China growth unsustainable on all counts

China's growth model, based on the West's economic model with its massive appetite for resources and increasing environmental degradation is unsustainable and will have to change, a leading environmentalist said. Lester Brown, head of the Washington-based Earth Policy Institute, told reporters in Beijing that China's current path could not be maintained at either the national or international level.

"The Western economic model - the fossil fuel based, automobile-centered, throwaway economy - will not work for China," Brown said. "If it doesn't work for China, it will not work for India or the three billion other people in developing countries who are also dreaming the American dream."

Brown, in Beijing to promote the Chinese edition of his new book, "Plan B 2.0, Rescuing a Planet Under Stress," said China had overtaken the United States as the leading consumer of most basic commodities and would soon face major shortages. "Among the five basic food, energy and industrial commodities - grain and meat, oil and coal and steel - consumption in China has eclipsed that of the United States in all but oil," he said.

On oil, Brown pointed to a similar scenario of simply not having enough to meet China's demands. "If oil consumption per person reaches the US level by 2031, China will use 99 million barrels a day. "The world is currently producing 84 million barrels a day and may never produce much more."

"Environmental scientists have been saying for some time that the global economy is being slowly undermined by environmental trends of human origin," Brown said. Coupled with climate change, Brown said that "we may be approaching the point of no return." To avert disaster, the world must embrace renewable energy, move to eradicate poverty, stabilize populations and restore natural systems, he said.

Sun Microsystems to cut up to 5000 jobs

news.yahoo.com :

Sun Microsystems Inc, which has struggled in recent years to turn a profit and boost revenue, said it would cut up to 5,000 jobs, or 13 percent of its workforce, over the next six months. Since the implosion of the dot-com and telecommunications investment bubbles in 2000 and 2001, Sun has suffered more than rivals IBM and Dell as the market moved to cheaper servers using Intel-compatible chips and the Linux operating system.

Some analysts had called for cuts of 12,000 or more among Sun's 37,500 staff. Sun said all its moves should yield annual savings of $480 million to $590 million. Sun has cut 11,000 jobs since the downturn, excluding those announced on Wednesday, but that was not enough for Wall Street.

channelnewsasia.com :

Sun Microsystems said it will cut 4,000 to 5,000 jobs in the next six months and sell some facilities in a restructuring to save the troubled maker of computer servers up to 590 million dollars a year. Sun said that in addition to cutting the jobs over the next six months, it would sell its campus in Newark, California, and its leased facilities in Sunnyvale, California.

The job cuts of between 11 and 13 percent of its workforce will leave Sun with between 32,500 and 33,500 employees. The cuts come a little more than a month after Jonathan Schwartz took over as chief executive of Sun from Scott McNealy, who remains chairman, to turn the company around as it competes with rivals such as Hewlett-Packard Co.

(2006-06-01 08:37:23 SGT) [Biz] Permalink

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