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資源大手、スリム化急ぐ 英アングロ・アメリカン8.5万人削減
nikkei.com
2015/12/9 0:50
【ロンドン=黄田和宏】世界の資源大手が資源価格の下落を受けて、大規模なリストラ策や投資の削減を急いでいる。英資源大手アングロ・アメリカンは8日、グループで8万5千人以上の人員を削減するリストラ策を発表。英豪リオ・ティントも同日、設備投資の見通しを引き下げる方針を打ち出した。新興国の需要減速で資源安が長期化することに備えて、資源大手は経営のスリム化を急いでいる。
アングロ・アメリカンは8日、投資家向け会議を開き、現在、13万人強の従業員数を5万人以下に削減するとの計画を明らかにした。保有資産の数も最大6割削減する計画だ。鉄鉱石やプラチナなどの資源価格が大幅に下落しており、資源安が財務を圧迫していることに対応するためだ。
同社のマーク・カティファニ最高経営責任者(CEO)は、「最優先の資産に資源を集約するため、大胆で戦略的な保有資産のリストラ策を加速させる」と説明した。資産の売却を進め、現在合意している20億ドルから40億ドルまで増やす方針。事業部門も6つから3つに集約する。
設備投資などの資本的支出も大幅に絞り込む。2017年の投資額は25億ドルと、14年と比べて5割以上削減する計画だ。金融市場では資源安を背景に資源大手の株価が大幅安となり、経営不安が高まっている。債務削減を急ぎ、市場の懸念を払拭する狙いだ。
シティグループのアナリスト、ヒース・ジャンセン氏は「リストラ策は予想された内容だが、いつまでに実施するかが懸念材料だ」と指摘し、なお警戒感は強い。8日のロンドン株式市場では同社の株価が一時1割以上下げた。
リオ・ティントも8日のロンドンでの投資家向け会議で、従来60億ドル以下としてきた16年のグループ全体の資本的支出を50億ドルに減らす方針を示した。15年の投資額も従来見通しを5億ドル下回る50億ドルにとどまった。
各社がリストラや投資の削減に動く背景には、資源価格に下げ止まりの兆しが一向に見えないためだ。鉄鉱石価格の国際指標価格は直近で1トン40ドルを割り込んだ。中国経済の成長鈍化により、鉄鋼需要が頭打ちになるとの懸念が広がっているほか、資源大手によるこれまでの増産の継続で供給過剰懸念も根強く、早急な対応を迫られている。
イスラム教国による対テロ連合、サウジ主導で結成
cnn.co.jp
2015.12.15 Tue posted at 18:52 JST
(CNN) サウジアラビアのムハンマド・ビン・サルマン国防相は15日までに、テロとの戦いでイスラム教国34カ国が協力する連合を結成したと発表した。
同国防相は過激派という「病」と戦うために団結が必要だと強調。過激派組織「イラク・シリア・イスラム国(ISIS)」が広い地域を支配するイラク、シリア両国をはじめ、エジプトのシナイ半島、イエメン、リビア、マリ、ナイジェリア、パキスタン、アフガニスタンなどがテロの被害を受けていると指摘し、「戦いには大きな努力が必要だ。今後は力を合わせて取り組んでいく」と述べた。
連合の作戦本部はサウジの首都リヤドに置く。
ISISに対する掃討作戦ではこれまで、米国主導の有志連合が空爆を実施してきた。全体の約8割は米軍による空爆で、欧州諸国やカナダ、オーストラリアがこれを支援している。
有志連合には中東諸国10カ国も参加しているものの、空爆の回数は公表していない。国防総省によれば、アラブ諸国の半数はイラクやシリアでの空爆を全く実施していないという。
ある米当局者によれば、バーレーンとヨルダンはこの数カ月空爆を全く行わず、サウジやアラブ首長国連邦も月1回前後にとどまっている。
新たな連合の結成により、こうした姿勢に変化が起きる可能性がある。ただ専門家によれば、サウジをはじめとするアラブ諸国は国内にも相当数のISIS支持者を抱えていることから、テロの危険を最小限に抑えるため表立った動きを控える傾向に変わりはないとも考えられる。
「対テロ」でイスラム34か国軍事連合、サウジ主導で結成
AFP BB News
2015年12月15日 19:19 発信地:リヤド/サウジアラビア
【12月15日 AFP】サウジアラビア政府は15日、イスラム世界において「テロリズム」と戦うために、ペルシャ湾岸諸国やエジプト、トルコなどを含む34か国による軍事連合の結成を発表した。
サウジ主導の軍事連合は、同国の首都リヤド(Riyadh)に拠点を置き、中東、アフリカ、アジア諸国が参加。「テロリズムと戦う軍事作戦を調整、支援する」と国営サウジ通信(SPA)が報じた。域内の対抗勢力であるイスラム教シーア派(Shiite)国のイラン、シリア、イラクは含まれていない。
同通信はさらに「テロリズムと戦い、世界の平和と安全を守る国際努力を支援するため、平和を愛する友好国や国際機関との連携により」協定を交わしていくとも伝えている。
リヤドで記者会見した、ムハンマド・ビン・サルマン(Mohammed bin Salman)国防相は、この軍事連合は「テロリズムに関するイスラム世界の問題に立ち向かい、この災禍に対する世界規模の戦いにおいて連携する」と語った。
参加34か国はすべてサウジのジッダ(Jeddah)に拠点があるイスラム協力機構(Organisation of Islamic Cooperation)の加盟国となっており、さらにインドネシアを含むその他の「イスラム教国」10か国以上が、同軍事連合への支持を表明しているという。(c)AFP/Ian Timberlake
LESBOS, Greece ― With its aqua-blue waters, olive-tree-studded hills and well-preserved ancient ruins, this jewel in the Aegean Sea can hardly be compared to an island built of landfill in the mouth of New York Harbor.
Yet in a year of unparalleled migration to Europe, Lesbos has been transformed from a quietly sublime slice of paradise to a modern-day Ellis Island. It’s the first port of call for a multiethnic, multinational tide of humanity seeking relief from war, persecution and poverty ― the funnel through which thousands pass daily in search of a better life.
In recent months, the extraordinary pace of landings here has rivaled the historic peaks on the island that for decades formed the main gateway to the United States and that is still known worldwide as a byword for immigration.
But unlike Ellis Island, which was developed by the U.S. government specifically to process new arrivals, Lesbos’s role has emerged largely by happenstance. The solutions to the crisis are a patchwork thrown together by aid organizations, volunteers and local authorities, with comparatively little evidence of help from the Greek government or the European Union.
“Who’s in charge?” said Lani Fortier, who leads the International Rescue Committee’s efforts in Lesbos. “There’s no answer.”
Despite recent improvements that have calmed a situation once defined by chaos and squalor, the infrastructure here for welcoming, screening and registering people on their way into Europe remains inadequate given expectations of another surge in numbers come spring.
Lesbos’s emergence as a global migration center, officials here say, is no short-term anomaly.
“This will continue for another two or three years ― at least,” said Marios Andriotios, spokesman for a beleaguered municipal government that has been crying out for help for much of this year. “We didn’t choose to be a hot spot in this crisis. The smugglers chose Lesbos.”
It’s easy to see why: Separated from the Turkish coast by a mere five miles, the island allows refugees and migrants to arrive here after a journey of hours on flimsy rubber dinghies, compared with the weeks people spent on giant steamships to reach Ellis Island. The new arrivals in the early 20th-century United States were largely fleeing from Europe; today, people are fleeing to Europe, having left behind a broad swath of man-made destruction stretching from South Asia to North Africa.
The boat bearing Husam Almasalmh to his new life came ashore in Lesbos soon after dawn one recent morning, just as the first light arced over the hazily blue Turkish mountains and splashed down into the crystal-clear waves lapping the Greek coast.
“My dream is real now!” the 19-year-old exulted as he ripped layers of packing tape ― a crude attempt at waterproofing ― from his cold, skinny legs.
But the culmination of Almasalmh’s journey from war-ravaged Syria to the peaceful sanctuary of Europe was just another Wednesday on Lesbos. As volunteers tended to a woman shivering uncontrollably from her hours at sea, a local couple walking their dog paused for a moment, then kept moving. Cars speeding to the nearby airport hardly braked.
Evidence of Lesbos’s transformation is everywhere. Buses that once ferried tourists to quiet coves now zip through the island day and night, transporting asylum seekers from remote landing spots to the central registration center, a barbed-wire-laden colossus set on a rocky hillside amid grazing sheep.
Lifeguards accustomed to standing watch over sunbathers now wade into the chilly surf in wet suits to ensure no one drowns as the heaving rubber boats motor onto shore.
In the shadow of a bronze Statue of Liberty look-alike ― her torch held aloft, her green gaze steady ― thousands of asylum seekers gather at the port clutching tickets affording them passage on a mega-ship bound for Athens.
Of the nearly 1 million refugees and migrants who have arrived in Europe by sea this year, 800,000 have come through the Greek islands. More than half of those have landed on Lesbos. That compares with just over 1 million arrivals during Ellis Island’s busiest year, 1907.
But the flows to Europe only began to surge in August. In October alone, 135,021 people landed here ― more than 10 times the total from all of last year.
Even now, when winter winds foam the sea, some 2,500 people arrive daily, more than the number who arrived during all of December last year. If spring begins on the same scale, officials say the island will be unprepared to cope.
At the moment, there are accommodations for just 2,800 people. But in October, daily arrivals peaked at more than 6,000 ― a number that could well be replicated in March or April.
“There needs to be a rapid expansion of the island’s capacity,” said Boris Cheshirkov, the Lesbos-based spokesman for the U.N.’s refugee agency, UNHCR. “We need to use winter to get ready.”
That process seems to be underway. The island’s two refugee camps have doubled in size in recent months, with hundreds of plastic, Ikea-made housing units replacing the worn canvas tents that had offered shade, but little else, through the summer and fall.
The new units will soon be equipped with wood floors and gas heaters to help ward off the rain and the cold as temperatures at night dip close to freezing. Bulldozers, meanwhile, are clearing land to make room for more, while plumbers install hot showers.
“We don’t have a resort here. We don’t have a five-star hotel. But we’re trying,” said Stavros Mirogiannis, the effusively affectionate retired military officer who was hired by the mayor to run a camp reserved for Syrian families. “I say to everyone who comes here, ‘Welcome to Europe.’ All these people are our guests, and we have to give them the best hospitality that we can.”
The fact that the camp is being managed at all is a relatively new development; for months, it was an anarchic sprawl of squalor that veteran international aid workers said was among the worst they had seen.
Now it is relatively clean and orderly, and it has won appreciation from its residents.
“I’d heard that Greece had many economic problems. I didn’t expect that they would treat us like friends,” said Mohammed Abdullah, a 44-year-old who said both his home and his electronics shop had been obliterated by bombs in Syria. “But they’re very nice. They gave us things to eat and a place to sleep. They’re treating us like human beings. There are good people in this world.”
The bus service, too, has dramatically changed life here, eliminating the need for new arrivals to trek 40 or more miles along twisting mountain roads.
And the presence of dozens of highly trained, professional lifeguards along the coast has undoubtedly helped to limit a death toll that had been rapidly climbing as the seas turned rougher.
“I didn’t want these refugees to come at first,” said Dimitris Amygdalos, a 26-year-old Greek lifeguard who has been volunteering on Lesbos. “But then I saw there are infants on the boats. There are children on the boats. They’re not terrorists, as most locals think. They are people almost like us who were thrown out of their country by their government and by ISIS. If that happened in Greece, I’d want another country to help us out.”
The government of Greece, beset by profound financial woes, is actually doing relatively little compared with the scale of the problem. The European Union, too, is hardly in evidence here, beyond the occasional visit from a passing dignitary.
The burden has instead fallen on local authorities, volunteers and a roll call of international aid organizations ― many of which have had to divert resources from the world’s poorest countries to a crisis on European shores.
“The E.U. is the richest union on earth. It should be managing this shoulder to shoulder with Greek authorities,” said Cheshirkov, the UNHCR spokesman.
At least in some areas, the E.U.’s presence is poised to expand. Following an emergency request from the Greek government, the European border-security agency Frontex announced Thursday that it would send additional boats to patrol Greek shores and officers to help screen and register new arrivals.
Frontex had already doubled the number of officers deployed to Lesbos since October. But E.U. member states had stalled on a further increase and will now be legally compelled to supply support that Frontex says is badly needed at a time of heightened security concerns. Two of the attackers in Paris last month traveled along the migrant trail through Greece using fake Syrian passports. Because of the continent’s visa-free Schengen zone, the Greek islands are effectively a border for all of Europe.
“The aim is that everyone who arrives here is thoroughly checked and registered. But we’re not there yet,” said Frontex spokeswoman Izabella Cooper. “The Paris attacks have only underlined the need to ensure that we know who is entering the E.U.”
Another E.U. initiative, meanwhile, is off to a slow start in Lesbos. The island is supposed to be a “hot spot” in which authorities sort those deemed eligible for asylum from those who aren’t.
The plan is critical to the E.U.’s strategy of reducing the number of people wending their way through Europe. But there is no infrastructure here to return failed asylum seekers to their home countries, and there are few takers on the E.U.’s offer to relocate those deemed eligible to member states across the continent.
Out of a planned 160,000 relocations, just 159 have been completed ― and only 30 from Greece. Although the system allows people to bypass the arduous journey that lies ahead after Lesbos, it can significantly delay their departure from the island and gives them no control over where they end up.
That wouldn’t work for Abdullah, the 44-year-old from Syria. His family has already been scattered by war: a wife and two children in Jordan, a son in Germany and Abdullah himself on an island in the Aegean. But not for long.
Only a day after his arrival, he was preparing to leave, with plans to follow the well-worn path up through the continent until he reached his destination: Germany.
“My son,” he said longingly, “will be there to meet me on the border.”
Griff Witte is The Post’s London bureau chief. He previously served as the paper’s deputy foreign editor and as the bureau chief in Kabul, Islamabad and Jerusalem. Follow @griffwitte
At first stop on Europe’s refugee trail, a 21st-century Ellis Island is born
NAIROBI ― The European Union on Wednesday announced the start of a $2 billion initiative to curb illegal migration from Africa, an ambitious program that aims to tackle the root causes of a historic flight of Africans to Europe.
The first $325 million in projects introduced Wednesday include efforts to increase employment in the migrants’ home countries and to tackle human trafficking in places such as Ethiopia and Somalia.
Much of Europe’s attention has been focused on the nearly 800,000 Syrian, Iraqi and other asylum-seekers who have entered Europe this year via Greece. But the number of people from sub-Saharan Africa crossing the Mediterranean has jumped, too: About 130,000 made the journey in 2015, compared with about 70,000 last year, according to the International Organization for Migration. They were driven from their homes by poverty and conflict, and attracted by the opportunities to reach Italy from nearby Libya, whose Mediterranean coast has been virtually unpatrolled since the 2011 overthrow of Moammar Gaddafi’s government.
The $2 billion E.U. Emergency Trust Fund for Africa was created last month to “address migration, mobility and forced displacement through concrete action,” said the E.U.’s commissioner for international cooperation and development, Neven Mimica.
Analysts were skeptical about whether the plan would have a major effect, given the range of reasons that so many Africans embark on the risky journey north. In Eritrea, one of the continent’s top sources of refugees, residents flee a repressive government and forced military service that can last for decades. In Somalia, they are escaping the terrorist group Al-Shabab and brutal fighting between clans. In much of the continent, they are leaving countries with limited job opportunities and seemingly endless poverty.
“If you’re looking at changing the way Africa’s economies work, [$2 billion] isn’t going to go very far,” said Tuesday Reitano, head of the secretariat of the Geneva-based Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime.
Few details of the new projects were available Wednesday. But according to an E.U. statement, they include a plan to develop employment opportunities in regions of Ethiopia from which migrants come; an effort to help Somali refugees return to parts of their country that are stable; and an initiative to combat migrant smuggling in the Horn of Africa.
Many African governments have done little to curb migration to Europe, in part because migrant remittances can comprise a significant portion of their countries’ GDP. Last year, workers from sub-Saharan Africa sent home more than $11.2 billion from Europe, according to the World Bank.
In recent months, the E.U. has debated attacking smugglers’ ships and conducting intelligence-led operations in places such as Niger, on the migrant trail to Libya, but such plans have rarely been enacted. Efforts to improve law enforcement in key cities along that trail have also had limited success. In Agadez, Niger, for example, a Post reporter found this summer that a military vehicle was leading a convoy of smugglers and migrants into the Sahara once a week.
Many analysts say that the surge in migrants from Africa reflects the continent’s most entrenched problems ― including civil wars and economies that have not created enough jobs for a rapidly growing population.
“Internal African policies tend to push people out,” said Mohamed Yahya, the Africa regional program coordinator for the United Nations Development Program. “Will the trust fund end this? I don’t think so.”
Under the E.U. plan, 23 African countries deemed the “most fragile and those most affected by migration” will be eligible for the funds, which would be disbursed through 2020. Eritrea was included on the list, despite calls from activists to withhold funding because of its poor human-rights record.
“The fast-tracked approval of today’s new projects proves that this is not business as usual,” Mimica said.
There was no sign that the E.U. is willing to dramatically expand the number of work visas it offers to sub-Saharan Africans ― something sought by many officials on the continent who see their compatriots taking risky, expensive journeys because the legal route is nearly inaccessible. Nearly 3,000 people have died crossing from Libya to Europe this year, and most of them are thought to be sub-Saharan Africans.
“The legal channels right now are extremely restrictive,” Yahya said. “For an African to get a visa to go to Europe is the most humiliating process.”
The E.U. has said it will expand the number of university scholarships it offers to sub-Saharan Africans, but that there would likely be a limited increase in the total number of visas.
Other officials in Africa called the trust fund a welcome start, but highlighted just how massive the need is in places where asylum seekers are making the choice to leave for Europe or elsewhere.
“To meet only the most basic needs of displaced persons in North Nigeria would require $1 per person per day ― a staggering $2 million in total per day,” wrote Bukola Saraki, president of the Nigerian Senate, in the Financial Times this month. He added that the cost of rebuilding northwestern Borno state, which has been ravaged by radical Islamist group Boko Haram, has been put at $1 billion.
E.U. launches $2 billion plan to keep Africans from migrating
「パリ協定」、世界の700組織が支援表明
nikkei.com
2015/12/17 12:09
【パリ=浅沼直樹】12日に閉幕した第21回国連気候変動枠組み条約締約国会議(COP21)で採択された地球温暖化対策の2020年以降の新枠組み「パリ協定」について、世界の都市や企業、投資家など約700の組織が16日、協定の実施を支援すると表明した。気候変動に対応するための変革も加速する。
支援を約束したのはニューヨークやロンドンなどの都市と米マイクロソフト、独保険大手アリアンツなど。日本からは東京都や横浜市、富士通、リコー、武田薬品工業、帝人、東芝などが加わった。
COP21の議長を務めたファビウス仏外相は「国家以外のリーダーシップがCOP21の成功に加え、低炭素社会や気候変動に強靱(きょうじん)な未来への移行の鍵となる」と話した。
OPEC原油供給の「復権」予想 2040年に3割増も
asahi.com
ミラノ=寺西和男2015年12月23日23時24分
中東などの産油国でつくる石油輸出国機構(OPEC)は23日に発表した世界石油見通しで、OPECの原油供給量が2040年には日量4070万バレルと14年から3割以上の大幅増となる見通しを示した。非加盟国の供給量(同3950万バレル)を上回るとしている。シェアが下がり影響力の低下が指摘されるOPECの「復権」を予想した。
OPECの原油供給量は14年は同3千万バレルで、ロシアなどの非加盟国の同4270万バレルを下回っている。見通しでは非加盟国の供給量は25年の同4440万バレルをピークに減少する一方、OPECは20年以降、右肩上がりで増え続け、40年には逆転するとしている。
OPECは1970年代には世界の原油生産の5割を超えることもあったが、今は4割ほど。一部の加盟国がさらなるシェアの低下を警戒し、今月初めの総会では減産の見送りを決めるなど、価格調整での役割低下が指摘されている。(ミラノ=寺西和男)
「次のエボラ熱」流行警戒 WHOが危険な感染症リスト
nikkei.com
2015/12/31 0:02
2015年にエボラ出血熱や中東呼吸器症候群(MERS)の流行が相次いだことを受け、世界保健機関(WHO)はこのほど、近い将来に流行し多くの人命を奪う恐れのある「危険な感染症リスト」を公表し、各国に警戒を呼び掛けた。エボラ熱の対応が遅すぎると批判を受けたWHOは、早めの対策で「次のエボラ熱」の流行を防ぎたい考えだ。
リストに挙がったのはエボラ熱とMERSのほかクリミア・コンゴ出血熱、マールブルグ病、ラッサ熱、新型肺炎(SARS)、ニパウイルス感染症、リフトバレー熱。
これらの病気は現在、有効な治療法がほとんど確立されていない。エボラ熱やMERSが流行した際にもワクチンなどが開発されておらず多くの死者を出した教訓から、WHOはこれらの病気の治療法など研究開発が急務だと警告している。
リストは今月、科学者や公衆衛生の専門家らがジュネーブに集まって選定した。今後、毎年見直される予定という。
クリミア・コンゴ出血熱とマールブルグ病、ラッサ熱はエボラ熱と同じウイルス性出血熱で死亡率が高い。SARSはMERSを引き起こすウイルスと同じ仲間であるコロナウイルスによる感染症。ニパウイルス感染症は1990年代末にマレーシアに出現。リフトバレー熱は蚊を介して羊などの家畜から人間に感染するウイルス性の熱病。
WHOはほかにチクングニア熱、マダニが媒介するウイルス性感染症「重症熱性血小板減少症候群(SFTS)」、ジカ熱も深刻だとして、研究開発が急がれると指摘した。
(ジュネーブ=共同)