China's March inflation eases to 2.1 percent

FILE - In this Jan. 11, 2013 file photo, a vegetable vendor, left, collects money from a customer at a market in Beijing, China. China's inflation declined in March, 2013, easing pressure on consumers but fueling questions about the strength of its recovery. Government data Tuesday, April 9, 2013 showed consumer prices rose 2.1 percent, down from the previous month's 3.2 percent and well below the official target for the year. Wholesale prices declined by 1.9 percent compared with last year. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan, File)

FILE - In this Jan. 11, 2013 file photo, a vegetable vendor, left, collects money from a customer at a market in Beijing, China. China's inflation declined in March, 2013, easing pressure on consumers but fueling questions about the strength of its recovery. Government data Tuesday, April 9, 2013 showed consumer prices rose 2.1 percent, down from the previous month's 3.2 percent and well below the official target for the year. Wholesale prices declined by 1.9 percent compared with last year. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan, File)

BEIJING (AP) ? China's inflation declined in March, easing pressure on consumers but fueling questions about the strength of recovery in the world's second-biggest economy.

Government data Tuesday showed consumer prices rose 2.1 percent, down from the previous month's 3.2 percent and well below the official target of 3.5 percent for the year. Wholesale prices declined by 1.9 percent compared with last year.

Mixed data show the world's second-largest economy is limping out of its deepest slump since the 2008 global crisis but more slowly than Chinese leaders want. Analysts say the rebound could be vulnerable to a downturn in investment or trade.

Economic growth rose to 7.9 percent in the three months ending in December, up from the previous quarter's 7.4 percent. Analysts say the recovery is being propped up by government spending and bank lending, while consumer spending is growing slowly.

Lower inflation will give policymakers "more room to maneuver" to stimulate growth if industrial production figures due out next week show activity weaker than expected, said Goldman Sachs economists in a report.

The decline suggests consumer demand is still lackluster despite the growth rebound.

"We have yet to see a surge in final demand ripple throughout the economy," said IHS Global Insight analyst Alistair Thornton in a report. "This is not a healthy recovery."

Figures early in the year often are distorted by the Lunar New Year holiday. Inflation fell to 2 percent in January, then spiked to a 10-month high in February as vegetable costs rose due to cold weather and families stocked up on gifts and food for banquets.

The government's growth target for the year is 7.5 percent, above Western levels but well below China's double-digit rates of the past decade.

Chinese leaders say they want to nurture more self-sustaining growth driven by domestic consumer spending and reduce reliance on exports and investment.

Manufacturing accelerated in March but was weak, according to the China Federation of Logistics and Purchasing, an industry group. Its purchasing managers index rose to 50.9 from February's 50.1 on a 100-point scale on which numbers above 50 indicate an expansion.

Goldman also saw a possible inflation impact from newly installed President Xi Jinping's orders to Communist Party officials to cut back spending on banquets and other frills in an effort to mollify public anger about corruption.

"Lower consumer inflation was also likely helped by the anti-corruption campaign which tends to lower prices of dining out and overall food prices," said the bank's economists in a report.

___

National Bureau of Statistics (in Chinese): www.stats.gov.cn

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/f70471f764144b2fab526d39972d37b3/Article_2013-04-09-China-Inflation/id-6086ca753fa441f58d761b7dc670d185

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Pat Valdez, NM School Bus Driver, Dead After Crashing Bus Into Embankment; 9 Students Injured

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. ? A bus driver died and nine students were injured Monday when a school bus went off a road and lodged in an embankment in northern New Mexico, authorities said Monday.

The driver died at the scene of the crash that investigators said might have been caused by a medical event.

Initial reports indicated the bus had rolled over, but authorities later said that was not true.

The bus carrying nine elementary, middle and high school students crashed off State Road 111 near La Madera in Carson National Forest, Rio Arriba County sheriff's spokesman Jake Arnold said.

The mountainous, isolated area is popular for hunting, hiking and camping.

Two of the students who attend schools in the tiny, rural school district of Mesa Vista had broken bones.

"It is a tragedy and we are very saddened by events today," district superintendent Tracie Phillips said. "We are providing counseling for all of students, including those involved in the crash."

It was not clear if the driver, Pat Valdez, 69, might have had had a heart attack and later died from the crash, authorities said.

"We don't know if the driver died from a medical event, died from the crash or died from a combination of both," Arnold said.

The Office of the Medical Investigator will determine the cause of death, he said.

Eight students were taken to Espanola Hospital for treatment. Six were treated and released while two others were transported to University of New Mexico Hospital in Albuquerque, Espanola Hospital spokeswoman Niki Allcorn said.

One student was airlifted to UNM hospital from the scene, Allcorn said.

An 8-year-old suffered a broken back and 16-year-old had a broken jaw, authorities said.

School officials say the students were headed to Ojo Caliente Elementary, Mesa Vista Middle and Mesa Vista High schools from Vallecitos in northern Rio Arriba County.

Images from a KOB-TV helicopter showed the bus lodged in an embankment. It appears to have gone off a cliff around 15 miles from the schools in Ojo Caliente, a resort town known for its hot springs. The roads are surrounded by mesas, sagebrush and rocky terrain.

An investigation of the crash was ongoing by the Rio Arriba Sheriff's Office and New Mexico State Police. Authorities blocked off access to roads leading to the crash site.

The isolated Mesa Vista Consolidated School District is located in El Rito and is around 120 miles north of Albuquerque. It has an enrollment of close to 400 students.

___

Associated Press writer Jeri Clausing contributed to this story from Albuquerque, N.M.

___

Follow Russell Contreras on Twitter at http://twitter.com/russcontreras

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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/08/nm-school-bus-crashes-int_0_n_3040592.html

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Xi promises peaceful China helping neighbors

BOAO, China (Reuters) - China's President Xi Jinping pledged on Sunday that change and peaceful development will power his country's economic rise and sustain growth within its borders and beyond.

Stressing that peace was pivotal for the future of the world's second biggest economy, Xi appealed to business and political leaders to use diplomacy and dialogue to resolve disputes and allow wealth to spread and solve problems.

"For Asia, development is still the top question, development is still crucial for solving many problems and conflicts," Xi told a forum in Boao on the southern Chinese island province of Hainan.

"Without peace, there is no need to talk about development," to added, speaking to an audience of executives and foreign leaders including Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard, Myanmar President Thein Sein and IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde.

Painting a picture of a richer China in 2020, when the government expects average rural and urban incomes will be double 2010 levels, Xi said his country would increasingly export its wealth to its neighbors.

China will import $10 trillion worth of goods a year five years from now, he said, and outbound investment will rise by a big margin. Domestic consumption, particularly retail consumption, will also continue to expand.

China imported $1.8 trillion worth of goods and services last year, up a meager 4.3 percent from a year ago as its economy slumped into its worst downturn in 13 years.

But Xi was upbeat about the future, saying growth would follow when his government changes China's economic structure and financial system. He did not give details.

"China's economy will continue to maintain a healthy growth rate," Xi said. "We will persist with reforms and doggedly pursue the path of changing our economic ways."

In contrast, an ailing global economy faces a difficult recovery fraught with risks, he said.

Xi's message of China's peaceful and inclusive rise was echoed earlier when nearly a dozen senior executives from Chinese state-owned firms met peers from top Australian banks and companies.

Andrew Forrest, an Australian iron ore magnate and founder of Fortescue Metals Group, who chaired the closed-door meeting, told reporters that Chinese state firm executives wanted Australians to know that China was not "expansionist" or "aggressive".

"They do not understand how people could look at China through anything but friendly eyes," Forrest said.

Security concerns in other countries have hampered or overshadowed the overseas expansion of several large Chinese companies, including telecoms equipment firm Huawei Technologies Co Ltd and state-owned oil company CNOOC Ltd..

(Reporting by Koh Gui Qing; Editing by Robert Birsel)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/xi-promises-peaceful-prosperous-china-helping-neighbors-061405958--business.html

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'True force of nature': World reacts to Thatcher's death

Political leaders and admirers around the world took to social media channels to mourn and celebrate former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, who died Monday at 87 following a stroke.

President Obama?released a statement in which he called Thatcher "one of the great champions of freedom and liberty."?

"Here in America, many of us will never forget her standing shoulder to shoulder with President Reagan, reminding the world that we are not simply carried along by the currents of history?we can shape them with moral conviction, unyielding courage and iron will," Obama said.

We've created a capsule of global reactions from a range of voices, some official and some not:

?

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Germany: Thieves swipe 5 tons of chocolate spread

BERLIN (AP) ? These thieves might really have sticky fingers.

Police said Monday an unknown number of culprits made off with 5 metric tons (5.5 tons) of Nutella chocolate-hazelnut spread from a parked trailer in the central German town of Bad Hersfeld over the weekend.

The gooey loot is worth an estimated 16,000 euros ($20,710).

Germans news agency dpa reported that thieves have previously stolen a load of energy drinks from the same location.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/germany-thieves-swipe-5-tons-chocolate-spread-103316137.html

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Remote reefs can be tougher than they look

Friday, April 5, 2013

Remote reefs can be tougher than they look Western Australia's Scott Reef has recovered from mass bleaching in 1998.

Isolated coral reefs can recover from catastrophic damage as effectively as those with nearby undisturbed neighbours, a long-term study by marine biologists from the Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS) and the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies (CoECRS) has shown.

Scott Reef, a remote coral system in the Indian Ocean, has largely recovered from a catastrophic mass bleaching event in 1998, according to the study published in Science today.

The study challenges conventional wisdom that suggested isolated reefs were more vulnerable to disturbance, because they were thought to depend on recolonisation from other reefs. Instead, the scientists found that the isolation of reefs allowed surviving corals to rapidly grow and propagate in the absence of human interference.

Australia's largest oceanic reef system, Scott Reef, is relatively isolated, sitting out in the Indian Ocean some 250 km from the remote coastline of north Western Australia (WA). Prospects for the reef looked gloomy when in 1998 it suffered catastrophic mass bleaching, losing around 80% of its coral cover. The study shows that it took just 12 years to recover.

Spanning 15 years, data collected and analysed by the researchers shows how after the 1998 mass bleaching the few remaining corals provided low numbers of recruits (new corals) for Scott Reef. On that basis recovery was projected to take decades, yet within 12 years the cover and diversity of corals had recovered to levels similar to those seen pre-bleaching.

"The initial projections for Scott Reef were not optimistic," says Dr James Gilmour from AIMS, the lead author on the publication, "because, unlike reefs on the Great Barrier Reef, there were few if any reefs nearby capable of supplying new recruits to replenish the lost corals at Scott Reef.

"However, the few small corals that did settle at Scott Reef had excellent rates of survival and growth, whereas on many nearshore reefs high levels of algae and sediment, and poor water quality will often suppress this recovery.

"We know from other studies that the resilience of reefs can be improved by addressing human pressures such as water quality and overfishing," says Dr Gilmour. "So it is likely that a key factor in the rapid recovery at Scott Reef was the high water clarity and quality in this remote and offshore location."

Dr Andrew Heyward, Principal Research Scientist at AIMS, highlights another conclusion from their findings.

"Previously we've tended to factor proximity to other reefs as a key attribute when estimating the resilience of a reef following a major disturbance, but our data suggests that given the right conditions, reefs might do much of the recovery by themselves." This finding could have implications for the management of marine protected areas.

In their publication the team also draws attention to the important role played by climate change in the longer-term prospects for coral reefs, as Prof Morgan Pratchett of CoECRS explains.

"While it is encouraging to see such clear recovery, we need to be mindful of the fact that the coral recovery at Scott Reef still took over a decade. If, as the climate change trend suggests, we start to see coral bleaching and other related disturbances occurring more frequently, then reefs may experience a ratcheting down effect, never fully recovering before they suffer another major disturbance.

"By preventing illegal fishing and enhancing water quality on coral reefs in all regions we will give these reefs a greater capacity to recover from major disturbances."

The highly detailed, long-term data set makes Scott Reef the best studied reef in Australia's Indian Ocean territory. The study provides valuable new perspectives on ecosystem function and resilience of coral reefs situated in the northwest Australia, and in other contexts such as the Great Barrier Reef, and illustrates the importance of AIMS' research collaborations with its industry partners.

###

The paper "Recovery of an isolated coral reef system following severe disturbance", by J. P. Gilmour, L. D. Smith, A. J. Heyward, A. H. Baird and M. S. Pratchett appears online in Science on Friday, 5th April, 2013.

ARC Centre of Excellence in Coral Reef Studies: http://www.coralcoe.org.au/

Thanks to ARC Centre of Excellence in Coral Reef Studies for this article.

This press release was posted to serve as a topic for discussion. Please comment below. We try our best to only post press releases that are associated with peer reviewed scientific literature. Critical discussions of the research are appreciated. If you need help finding a link to the original article, please contact us on twitter or via e-mail.

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Source: http://www.labspaces.net/127614/Remote_reefs_can_be_tougher_than_they_look

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?75k raid on dead war veteran's Shropshire home ? Shropshire Star

Antiques and heirlooms are among items worth up to ?75,000 which have been stolen from the home of a World War Two veteran who died last year.

The property, near Whitchurch, has been unoccupied for several months and was burgled between September and November last year.

Police say up to 40 items ? including a grandfather clock and a watercolour painting ? with a collective estimated value of between ?50,000 and ?75,000 are missing from the house.

The owner, a former bomber pilot, was a collector of antiques and historical artefacts ? the majority of them local to Shropshire.

Police, who have not released the man?s name for security reasons, have released some images of the distinctive stolen items and Detective Sergeant Andy Chatting of West Mercia Police said most of them, if sold on, would mainly be of interest to people in Shropshire.

?One of the items stolen was a distinctive brass-faced clock, made by Whitchurch clockmaker John Barron and dating from about 1700,? he said.

?There was also a seven foot high grandfather clock made by Callcott of Coton, near Wem, and a watercolour painting of two men ? a Dr John Phillips of Malpas, Cheshire and a chimney-sweep named Edwards Randles, according to an inscribed plaque on the back ? dating from the late 1700s to the mid 1800s.?

Detective Sergeant Chatting added: ?One of the largest items stolen was an old, elaborate oak chest with the initials AP engraved on the front.

?The victim?s family are understandably very distressed at the theft of these heirlooms, as many of them have been in the family for generations, some of them for several centuries. They have a huge amount of sentimental value.?

Anyone offered any of the items for sale, is asked to contact police in Shropshire on 101 or Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111.

Source: http://www.shropshirestar.com/news/2013/04/04/75k-raid-on-dead-war-veterans-shropshire-home/

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