Head Of China’s Railway Company Commits Suicide: First Graft Probe Casualty?

Head Of China’s Railway Company Commits Suicide: First Graft Probe Casualty?

Tyler Durden on 01/06/2014 09:33 -0500

Bai Zhongren, then Executive Director and Vice President of China Railway Group Limited, attends a news conference in Hong Kong in this April 25, 2008 file photo. Photo: Reuters

Bai Zhongren, the president of state-run China Railway Group – the state-owned engineering giant behind many of the country’s largest railway projects – committed suicide over the weekend. As SCMP reports, Bai is among several senior railway officials and executives who have committed suicide since corruption scandals implicating the senior railway officials began to come to light three years ago. Read more of this post

China makes fresh bid to curb shadow banking, contain debt risk

China makes fresh bid to curb shadow banking, contain debt risk

6:07am EST

By Heng Xie and Gabriel Wildau

BEIJING/SHANGHAI (Reuters) – China’s cabinet has published guidelines strengthening regulation of risky off-balance-sheet lending in a new effort to address growing financial risks from an explosion in debt. Read more of this post

Cash crunch signals policy dilemma for China’s reformist central bank

Cash crunch signals policy dilemma for China’s reformist central bank

4:35pm EST

By Kevin Yao

BEIJING (Reuters) – China’s central bank looks set to risk another cash crunch at the end of January, barely a month after the last market squeeze, as policymakers press ahead with a crackdown on shadow financing and other risky bank lending. Read more of this post

Buffett-Backed BYD Says Chinese Cars Headed for U.S. in 2015

Buffett-Backed BYD Says Chinese Cars Headed for U.S. in 2015

Chinese cars are poised to begin hitting U.S. showrooms by as soon as next year.

BYD Co., the Chinese automaker backed by Warren Buffett’s Berskshire Hathaway Inc., plans to introduce about four models for its U.S. debut at the end of 2015, said Stella Li, the senior vice president in charge of the company’s U.S. business, in an interview last week. Though BYD wasn’t ready when it earlier sought to enter the U.S. car market in 2010, the company is more prepared this time, she said. Read more of this post

For Asia, 2014 Looks Like a Year of Higher Interest Rates

Jan 6, 2014

For Asia, 2014 Looks Like a Year of Higher Interest Rates

By Natasha Brereton-Fukui and Michael S. Arnold

For much of 2013, India and Indonesia were outliers in Asia, raising interest rates and tightening policy. This year, the rest of the region is expected to join them. Read more of this post

Asia’s Domestic Demand Means Less Focus on Exports

Jan 6, 2014

Asia’s Domestic Demand Means Less Focus on Exports

By Michael S. Arnold

Why has Asia continued to record strong economic growth in recent years, despite the West’s struggles? Partly it’s because more Asian trade is remaining within Asia. But it’s also because for many Asian economies, exports simply are less important than they used to be. Read more of this post

Shares of Drive-In Chain May Be Overcooked; Sonic Has Appreciated 200% in Past Two Calendar Years

Shares of Drive-In Chain May Be Overcooked

Sonic Has Appreciated 200% in Past Two Calendar Years

SPENCER JAKAB

Jan. 5, 2014 2:35 p.m. ET

The cardinal rule with fast food is to get it while it’s hot. Shares of Sonic SONC -0.60%Corp, the world’s largest drive-in chain, seem like they have been under the heat lamp for a while, though. Read more of this post

Restaurants Fear Clout of a New Food Giant

Restaurants Fear Clout of a New Food Giant

ANNIE GASPARRO and JESSE NEWMAN

Jan. 6, 2014 7:26 p.m. ET

Bobby Williams used to rely on US Foods Inc. to supply most of the ingredients for Lizard’s Thicket, the chain of Southern home-cooking restaurants his family owns in South Carolina. Read more of this post

Nestlé to Sell U.S. Frozen Pasta Business; Disposal Part of Food Group’s Plans to Pare Down Roster of Brands

Nestlé to Sell U.S. Frozen Pasta Business

Disposal Part of Food Group’s Plans to Pare Down Roster of Brands

RYAN DEZEMBER

Updated Jan. 6, 2014 6:47 a.m. ET

Nestlé SA NESN.VX -0.38% is saying arrivederci to its U.S. frozen ravioli business, part of the Swiss food giant’s plans to pare down its roster of brands. Nestlé has agreed to sell Joseph’s Pasta Co., which supplies restaurants with ravioli, manicotti and tortellini, to Brynwood Partners, a U.S. buyout firm that specializes in acquiring corporate castoffs. Read more of this post

Leading Chefs Say Latin Food Is Next Hot Culinary Trend

Leading Chefs Say Latin Food Is Next Hot Culinary Trend

Latin American cuisine is gaining international attention, with Peru leading the charge. In London alone, at least four Peruvian restaurants have opened in two years. Read more of this post

Lafite ’09 Slides Back to Liv-Ex Record Low of $10,800 a Case

Lafite ’09 Slides Back to Liv-Ex Record Low of $10,800 a Case

Three cases of 2009 Chateau Lafite Rothschild, a Medoc first-growth wine, sold for 6,600 pounds ($10,800) each in the past month, matching the Liv-ex exchange’s record low in October amid subdued Bordeaux demand. Read more of this post

Scientists have raised the prospect of diamonds being mined in Antarctica

January 5, 2014 5:40 pm

The search for a girl’s best friend at the bottom of the world

By Anjana Ahuja

Scientists have raised the prospect of diamonds being mined in Antarctica, writes Anjana Ahuja

The ups and downs of Hollywood’s greatest love affair were charted through bling. Gifts from Richard Burton to Elizabeth Taylor included the 69-carat Taylor-Burton diamond, the 33-carat internally flawless Elizabeth Taylor diamond, and the exquisite Taj Mahal diamond, once owned by a Mughal emperor. Read more of this post

Rubber Slumps Most in Seven Months as Stockpiles Swell in China

Rubber Slumps Most in Seven Months as Stockpiles Swell in China

Rubber in Tokyo slid the most in seven months on the first trading day of the year after data showed stockpiles in China expanded to a nine-year high, raising concern that demand from the largest consumer is weakening. Read more of this post

Dirtiest Coal’s Rebirth in Europe Flattens Medieval Towns

Dirtiest Coal’s Rebirth in Europe Flattens Medieval Towns

Europe’s appetite for cheaper electricity is reviving mines that produce the dirtiest type of coal, threatening to boost pollution and raze villages that have survived since medieval times. Read more of this post

The Future of Coal: Despite Gas Boom, Coal Isn’t Dead; Production Is Booming in Western U.S. to Feed Power Plants at Home and Abroad

The Future of Coal: Despite Gas Boom, Coal Isn’t Dead

Production Is Booming in Western U.S. to Feed Power Plants at Home and Abroad

JOHN W. MILLER and REBECCA SMITH

Jan. 6, 2014 12:53 p.m. ET

Last year was a tough one for the coal industry. James River Coal Co. JRCC +2.19% laid off a quarter of its workers. Consol Energy Inc.,CNX +0.48% which has mined coal since the Civil War, sold five Appalachian mines, representing nearly half its coal output. And more than a half-dozen U.S. coal-mining companies went under, beset by new environmental rules and competition from low-cost natural gas.

Read more of this post

Shale boom leaves investors underwhelmed

January 5, 2014 4:33 pm

Shale boom leaves investors underwhelmed

By Ed Crooks

Revolution offers benefits to consumers rather than shareholders

Lamenting the airline industry’s perennial unprofitability, Warren Buffett observed that “if a farsighted capitalist had been present at Kitty Hawk, he would have done his successors a huge favour by shooting Orville [Wright] down”. Read more of this post

Oil’s new age of plenty challenges old assumptions

Oil’s new age of plenty challenges old assumptions

Fri, Dec 27 16:36 PM GMT

By Kevin Allison

The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.

The energy business may enter a tumultuous period in 2014, even if sanctions on Iranian oil exports remain in place. The combination of increased shale drilling, cheaper solar power and higher investments in energy efficiency has the potential to create a glut of oil from countries outside the OPEC producers’ cartel at current prices. A sharp drop in the oil price is possible, and more volatility in oil prices, energy investments and geopolitics is almost inevitable. Read more of this post

Bakken Crude Pegged as More Dangerous Imperils Shale Boom

Bakken Crude Pegged as More Dangerous Imperils Shale Boom

Safety rules will probably be tightened on crude oil shipments from North Dakota following a string of railway explosions, threatening to damp an energy boom that has boosted the region’s economy. Read more of this post

Banking on a Wing and a Prayer; In getting a bigger piece of China, OCBC Bank’s possible $5 billion bid for Wing Hang Bank might also come with something investors won’t like: falling Hong Kong property prices

Banking on a Wing and a Prayer

Buying Wing Hang Bank Would Give OCBC Things Investors Shouldn’t Want

AARON BACK

Jan. 6, 2014 7:57 a.m. ET

In getting a bigger piece of China, OCBC Bank‘s O39.SG -1.01% possible $5 billion bid forWing Hang Bank 0302.HK +1.30% might also come with something investors won’t like: falling Hong Kong property prices. Read more of this post

Hong Kong banking watchdog seeks bail-in powers

January 7, 2014 1:52 pm

Hong Kong banking watchdog seeks bail-in powers

By Paul J Davies in Hong Kong

Hong Kong’s banking regulator has demanded far-reaching powers to prop up or shut down failing banks, such as the ability to suspend normal creditor rights, as it plays catch-up with western regulators trying prevent a future Lehman Brothers. Read more of this post

Is China Losing Hong Kong? Two Decades Later, Hong Kong Eludes China’s Grasp

Two Decades Later, Hong Kong Eludes China’s Grasp: Adam Minter

Are China’s leaders destined to ask each other, “Who lost Hong Kong?”

It’s a question worth pondering after a holiday week that offered a stark reminder of just how restless — if not unhappy — a sizable percentage of the former colony’s residents are under Chinese rule, 17 years after the end of British sovereignty. Of course, nobody seriously entertains the idea of a political schism between Hong Kong and China. But schism or not, China’s continuing failure to appeal to, please and placate so many of the former colony’s residents despite historic, ethnic and economic ties, suggests a soft power failure that has implications well beyond Hong Kong’s harbor. In short, if China can’t convince Hong Kong’s residents that it has their best interests in mind, what hope does it have of persuading Taiwan and its neighbors? Read more of this post

A New Leader for India; It’s time for Rahul Gandhi to come up with an agenda

A New Leader for India

It’s time for Rahul Gandhi to come up with an agenda.

Updated Jan. 5, 2014 5:43 p.m. ET

Manmohan Singh on Friday confirmed long-running speculation that he will not seek a third term as India’s prime minister after elections due in May. The move shifts the focus to Rahul Gandhi, who will now lead the Congress Party into the polling—and potentially into defeat if he doesn’t start offering some serious ideas. Read more of this post

India Savings Deposit Scam Collapse Leaves Thousands Penniless

India Savings Deposit Scam Collapse Leaves Thousands Penniless

Sudipta Sen was on the run when police arrested him on April 23 at Hotel Snow Land, a resort with views of the Himalayas in Sonamarg, India, about 2,700 kilometers northwest of his Kolkata base. Read more of this post

Looming Rahul Rise Tests Gandhi Grip on India Before Vote

Looming Rahul Ascendancy Tests Gandhi Grip on India Before Vote

Nobody among India’s 1.2 billion people has been groomed to run Asia’s third-biggest economy more than Rahul Gandhi. Whether he wants to follow his father, grandmother and great-grandfather in doing so remains unclear. Read more of this post

Rising Bad Loans Pose a Threat for India

Rising Bad Loans Pose a Threat for India

Nonperforming Assets at Banks Climbed to 4.2% of Total Loans in September

NUPUR ACHARYA

Jan. 6, 2014 12:38 p.m. ET

MUMBAI—Bad loans in India have jumped to a record high, hurting profits and stocks of state-owned banks and threatening to curb lending in Asia’s third-largest economy. Read more of this post

Tata Steel Profit Margin Seen at Decade Low: Corporate India

Tata Steel Profit Margin Seen at Decade Low: Corporate India

Tata Steel Ltd. and Steel Authority of India Ltd., the nation’s biggest producers, are set to report their smallest profit margins in more than a decade as demand grows at the slowest pace since the global recession. Read more of this post

Uncommon success of  ‘Common Man’ party upends India politics

Last updated: January 5, 2014 7:03 pm

Uncommon success of  ‘Common Man’ party upends India politics

By Amy Kazmin in New Delhi

Just a few weeks ago, Adarsh Shastri was a highly paid Mumbai-based executive forApple, overseeing the tech company’s sales inIndia’s western region. Then Mr Shastri, son and grandson of Congress party stalwarts, quit his corporate job to throw in his lot with India’s year-old Aam Aadmi party, which has promised radical reforms of India’s corrupt and sluggish political system. Read more of this post

Will Narendra Modi Make It in 2014?

Will Narendra Modi Make It in 2014?

by Swapan Dasgupta | Jan 6, 2014

BJP workers and supporters during Narendra Modi’s Vikas Rally in New Delhi on September 29, 2013

The road to Delhi will severely test the Gujarat chief minister but, mentally at least, the ever-flexible Indian establishment is readying itself for a possible Modi-led government in Delhi next summer Read more of this post