from Jaffna suggested a low turnout there. Nonetheless, many displaced people did vote.
There were also grenade attacks in the Sinhala-dominated centre and south. Here the fight between the two candidates has been especially bitter, our correspondent says.
Among the early voters was President Rajapaksa.
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President Mahinda Rajapaksa casts his vote
“Today’s victory will be remarkable… We are getting ready to enjoy a better tomorrow,” he told the news agency Reuters after voting in his rural constituency on the south coast.
In an unexpected twist, it later turned out that Gen Fonseka had not been able to vote because his name was not on the register.
State television put out a barrage of propaganda saying he had no right to be president. But the Election Commission said there was no legal obstacle to the general assuming the post if he won.
“The government is trying to use this to mislead the public at the last minute,” the general said.
Promises
About 14 million voters were eligible to choose between 22 candidates. The frontrunners by far are President Rajapaksa and Gen Fonseka.
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I was keen to have a say in who should be our next president
Kandaswamy Wellarayanam,
Voter near Vavuniya
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The two men were closely associated with the defeat of the Tamil Tigers last May but fell out soon after. Gen Fonseka quit the military, complaining that he had been sidelined after the war.
The president’s side accuses the general of courting separatists. The general has accused the president of plotting vote-rigging and violence, something his rival denies.
Most voters say they are voting for peace and an improved economy.
“We walked to vote because we felt it was important after the war,” one man from a camp near Vavuniya told AFP news agency.
“We have not had free food and rations for two months and depend on odd jobs to survive.”
Both main candidates have promised voters costly subsidies and public sector pay rises.
However, economists say this will make it hard for the country to meet cost-cutting obligations imposed under the terms of a $2.6bn (£1.6bn) International Monetary Fund loan.
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26.01.10 / Cricket / Author: timepasss / Comments: (0)
ADELAIDE: Australia took an
unassailable 3-0 lead after beating Pakistan by 40 runs in third One-day
international at the Adelaide Oval on Tuesday.
Scorecard
The
Aussies scored 286 before dismissing the tourists for 246 in the 48th over.
Man-of-the-match Ryan Harris, who was brought into the side to replace the
injured Peter Siddle, took 5/43 while Clint McKay continued his impressive run
in the national side with 3/48.
Pakistan were again outclassed in all
departments of the game but they delivered an improved effort after losing the
second game by 140 runs. Umar Akmal (59 off 76 balls) and Fawad Alam (33 off
52), who came together when the score was 60/4, kept their side in the contest
while a blazing 58-run stand between Shahid Afridi (40 off 29 balls) and Rana
Naved-ul-Hasan (33 off 28) provided Ricky Ponting’s men with some anxious
moments in the final 10 overs.
Earlier, a steady 83 off 113 from
opener Shaun Marsh, with support from Watson (33 off 37), provided Australia
with a launch pad before Michael Clarke and Mike Hussey blazed away in the final
10 overs.
Clarke, who reached 56 without scoring a boundary, went on
to make 80 off 90 deliveries while Hussey’s 49 came off just 28 deliveries – the
duo combining for an 80-run partnership off just 33 balls. Umar Gul and Mohammad
Asif took two wickets each but it was another disappointing day in the field for
the tourists.
26.01.10 / News / Author: timepasss / Comments: (0)
The UK economy has come out of recession, after figures showed it had grown by a weaker-than-expected 0.1% in the last three months of 2009.
The economy had previously contracted for six consecutive quarters – the longest period since quarterly figures were first recorded in 1955.
There have been recent recovery signs – last week, UK unemployment fell for the first time in 18 months.
The UK’s had been the last major economy still in recession.
Europe’s two biggest economies – Germany and France – came out of recession last summer. Japan and the US also emerged from recession last year.
The weak level of growth took its toll on the value of the pound, which fell against both the dollar and the euro on the money markets.
‘Below expectations’
“We can say that Britain has just crossed the line in coming out of recession,” said BBC chief economics correspondent Hugh Pym.
“It [the growth figure] was below analysts’ expectations. The figure could be moved down, or indeed upwards.”
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How the ONS announced the UK had emerged from recession
Our correspondent said the move out of recession had been greatly boosted by the government car scrappage scheme.
Joe Grice, from the Office for National Statistics (ONS), said the UK’s production and service sectors each grew by 0.1% during the quarter.
The ONS figures also showed that GDP fell by a record 4.8% in 2009.
“The Q4 GDP figures are a major blow to hopes that the UK economy had emerged decisively from recession in Q4,” said analyst Jonathan Loynes at Capital Economics.
“No doubt some commentators will claim that the figures are under-estimating the true strength of the recovery and will be revised up in time.
“That is certainly possible. But it won’t change the big picture of an economy still operating way below both its pre-recession and trend levels of output.”
‘Frail’ recovery
The UK recession began in the April-to-June quarter of 2008, and was the longest UK recession on record.
During 18 months of recession, public borrowing increased to an estimated £178bn, while output slumped by 6%.
After the GDP figures were published, John Wright, chairman of the Federation of Small Businesses, said that the recovery remained “frail”.
“In order to strengthen the recovery it is important that we boost consumer confidence and demand and that interest rates are held steady as continued investment in the economy will be the key to ensuring a sustainable recovery,” he said.
Meanwhile, Lee Hopley, chief economist at manufacturers organisation EEF, said: “Whilst today’s data confirm that manufacturing is now out of recession, they also continue to raise questions over the health of the wider economy.
“The trajectory for the recovery, particularly in the next six months, is an uncertain one and the best prospects remain an export-driven turnaround.”
First estimates of how the economy has performed are made with about 40% of the data available, and Investec economist David Page has warned there is “plenty of room for surprises” in the figures.
But the BBC’s Economics Editor Stephanie Flanders said: “Even with some revision – in fact, even if it turns out that the economy actually started top grow in the third quarter, given that the first estimate of a decline 0.4% has already been revised up to -0.2% – we are still talking about an extremely lacklustre recovery.”
‘Staggering’
Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling said he was now sure that “we are on a path to recovery.
“I’m confident but I’ll always remain cautious”.
But Shadow Chancellor George Osborne told the BBC that the UK needed a “new model of economic growth” under a Conservative Government.
He added: “Let’s be clear – this is about as weak growth as you can get.”
Liberal Democrat Shadow Chancellor, Vince Cable said the markets would be surprised that growth had been markedly slower than expected.
“Far from the quick recovery the chancellor has been praying for, the economy is only just staggering back into growth,” he said.
