If very high interest rates are bad for Europe, then very low ones must be good, right? Seems logical. Yet the big drop in yields on government bonds of Italy, Spain, Ireland, and Portugal isn’t entirely positive, especially for the European Central Bank. Read Here – Businessweek
Despite the surprise and very rapid election of Giorgio Napolitano, Italy’s 87-year-old outgoing President for a second seven-year term, Italy remains politically gridlocked. His election may have won querulous lawmakers a short breather, but for the moment at least, no permanent end to the crisis is in sight. Read Here – The Hindu
An iron law of effective diplomacy is that if you make public demands, your credibility depends on sticking to them. European Union foreign ministers saw fit to ignore that lesson yesterday when they formally lifted all sanctions on Burma except an arms embargo. Last year, the same ministers said this step would only be taken […]
Once upon a time, global foreign direct investment flowed from only a few sources: the traditionally wealthy states of Europe, North America, and Japan. But cross-border investment from countries such as Brazil, India, and China is now flowing not just to other emerging and transitional economies, but also to the “old” FDI-exporting states. These changes have […]
The Municipal Theater in Piraeus, Greece, was bathed in an eerie light, with yellow floodlights and red torches combining to illuminate the theater’s neoclassical façade, which now served as the backdrop for a macabre spectacle: At least 1,000 neo-Nazis and their supporters had turned out for a march, and red flags bearing a large, black […]
While Washington is consumed by political furor over how to get the federal budget deficit under control, strangely few people are talking about its troublesome twin sister. Unlike the budget deficit, the half-trillion-dollar U.S. trade deficit does nothing to stimulate the economy even in the short term. Rather, it is sucking jobs out of the […]
Amid a storm of bluster and posturing in East Asia, there has been scarce analysis on recent attempts at regional integration. Despite this, the rising tensions on the Korean Peninsula have actually served to temporarily move the microscope away from maritime security issues and territorial disputes in favor of punditry over Pyongyang’s nuclear wish list. […]
Sino-US economic and trade relations are the most powerful proof of the win-win and interdependent nature of bilateral relations. But the good momentum that has been achieved has also encountered some obstacles because some people in the US always want to politicize the relationship and Washington has been maintaining restrictions on high-tech exports to China. […]
In a few weeks’ time, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will visit Saudi Arabia with an avowed objective of fostering the cordial relationship between the two countries. That is exactly where the relationship has always been — cordial and businesslike without cultivating strategic opportunities. The relationship between the two countries has been dominated by trade except for […]
Despite 35 years of rhetoric about China being open to foreign business, and explicit promises China made on its accession to the World Trade Organization in 2001, foreign companies in practice have no right to operate in China. China’s policy makers — and no small number of its people — still maintain that it is […]
looking beyond borders 