TORONTO (Reuters) – Canada‘s main stock index slipped to a two-month low on Tuesday, dragged down by resource and financial shares, as investors fixated on fears of a fiscal crisis in the United States and economic turmoil in Europe.
The Toronto Stock Exchange‘s S&P/TSX composite index <.GSPTSE> unofficially closed down 56.80 points, or 0.47 percent, at 12,134.66.
(Reporting by Claire Sibonney; Editing by Jeffrey Hodgson)
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CALGARY, Alberta (Reuters) – The fate of a handful of liquefied natural gas projects planned for Canada’s Pacific coast may depend on the Canadian government‘s willingness to spell out rules for foreign investment in the country’s energy sector, according to a study released on Thursday.
Apache Corp, Royal Dutch Shell Plc, Petronas, BG Group Plc and others are in the planning stages for LNG projects that would take gas from the rich shale fields of northeastern British Columbia and ship it to Asian buyers.
But the federal government’s decision last month to stall the C$ 5.2 billion ($ 5.2 billion) bid by Malaysia’s state-owned Petronas C$ 5.2 billion for Canada‘s Progress Energy Resources Corp could lessen the appetite of Asian buyers for Canadian LNG, energy consultants Wood Mackenzie said.
“Some potential off-takers of Canadian LNG like the idea … because it’s perceived as having low political risk, and another reason is because they see the potential for investment opportunities,” said Noel Tomnay, head of global gas at the consultancy.
“If there are going to be restrictions on how they access those opportunities, if acquisitions are closed to them, then clearly that would restrict the attractiveness of those opportunities. If would-be Asian investors thought that corporate acquisitions were an avenue that was not open to them then Canadian LNG would become less attractive.”
The Canadian government is looking to come up with rules governing corporate acquisitions by state-owned companies and has pushed off a decision on the Petronas bid as it considers whether to approve the $ 15.1 billion offer for Nexen Inc from China’s CNOOC Ltd.
Exporting LNG to Asia is seen as a way to boost returns for natural-gas producers tapping the Montney, Horn River and Liard Basin shale regions of northeastern British Columbia.
Though Wood Mackenzie estimates the fields contain as much as 280 trillion cubic feet of gas, they are far from Canada’s traditional U.S. export market, while growing supplies from American shale regions have cut into Canadian shipments.
Because the region lacks infrastructure, developing the resource will be expensive, requiring new pipelines and multibillion-dollar liquefaction.
Still Wood Mackenzie estimates that the cost of delivery into Asian markets for Canadian LNG would be in the range of $ 10 million to $ 12 per million British thermal units, similar to competing projects in the United States and East Africa.
($ 1 = $ 1.00 Canadian)
(Reporting by Scott Haggett; Editing by Leslie Adler)
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WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Irish rocker and anti-poverty campaigner Bono will appeal to Democrats and Republicans during a visit to Washington this week to spare U.S. development assistance programs from cuts as Congress tries to avert the looming “fiscal cliff” of tax hikes and spending reductions early next year.
The U2 lead singer’s visit comes as the Obama administration and congressional leaders try to forge a deal in coming weeks to avoid the economy hitting the “fiscal cliff” – tax increases and spending cuts worth $ 600 billion starting in January if Congress does not act.
Analysts say the absence of a deal could shock the United States, the world’s biggest economy, back into recession.
Kathy McKiernan, spokeswoman for the ONE Campaign, said Bono will hold talks with congressional lawmakers and senior Obama administration officials during the November 12-14 visit.
During meetings he will stress the effectiveness of U.S. foreign assistance programs and the need to preserve them to avoid putting at risk progress made in fighting HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria, she said.
Bono, a long-time advocate for the poor, will argue that U.S. government-funded schemes that support life-saving treatments for HIV/AIDS sufferers, nutrition programs for malnourished children, and emergency food aid make up just 1 percent of the U.S. government budget but are helping to save tens of millions of lives in impoverished nations.
The One Campaign would not elaborate which lawmakers and senior Obama administration officials Bono will meet.
On Monday, Bono will discuss the power of social movements with students at Georgetown University. He will also meet new World Bank President Jim Yong Kim for a web cast discussion on Wednesday on the challenges of eradicating poverty.
(Editing by W Simon)
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NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – Terminally-ill cancer patients are less likely to get aggressive end-of-life treatment, such as chemotherapy in the last two weeks of life, when they talk with their doctors early on about how they want to die, according to a new study.
Treatment aimed at keeping those patients alive at the end is often expensive and may not improve patients’ quality of life or comfort. Such therapies usually involve more time in the hospital rather than at home or in hospice care.
“Aggressive care at the end of life for individual patients isn’t necessarily bad, it’s just that most patients who recognize they’re dying don’t want to receive that kind of care,” said Dr. Jennifer Mack, the study’s lead author from the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston.
“We should at least consider having these discussions soon after diagnosis if we know that a patient has incurable cancer,” she told Reuters Health.
Her team’s analysis involved 1,231 people with advanced lung or colon cancer who died over a 14-month period during a larger cancer study. Researchers interviewed patients or their caregivers about whether and when the patients had discussions with their doctors about end-of-life care.
Mack and her colleagues also checked medical records for signs of those discussions and for any treatment and hospitalizations cancer patients had in their last month of life.
They found that most patients – 88 percent – had end-of-life discussions, but more than one-third of those took place less than a month before the patient died, when their health was likely already deteriorating. Close to two-thirds of the talks happened while patients were in the hospital.
Almost half of study participants received aggressive, life-prolonging care, Mack’s team reported Monday in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.
Those who’d had end-of-life discussions more than a month before dying were 50 to 60 percent less likely to get that extra treatment than patients who put off those talks or didn’t have them at all.
Patients (and their caregivers) who reported having the discussions with doctors were almost seven times more likely to end up in hospice than those who didn’t recall end-of-life talks.
“A lot of patients don’t want (aggressive treatment), but they don’t recognize that they’re dying or that this is relevant for them,” said Dr. Camilla Zimmermann, head of the palliative care program at University Health Network in Toronto.
But, she told Reuters Health, “The earlier you discuss these things, the more options you have. If you wait too long, you end up having these discussions with someone you don’t know, that you just met, in an inpatient setting,” instead of with your primary doctor.
Mack agreed.
“If we start these conversations early, then patients have some time to process this information, to think about what’s important to them (and) to talk with their families about that,” she said.
Aggressive end-of-life care is also expensive. According to data from the Dartmouth Atlas of Health Care, 32 percent of total Medicare spending goes to caring for very sick patients in their last two years of life, often because those people are in and out of the hospital. In the early 2000′s, that spending was equal to about $ 46,000 per chronically-ill patient.
Zimmermann, who wasn’t involved in the new research, believes it’s never too early for doctors, patients or caregivers to initiate discussions about end-of-life preferences – even if it can be an uncomfortable topic.
“There are many opportunities while that incurable illness is still being treated… to also focus on what happens if this doesn’t work,” she said.
“I think people are afraid that bringing up these discussions is going to make them die. Bringing up these discussions is really going protect them from an outcome they don’t want in the end.”
SOURCE: http://bit.ly/gPtMdm Journal of Clinical Oncology, online November 12, 2012.
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The U.S. is set to increase oil production so much that it will overtake Saudi Arabia and become the world’s biggest producer by around 2017, the International Energy Agency said today.
The reaction from “peak oil” theorists? Not a chance. They continue to argue that the surge in U.S. production coming from shale oil and shale gas is a flash in the pan. Before long, they say, U.S. output will start falling again—as will global output. The price of oil will skyrocket and the industrial economy will be brought to its knees, they argue.
I first reached Kjell Aleklett in Sweden. He’s president of the Association for the Study of Peak Oil and a physics professor at Uppsala University. Aleklett acknowledged that peak oil theorists didn’t predict the U.S. output increase, but he said the jump doesn’t undermine their main case. “We were wrong that it was not possible for the U.S. [production] to swing back again. But we don’t know how high the swing will be,” Aleklett said.
“The shale production we are talking about now relies on thousands of wells drilled every year. If the drilling capacity should go down, or for some reason it becomes too expensive, then the production will go down very fast,” Aleklett said.
What’s more, he said, the U.S. success is not being duplicated in other countries. In densely populated Europe, Aleklett said, the best shale happens to be beneath the city of Paris, making it off-limits to production (unless the Eiffel Tower is converted into a production platform).
Aleklett also pointed out that the U.S. Energy Department’s own outlook contradicts that of the Paris-based International Energy Agency. In 2035, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, imports of crude oil, liquid fuels, and other petroleum, plus natural gas will still total about 24 quadrillion BTUs a year, nearly triple the level of exports.
Mark your calendar, by the way: Aleklett said the next meeting of the Association for the Study of Peak Oil is in Austin, Tex., on Nov. 30 and Dec. 1.
I then reached Jeremy Leggett, a British solar energy entrepreneur who is chairman of a company called Solarcentury and who writes about energy issues, including peak oil. His talking points were more polished than Aleklett’s, but he hit the same arguments. Like the Swede, he said he doesn’t think production from unconventional sources such as shale is sustainable for long.
“On the massive balance of probabilities, not withstanding the U.S. phenomenon, there’s going to be a descent of global production and much higher prices, by 2015 at the latest,” Leggett said.
I asked him if it’s harder for him to persuade people now than it was before the surprising resurgence in U.S. output. Yes, he said. “It’s a comfortable narrative, and people are desperate to believe comfortable narratives. It has set back the perception of the risk.” Dependence on oil and gas, said Leggett, “will blow up in our face.”
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LONDON (Reuters) – The BBC could be doomed unless it makes radical changes, the head of its governing trust said on Sunday, after its director general quit to take the blame for the airing of false child sex abuse allegations against a former politician.
Chris Patten, chairman of the BBC Trust, said confidence had to be restored if the publicly funded corporation was to withstand pressure from rivals, especially Rupert Murdoch‘s media empire, which would try to take advantage of the turmoil.
“If you’re saying, ‘Does the BBC need a thorough structural radical overhaul?’, then absolutely it does, and that is what we will have to do,” Patten, a one-time senior figure in Prime Minister David Cameron‘s Conservative Party and the last British governor of Hong Kong, told BBC television.
“The basis for the BBC’s position in this country is the trust that people have in it,” Patten said. “If the BBC loses that, it’s over.”
George Entwistle resigned as director general on Saturday, just two months into the job, to take responsibility for the child sex allegation on the flagship news programme Newsnight.
The witness in the report, who says he suffered sexual abuse at a care home in the late 1970s, said on Friday he had misidentified the politician, Alistair McAlpine. Newsnight admitted it had not shown the witness a picture of McAlpine, or approached McAlpine for comment before going to air.
Already under pressure after revelations that a long-time star presenter, the late Jimmy Savile, was a paedophile, Entwistle conceded on the BBC morning news that he had not known – or asked – who the alleged abuser was until the name appeared in social media.
The BBC, celebrating its 90th anniversary, is affectionately known in Britain as “Auntie”, and respected around much of the world.
But with 22,000 staff working at eight national TV channels, 50 radio stations and an extensive Internet operation, critics say it is hampered by a complex and overly bureaucratic and hierarchical management structure.
THOMPSON’S LEGACY
Journalists said this had become worse under Entwistle’s predecessor Mark Thompson, who took over in the wake of the last major crisis to hit the corporation and is set to become chief executive of the New York Times Co on Monday.
In that instance, both director general and chairman were forced out after the BBC was castigated by a public inquiry over a report alleging government impropriety in the fevered build up to war in Iraq, leading to major organisational changes.
One of the BBC’s most prominent figures, Newsnight presenter Jeremy Paxman, said since the Iraq report furore, management had become bloated while cash had been cut from programme budgets.
“He (Entwistle) has been brought low by cowards and incompetents,” Paxman said in a statement, echoing a widely-held view that Entwistle was a good man who had been let down by his senior staff.
Prime Minister Cameron appeared ready to give the BBC the benefit of the doubt, believing that “one of the great institutions of this country” could reform and deal with its failings, according to sources in his office.
Patten, who must find a new director general to sort out the mess, agreed that management structures had proved inadequate.
“Apparently decisions about the programme went up through every damned layer of BBC management, bureaucracy, legal checks – and still emerged,” he said.
“One of the jokes I made, and actually it wasn’t all that funny, when I came to the BBC … was that there were more senior leaders in the BBC then there were in the Chinese Communist Party.”
Patten ruled out resigning himself but other senior jobs are expected to be on the line, while BBC supporters fear investigative journalism will be scaled back. He said he expected to name Entwistle’s successor in weeks, not months.
Among the immediate challenges are threats of litigation.
McAlpine, a close ally of former prime minister Margaret Thatcher, has indicated he will sue for damages.
Claims for compensation are also likely from victims who say Savile, one of the most recognisable personalities on British television in the 1960s, 70s and 80s, sexually abused them as children, sometimes on BBC premises.
INQUIRIES
Two inquiries are already under way, looking at failures at Newsnight and allegations relating to Savile, both of which could make uncomfortable reading for senior figures.
Police have also launched a major inquiry into Savile’s crimes and victims’ allegations of a high-profile paedophile ring. Detectives said they had arrested their third suspect on Sunday, a man in his 70s from Cambridgeshire in central England.
Funded by an annual licence fee levied on all TV viewers, the BBC has long been resented by its commercial rivals, who argue it has an unfair advantage and distorts the market.
Murdoch’s Sun tabloid gleefully reported Entwistle’s departure with the headline “Bye Bye Chump” and Patten said News Corp and others would put the boot in, happy to deflect attention after a phone-hacking scandal put the newspaper industry under intense and painful scrutiny.
He said that “one or two newspapers, Mr. Murdoch’s papers” would love to see the BBC lose its national status, “but I think the great British public doesn’t want to see that happen”.
Murdoch himself was watching from afar.
“BBC getting into deeper mess. After Savile scandal, now prominent news program falsely names senior pol as paedophile,” he wrote on his Twitter website on Saturday.
It is not just the BBC and the likes of Entwistle and Patten who are in the spotlight.
Thompson, whom Entwistle succeeded in mid-September, has also faced questions from staff at the New York Times over whether he is still the right person to take one of the biggest jobs in American newspaper publishing.
Britain’s Murdoch-owned Sunday Times queried how Thompson could have been unaware of claims about Savile during his tenure at the BBC as he had told British lawmakers, saying his lawyers had written to the paper addressing the allegations in early September, while he was still director general.
(Editing by Kevin Liffey and Sophie Hares)
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KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) — The sister of a Malaysian man who has been charged with insulting a state sultan on Facebook said Friday that he is innocent and will lodge a complaint over his detention.
Anisa Abdul Jalil said her brother Ahmad Abdul Jalil was charged Thursday with making offensive postings on Facebook last month. But she said there is no evidence linking Ahmad to the posts in question, which were made by someone using the name “Zul Yahaya.”
“This is ridiculous as they have failed to build a case against him. We are very angry. It is a dirty game and an abuse of power, an abuse of the court process,” Anisa told the Associated Press.
Ahmad was freed on bail Thursday after six days of detention, during which he was denied access to lawyers and family members.
Anisa said Ahmad told the family that police tried to force a confession from him but he stood firm. She said Ahmad will file a complaint with police for unlawful detention and intimidation.
Defense lawyer Fadiah Nadwa Fitri said they would appeal to throw out the charges against Ahmad when the case is next heard Nov. 28.
The posts in question were directed at Sultan Ibrahim Iskandar of southern Johor state. Fadiah said that according to the charge sheet, the postings likened the sultan’s skin and behavior to that of a pig, which is viewed as a dirty animal in Islam.
“The charges are unfounded. Ahmad is vocal and is critical about political matter but he didn’t write the postings. It seems that Ahmad is being prosecuted for exercising his rights,” Fadiah said. Ahmad faces up to a year in jail if convicted, she added.
Nine Malaysian states have sultans and other royal figures. Though their roles are largely ceremonial, they command wide respect after centuries of hereditary rule.
Under Malaysian law, acts that provoke hatred against royal rulers are considered seditious. Only a few people have been charged with the crime in recent years.
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LOS ANGELES (AP) — James Bond‘s “Skyfall” has extended its worldwide box-office rule to North America, hauling in a franchise-record $ 87.8 million in its first weekend at U.S. theaters.
Adding in $ 2.2 million from Thursday night previews at IMAX and other large-format theaters, “Skyfall” has taken in $ 90 million domestically, according to studio estimates Sunday.
That lifts the worldwide total for “Skyfall” to $ 518.6 million since it began rolling out overseas in late October. Internationally, the 23rd Bond flick added $ 89 million this weekend to raise its overseas revenue to $ 428.6 million.
The third installment starring Daniel Craig as British super-spy Bond, “Skyfall” outdid the $ 67.5 million U.S. debut of 2008′s “Quantum of Solace,” the franchise’s previous best opening. “Skyfall” more than doubled the $ 40.8 million debut of Craig’s first Bond film, 2006′s “Casino Royale.”
“Skyfall” already has passed the $ 407.7 million overseas total for “Quantum of Solace” and by Monday, it will top the $ 432.2 million international haul for “Casino Royale.”
The Craig era has reinvigorated one of Hollywood‘s most-enduring franchises, whose first big-screen Bond adventure, “Dr. No,” debuted 50 years ago.
“It’s quite a testament to Bond, considering it’s the 50th anniversary. What a great anniversary present,” said Rory Bruer, head of distribution at Sony, which produces the Bond films along with MGM.
“Skyfall” was the weekend’s only new wide release, but Steven Spielberg’s “Lincoln” had a huge start in a handful of theaters. Starring Daniel Day-Lewis as the 16th president, “Lincoln” took in $ 900,000 in 11 theaters for a whopping average of $ 81,818 a cinema. By comparison, “Skyfall” averaged $ 25,050 in 3,505 theaters.
“Lincoln” centers on the months leading up to the president’s assassination in April 1865, as he maneuvers to pass the 13th amendment abolishing slavery and end the Civil War. Distributor Disney will expand “Lincoln” into nationwide release of about 1,600 theaters Friday and may widen the film further over Thanksgiving week.
The film has strong Academy Awards prospects for two-time directing winner Spielberg, two-time acting recipient Day-Lewis and the rest of the cast, which includes Oscar winners Sally Field and Tommy Lee Jones.
“The performances are some of the greatest of recent time,” said Dave Hollis, head of distribution for Disney. “I don’t know if you’re ever going to think about it again without seeing our actor as Lincoln. Daniel is extraordinary in the role.”
“Skyfall” took over the top spot at the weekend box office from Disney’s animated comedy “Wreck-It Ralph,” which fell to No. 2 with $ 33.1 million, raising its domestic total to $ 93.7 million.
While “Skyfall” marked a new high for Bond‘s opening-weekend revenue, the film has a long way to go to match the biggest audiences 007 has ever drawn. Adjusted for inflation, Sean Connery’s 1965 Bond adventure “Thunderball” would have taken in an estimated $ 508 million domestically in today’s dollars, with its 1964 predecessor “Goldfinger” not far behind at $ 444 million, according to box-office tracker Hollywood.com.
The Bond films over the last two decades have come in around the $ 200 million range domestically in inflation-adjusted dollars.
Still, Craig’s Bond is setting a new critical standard for the franchise. While “Quantum of Solace” had a so-so critical reception, “Skyfall” and “Casino Royale” are among the best-reviewed Bond films, with critics and fans enjoying the darker edge Craig has imprinted on 007.
“‘Skyfall’ is to the Bond franchise what ‘The Dark Knight’ was to the Batman franchise,” said Hollywood.com analyst Paul Dergarabedian. “By taking it to a whole other level, this is a different kind of Bond that can be taken really seriously.”
Directed by Sam Mendes, the Academy Award-winning filmmaker behind “American Beauty” and Craig’s director on “Road to Perdition,” ”Skyfall” continues the current franchise’s exploration into the emotional traumas that have shaped Bond‘s cool, aloof manner.
The film reveals secrets out of the past of Bond’s boss, British spymaster M (Judi Dench), and pits 007 against a brilliant but unstable former agent (Javier Bardem) who’s out for revenge.
Hollywood remains on a brisk pace this fall as the busy holiday season approaches. Overall domestic revenues totaled $ 172 million, up 26 percent from the same weekend last year, when “Immortals” led with $ 32.2 million.
For the year, domestic revenues are at $ 9.1 billion, up 4.3 percent from 2011′s, according to Hollywood.com.
Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Hollywood.com. Where available, latest international numbers are also included. Final domestic figures will be released Monday.
1. “Skyfall,” $ 87.8 million.
2. “Wreck-It Ralph,” $ 33.1 million.
3. “Flight,” $ 15.1 million.
4. “Argo,” $ 6.7 million.
5. “Taken 2,” $ 4 million.
6. “Here Comes the Boom,” $ 2.6 million
7. “Cloud Atlas,” $ 2.53 million.
8. “Pitch Perfect,” $ 2.5 million.
9. “The Man with the Iron Fists,” $ 2.49 million.
10. “Hotel Transylvania,” $ 2.4 million.
___
Estimated weekend ticket sales at international theaters (excluding the U.S. and Canada) for films distributed overseas by Hollywood studios, according to Rentrak:
1. “Skyfall,” $ 89 million.
2. “Argo,” $ 12 million.
3. “Wreck-It Ralph,” $ 11.2 million.
4. “Hotel Transylvania,” $ 11.1 million.
5. “A Werewolf Boy,” $ 10.5 million.
6. “Cloud Atlas,” $ 8.7 million.
7. “Paranormal Activity 4,” $ 6 million.
8 (tie). “Asterlix and Obelix: God Save Britannia,” $ 4.4 million.
8 (tie). “Confession of Murder,” $ 4.4 million.
10. “Madagascar 3: Europe’s Most Wanted,” $ 4.1 million.
___
Online:
http://www.hollywood.com
http://www.rentrak.com
___
Universal and Focus are owned by NBC Universal, a unit of Comcast Corp.; Sony, Columbia, Sony Screen Gems and Sony Pictures Classics are units of Sony Corp.; Paramount is owned by Viacom Inc.; Disney, Pixar and Marvel are owned by The Walt Disney Co.; Miramax is owned by Filmyard Holdings LLC; 20th Century Fox and Fox Searchlight are owned by News Corp.; Warner Bros. and New Line are units of Time Warner Inc.; MGM is owned by a group of former creditors including Highland Capital, Anchorage Advisors and Carl Icahn; Lionsgate is owned by Lions Gate Entertainment Corp.; IFC is owned by AMC Networks Inc.; Rogue is owned by Relativity Media LLC.
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ARLINGTON, Virginia (Reuters) – President Barack Obama laid a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier to mark the Veterans Day holiday on Sunday, declaring that soldiers‘ needs would be met even as the country winds down wars in the Middle East and Asia.
In the ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery, Obama pledged continuing support for veterans as they make the transition to civilian life.
“This is the first Veterans Day in a decade in which there are no American troops fighting and dying in Iraq,” the president said at the cemetery across the Potomac River from Washington, where soldiers’ graves are marked with row upon row of simple white stones.
“After a decade of war, our heroes are coming home,” he said. “Over the next few years more than a million service members will transition back to civilian life.”
The president touted the work of first lady Michelle Obama and Jill Biden, wife of Vice President Joe Biden, for their work in the Joining Forces campaign, which urges businesses to hire veterans. He also reaffirmed his commitment to continuing the post-9/11 GI Bill program, which provides college education funding for those who have served, and said soldiers suffering war-related health problems will get the care they need.
“No one who fights for this country overseas should ever have to fight for a job, or a roof over their head, or the care that they have earned when they come home,” he said.
After the ceremony, Obama visited with people in an area of the cemetery known as Section 60, where many of the solders who died in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars are buried.
The Democratic president won re-election to a second four-year term on Tuesday and now faces tough negotiations with Republican congressional leaders to avoid sharp spending cuts that loom at the end of the year. A big chunk of those reductions would come through a decline in defense spending.
During the campaign, Obama and Biden regularly pledged their commitment to bringing troops home from Afghanistan and taking care of American veterans. Obama criticized his opponent, Republican Mitt Romney, for failing to mention the war in Afghanistan during his speech to the Republican National Convention.
(Reporting by Samson Reiny, writing by Mark Felsenthal; Editing by Doina Chiacu)
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BEIJING (Reuters) – As the senior Communist Party official in one of China‘s most prosperous regions, Wang Yang is often cast as an agent of change, a potential force for economic and even political reform should he gain promotion to the party’s highest rung later this week.
But the chief of the southern province of Guangdong appears to be distancing himself from that role while attending the party congress that will usher in China’s once-in-a-decade top leadership transition.
When Wang spoke to reporters on Friday, he stuck to a well rehearsed script that could have come from any apparatchik.
“Because China has taken the strategic choice of reform and opening up, every member of the Chinese Communist Party, including myself, is a reformist – or else there would be no today,” he told reporters.
“We will follow the themes of the 18th party congress to push for reform,” he said. “As for the next steps for reform, General Secretary Hu Jintao has already clearly stated those, so I won’t recite the report for you.”
China’s twice-a-decade party conclave, at which high ranking officials make speeches and hold rare press conferences, is providing a lesson into just how tightly the senior leadership controls the message it wants both the Chinese people and the outside world to hear.
At his speech at the opening of the congress on Thursday, outgoing President Hu spoke of the need for both political and economic reform, but stressed the Communist Party must remain in charge.
Everyone else has since read from the same script, evidence, political analysts said, that the party’s over-arching goal remains the same: maintaining its tight grip on power.
Wang Yang, a Hu protégé, now appears to be a long shot to ascend to the Politburo Standing Committee. Likely to consist of just seven members, the body will steer the world’s second-largest economy for the next five years.
Seen by many in the West as a beacon of political change, Wang lobbied for reform in Guangdong out of concern about the social impact of three decades of blistering development.
However, this approach drew criticism from party conservatives and Wang has more recently adopted the party’s more familiar method of control and punishment to keep order.
But Wang would not have even made it as far as he has without expressing fealty to a party that brooks little dissent and no challenge to its rule.
“In the Chinese context he is a reformer, but that only takes you so far,” said Tony Saich, a China expert at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government.
“The bottom line is all these people at heart are loyal Communist Party members, and most of the reforms that they see as being effective are all geared to ensuring the Communist Party’s continued rule.”
MARXIST RADIANCE
The only two certainties on the standing committee to be unveiled on Thursday are Xi Jinping, Hu’s anointed successor, and Li Keqiang, tipped to be the next Premier. Both are considered at best cautious reformers.
One man who will probably make it onto the standing committee has a very different reputation that does not bode well for reform — the dour, conservative North Korea-trained economist Vice Premier Zhang Dejiang.
Zhang, 65, saw his chances of promotion boosted this year when he was chosen to replace disgraced politician Bo Xilai as party boss of the southwestern city of Chongqing.
Zhang’s appearance in front of almost 100 reporters was marked by a grave 25-minute speech in which he essentially repeated Hu’s opening address to the congress, with the turgid and repeated use of Communist terminology.
“The whole report shone a light on the radiance of Marxism,” Zhang said. “The entire report from start to finish showed that we must unswervingly follow the path of socialism with Chinese characteristics.”
Yu Zhengsheng, Shanghai’s party boss, is also viewed as a contender for promotion, and considered at least open to reform by virtue of running China’s financial hub and most cosmopolitan city.
But Yu was mostly silent during an open “discussion” session of Hu’s speech. When he finally answered a reporter’s question on what he thought the most urgent political reform China needed to undertake, Yu was extremely cautious.
“Comrade Jintao’s report raised paying more attention to making improvements to the way the party leads and guides the way, paying more attention to the building of democratic politics, paying more attention to the construction of rule of law,” he said.
“These are the main points and direction of political system reform in the future. Done. Thank you.”
ANOTHER INDICATOR
Yu and Zhang did at least appear in front of the foreign media. Li Yuanchao, widely viewed as a reform-minded candidate for promotion, did not. Li, 61, oversees the appointment of senior party, government, military and state-owned enterprise officials as head of the party’s powerful organisation department.
He has courted foreign investment and studied in the United States. Analysts are closely watching what happens to him this week as a sign of which way China’s new leadership is likely headed.
“A much better indicator for reform will be (Li’s) fate. He has implemented some political and administrative changes that were pretty radical by China’s standards, and advocated for even more serious reform,” said Duncan Innes-Ker, senior China analyst for the Economist Intelligence Unit.
Even if Li or Wang Yang don’t make it onto the standing committee this time, they are, by Chinese standards, young enough that they may make the grade at the next congress in five years time, when the likes of Zhang and Yu will have to retire.
“My understanding is that (Li’s) going to be made vice president and that gives him a status which is superior to the other regular politburo members, with an unconfirmed promise that he’ll get in next in five years time,” said Saich, the expert at Harvard, of Li Yuanchao.
“I think the understanding is that Wang Yang has a good shot in five years’ time as well.”
(Additional reporting by Sui-Lee Wee; Reporting by Raju Gopalakrishnan)
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