Archive for category World News
China on the Defensive After Obama’s Climate Speech
Posted by admin in Political Mix, World News on December 19th, 2009
Market Mix Up
by Kent Garber - Dec. 18, 2009
USNews.com
COPENHAGEN—As international climate talks drag into the night, the United States is publicly and privately pressuring China to share more information about its carbon emissions. And that is putting China on the defensive.
Both President Barack Obama and Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao addressed world leaders this morning, in what was supposed to be the final days of talks. But they struck sharply different tones in their speeches, and it now appears that Wen was offended by Obama’s words.
Obama met with Wen this afternoon and, according to reports, sought a second meeting this evening after the premier walked away from negotiations.
The immediate source of conflict appears to have been part of Obama’s speech. Speaking deliberately, with long pauses, Obama told leaders to stop squabbling over a deal or risk having “the same stale arguments, month after month, year after year, perhaps decade after decade.”
He seemed annoyed, even accusatory, at times, admonishing some leaders for naively insisting on getting a perfect treaty and refusing to compromise. “We know the fault lines because we’ve been imprisoned by them for years,” he said. “We have very little to show for it.”
And in what was probably the most inflammatory part, at least from China’s view, Obama said, “I don’t know how you have an international agreement where we are all not sharing information . . . . That doesn’t make sense. It would be a hollow victory.”
Even before Obama spoke, Wen appeared defensive, as if compelled to address the charge that China is impeding an agreement. For several minutes he ticked off China’s progress on green energy. From 2005 to 2008, he said, “China has enjoyed the fastest growth of renewable energy” in the world. China, he added, now ranks first in the world in terms of installed hydropower and nuclear plants under construction.
Wen reminded leaders there is general acceptance that China, as a developing country, should not be held to the same emissions standards as the developed world. “China has a 1.3 billion population,” he said. “According to U.N. standards, we still have 150 million people living below the poverty line. We therefore face the arduous task of developing the economy and improving people’s lives.”
In general, the United States agrees with that assessment. But Obama said China must beef up its emissions monitoring and reporting, calling it a necessary step for a credible accord on greenhouse gas emissions. (Obama’s call also has a political dimension, because Senate Democrats say they will struggle to pass a climate bill without verifiable assurances that China is serious about curbing emissions.)
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The Countries Most Known for Corruption
Posted by admin in Mixed Economy, World News on December 6th, 2009
by Phyllis Korkki - Dec. 5, 2009
The New York Times
When a business or individual can skirt the law by paying bribes to corrupt officials, the playing field becomes uneven, making the economy vulnerable. According to the newest Corruption Perceptions Index from Transparency International, perceived levels of corruption are highest in countries where government infrastructure is lacking.
Defining corruption as “the abuse of entrusted power for private gain,” Transparency International ranked 180 countries by interviewing experts and business people both inside and outside each country.
“Fragile, unstable states that are scarred by war and ongoing conflict linger at the bottom of the index,” Transparency International says. On a scale of 1 to 10, where 10 is seen as the least corrupt, Somalia comes in dead last with a score of 1.1. Afghanistan and Myanmar rank almost as low.
And the country perceived as being the least likely to foster corruption, at least according to the index, is New Zealand, followed by Denmark, Singapore and Sweden.
Fellow Iraqi turns tables on Bush shoe-thrower
Posted by admin in Political Mix, World News on December 3rd, 2009
by Sophie Hardach - Dec. 2, 2009 3:44 PM est
Reuters.com
PARIS (Reuters) - An Iraqi reporter imprisoned for throwing his shoes at President George W. Bush found himself on the receiving end of a similar footwear attack in Paris Tuesday.
Muntazer al-Zaidi, whose flare-up against Bush last December turned into a symbol of Iraqi anger, was speaking at a news conference to promote his campaign for victims of the war in Iraq when a man in the audience hurled a shoe at him.
It hit the wall next to his head and a scuffle ensued in the audience, television footage showed.
French media said the attacker was an exiled Iraqi journalist who spoke in defense of U.S. policy, accusing Zaidi of siding with a dictatorship, before throwing his shoe.
Zaidi’s own outburst summed up the feelings of many Iraqis about the U.S. military invasion of their country and the ensuing bloodshed and sectarian killing.
Millions of people around the world saw images of him shouting “this is a goodbye kiss from the Iraqi people, dog,” during a news conference by the former U.S. leader, before throwing his shoes at him.
Zaidi, a television reporter, was sentenced to three years’ imprisonment for assaulting a head of state. This was later reduced to one year and he was released in September.
He has alleged that he was tortured by guards after his arrest.
(Reporting by Sophie Hardach; editing by Andrew Dobbie)
From troops, mixed reaction to plan
Posted by admin in Mix Up TV, Political Mix, World News on December 2nd, 2009
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
BOJ to Provide 10 Trillion Yen in Emergency Credit
Posted by admin in Financial Market, World News on December 1st, 2009
By Mayumi Otsuma
Dec. 1 (Bloomberg) — The Bank of Japan said it’s ready to pump more money into the financial system after unveiling a 10 trillion yen ($115 billion) program to help an economy battered by falling prices and the yen’s surge to a 14-year high.
“If there is a shortage of liquidity we are prepared to provide more funds,” Governor Masaaki Shirakawa said after an emergency board meeting in Tokyo today that decided to offer three-month loans at 0.1 percent to commercial banks.
Bond yields fell the most in 13 months, lowering borrowing costs for companies whose profits are being threatened by deflation and the yen’s advance. Today’s action constitutes “quantitative easing in the broad sense” said Shirakawa, who earlier today faced demands from government ministers to complement a stimulus package that Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama will release this week.
“The BOJ was facing a lot of pressure from the markets and the government, so it wanted to show that it was being proactive,” said Junko Nishioka, chief economist at RBS Securities Japan Ltd. in Tokyo. “The BOJ’s understanding is that deflation risks have increased.”
The yen pared losses after earlier falling the most in more than a month on speculation the bank would take action that would limit the currency’s appreciation. It traded at 86.83 per dollar at 11:39 a.m. in London from 87.53 before the announcement. Last week the yen reached 84.83, the highest since 1995, threatening earnings at exporters including Toyota Motor Corp.
Bond Yields
The yield on Japan’s five-year bond dropped 7.5 basis points, the most since October 2008, to a four-year low of 0.455 percent. The Nikkei 225 Stock Average closed 2.4 percent higher before the decision was published.
The policy board kept the key overnight lending rate at 0.1 percent, a level that Shirakawa said is already effectively zero, indicating he is unlikely to lower the rate.
The bank also maintained its monthly purchases of Japanese government bonds at 1.8 trillion yen. Analysts expect the central bank to expand the bond transactions eventually.
“Today’s move is only the first tentative step by the Bank of Japan to a much more substantive quantitative easing policy,” said Glenn Maguire, chief Asia-Pacific economist at Societe Generale SA in Hong Kong. “Ultimately, JGB purchases will form the bulk of that policy — and to have any meaningful effect, those purchases will have to be in excess of 2.2 to 2.5 trillion yen per month.”
China’s overdue credit-card debt reported rising sharply
Posted by admin in Financial Market, Mixed Economy, World News on November 30th, 2009
By John Letzing - Nov. 30, 2009 07:27 PM est
MarketWatch.com
SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) — While China has the reputation in the West as a nation of frugal savers, a state-media report Tuesday cited another sharp rise in overdue credit-card accounts, highlighting a downside to the country’s rapidly expanding economy.
Credit-card debt at least six months overdue rose 126.5% for the first three quarters of 2009 compared to the same period last year, Xinhua news agency reported, citing People’s Bank of China data.
By the end of September, China’s banks had issued 175 million credit cards, a 33.3% increase from last year, according to the report — which said that the central bank has warned of potential risks of mounting overdue credit-card debt.
Accounts overdue by six months or more made up 3.4% of China’s total credit-card debt outstanding at the end of the third quarter, a 0.3% increase over the prior period, the report said.
Credit-card debt at least six months overdue had risen 131.3% in the second quarter of this year compared to the same period last year, according to the report, following a 133.1% increase in the quarter before that.
U.A.E. Will Support Banks in Dubai Credit Crisis
Posted by admin in Financial Market, World News on November 29th, 2009
by Vikas Bajaj & Graham Bowley - Nov. 29, 2009
The New York Times
MUMBAI — The United Arab Emirates central bank on Sunday said that it stood behind domestic and foreign banks operating in Dubai after last week’s announcement that Dubai World needed more time to pay back some of its $60 billion in debt.
Dubai surprised the financial world on Wednesday when it said it would ask creditors of Dubai World, the conglomerate behind its rapid expansion, to agree to a six-month standstill on the debt. Global markets sank on the news.
On Sunday, the central bank said it set up a “liquidity facility” for the Dubai banks, and tried to reassure investors that the banking system there was more sound and liquid than a year ago.
Whether these moves will restore investor confidence remains to be seen as soon as Monday, when most U.S. traders return from a long holiday weekend.
In recent days, investors have begun worrying that Dubai’s debt troubles might be the first in a series of panics in developing countries that borrowed too much money in the past few years — much as in 1997, when Bangkok became the first capital to crumple in the Asian financial crisis.
Many analysts said their biggest worries were not about whether Dubai would fully repay its lenders, or how much assistance it would receive from its neighbor Abu Dhabi. Rather, these people said, their main concern was what Dubai’s problems said about the rest of the world.
These analysts fear that while Dubai may have spent its borrowed money more extravagantly than most, it is far from alone in having taken on too much debt for dubious real estate projects. Investors have already raised alarms about debts in Ireland, Greece and East European countries.
During the shortened U.S. trading day Friday, the first since the Wednesday announcement by Dubai that it was seeking more time to repay billions in loans, investors sold bonds of other emerging markets and drove up the price of insuring against a default by those same countries.
If investors’ fears about a crisis in emerging markets were realized, it would be a severe setback to a fragile global economy that has yet to fully recover from the credit crisis last year.
