HSBC China services PMI falls, slowdown spreads (Reuters)

BEIJING (Reuters) ? The HSBC Purchasing Managers' Index for China's services sector fell to 52.5 from 54.1 in November, signalling its slowest rate of growth in three months and the latest in a series of data points portraying a quickly cooling economy in need of policy support.

"With price pressures easing further, Beijing can and should use policies that are targeted on small businesses and service sectors to keep GDP growth at above 8 percent for the coming year," Hongbin Qu, HSBC's chief China economist, said in a statement.

The fall in the HSBC gauge is sharp given that October's reading was 54.1 -- the strongest growth in four months -- though the index still remains above the 50 level that separates expansion from contraction in the sector.

China's official PMI for its non-manufacturing sector fell to 49.7 in November from 57.7 in October, the China Federation of Logistics and Purchasing said on Saturday.

The readings mirror similar weakness in the country's giant manufacturing sector and underline expectations that Beijing will ease monetary policy further to cushion the blows of the global economy.

PMI data in the past week has shown that both domestic and export orders are weakening, helping explain the central bank's decision last week to cut reserve requirements for commercial lenders for the first time in three years.

The move to free up cash was a signal that the central bank was shifting toward loosening monetary policy to support the economy, which is widely expected to grow next year at less than 9 percent for the first time in a decade, economists said.

Some economists are reluctant to read too much significance into the services indexes given their volatility, lack of seasonal adjustments, simple calculation methodology and their consequently weaker predictive power.

For instance the reading of 49.7 in China's official November was an 8 point plunge from October, but smaller than the 9.5 point average since 2007, the starting point for this series, according to Tim Condon, head of Asian economic research at ING in Singapore.

Past performance suggests that half that decline will be recovered in December, leaving the index in the mid-50s, though that is well below the near-60 level it has been at for most of the last 18 months and a clear sign of a slowing economy.

"The weakness in the manufacturing sector is spreading to the non-manufacturing economy. We think the policy fine-tuning also will spread," ING's Condon said.

(Reporting by Zhou Xin and Nick Edwards; Editing by Ken Wills)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/china/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111205/bs_nm/us_china_economy_pmi_services

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'Down with America': Pakistanis protest deadly strike

KARACHI, Pakistan ?? Thousands gathered outside the American Consulate in Karachi on Sunday to protest against a NATO cross-border air attack that killed 24 Pakistani troops and is threatening a strategic alliance between the countries.

A Reuters reporter at the scene said the angry crowd shouted "Down with America". One young man climbed on the wall surrounding the heavily fortified compound and attached a Pakistani flag to barbed wire.

The NATO attack was the latest perceived provocation by the United States, which infuriated Pakistan's powerful military with a unilateral U.S. special forces raid that killed al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden in May.

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NATO helicopters and fighter jets based in Afghanistan attacked two Pakistan military outposts on Saturday , killing the soldiers in what Pakistan said was an unprovoked assault.

However, Reuters reported Sunday that Afghan and NATO forces had come under cross-border fire prior to the airstrike. It cited a Western official as well as a senior Afghan security official.

Pakistan also ordered the U.S. to vacate an air base that is used by American drones to target al-Qaida and Taliban militants in the country's tribal region along the Afghan border. The U.S. has relied heavily on drone strikes in the past few years, partly out of frustration with Pakistan's refusal to target militants using its territory to stage attacks against American and NATO troops in Afghanistan.

"America is attacking our borders. The government should immediately break ties with it," said Naseema Baluch, a housewife attending the Karachi demonstration. "America wants to occupy our country but we will not let it do that."

U.S. and NATO officials are trying to defuse tensions but the soldiers' deaths are testing a bad marriage of convenience between Washington and Islamabad.

"This was a tragic unintended incident," NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said in a statement, adding that he fully supported a NATO investigation that was under way. We will determine what happened, and draw the right lessons."

Video: White House treads lightly around Pakistan situation (on this page)

That is unlikely to cool tempers. Many Pakistanis believe their army is fighting a war against militants that only serves Western interests and hurts their country.

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"U.S. stabs Pakistan in the back, again," said a headline in the Daily Times, reflecting fury over the attack in Pakistan, a regional power seen as critical to U.S. efforts to stabilize neighboring Afghanistan.

Pakistan on Sunday buried the troops killed in the attack.

'Deep sense of rage'
Television stations showed the coffins draped in green and white Pakistani flags in a prayer ceremony at the headquarters of the regional command in Peshawar attended by army chief General Ashfaq Kayani.

Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar spoke with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton by telephone early on Sunday to convey "the deep sense of rage felt across Pakistan".

"This negates the progress made by the two countries on improving relations and forces Pakistan to revisit the terms of engagement," a Foreign Ministry statement quoted Khar as telling her U.S. counterpart.

Video: Pakistan blaming NATO for soldiers' deaths (on this page)

Pakistan shut down NATO supply routes into Afghanistan ? used for sending in nearly half of the alliance's land shipments ? in retaliation for the worst such attack since Islamabad uneasily allied itself with Washington following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.

Tensions could rise further if militants unleash attacks against the stranded trucks.

Suspected militants destroyed around 150 trucks and injured drivers and police a year ago after Pakistan closed one of its Afghan border crossings to NATO supplies for about 10 days in retaliation for a U.S. helicopter attack that accidentally killed two Pakistani soldiers.

The situation could be more dire this time because Pakistan, outraged at the alleged NATO attack before dawn Saturday, has closed both its crossings. Nearly 300 trucks carrying coalition supplies are now backed up at Torkham in the northwest Khyber tribal area and Chaman in southwestern Baluchistan province. Last year, Pakistan only closed Torkham.

"We are worried," said driver Saeed Khan, speaking by telephone from the border terminal in Torkham. "This area is always vulnerable to attacks. Sometimes rockets are lobbed at us. Sometimes we are targeted by bombs."

NATO ships nearly 50 percent of its non-lethal supplies to its troops in Afghanistan through Pakistan.

Meanwhile, about 500 members of Jamaat-e-Islami, Pakistan's most influential religious party, staged a protest in Mohmand tribal area, where the NATO attack took place.

"Jihad is the only answer to America", they yelled.

Pakistan is reviewing whether it will go ahead with plans to attend a major international conference in Bonn next month on the future of Afghanistan in light of the NATO attack.

Around 40 troops were stationed at the outposts at the time of the attack, military sources said.

"They without any reasons attacked on our post and killed soldiers asleep," a senior Pakistani officer told Reuters.

Slideshow: Pakistan: A nation in turmoil (on this page)

Pakistan responded with unusually strong condemnations and said it reserved the right to retaliate.

U.S. ties with Pakistan have suffered several big setbacks starting with the unilateral U.S. special forces raid in May that killed bin Laden in a Pakistani town where he had apparently been living for years.

Pakistan condemned the secret operation as a flagrant violation of its sovereignty, while suspicions arose in Washington that members of Pakistan's military intelligence had harbored the al-Qaida leader.

Unreliable ally?
The military came under unprecedented criticism from both Pakistanis who said it failed to protect the country and American officials who said bin Laden's presence was proof the country was an unreliable ally in the war on militancy.

Slideshow: After the raid: Inside bin Laden's compound (on this page)

Pakistan's army, one of the world's largest, may see the NATO incursion from Afghanistan as a chance to reassert itself, especially since the deaths of the soldiers are likely to unite generals and politicians, whose ties are normally uneasy.

Pakistan's jailing of a CIA contractor, Raymond Davis, and U.S. accusations that Pakistan backed a militant attack on the U.S. embassy in Kabul have added to the tensions.

"From Raymond Davis and his gun slinging in the streets of Lahore to the Osama bin Laden incident, and now to the firing on Pakistani soldiers on the volatile Pakistan-Afghan border, things hardly seem able to get any worse," said the Daily Times.

Story: Woman named Pakistan envoy to United States

Islamabad depends on billions in U.S. aid and Washington believes Pakistan can help it bring about peace in Afghanistan ahead of a combat troop withdrawal at the end of 2014.

But it is constantly battling Anti-American sentiment over everything from U.S. drone aircraft strikes to Washington's calls for economic reforms.

"We should end our friendship with America. It's better to have animosity with America than friendship. It's nobody's friend," said laborer Sameer Baluch.

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45452110/ns/world_news-south_and_central_asia/

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