The_Wall_Street_Journal_Asia__September_13_2016

A4| Tuesday, September 13, 2016 HK JPKOML SI IN UKFR MNPR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.

WORLD NEWS

UNITED KINGDOM

David Cameron

To Leave Parliament

Former U.K. Prime Minister

David Cameron announced he is

stepping down as a member of

Parliament, ending a 15-year ca-

reer as a British lawmaker.

Mr. Cameron said he didn’t

want his presence in Parliament

to be a distraction for the U.K.’s

new administration.

Mr. Cameron served as Brit-

ish prime minister from 2010

until late June, when he resigned

from the post after losing a ref-

erendum on Britain’s continued

membership of the European

Union. The 49-year-old had led

the campaign to preserve the

U.K.’s membership, but Britons

sided with those advocating

Britain’s exit by 52% to 48%.

Mr. Cameron is the member

of Parliament for Witney in Ox-

fordshire, England. His resigna-

tion will trigger a special election

to succeed him.

—Jason Douglas

INDIA

Industrial Output

Contracted in July

India reported an unexpected

contraction in industrial produc-

WATER WARS: India’s top court ordered Karnataka state to release water from a disputed river to

neighboring Tamil Nadu. In this photo, an Indian police officer and his detainee walk past burning

trucks that belong to Tamil Nadu state, which were set ablaze by angry mobs in Bangalore.

AIJAZ RAHI/ASSOCIATED PRESS

Wo r l d

Watch

tion in July, although consumer

inflation eased more than pre-

dicted in August, providing a

mixed picture of the health of

the South Asian economy.

Output of manufacturing,

mining and utility companies fell

2.4% from a year earlier, revers-

ing a 2% increase in June. The

median forecast of 14 econo-

mists polled by The Wall Street

Journal was for a 1.3% rise.

The weak reading under-

scores concerns over the

strength of the South Asian

economy despite the broader

gross domestic product data

showing robust expansion.

Separate data also issued

Monday showed consumer infla-

tion in August declined to 5.05%

year over year, from 6.07% in

July, thanks to a slower rise in

food prices.

The significant easing could

build the case for the central

bank to resume lowering inter-

est rates, as industry groups

complain about high borrowing

costs that are crimping invest-

ments and consumer demand.

—Anant Vijay Kala

FRANCE

Hollande Moves

To Safeguard Factory

French President François

Hollande ordered his government

to prop up Alstom’s Belfort fac-

tory after the high-speed train

maker said it plans to close pro-

duction at the emblematic site

because of weak demand.

The sprawling Belfort indus-

trial site near the German and

Swiss borders has regularly been

threatened by closure, making it

a political battleground for lead-

ers hoping to show they have a

solution to France’s industrial de-

cline.

“The president gave us one

single goal: maintaining train ac-

tivities at the Belfort site,”

French Economy and Finance

Minister Michel Sapin said Mon-

day after attending a meeting

with the president. A spokes-

woman declined to comment on

Mr. Hollande’s decision.

By reviving the French gov-

ernment’s interventionism, Mr.

Hollande is launching a last-gasp

effort to outflank his rivals in

the presidential 2017 election by

positioning himself as a leading

guardian of French industry.

However, the government will

have to tread carefully, as the

European Commission prohibits

direct or indirect state aid to pri-

vate companies.

Many of Mr. Hollande’s poten-

tial rivals in the 2017 have built

reputations as protectors of Al-

stom and the Belfort site, which

became a home for French train

makers fleeing the Alsace-Lor-

raine territory when it was an-

nexed by Germany in 1871.

— Inti Landauro

and William Horobin

UNITED KINGDOM

Shafik Quits to Join

Economics School

One of the Bank of England’s

four deputy governors is to

leave more than two years be-

fore the end of her term to be-

come director of the London

School of Economics.

The U.K.’s central bank Mon-

day announced the surprise de-

parture of Minouche Shafik, who

will leave her position as deputy

governor for markets and bank-

ing in February, before joining

the LSE in September after a

“cooling off” period.

Ms. Shafik was recruited by

the central bank in 2014, having

been a deputy managing director

at the International Monetary

Fund. Her term was due to end

in July 2019.

On joining the institution, her

main task was to lead the Fair

and Effective Markets Review,

which was a response to a se-

ries of high-profile scandals in

London’s financial district, includ-

ing the fixing of interest rate

benchmarks and similar manipu-

lation of foreign-exchange rates.

—Paul Hannon

YEMEN

Strikes on Well

Reportedly Kill 30

Saudi-led airstrikes on a wa-

ter well in northern Yemen re-

portedly killed 30 people and

wounded 17, a U.N. official said

Monday, making it one of the

deadliest attacks since peace

talks collapsed a month ago.

The U.N. Humanitarian Coor-

dinator for Yemen, Jamie McGol-

drick, said in a statement that

the casualties in the village of

Beit Saadan included first re-

sponders and children. The

strikes took place on Saturday,

on the eve of the Muslim holi-

day of Eid al-Adha.

—Associated Press

their fear of the power of the

Islamic Republic’s soldiers.”

Gen. Jazayeri was respond-

ing to concerns voiced by U.S.

officials about near-confron-

tations between U.S. ships

and Iranian vessels in and

around the Persian Gulf.

In one such incident last

month, a U.S. Navy spokes-

man said, four vessels from

Iran’s Revolutionary Guard

Corps approached an Ameri-

can destroyer at high speed,

ignoring radio communica-

tions and other warnings. Ira-

nian boats also made a close

approach to an American ship

in the Strait of Hormuz in

July.

While interactions between

Iranian and U.S. ships are

common, American officials

have raised growing alarm re-

cently about the risk of an es-

calation at sea between the

two rivals.

Gen. Jazayeri, however,

said American claims of close

approaches weren’t accurate.

“When Iranian vessels pass

the Americans a few kilome-

ters from them, they claim

that the Iranian boats have

come within one kilometer,”

he said.

A U.S. defense official said

videos taken by U.S. crews

show just how close Iranian

ships get to American ships.

The Pentagon said that about

10% of the “normal interac-

tions” are considered by the

U.S. to be “unprofessional” or

“unsafe.”

Iran has just as much right

as anyone else to operate in

international waters, Gen. Joe

Votel, head of the U.S. Central

Command, said last month.

“What I call on Iran to do is

be the professional force that

they claim to be.”

Iran has long asserted its

dominance over the Persian

Gulf, and incidents involving

U.S. claims about Iranian

vessels veering dangerously

close to American warships

were exaggerated and

stemmed from fear of Iran’s

power, a spokesman for Iran’s

armed forces said.

“The Islamic Republic’s

vessels always act in full

awareness of international

rules and regulations and

based on defined norms,”

Brig. Gen. Masoud Jazayeri

said Sunday, according to the

official Islamic Republic News

Agency. “Therefore the

[American] claims are not

only untrue, but stem from

BYARESUEQBALI

ANDASAFITCH

Iran Denies Ships

Harass U.S. in Gulf

Tehran says Pentagon

claims are inflated

and stem from U.S.

fear of its power

its ships in the key oil-ship-

ping waterway have prolifer-

ated over the years.

In January, Iran captured

two small U.S. Navy boats af-

ter they strayed into Iranian

territorial waters. The 10

crew members were held

briefly and released, but the

incident heightened tensions

in the region just days before

Iran’s nuclear deal took effect.

The destroyer USS Nitze, in a photo provided by the U.S. Navy.

US NAVY/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES

Boethdy Angkasa, the agri-

culture ministry’s coordinator

for the sacrifices, said the cost

of transporting animals to the

big cities has long been one of

the biggest contributors to the

annual uptick in prices.

In recent years, the ministry

has sent advisers to help farm-

ers boost production, provid-

ing them with guidelines on

how to better care for live-

stock and breed more robust

animals that can better with-

stand the journey to Jakarta

and other cities.

Technology plays a role,

too. Online markets have

helped match buyers and sell-

ers more efficiently, helping to

keep a lid on price increases.

“Beef is still considered

quite a luxury here,” Mr. Ang-

kasa said. “The government

wants to push down prices so

it’s more accessible.”

Indonesia’s softening econ-

omy may have contributed to

this year’s relatively modest

price rises. Lower prices for

commodities such as palm oil,

coal and natural gas mean

household spending isn’t

growing as rapidly as before.

That is disappointing peo-

ple such as Marjono. The live-

stock farmer said he traveled

nearly 280 miles (450 kilome-

ters) from his home in central

Java to a market in southern

Jakarta to sell about 100 goats

and eight head of cattle. He

left Monday with two goats

and one cow unsold.

“It was OK this year, but I

sold more last year—175 goats

and 10 cows,” said Mr. Mar-

jono, who goes by one name.

JAKARTA — Indonesians

slaughtered over 600,000 ani-

mals on Monday, nearly one-

tenth of the livestock normally

butchered in a year, as they

marked Eid al-Adha, one of the

holiest celebrations in the Is-

lamic calendar.

In a modest success for the

country’s bureaucrats, the in-

crease in prices due to soaring

demand for livestock wasn’t as

great as in previous years.

Preparations for the festi-

val, which marks the prophet

Abraham’s willingness to sacri-

fice his son to God, began

early. People converged at

mosques or open fields to pray

before slaughtering cows,

sheep, goats and buffalo. In

some areas, alleys ran red with

blood before devotees distrib-

uted packages of meat to

neighbors or to the poor.

The Ministry of Agriculture

deployed 1,600 people across

greater Jakarta to help oversee

the rituals at over 9,000 sites.

The weeks before Eid al-

Adha are difficult for officials

in Indonesia. Some 650,

animals were expected to be

butchered around the festival

this year; the scale of the

slaughter can lead to logistical

headaches and soaring prices.

The cost of the two most

popular offerings, cattle and

goats, rose as much as 30% in

the run-up to the holiday, with

some cattle reaching prices as

high as $1,300 a head. In pre-

vious years, though, prices

have risen more; in 2014, they

surged 35%.

BYANITARACHMAN

Indonesia’s Busiest

Day for Butchers

Aung San Suu Kyi will visit

President Barack Obama at the

White House on Wednesday, a

move that will affirm the for-

mer dissident’s role as Myan-

mar’s de facto leader and re-

new the question of whether

Washington is ready to drop

its remaining sanctions on the

country.

Her arrival in the U.S. will

also cast a spotlight on Mr.

Obama’s efforts to cement his

administration’s pivot to Asia

in his final months in office.

Both sides have been pre-

paring the ground for the

visit. Ms. Suu Kyi last month

visited China, Myanmar’s most

important neighbor and trade

partner, where she worked to

help restore relations after a

fraught few years during

which Myanmar tilted more

toward the West after its mili-

tary began a series of political

reforms.

Ms. Suu Kyi has also moved

to tackle some of the ethnic

tensions that accompanied

this political liberalization.

This month she met with for-

mer United Nations Secretary-

General Kofi Annan, who she

invited to lead an advisory

commission investigating vio-

lence in Rakhine state. More

than 100 ethnic Rohingya

Muslims were killed there dur-

ing sectarian rioting in 2012;

thousands tried to escape by

boat to Malaysia or Thailand.

The U.S., in an effort to

spur trade, eased some of its

economic sanctions on Myan-

mar in May after Ms. Suu Kyi’s

National League for Democ-

racy won elections in Novem-

ber. It introduced general li-

censes, or waivers, that make

it easier for American compa-

nies or individuals to do busi-

ness in Myanmar. It also re-

moved seven state-owned

enterprises and three state-

owned banks from a blacklist

of companies prohibited from

doing business with the U.S.,

while adding an additional

six—all controlled by business-

man Steven Law and his Asia

World conglomerate.

It is unclear whether the

U.S.—or Myanmar, for that

matter—would like to see the

sanctions relaxed further.

“It’s something that we

continue to look at, because

the purpose of the sanctions

regime was to support a dem-

ocratic transition, and some of

the sanctions even were tied

to the treatment of Ms. Suu

Kyi specifically,” deputy na-

tional-security adviser Ben

Rhodes told reporters during

Mr. Obama’s visit to Laos last

week.

Some of Ms. Suu Kyi’s ad-

visers, meanwhile, suggest

that sanctions shouldn’t be

fully lifted: They need them to

exert pressure on Myanmar’s

military, which still controls

the important defense and in-

terior ministries and effec-

tively shares power with Ms.

Suu Kyi’s administration.

One of her party’s biggest

gripes is a legal ban on Ms.

Suu Kyi becoming president

because her two adult sons

are foreign nationals—a con-

stitutional prohibition intro-

duced by the military and

that can be removed only

with the support of the 25%

voting bloc that the army

controls in parliament.

Instead, Ms. Suu Kyi offi-

cially fills the specially created

role of state counselor. Her

visit to the White House, con-

firmed by Mr. Obama during

an Asian leaders’ summit last

week, helps to underscore her

role as Myanmar’s leader irre-

spective of whether she has

the title of president, which is

held by her nominee, Htin

Kyaw.

Some human-rights groups,

including Human Rights

Watch, have called on Wash-

ington to maintain its remain-

ing sanctions on the country

to deter the military from

backsliding on political re-

forms.

BYJAMESHOOKWAY

Suu Kyi’s Visit to Test U.S. Pivot

Ms. Suu Kyi at a summit in Vientiane, Laos, this month. She will visit Mr. Obama on Wednesday.

ROSLAN RAHMAN/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES

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