4 January 2009
For Personal Use Only

• Author: By James Traub
• Source: The New York Times Media Group

The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, instability in Pakistan and the threat of nuclear proliferation in Iran would have been more than enough to crowd out any thought of long-range planning on the part of Barack Obama’s incoming national security team.

Now the Middle East is in flames again. And yet a wide range of foreign policy experts are urging the president-elect to look beyond the smoke and the bloodshed - indeed, to leverage the pervasive sense of crisis - to reshape the world’s governing structures.

Those structures - the United Nations, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, among others - date from World War II’s end, when the victors enjoyed a monopoly on economic and political power, and the state system seemed impregnable. The world is no longer like it was then, as President George W. Bush proved vividly when he convened the ‘’G-20′’ summit meeting to deal with the financial crisis. (more…)

Filed by Jothi Shanmugam under International Financial Architecture Reform, Development, Terrorism, United Nations Reform

4 January 2009
For Personal Use Only

• Author: By Daniel Gross
• Source: Newsweek

Confidential sources have passed on to me a January to-do list apparently penned by Timothy Geithner, the New York Fed chief tapped to serve as President-elect Barack Obama’s Treasury secretary:

1. Find new house in D.C.

2. Fix unholy mess that is Wall Street.

3. Ditto for Securities and Exchange Commission.

4. Restore faith in global finance system.

5. Housing?

For the past 30-odd years, Treasury secretaries have generally focused on G7 conferences and international crises like emerging-market meltdowns. But in the past several months, the scope of the Treasury secretary’s job has been redefined in historic ways. Geithner will be responsible not just for putting out fires, but for rebuilding from the ashes of the world financial system.

Geithner is neither a household name nor a typical pick for a Treasury secretary. He’s a career technocrat, with stints at Treasury, the International Monetary Fund and the New York Fed. And for what is usually an AARP job—the average age of the last eight incoming Treasury secretaries has been 59—the 47-year-old is a mere whippersnapper. (more…)

Filed by Jothi Shanmugam under Other, Global Financial Crises, International Financial Architecture Reform

4 January 2009
For Personal Use Only

• Source: Thai News Service

South Korean President Lee Myung-bak is expected to hold his first meeting with incoming U.S. President Barack Obama in London in early April on the sidelines of the G-20 economic summit, Seoul’s foreign minister said Friday (January 2, 2009).

“We need to consult with the U.S. on the issue, but President-elect Obama will likely focus on domestic issues, including the economic crisis, rather than foreign affairs once he takes office,” Yu Myung-hwan told reporters.

The minister declined to predict when he would meet with Hillary Clinton, nominated to be Obama’s secretary of state, citing Washington’s schedule for confirmation hearings. (more…)

Filed by Jothi Shanmugam under Other, Global Financial Crises

2 January 2009
For Personal Use Only

• Source: UkrAgroConsult

In the conditions of the financial and economic crisis, major countries began to protect actively their markets despite the agreement of the “great twenty”.

Please remember that the outcomes of the November G 20 (“Great Twenty”) meeting in Washington included a resolution about inadmissibility of establishing new trade barriers or using export-stimulating measures incompatible with the WTO rules. (more…)

Filed by Ozlem Yucel under Global Financial Crises, Multilateral Trade

2 January 2009
For Personal Use Only

• Source: ANSA - English Media Service

Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi spoke on Friday by phone with Israel Prime Minister Ehud Olmert who brought him up to date on Israel’s offensive against Hamas in the Gaza Strip, sources at the premier office said.

The situation in the Middle East is among the topics Berlusconi will discuss over the coming days with the leaders of the the Group of Eight (G8) most industrialised nations, these same sources added. (more…)

Filed by Ozlem Yucel under Terrorism, Regional Security, Conflict Prevention and Human Security

2 January 2009
For Personal Use Only

• Source: BBC Monitoring European

The only thing that is certain is that 2009 will almost certainly mark the end of the G8 in the sense of a “gentlemen’s club” of the world’s rich which, since Rambouillet (1975) until today, has, by itself, dictated the rules of global governance. The financial crisis, and issues such as development, the fight against pandemics, the climate, international terrorism, and regional crises, from Gaza to Afghanistan, require responses which are increasingly coordinated, and broader responsibilities. Thus the new feature of the G8 of which Italy, as of yesterday, has taken on the chairmanship, for the fifth time (three with Silvio Berlusconi as prime minister), will be the “flexible format.” (more…)

Filed by Ozlem Yucel under Other, East-West Relations and Russia

2 January 2009
For Personal Use Only

• Source: Agence France Presse

The Group of Eight’s Italian presidency is planning an energy summit for an “enlarged G8″ early this year, Foreign Minister Franco Frattini told Italian radio.

Such a summit is “absolutely new,” Frattini told Rai Uno, saying it was motivated by a “strong need for dialogue between producers and consumers which is the basis for global price stability.” (more…)

Filed by Ozlem Yucel under Energy and Nuclear Safety

1 January 2009
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• Author: Dipankar De Sarkar
• Source: Indo-Asian News Service

London, Jan 1 (IANS) British Prime Minister Gordon Brown Thursday hailed with apparent relief the end of “free market dogma,” saying he would now work to build a “progressive era” around the world. “When the history books come to be written, 2008 will largely be remembered for the scale of the great economic and financial crisis. A year in which an old era of unbridled free market dogma was finally ushered out,” Brown said in his New Year’s day message to the nation. (more…)

Filed by Amadeus Domaradzki under Global Financial Crises, Macroeconomic Policy

31 December 2008
For Personal Use Only

• Author: Jodie Ginsberg
• Source: Reuters News

LONDON, Dec 31 (Reuters) - Britain should shelve ambitions to remake the world’s financial structures as chair of the G20 next year and focus first on curbing protectionism, currency volatility and what should follow a volley of stimulus measures.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s office says the G20 summit he will host in April — the first such international event U.S. President Barack Obama is expected to attend — will assess pledges to assist the world economy made at a summit in Washington last month. (more…)

Filed by Amadeus Domaradzki under International Financial Architecture Reform, Macroeconomic Policy, Investment and Competition Policy

30 December 2008
For Personal Use Only

• Source: Financial Times

As starts go, it was not an auspicious one. When the heads of government of the Group of 20 countries met in Washington in mid-November, it was billed as the new Bretton Woods: a radical change in global governance that would give big emerging markets their rightful place at the table. No longer would small cabals of rich countries like the Group of Eight stitch up deals while excluding half the world economy from the discussions.

The G20 has been in existence for years but achieved little. The November meeting sketched out a grand plan to co-operate in supporting global growth and combating the financial crisis - recognising the falsity of vague hopes that big parts of the world economy would be “decoupled” from the slowdown. (more…)

Filed by May Jeong under Other, Development

30 December 2008
For Personal Use Only

• Source: ITAR-TASS World Service

MOSCOW, December 29 (Itar-Tass) — The first meting of Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and new U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will most likely take place in March in Italy, during a G8 foreign ministerial meeting, a well-informed source told Tass on Monday.

“Most probably, a meeting of G8 foreign ministers will be the first international event in which the heads of the American and Russian diplomatic agencies will take part after the inauguration of President Elect Barack Obama,” the source said.

The foreign ministerial summit is scheduled for March. Traditionally it will be held in the country holding the G8 chairmanship, this time Italy.

It is known that Obama’s representatives refuse to give before the inauguration any official comments on their position in international issues, as well as a possible programme of international meetings. (more…)

Filed by May Jeong under East-West Relations and Russia

28 December 2008
For Personal Use Only

• Author: Paul Richter
• Source: Chicago Tribune

As President George W. Bush’s term comes to a close, the United States has the world’s dominant economy and its most powerful military. Yet its global influence is in decline.

The United States emerged from the Cold War a solitary superpower whose political and economic leverage often enabled it to impose its will on other nations. Now America usually needs to build coalitions of nations to get its way–and often finds other world powers aren’t willing to go along.

In the 1990s, America exerted leadership in all the remote corners of the globe, from the southern cone of South America to Central Asia. Now the United States has largely left the field in many regions, leaving others to show the way.

Bush has been widely blamed for the erosion of American prestige. And the decline in U.S. influence is partly the result of the reaction to his invasion of Iraq, his campaign against Islamic militants and his early disdain for treaties and international bodies.

But the shift is also a result of forces that have been taking shape independently, although hastened by an aversion to Bush. These include the steady ascent of China, India and other developing countries that throughout the past decade have amassed wealth and have quietly extended their global reach. (more…)

Filed by Jothi Shanmugam under Other, Global Financial Crises, International Financial Architecture Reform, East-West Relations: Central and Eastern Europe, United Nations Reform

28 December 2008
For Personal Use Only

• Author: Ban Ki-Moon
• Source: Calgary Herald

The coming year will be a narrative of tension –a series of difficult choices between the imperatives of the present and those of tomorrow. How we resolve this tension will be the measure of our vision and our leadership.

As a community of nations, we face three immediate tests in the coming year. The first has just begun. Not the global financial crisis, important as it is. I am speaking, here, about climate change, the one truly existential threat.

We have only 12 short months until a key summit in Copenhagen, Denmark, where world leaders will gather next December to reach an agreement to curb global warming. We need a deal that will extend, deepen, and strengthen the Kyoto Protocols. We need a new treaty for the 21st century that is balanced, inclusive and comprehensive–one that all nations can embrace.

We took an important step in early December in Poznan, Poland, where climate ministers and experts met to hammer out a work plan toward the future. The negotiations were difficult. They promise to become even more so. Some argued that, amid our current difficulties, we cannot afford to tackle climate change. I say we cannot afford not to. The future of the planet is at stake.

Our second test is economic. Clearly, we need a global stimulus. Major economies have responded to the current crisis with ambitious fiscal and monetary rescue plans. The emergency G-20 summit in Washington in November showed that governments are working together to co-ordinate policies. Those efforts were broadened at a more recent meeting in Doha. (more…)

Filed by Jothi Shanmugam under Global Financial Crises, Development, Climate Change

28 December 2008
For Personal Use Only

• Source: The Canberra Times

If Barack Obama can walk on water, then change really is coming to the United States and the world. If there are no more big unexploded bombs buried in the world’s financial systems, then this may be an ordinary recession. The most telling image of 2008 was Iraqi journalist Muntadhar al-Zaidi throwing his shoes at George W. Bush. His brother says that he changed his shoes after he heard that he was being sent to cover the Bush press conference: he wanted to be sure that the ones he threw were Iraqi-made. He also gave some thought to his words: ‘’This is the farewell kiss, you dog!'’ as he threw the first shoe, and ‘’This is from the widows, the orphans and those who were killed in Iraq'’ with the second.

He doubtless knew that he would be beaten half to death by the security guards because he had embarrassed them. Over the next 24 hours, he was tortured into a ‘’confession'’ that he had been induced to attack Bush by a ‘’terrorist'’. But what he did had enormous resonance elsewhere. This is the end of an era. In the minds of most people we are saying good riddance to a long period when brutal and ignorant policies reigned.

Bush was a relentlessly partisan president who saw no harm in using his office to help his friends, but his main fault was ignorance. It was wilful ignorance, for he is not a stupid man, and the damage it did was immense. I cannot remember when the departure of a major political figure from the world scene was awaited with such eager anticipation in almost every country.

We are bound to be disappointed by the change. Bush did not create all of the world’s problems, and they will not vanish when he does. The global financial crisis that exploded when the Bush administration decided not to save Lehman Brothers, still has some distance to run, and the extent of the damage is not yet known. (more…)

Filed by Jothi Shanmugam under Other

28 December 2008
For Personal Use Only

• Source: The Observer

On Sunday [October 5], German chancellor Angela Merkel got the week off to an acrimonious start by promising to guarantee the accounts of all her countrymen’s savers, destroying efforts to build a European concensus on a rescue strategy.

The next day[October 6], more than pounds 90bn was wiped off the value of Britain’s companies in the City’s worst day of trading since Black Monday in 1987. Gordon Brown promised to do ‘whatever it takes’ to halt the panic. But that was only the start of a nerve-shattering week, in which the world’s financial system came closer to absolute collapse than at any time since the 1930s.

Businesses up and down the country would later insist that in October, everything, ‘fell off a cliff’; and this was the week it began. For Brown, it started with the first meeting of his National Economic Council - a gathering of senior ministers, styled as a war cabinet for the credit crunch. But not far away in the City, as rumours swirled around of an emergency taxpayer-backed rescue for Britain’s battered banks, shares were plunging, losing almost 8 per cent of their value by the time the markets had closed. (more…)

Filed by Chelsea Bin Han under Global Financial Crises, International Financial Architecture Reform

28 December 2008
For Personal Use Only

• Source: Business Today

September 2008 is likely to be remembered as the month that saw the collapse of the financial world, as we knew it. Icons of Wall Street went belly-up, lost their identity by converting themselves into commercial banks, sliced themselves up into pieces or were forced by regulators to merge with other banks. A large number of marquee names are now owned by governments. Wall Street will never look the same again.

Amongst all this global turmoil, there is a positive outlook for India. As we analysed the audited results (2007-’08) of banks in India for the Best Banks Survey, we could not but compare the strength of the Indian banking system to the over-leveraged banks in the US and Europe.

In the previous year’s assessment (Business Today, February 24, 2008) we had decided to add more weight to the strength parameters vis-a-vis the growth and size parameters. Time has proven us right. (more…)

Filed by Chelsea Bin Han under Global Financial Crises

27 December 2008
For Personal Use Only

• Author: Niall Ferguson
• Source: Financial Times

Few economic commentators foresaw the dire credit crunch of 2008, so it takes a brave man to predict next year’s economic events. Deepening crisis or return to normality? Economic historian Niall Ferguson offers his imaginary retrospective of 2009.

It was the year when people finally gave up trying to predict the year ahead. It was the year when every forecast had to be revised - usually downwards - at least three times. It was the year when the paradox of globalisation was laid bare for all to see, if their eyes weren’t tightly shut.

On the one hand, the increasing integration of markets for commodities, manufactures, labour and capital had led to great gains. As Adam Smith had foreseen in The Wealth of Nations, economic liberalisation had allowed the division of labour and comparative advantage to operate on a global scale. From the 1980s until 2007, the world economy had enjoyed higher, more widespread growth and fewer, less severe crises - hence Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke’s hubristic celebration of a “great moderation” in 2004. (more…)

Filed by Chelsea Bin Han under Global Financial Crises

27 December 2008
For Personal Use Only

• Author: Abdul Jalil Mustafa
• Source: Bangkok Post

An estimated accumulated Arab surplus of one trillion petrodollars gained prominence over the past three months as a key factor to reckon with in handling the global financial upheaval that erupted in the United States in September and spread to the rest of the world economy later on.

Analysts in the Middle East also raised the possibility of the turmoil prompting governments of oil-rich Arab countries to repatriate a major part of funds mostly invested or deposited in Western countries, as the Arab world appeared a safer haven for such investments. (more…)

Filed by Chelsea Bin Han under Global Financial Crises, Macroeconomic Policy

26 December 2008
For Personal Use Only

• Source: WPS: Motor-Digest

According to Tokyo, the best decision to Putin’s government will be “not to enforce these duties”. Moving towards “protectionism is against Russia’s position aiming to join WTO”, according to the document. The Head of Information Department of Japanese Embassy in Moscow Akira Imamura noted that the government decision was contradictory to obligations Russia had taken on G-20 November summit in Washington when Moscow had promised no banning barriers to import within a year. According to analysts, Tokyo can block the process of Russia joining WTO. (more…)

Filed by Ozlem Yucel under Multilateral Trade

26 December 2008
For Personal Use Only

• Source: ITAR-TASS World Service

New centers of economic growth and political influence have emerged in the world, and one has to reckon with them, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said at a New Year reception for the Russian journalists on Friday.

“The G-20 Washington summit and the new G-20 summit planned in London for early April 2009 show that events have acquired a rapid tempo. Probably, we are witnessing the rapid transformation of the financial G-7, in which Russia has not received a full-fledged status, into the financial G-20,” he said. (more…)

Filed by Ozlem Yucel under Other, Development

25 December 2008
For Personal Use Only

• Source: Agence France Presse

Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini said Thursday Afghanistan will be one of the G8’s main priorities when Rome takes over the rotating presidency of the rich nations’ club on January 1.

Afghanistan will be one of the “political priorities” of Italy’s presidency, he said during a Christmas message to Italian troops stationed abroad.

“Under the Italian presidency, the world’s largest players will focus on perhaps today’s most important theme of world security,” he said, adding that Italy plans to host a meeting of G8 foreign ministers in June to focus on “stabilising” Afghanistan and neighbouring Pakistan. (more…)

Filed by Amadeus Domaradzki under Regional Security

24 December 2008
For Personal Use Only

• Source: Agence Europe

Brussels, 23/12/2008 (Agence Europe) - The EU/Brazil Summit closed in Rio de Janeiro on Monday 22 December with the adoption of the roadmap to deepen the “strategic partnership” launched in 2007 and with a commitment on both sides to coordinate their positions ahead of the forthcoming G20 summit on the economic and financial crisis, due to be held in London on 2 April 2009. Europeans and Brazilians also agreed to take a joint initiative to relaunch negotiations at the WTO on the Doha Round. (more…)

Filed by Liliane Vicente under Other, Global Financial Crises, Macroeconomic Policy

24 December 2008
For Personal Use Only

• Source: Citywire

The Treasury is considering a proposal which could amend tax law on donations and result in an extra £5 billion being paid to charities.

A report in today’s Financial Times said that the Treasury was looking at the proposal set out by Nobel Prize-winning economist Sir James Mirrlees and social networking organisation Fortune Forum founder Renu Mehta.

The proposal entails a 50% tax relief on donations towards the United Nation’s millennium development goals, effectively doubling each donation made. (more…)

Filed by Liliane Vicente under Other, Development

24 December 2008
For Personal Use Only

• Source: Trend News Agency

French President Nicolas Sarkozy achieved dramatic success in the settlement of two major challenges during his presidency in the European Union (EU) – global financial crisis and consflict in Caucasus. However, experts consider Sarkozy’s success incomplete.

“Sarkozy reached a kind of success in settlement of the Georgian conflict and financial crisis, but this is an incomplete success,” Filippe Moreau Defarges, an expert for France’s chairmanship in EU, said to Trend News [http://news.trend.az] via telephone from Paris. (more…)

Filed by Liliane Vicente under Other, Global Financial Crises

21 December 2008
For Personal Use Only

• Source: The Hindu

Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz on Saturday urged India and China to use the G-20 forum to press for a change in the global financial architecture that has been so disastrous for the world. Describing the developed world’s decision to consult the G-20 as a positive outcome of the global meltdown, he was of the view that the two countries should also speak for the 152 countries which were not invited to the meeting.

Delivering the 10th D. T. Lakdawala Memorial Lecture on ‘Crises Today and the Future of Capitalism,’ the noted economist said the problem – essentially a U.S. export – had to be tackled globally. India and China, he added, had not suffered much from the meltdown because they did not liberalise their capital and financial markets despite U.S. nudging the two countries in this direction “just so that you could experience what we did!” (more…)

Filed by Jothi Shanmugam under Global Financial Crises, International Financial Architecture Reform