Aurelia Butler

Private equity firms are increasingly offering sweeteners such as fee discounts to secure backing from deep-pocketed investors, in a sign that the industry is facing its toughest-ever fundraising environment.Blue-chip firms including CVC Capital Partners, Ardian, TPG and Cinven have all in recent months offered investors either a discount on management fees or other incentives such as larger amounts of so-called co-investment, which enables investors to get a bigger slice of individual deals without paying a fee, according to people familiar with the matter and fund marketing documents. Some firms are even offering big backers such as pension plans and sovereign wealth funds a slice of the management fee that usually goes to the fund manager. Last week Marc Rowan, chief executive of Apollo Global Management, warned the lucrative age for private equity groups had ended. He said a decade of “money printing” and low interest rates that had fuelled high profits for the sector and low financing costs were over. “In the [private] equity business, this year has really marked the end of an era,” he said during Apollo’s second-quarter results presentation.Private equity firms globally raised $517bn in the first half of this year, a fall of 35 per cent from the same period in 2022, according to a Bain & Co report released in July.The report found that for every $3 of capital firms were trying to raise, investors only had $1 available to allocate to private equity, the worst imbalance since the global financial crisis. Here’s what I’m keeping tabs on today:Wall Street: US shares look set to rebound at the open of trading later today after recording their longest daily losing streak for three months.Company earnings: Tyson Foods reports third-quarter results and Beyond Meat releases second-quarter earnings.Monetary policy: Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta President Raphael Bostic and Fed board governor Michelle Bowman speak at a public event. Niger: A seven-day ultimatum has passed for the military junta in the west African country to restore the civilian leadership it toppled. Five more top stories1. Saudi Aramco this morning reported second-quarter profits fell by more than a third from last year’s record highs as a lower oil price and production cuts eroded the group’s performance. Read more on the results.More company earnings news: Warren Buffett’s sprawling conglomerate Berkshire Hathaway on Saturday reported a near record level of cash. 2. US banks are still relying on hundreds of billions of dollars in government financing that was crucial to shore up the industry after the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank almost four months ago. Regional lenders are tapping the support despite a recent rebound in their share prices and second-quarter earnings that were deemed to be positive by investors. Read more3. A Financial Times analysis has shown that Europe’s biggest companies suffered at least €100bn in direct losses from their operations in Russia since President Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine last year. Read the full results of the survey of 600 European companies.4. Duke University is finalising a probe into one of its most high-profile professors, sparked by concerns over his own research into dishonesty including a study claiming people were more honest after first being given a “moral reminder”. Read more on the latest academic practice probe. 5. US government scientists have achieved net energy gain in a fusion reaction for the second time in an experiment that produced a higher energy output, fuelling optimism that progress is being made towards the dream of limitless, zero-carbon power. Read more about the achievement by researchers in California. The Big Read

© Earth Observatory/NASA

Corals are dying in waters near Florida and the Caribbean. With far less ice forming in the seas around Antarctica, marine biologists now worry about fisheries in parts of the north Atlantic as average global sea surface temperatures hit all-time highs. While scientists blame marine heating on human activities pumping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, the reasons why it is speeding up now are far from clear. We’re also reading . . . Inside Business: By creating an off-balance sheet gizmo Apollo has turbocharged the returns from its life insurance business — and others are beginning to take notice.US politics: In Philadelphia’s electorally crucial suburbs, sympathy for Donald Trump and his legal woes is dwindling.ESG: Few ideas are more inconsistent, and thus uncertain, than ESG — no matter how you brand it, says Stuart Kirk.Chart of the day

Rising US fuel prices are triggering alarm in Washington. The surge in petrol costs to a nine-month high follows a 20 per cent jump in global crude prices this summer, after Saudi Arabia and Russia slashed supply. The move has revived predictions of $100 a barrel oil this year — and new worries about the political fallout.Take a break from the newsTalking Heads frontman David Byrne is back in the spotlight with a disco musical about Imelda Marcos, the former first lady of the Philippines. How did he come up with that?And listen to Byrne talk about how he makes creative choices on the FT Weekend podcast.

© Jack Davison

Additional contributions from Tee Zhuo and Benjamin Wilhelm More

1. Futures higher as inflation data loomsU.S. stock futures pointed higher Monday as investors looked ahead to the release of key monthly inflation figures later in the week and prepared for more corporate earnings.By 05:05 ET (09:05 GMT), the Dow futures contract gained 74 points or 0.21%, S&P 500 futures added 15 points or 0.33%, and Nasdaq 100 futures rose by 69 points or 0.45%.The main indices on Wall Street fell to end the previous trading week, with the benchmark S&P 500 and tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite slipping to their fourth-consecutive day of declines — the longest losing streak since May. Data showing weaker-than-anticipated jobs growth in July, as well as disappointing hardware sales from tech behemoth Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL), both factored into market sentiment.Highlighting the economic agenda this week is the U.S. consumer price index for July, which could give traders further insight into the potential policy path ahead for the Federal Reserve. Meanwhile, Walt Disney (NYSE:DIS) is set to publish its third-quarter results on Wednesday (see below).2. Headline inflation seen acceleratingEconomists predict that inflation in the U.S. grew at a faster pace for the first time since June 2022 last month, possibly complicating the emerging narrative of easing price growth in the world’s largest economy.The consumer price index (CPI) for July is expected to accelerate to 3.3% annually, up from 3.0% in the prior month. Month-on-month, the reading is seen holding steady at 0.2%.Thursday’s CPI print will also include the so-called “core” figure stripping out volatile items like food and energy. The reading is projected to slow to 4.7% year-on-year and stay unchanged at 0.2% on a monthly basis.Federal Reserve officials, who previously said that their upcoming policy decisions would be “data-dependent,” will likely be paying close attention to the numbers.Corralling inflation back down to the Fed’s 2% target has been the major focus of the central bank’s more than year-long campaign of interest rate hikes, and data since last summer suggest that the tightening has helped to tamp down prices. Yet, policymakers have signaled that they remain willing to roll out further rate increases should inflation show signs that it is climbing once again.3. Earnings season marches onInvestment management giant KKR (NYSE:KKR), software group Palantir (NYSE:PLTR), and entertainment firm Paramount Global (NASDAQ:PARAA) will make up some of the biggest companies unveiling their latest quarterly results on Monday.The returns will kick off the final stretch of the second-quarter earnings season. According to FactSet data cited by CNBC, more than 84% of the businesses in the S&P 500 have already reported, with about four-fifths of these numbers topping Wall Street expectations.Walt Disney may likely be one of the major headliners later in the week.Investors will be keen to hear more about chief executive Bob Iger’s plans to reignite performance at the media conglomerate’s movie studios after a series of recent box office disappointments like “Elemental” and “Haunted Mansion.” Iger may also face questions around ESPN after reports surfaced that he brought on two former lieutenants to help explore strategic options for Disney’s vaunted sports network.4. ‘Barbie’ soars above $1BIt’s a “Barbie” world, indeed.”Barbie” has raked in more than $1B in ticket sales worldwide just 17 days after its debut, according to a unit of distributor Warner Bros. Discovery (NASDAQ:WBD).In a statement, the studio said Greta Gerwig’s pink-splashed fantasy comedy took home $459.4 million in North America and $572.1M overseas. The figures were later confirmed by media analytics group Comscore.It also makes Gerwig the first-ever woman to solo-direct a billion-dollar picture.Warner Bros. executives Jeff Goldstein and Andrew Cripps said they were “rendered speechless” by the success of the film, which stars Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling as the titular doll and her frustrated counterpart Ken. Goldstein and Cripps noted that the returns have “blown even our most optimistic predictions out of the water.””Barbie,” which was aided by a massive marketing campaign and an Internet phenomenon that paired it with Christopher Nolan’s biopic “Oppenheimer,” is now the sixth movie to surpass the billion-dollar box office mark since the pandemic.5. Crude hovers around four-month highOil prices edged lower Monday but remained near their highest levels since mid-April after top producers Saudi Arabia and Russia announced plans late last week to extend output reductions for another month to tighten global markets further.Along with the production cuts from Riyadh and Moscow, traders will be eyeing Chinese economic data this week to gauge how much government stimulus may be needed to boost a waning post-pandemic recovery in the world’s biggest crude importer.By 05:06 ET, the U.S. crude futures contract traded 0.66% lower at $82.27 a barrel, while the Brent contract dropped 0.57% to $85.75.Both contracts recorded their sixth consecutive weekly gains last week, the longest winning streak since December 2021 to January 2022. More

(Reuters) – If medieval advances in the plough didn’t lift Europe’s peasants out of poverty, it was largely because their rulers took the wealth generated by the new gains in output and used it to build cathedrals instead.Economists say something similar could happen with artificial intelligence (AI) if it enters our lives in such a way that the touted benefits are enjoyed by the few rather than the many.”AI has got a lot of potential – but potential to go either way,” argues Simon Johnson, professor of global economics and management at MIT Sloan School of Management.”We are at a fork in the road.”Backers of AI predict a productivity leap that will generate wealth and improve living standards. Consultancy McKinsey in June estimated it could add between $14 trillion and $22 trillion of value annually – that upper figure being roughly the current size of the U.S economy.Some techno-optimists go further, suggesting that, along with robots, AI is the technology that will finally free humanity from humdrum tasks and launch us into lives of more creativity and leisure.Yet worries abound about its impact on livelihoods, including its potential to destroy jobs in all kinds of sectors – witness the strike in July by Hollywood actors who fear being made redundant by their AI-generated doubles.WHAT PRODUCTIVITY GAIN?Such concerns are not unfounded. History shows the economic impact of technological advances is generally uncertain, unequal and sometimes outright malign.A book published this year by Johnson and fellow MIT economist Daron Acemoglu surveyed a thousand years of technology – from the plough through to automated self-checkout kiosks – in terms of their success in creating jobs and spreading wealth.While the spinning jenny was key to 18th century automation of the textiles industry, they found it led to longer working hours in harsher conditions. Mechanical cotton gins facilitated the 19th century expansion of slavery in the American South.The track record of the Internet is complex: it has created many new job roles even as much of the wealth generated has gone to a handful of billionaires. The productivity gains it was once lauded for have slowed across many economies.A June research note by French bank Natixis suggested that was because even a technology as pervasive as the Internet left many sectors untouched, while many of the jobs it created were low-skilled – think of the delivery chain for online purchases.”Conclusion: We should be cautious when estimating the effects of artificial intelligence on labour productivity,” Natixis warned.In a globalised economy, there are other reasons to doubt whether the potential gains of AI will be felt evenly.On the one hand, there is the risk of a “race to the bottom” as governments compete for AI investment with increasingly lax regulation. On the other, the barriers to luring that investment might be so high as to leave many poorer countries behind.”You have to have the right infrastructure – huge computing capacity,” said Stefano Scarpetta, Director of Employment, Labour and Social Affairs at the Paris-based Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).”We have the G7 Hiroshima Process, we need to go further to the G20 and UN,” he said, advocating the expansion of an accord at a May summit of Group of Seven (G7) powers to jointly seek to understand the opportunities and challenges of generative AI.WORKER POWERInnovation, it turns out, is the easy bit. Harder is making it work for everyone – which is where politics comes in.For MIT’s Johnson, the arrival of railways in 19th century England at a moment of rapid democratic reform allowed those advances to be enjoyed by wider society, be it through faster transport of fresh food or a first taste of leisure travel.Similar democratic gains elsewhere helped millions enjoy the fruits of technological advance well into the 20th century. But Johnson contends that this started changing with the aggressive shareholder capitalism that has marked the last four decades.The automated self-checkout, he argues, is a case in point. Groceries do not become cheaper, shoppers’ lives are not transformed and no new task is created – just the profit gain from the reduction of labour costs.Worker groups, which have lost much of the clout they had before the 1980s, identify AI as a potential threat to workers’ rights as well as employment, for example if there is no human control on AI-steered hiring and firing decisions.Mary Towers, employment rights policy officer at Britain’s Trades Union Congress, cited the importance of unions “having statutory consultation rights, having the ability to collectively bargain around technology at work”.That is just one of several factors that will help determine how AI shapes our economic lives – from antitrust policies that ensure healthy competition among AI suppliers through to re-training of workforces.An OECD survey of some 5,300 workers published in July suggested that AI could benefit job satisfaction, health and wages but was also seen posing risks around privacy, reinforcing workplace biases and pushing people to overwork.”The question is: will AI exacerbate existing inequalities or could it actually help us get back to something much fairer?” said Johnson. More

TOKYO (Reuters) – Japanese government bond yields fell from multi-month highs on Monday, mirroring a sharp retreat in their U.S. peers at the end of last week after data showed U.S. jobs growth had cooled.The 30-year JGB yield fell 2 basis points (bps) to 1.595%, after reaching 1.63% in the previous session for the first time since mid-January. The Finance Ministry’s auction of about 900 billion yen ($6.33 billion) of the tenor on Tuesday will be closely watched as a litmus test of demand in the sector.The 20-year yield declined 1.5 bps to 1.32%. It hit 1.355% on Friday, a level last seen at the start of February.The 10-year JGB yield slid 2 bps to 0.62%. On Thursday it had risen to the highest since January 2014 at 0.655% as the market continued to seek an equilibrium level between the Bank of Japan’s official policy ceiling of 0.5% under yield curve control (YCC) and the new de-facto limit at 1% following last month’s surprise policy tweak.Minutes of that meeting released in the Tokyo morning offered little in the way of fresh clues for traders.Equivalent U.S. Treasury yields were little changed at around 4.06% in Tokyo trading after plunging some 14 bps on Friday from a nine-month high above 4.2% reached earlier that session.Investors are closely monitoring how the Bank of Japan conducts its bond-purchase operations for hints on a comfortable level for the 10-year yield.The central bank’s focus thus far on buying of maturities up to 10 years may buff the attractiveness of the 30-year bonds at Tuesday’s auction, said Takafumi Yamawaki, head of Japan fixed-income research at J.P. Morgan Securities.”The BOJ has not shown the intention to control superlong yields,” Yamawaki said, adding that on an absolute basis, “life insurers think the 30-year JGB yield at this moment is quite attractive.”At the shorter end on Monday, two-year JGB yield fell 0.5 bp to 0.015%, while the five-year yield declined 1 bp to 0.20%.Benchmark 10-year JGB futures closed 0.24 yen higher at 146.60, rebounding from Friday’s nearly five-month low of 146.24.($1 = 142.0800 yen) More

Here is a look at the week ahead from Laura Matthews in New York, Tom Sims in Frankfurt, Kevin Buckland in Tokyo, and Amanda Cooper and Karin Strohecker in London.1/ARE WE THERE YET?U.S. economic data has been positive and the June inflation reading of 3% was the smallest annual increase in over two years. Cue soft landing?Not so fast. The Federal Reserve continues to emphasise data dependency – as chair Jerome Powell said at the last meeting, “the totality” of the incoming data matters, and “reducing inflation is likely to require a period of below-trend growth”.That makes Thursday’s consumer price index report for July critical for showing whether the economy is seeing sustained disinflation and whether markets are correct in believing rates are close to peaking.   Lower numbers could increase the likelihood of a Fed pause. Yet the U.S. economy has been resilient despite the highest rates in about two decades, fuelling concern that inflation could resume its upward trend – and rates with it.2/ CHINA STIMULUS FATIGUEChina’s stumbling post-pandemic economy needs help, everyone agrees. But the scope of what Beijing has offered so far has underwhelmed the market. Measures and pledges are too minor or too vague, say analysts, and the result is apparent in property shares that surged by as much as 29% in Hong Kong after China’s Politburo began its meeting in July, only to retrace about half of it shortly afterwards.Morgan Stanley concluded the hope-filled rally offered a perfect opportunity to sell, downgrading Chinese stocks to equal weight.Macro data, however, helped to spare market blushes with some rare good news, as a private survey showed a pick-up in services activity in July. The question is whether trade numbers on Tuesday and inflation data the following day can provide any additional cheer.3/THE TURNING OF THE CYCLEA number of emerging market interest-rate decisions are due, providing further evidence on how fast and furious the monetary policy cycle in developing economies will turn after Brazil and Chile became the first major central banks to deliver rate cuts in recent days.Having front-run the Fed tightening cycle, Latin America is at the heart of the easing push across emerging economies.Mexico’s policymakers might not be there yet when they meet on Thursday – though they are expected to keep rates where they are, notwithstanding more hikes from their northern neighbour. Peru – meeting the same day – is expected to deliver cuts this year, but not in August.India’s policymakers are expected to keep interest rates on hold at a meeting on Aug 10 and to do so until end-March.3/NO RECESSIONS, PLEASE, WE’RE BRITISHThe UK economy has defied last year’s forecasts that it would experience one of the deepest recessions in recent memory – just about. In May, it shrank less than expected, having all but stagnated for the prior two months.Part of that is down to resilient consumers with a savings cushion built during pandemic lockdowns, the other part is the time it takes for interest rate rises to filter through to borrowing costs, especially mortgages.The Bank of England raised UK rates to a 15-year-high of 5.25% this month.Consumer inflation is 7.9%, and although the direction of travel is downwards, it is nearly four times the BoE’s target. That means wage growth, although at its highest on record, is in negative territory in real terms. GDP figures for the three months to June due on Aug. 11 could provide clarity.5/STORM CLOUDS AHEADThe Atlantic hurricane season is underway, and so is the reporting season for some of the world’s biggest insurance companies that face paying out for storm damage. Munich Re (ETR:MUVGn), the world’s largest reinsurer, is expected to post a 60% increase in net profit on Thursday, despite storms in Texas, as it recovers from big writedowns last year caused by war and inflation. Swiss Re (SIX:SRENH) gave a taste of that trend, reporting a rise in net profit in the first half of the year. Allianz (ETR:ALVG), Zurich Insurance (SIX:ZURN), and Hannover Re (ETR:HNRGn) are all set to report in the week ahead.The outlook depends on hurricanes and any other future disasters, which are increasing in intensity as the planet warms. Munich Re said the 2023 hurricane season was difficult to predict – higher ocean temperatures add to the likelihood of more storms, but phases of the El Nino climate phenomenon tend to suppress hurricane activity. More

Brussels will press Beijing to reduce barriers to European exports at a high-level meeting in September after the EU’s trade deficit with China hit almost €400bn last year.EU trade commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis told the Financial Times that the “staggering” deficit, which has doubled in two years, underscored the need for Beijing to open its markets.“The China-EU trading relationship is very unbalanced. China is running a huge trade surplus,” Dombrovskis said in an interview. “And the level of openness from the Chinese side is not the same as the level of openness from the EU side.”His stance echoes that taken by consecutive US administrations. US trade representative Katherine Tai has said China must correct the “unbalanced” relationship, which is “unhealthy” and “damaging” to the American economy.The US has used tariffs and export bans to try to change Beijing’s approach with limited success. In 2022, its imports of goods and services from China hit a record high.Dombrovskis emphasised that he wanted to maintain good relations with the world’s second-largest economy and he expected Beijing to raise its own concerns in sessions of the EU-China High-Level Economic and Trade Dialogue in September.In 2022 goods exports from the EU to China were little changed at €230bn, while imports increased to €626bn, more than a fifth of the bloc’s total.Dombrovskis said the dialogue, normally between him and a Chinese vice-premier, would “provide the opportunity to discuss these issues and to find solutions”.The Latvian also hinted that if the issues were not resolved the EU could deploy a range of new trade weapons it has given itself in recent years — and that Brussels could even take action without a formal complaint from businesses. The European Commission last brought a so-called “ex-officio” case more than a decade ago, officials said. “We stand ready to use this toolkit should there be complaints from the industry or if necessary, on an ex-officio basis,” Dombrovskis said. The EU’s tools include an anti-coercion instrument that allows retaliation against trade measures intended to force a change in foreign policy such as boycotts; the ability to block investment in the EU by subsidised companies; and the closure of government procurement markets to countries that do not open them to EU businesses. Dombrovskis stressed the bloc was discussing “de-risking” not “decoupling”, given China’s dominance of green technology. “We need to find ways to co-operate with China while addressing risks and possible strategic dependencies,” he said. He criticised Beijing’s announcement this month of export restrictions on gallium and germanium, metals used in chips, electric vehicles and a range of telecoms products. “We are now doing the detailed analysis of the provisions and their potential impact on supply chains and EU industries, and indeed there are concerns as these export restrictions go beyond what is needed to protect the essential security interests,” he said.The commissioner said China should only impose export controls where they were “based on relevant security considerations” and complied with World Trade Organization rules.The EU is discussing introducing its own approach to export controls, which Dombrovskis said would be narrowly focused on national security grounds.He called on China to help breathe new life into the international trading system.“China has benefited enormously from its WTO membership, but many of China’s practices are actually distorting that level playing field,” he said. “It’s important that China is co-operating on WTO reform because it’s one of the biggest beneficiaries of WTO, and it should also be in China’s interests that the system continues to function.” More

When western policymakers talk about reasons for supply chain decoupling from China in areas like semiconductors and clean energy technology, they often cite two inconvenient truths.First, cheap Chinese inputs like the polysilicon needed for solar panels and critical minerals for batteries are often made or extracted by forced labour in Xinjiang. Second, a lot of what’s advertised as “clean” energy technology coming out of China is made in factories that use coal-powered electricity. If you tally in the true carbon and labour cost of that production, it doesn’t seem so “clean” any more.America’s Inflation Reduction Act is meant to start tallying up the real cost of labour and emissions, with carrots and sticks designed to cut forced labour and dirty power out of supply chains. In theory, that also cuts China out of the clean energy transition in the US, at least unless it changes its position on coal and Xinjiang.Or does it? As the IRA subsidies start rolling out, it’s clear that it’s difficult, if not impossible at the moment, to decouple totally from China in areas like solar power. Indeed, recent conversations I’ve had with both policymakers and business leaders have convinced me that we are about to have some very tough global conversations about the trade-offs that will need to be made if we want a truly green energy transition that creates decent jobs in the US and abroad.Consider, for example, the last year of new solar and green battery factory announcements in the US. New rules mean that solar modules deemed to have been made with forced labour in those dirty Chinese factories can be impounded at the US border. At first glance, this looks like a huge win for the Biden administration. And in some ways it is: America is finally starting to pass policies to encourage sustainable, inclusive growth. But when you dig deeper, you realise that the IRA specifications for things like modules or solar battery cells don’t account for the fact that nearly all raw polysilicon, which is traded as a commodity on the global market and thus not identified by origin, is made in China, much of it in Xinjiang. That means that there’s hardly any solar panel in the US or pretty much anywhere else that’s “clean”, not to mention made completely with fair labour practices, given the dominance of China in the market.“You have to ask the question, what clean energy technologies can we make at scale to achieve the green energy transition in the west that don’t currently depend on China?” says David Scaysbrook, a managing partner of Quinbrook Infrastructure Partners, an Australian firm that both builds and invests in renewable energy, including IRA-related projects. His answer? “Not much.”Scaysbrook, like many executives in the sector, has been delving into the minutiae of supply chains. He is doing so in the expectation that continued US-Chinese trade tensions will make it increasingly risky for his firm to use Chinese-sourced inputs — from polysilicon to Chinese intellectual property or labour — as American politicians on both sides of the aisle push for further decoupling. In the latest sign of this pressure, the top Republican and Democrat on the US House of Representatives China committee accused BlackRock of profiting from investments that benefit the Chinese military. (BlackRock said that it complies with all applicable US laws.) As part of an Australian government effort, Quinbrook has been looking at what it would take, for example, to mine and produce green polysilicon in Queensland, without using any Chinese input or expertise. It is possible, given that Australia has abundant raw materials like quartz and can use IP and talent from places like South Korea, Germany, Japan or the US, to build the factories and equipment needed for such an effort. The rub is that it would be at least two times more expensive to do so. What’s more, if a firm in Australia or even the US (which likewise has the raw materials to produce polysilicon) wanted to do so, it would take roughly six years to build a new facility. This would mean only two or three years of production subsidies under the IRA, which is set to expire in 2032. That’s a long time in the context of US politics, but not very long at all in the context of what’s needed for a truly clean and inclusive energy transition.Clearly, as decoupling plays out, the rubber is hitting the road on the tough questions of who pays for resilience, sustainability, fair labour practices and all the things that western countries claim to care about. There are really only two ways forward at this point. One possibility is that the US, perhaps in the company of its allies, will come together and create a strategic procurement entity that would underwrite the true cost of the green transition for the long haul. These countries would use their purchasing power to set a floor under the market for the entire supply chain.Alternatively, China could come to the table and have a real conversation about ending modern slavery and coal power. The west would of course have to acknowledge any of its own bad practices on this score as well, such as the use of convict labour in the US. I think Chinese companies would be up for it. I doubt the Chinese leadership would. Inconvenient truths, [email protected] More