China trade data in surprise sign of strength

"The Chinese economy is stabilising and we are expecting it to pick up in the second half of this year," Pu Yonghao, UBS Wealth management

China's export growth has increased while inflation has slowed, in a sign of strength in the world's second-biggest economy.

In May, exports jumped 15.3% from a year earlier, beating expectations. In April they were up by 4.9%.
However, industrial production and retail sales data continued to disappoint.
Analysts said while the trade data was a positive, Chinese authorities would continue measures to stimulate growth.
"The domestic economy is slowing quite substantially," said Alistair Thornton from IHS Global Insight in Beijing.
"That will feed through into imports over the next few months, so this is likely to be a bit of an aberration rather than a new normal".
'Extremely concerned' He warned against reading too much into the monthly trade data, especially since other figures painted a much bleaker picture of the domestic economy.
Industrial output rose 9.6% in May from a year ago, which was below expectation.

  Data released over the weekend was mixed with manufacturing related numbers showing a slowdown

Retail sales also came in below estimates, growing at their slowest pace since February 2011.
China's central bank cut interest rates on Thursday for the first time in more than three years in an effort to boost growth on worries of a slowdown.
"We had some pretty dismal data out yesterday, and it came off the back of an interest rate cut which really signals that policymakers are extremely concerned about the state of the economy," Mr Thornton said.
Consumer inflation in May slowed to 3%, the statistics bureau said. That is well below the government target of 4% for 2012.
Analysts said this would give policymakers room to further ease policy and spur growth.

Despite fresh political maneuvering on both sides of the Syrian crisis, relentless killing raged on Monday as a peaceful resolution appeared to be a mere fantasy.

At least 21 people were slaughtered across the country on Monday morning, opposition activists said. Intense shelling rained on Deir Ezzor province, where eight corpses were found after regime forces raided the city at dawn, the opposition Local Coordination Committees of Syria said.

Across the country, powerful explosions and heavy gunfire tormented the southwestern city of Douma as forces conducted a raid-and-arrest spree, the LCC said.

"Civilians are being used as human shields to complete the raid campaign" in Douma, the opposition network said.

Over the weekend, the opposition Syrian National Council elected minority Kurdish activist Abdul Basit Sieda to unite dissidents aimed at ousting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Sieda, a native of Hasaka, Syria, but now living in Sweden, called on officials in Syria, Russia, and China "to think carefully about the situation now because the whole stability of the region -- if not the whole stability of the world -- is at stake here. We would like to call upon them to support the Syrian people."

Russia and China have blocked U.N. Security Council resolutions that many other nations said could have pushed al-Assad to stop the killing. The two countries, which have major trade ties with Syria, said they want more balanced resolutions that call for a cessation of violence on all sides.

Sieda also called on Iran "to admit the situation on the ground and respect the will of Syrians" and to prepare "for new relations with the Syrian people based on the full interest of the Syrian and Iranian people."

A recent draft U.N. report accused Iran of exporting arms to Syria in violation of a ban on weapons sales, a Western diplomat told CNN last month. Some analysts say Iran has continued to arm Syria in its brutal crackdown on the opposition.

Sieda vowed his country will be "a free democratic state."

Dozens of countries have recognized the SNC as a legitimate representative of the Syrian opposition, though many members of the group's leadership are expatriates.

When asked how he planned to bridge a gap between the Syrian opposition in exile and the opposition inside the country, Sieda said, "We are in direct communication and contact with revolutionary forces inside. We are always communicating with them. ... The relationship between us and the forces inside has never been stronger."

But al-Assad has said he will not deal with opposition members influenced from the outside.

While Sieda railed against the violence committed by al-Assad's forces, the regime itself announced a new stage in its argument that "armed terrorist groups" are actually responsible for the violence in the country.

A "documentary" shown on Syrian state-run TV revealed "that terrorists of various nationalities from the terrorist organization Jabhet al-Nasra, which is affiliated with al Qaeda, planned and carried out" bombings in Damascus on March 8. The cars used in the attack were driven by a Jordanian terrorist and a Syrian Palestinian, "and were trailed by an Iraqi," state-run news agency SANA reported.

Jabhet al-Nasra is also known as the al Nusra Front.

SANA also said 22 "army, law enforcement and civilian martyrs" were buried Sunday.

The LCC, meanwhile, said 53 people were killed Sunday, including 26 in Homs.

Among the dead Sunday was citizen journalist Khaled Bakr, founder of the Baba Amr media center, the LCC said. Baba Amr, a besieged neighborhood of Homs, came under weeks of incessant shelling by the Syrian regime earlier this year, opposition activists have said.

At a mosque in Maarat al-Numan, part of Idlib province, El Mundo correspondent Javier Espinosa said he saw six bodies destroyed beyond recognition. "They were in pieces," he told CNN.

Residents said people were leaving a mosque when a rocket hit in the middle of the street, hitting no one. As residents gathered after to assess the impact, a second rocket hit.

The rocket had Russian markings on the shell, Espinosa said.

Russia is viewed as a key ally of Syria. While Western countries have criticized Russia for its arms trade with Syria, Russia has insisted it is not propping up al-Assad's regime.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Saturday there was no alternative to U.N.-Arab League special envoy Kofi Annan's peace plan, despite mounting evidence that it's being violated daily.

"The situation looks more and more grim," Lavrov said. "For the first time since the beginning of this crisis, we see the question of foreign intervention. And our position remains unchanged. We will never agree to sanction the use of force in the U.N. Security Council."

The United Nations has said at least 9,000 people have died since the Syrian crisis erupted in March 2011. Opposition groups, however, say the toll is much higher, with estimates ranging from at least 12,000 to more than 14,000.

CNN cannot independently confirm reports of casualties or violence in Syria, as the government has restricted access by international journalists.

Ex-Prime Minister Gordon Brown says lessons cannot be learned about press standards unless there is honesty about how details of his son's cystic fibrosis were published by the Sun.

He said he and his wife Sarah were "presented with a fait accompli" by the paper, before it ran a story on their son Fraser's medical condition in 2006.
He denied that he or his wife had given permission for the story to be run.
Mr Brown is giving evidence to the Leveson Inquiry into press standards.
In a key week for the inquiry, Chancellor George Osborne will be giving evidence later and Prime Minister David Cameron will enter the witness box on Thursday.
The inquiry, which is currently focusing on the relationship between the press and politicians, is resuming after a week-long adjournment.
The paper's then-editor Rebekah Brooks had previously told the Leveson Inquiry she had the express permission of the Browns to run the story about Fraser's medical condition, but the Browns have previously said that was "untrue".
Mr Brown told the inquiry he had been given an apology by the NHS in Fife because they think it "highly likely" unauthorised information was disclosed by NHS staff about Fraser Brown.
He again denied that consent had been given to the Sun to publish the story.
"I find it sad that even now, in 2012, members of the News International staff are coming to this inquiry and maintaining this fiction that a story that could only have been achieved or obtained through medical information or through me or my wife... was obtained in another way.

“Start Quote

There's a story you fell asleep but you were praying and the Sun decides this is an example of someone falling asleep and dishonouring the troops”

End Quote Gordon Brown

"We can't learn the lesson about what has happened with the media anything unless there is some honesty about what actually happened, whether payment was made and whether this is a practice which could continue."

During the trip, Mohamed and a two-girl team from Troy, Michigan, were announced as global winners whose experiments will be taken to the International Space Station.

Mohamed is currently taking a gap year before studying at Stanford University, California, in the fall.

He said: "Before the competition, I was just a kid struggling with my A-levels. Out of the huge ocean of the internet, the tide brought me Space Lab. So right now, I know where I want to be. I know who I want to be."

Mohamed's achievement is particularly impressive as Egypt's math and science education came 125th out of 139 nations in a World Economic Forum survey.

Eurozone finance ministers will hold a conference call Saturday as concerns grow over the state of Spain's ailing banking sector.

The talks come a day after the International Monetary Fund said Spain's banks need at least 40 billion euros (about $46 billion) in fresh capital to preserve the country's financial stability.

An IMF mission visited Spain and conducted "stress tests" on banks. In its report, released Friday, the IMF recommended that considerably more capital be set aside for the country's most vulnerable banks to cover "restructuring costs and reclassification of loans."

The Spanish government and the Council of the European Union both denied that Spain had already requested aid for its struggling banks.

Spain: a country home to 47 million people and a $1.4 trillion economy. The Spanish bull has stood proud on Iberian hilltops for years, a symbol of force and a fitting tribute to a country which up until recently was the euro zone's fourth richest.
But step out of the Castilian plain and onto the bustling streets of Madrid – or any other Spanish city for that matter - and the skyline tells a different story.
The horizon is dotted with relics from the country's now burst property bubble.
Empty apartment blocks stand idle in the suburbs, while downtown the glass towers of Spain's financial district cast shadows over the people below and a shadow over their children's future.
Trapped between its cash-strapped banks and weakening public finances Spain is the biggest economy to run the gauntlet of skeptical credit markets that in three years have claimed the scalps of as many eurozone members like Greece, Portugal and Ireland.
The single currency can ill afford a bailout for Spain but neither can its leaders ignore crisis of confidence the country's banks are causing. As such speculation is rife the country may require a bailout.
Spain's predicament has less to do with a lack of austerity and more to do with a lack of transparency.
Unlike Greece and Portugal, the country's public sector finances aren't really the problem, rather the hit they would take should Spain need to fork out more money to shore up its ailing banks.
The country is already part nationalizing one of its biggest lenders – Bankia- at the cost of 24 billion euros. But the reality is much, much more money will be required for others.
On Monday we may well have a clearer picture of what Spain needs to get its house in order. That's because the International Monetary Fund is set to publish its survey of the nation's financial sector and judging by the recent drip feed of leaks emanating from the institution (so characteristic of this crisis) the picture will not be pretty.
The IMF reportedly reckons Spain's banks will need 40 billion euros to bolster their accounts.
Yet the country's prognosis is likely to have worsened since such data was collected and economists say more money will need to be earmarked. Indeed at just 40 billion euros, the IMF's estimate would make Spain's cash crunch cheaper than Ireland's bank bailout. Hardly a likely scenario!
Explaining its decision to slash Spain's sovereign debt rating to within a whisker of 'junk' status, Fitch ratings estimated efforts to shore up Spain's broken banks could cost the country 6 to 9 percent of its GDP - or 60 to 100 billion euros. That's up to $125 billion.
Megan Greene of Roubini Global Economics reckons Spain's banks may be just the start of a problem that could be much more expensive than its politicians have let on. She says Spain's banks may need up to 250 billion euros in total but even if the country manages to save its lenders, keeping the sovereign solvent is another matter
"A bailout for the banks could delay a bailout for the state, but the former could accelerate the latter as well."