Nato jets to monitor Ukraine border

Nato is to deploy reconnaissance planes in Poland and Romania to monitor the Ukrainian crisis. It gave the go-ahead for the flights on Monday, a Nato spokesman said.

 

"All Awacs [Airborne Warning and Control System] reconnaissance flights will take place solely over alliance territory," the official said. It comes as Russia cements its control of Ukraine's Crimea ahead of Sunday's referendum to join Russia. Ukraine and the West say this is illegal.

 

In the latest move on Monday, armed men - said to be Russian troops and local militias - seized a military hospital in Crimea. The attackers marched into the hospital in the regional capital Simferopol, threatening staff and some 30 patients.

 

Pro-Russian troops are also blockading Ukrainian troops across Crimea, which is an autonomous region. Moscow has officially denied that its troops are taking part in the blockades, describing the armed men with no insignia as Crimea's "self-defence" forces.

 

The government in Kiev - as well as the US and EU - accuse Russia of invading Ukraine, in violation of international law. (BBC NEWS 2014/3/11)

 

NATOによるウクライナの状況の監視がはじまりました。「監視」、これは、クリミア半島紛争の長期化を暗示しているのかもしれません。(TS)

Japan in record deficit, growth slows

Japan's current account deficit widened to a record 1.5tn yen ($15bn; £8.7bn) in January, the largest since records began in 1985. In further bad news, the country's economic growth figures were also revised downwards. Japan's economy grew by 0.7% in 2013, down from an initial estimate of 1%.

 

Investors reacted with disappointment to the news, with the benchmark Nikkei 225 index falling by 95 points, or more than 0.6%. From October to December 2013 Japan's economy grew by just 0.2%, after earlier estimates showed an increase of 0.3%.

 

The sluggish growth and growing deficit come just before a planned sales tax increase, scheduled to take effect in April. Many economists had expected growth to pick up towards the end of 2013, as consumers spent ahead of the tax rise. But the latest revisions show consumer spending increased by 0.4% in the fourth quarter of 2013, revised downwards from 0.5%.

 

Japan's trade gap also rose to a new record last month, increasing by 71% to 2.79tn yen in January, official figures showed. That was largely down to weak export figures, which were impacted by global turmoil in emerging markets and a weakening yen.

 

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe says he plans to push ahead with the sales tax hike as a way to tackle Japan's debt. However, to counteract the increase, which is scheduled to go from 5% to 8% - Mr Abe unveiled a stimulus package of 5.5tn yen in December. (BBC NEWS 2014/3/10)

 

Facebook's WhatsApp purchase opposed

Facebook's purchase of mobile messaging service WhatsApp has been opposed by privacy groups. Mark Zuckerberg's firm is planning to buy the company for around £11bn. Opponents want US regulators to stop the deal until Facebook provides more information on what it plans to do with the personal data of WhatsApp's users.

 

But Facebook said it will operate as a separate company and honour existing privacy arrangements, which include not collecting user data for advertising. "WhatsApp built a user-base based on its commitment not to collect user data for advertising revenue," read a complaint filed with the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC). It was drawn up by two non-profit groups, the Electronic Privacy Information Center and the Center for Digital Democracy. They added: "Users provided detailed personal information to the company including private text to close friends. Facebook routinely makes use of user information for advertising purposes and has made clear that it intends to incorporate the data of WhatsApp users into the user profiling business model.

 

"The proposed acquisition will therefore violate WhatsApp users' understanding of their exposure to online advertising and constitutes an unfair and deceptive trade practice, subject to investigation by the Federal Trade Commission." And the groups, which work on research and consumer protection online, asked the regulators to investigate the deal "specifically with regard to the ability of Facebook to access WhatsApp's store of user mobile phone numbers and metadata". (BBC NEWS 2014/3/7)

 

巨大なプラットフォームであるフェイスブックに対する規制当局の対応が注目されます。

Landmark default in China solar firm

Solar panel maker Shanghai Chaori Solar Energy Science & Technology has defaulted on interest payments owed on its bond, say media reports quoting the firm. It is the first Chinese firm ever to default on its onshore corporate bonds.

 

On Tuesday, the firm warned it would be unable to make a 89.8 million yuan ($14.6m; £8.7m) interest payment on a one billion yuan bond issued in 2012. The default is seen as a test case for the Chinese government. Investors have assumed in the past that the Chinese government would bail out any Chinese corporation in danger of defaulting. The move to allow Chaori to default signals a new stance.

 

"There's never been a corporate bond default, [so] investors have been conditioned that there is no such thing as risk in China," Leland Miller, president of research firm China Beige Book, told the BBC. "The Chinese leadership is trying to break down this misunderstanding that everything is backstopped." Chaori Solar said it planned to pay 4 million yuan ($654,000) of the interest payment due on the billion yuan bond, which was taken out two years ago.

 

Up until now, the Chinese government and state-owned banks have helped bail out or provide last-minute loans to Chinese firms in trouble. That has led many investors to park their funds in the corporate bonds of many Chinese firms, on the belief that the government would help ensure that these firms could continue to repay their debts. However, a significant portion of this debt is set to mature in 2014 - with more than $1.5 trillion of corporate bonds outstanding at the end of January. "There's not enough money in the world to bail everything out," said Mr Miller.

 

 

Chaori Solar took out a $1bn bond two years ago to help finance operations

That is why the Chinese government may be making a strategic decision to let some firms fail - particularly those, like Chaori, that may not have a huge knock-on effect in the market. China's solar industry has been suffering from an overcapacity problem for some time, as cheap financing and local government support led to a glut of firms entering the industry. That has led to a sharp fall in price, and the Chinese government has since hinted that it supports consolidation in the industry.

 

Other Chinese solar panel firms, like LDK Solar, have already defaulted on bonds issued outside China.

 

"This is something they need to do - that the government has to do - in order to address the over capacity in many industries," Fitch Ratings' Kalai Pillay told the BBC. (BBC NEWS 2014/3/7)

US economy adds 175,000 new jobs

The US economy added 175,000 new jobs in February, but the unemployment rate rose slightly to 6.7%.

 

The jobs figures, from the US Labor Department, were better than many had been expecting and marked a rebound from two weak months. It had been thought the figures would be affected by recent harsh weather, which had hit much of the country.

 

But the unemployment rate, based on different statistics, went up slightly from January's 6.6% to 6.7%.

 

February's jobs figure, known as non-farm payrolls and based on a survey of employers, compares with the 129,000 new jobs created in January. Analysts had been expecting a rise of about 150,000 last month. (BBC NEWS 2014/03/07)