UBS on Tuesday said 3Q11 profits fell 39 percent owing to the financial loss of around CHF1.8bn ($2.2bn) from an unauthorised trading incident in September. The bank’s net profit beat analysts’ predictions however, as a better than expected $1.13bn was announced due to a large accounting gain which offset the shortfall. Figures were down from the CHF1.66bn reported for the same period last year but were equal to results published in the second quarter of 2011. The lender said investigations into the loss were continuing. “Our financial, capital and funding positions remain solid and we believe the action we are taking now will strengthen the firm further”, a UBS statement said.

Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe finished a trip to China on Friday by praising how it had mobilised state-owned-enterprises (SOEs) to construct a global power. Pretoria should learn from Beijing’s example, he added. “Markets on their own cannot lead such fundamental change,” said Motlanthe, regarded as a leading candidate to be the next president of Africa’s biggest economy. “The state has to play a leading role in reshaping the economy so that it is better able to meet the needs of our people, particularly the working class, as well as the urban and the rural poor.” Beijing says its SOEs generate about 90 percent of all jobs, and South Africa has tried to embrace the Chinese model by using its state firms as a motor to create employment in a country that suffers from chronic joblessness and mass poverty. Chronic unemployment President Jacob Zuma’s “New Growth Path” policy views SOEs, state spending and government direction as the best ways to create five million jobs over the next decade. Economists say South Africa would be better served averting its gaze from China and instead loosening its labour laws, cutting red tape, fixing a broken education system and using targeted tax cuts to help essential industries grow. But South African policymakers, many raised in the Labour movement and well-versed in Marx, have grown frustrated with Western economic models and do not believe the private sector is strong enough to reduce the 25 percent unemployment rate or nearly 50 percent poverty rate. “South African […]

The origins of the Joint Combat Aircraft (JCA) programme can be found in plans developed in the 1990s to replace our carrier-borne aircraft. The aircraft selected to meet the JCA requirement is the Lockheed Martin F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF). The JSF is an exceptionally capable fifth generation, multi-role, supersonic, stealthy aircraft containing cutting-edge technologies. It is the largest single aviation programme in US history.JCA capabilities will enable the UK to contribute, from the outset of a campaign, to a variety of missions against a high-threat integrated air defence system. Having emerged from the same Lockheed Martin stable as the F-117 Nighthawk and the F-22 Raptor, JSF’s technological pedigree is strong. Designed to penetrate high threat airspace – and detect, identify, locate and attack targets – JSF utilises a powerful combination of survivability, lethality and multi-spectral sensors. These capabilities extend JCA’s utility into areas not traditionally seen as the domain of combat aircraft. The advanced sensor fusion developed from the F-22 provides the pilot with an unrivalled picture of the battlespace across multiple spectrums. This information can be utilised immediately by the pilot or transmitted in real- or near-real-time directly to the ‘man on the ground.’ While the endurance and on-board processing power of strategic ISTAR platforms cannot be replaced by a single-seat manned fighter, the sensor performance and access afforded by JSF, in addition to its capability to deliver precision ordnance, make it a formidable Combat ISTAR platform and will significantly increase the probability of mission success. From 2018, […]

Federal regulators late on Wednesday charged a unit of Citigroup with negligence after they found it had sold $1bn worth of financial products linked to the flagging 2007 housing market. The bank’s Global Markets division had misled investors when it failed to inform them that the $1bn investment was doomed for failure, the SEC said. Director of the SEC’s enforcement unit, Robert Khuzami, said: “Investors were not informed that Citigroup had decided to bet against them and had helped select the assets that determined who won or lost.” Following the ruling, Citigroup agreed to pay $285m to settle the claims. It steps into the footsteps of Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan Chase which agreed to pay $550m and $153.6m respectively earlier this year.

China’s economic growth slowed down in 3Q11 to 9.1 percent, down from 9.5 percent in 2Q11 and 9.7 percent in 1Q11, the national Bureau of Statistics of China announced Tuesday.   According to the statement fixed asset investments remained high for the first three quarters of the year with an increase of 24.9 percent. Investments in real estate were down 0.9 percent compared with the first half of 2011. A solid domestic investment offset the country’s export reduction, the bureau said.   The Chinese government said results were in line with plans to moderate growth to a more maintainable level after it rose to 10.3 percent last year.