• Source: Jiji Press English News Service

Japanese and U.S. business leaders on Wednesday agreed on the importance of enhanced bilateral cooperation to stop global warming.

Any anti-global warming measures must lead to technical innovation, energy saving and greenhouse gas emissions cuts both at individual and corporate levels, said James Jones, president of the Institute for 21st Century Energy, in a meeting sponsored by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
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Filed by Anita Li under The Environment, Climate Change

• Source: Reuters News

Economic downturn in the United States and a global confidence crisis is no reason to restrict cross-border investment or resort to other forms of protectionism, OECD chief Angel Gurria said on Thursday.

“Investment is key to development,” Gurria said in a speech on investment in less economically developed regions.
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Filed by Anita Li under Global Financial Crises, International Financial Architecture Reform, Financial Supervision, Corporate and Public Governance, Multilateral Trade

• Source: Guardian Unlimited

President Nicolas Sarkozy and Gordon Brown today announced a joint initiative to equally fund education for 16 million children in Africa by the time of the World Cup in South Africa in 2012.

The two men revealed the plan standing on the turf of Arsenal’s Emirates stadium at the beginning of their Anglo-French summit. They have been joined by 13 French ministers who are holding bilateral talks with British ministers.
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Filed by Anita Li under The Environment, Other, Development, Climate Change

• Source: Agence France Presse

Britain and France on Thursday pushed for greater transparency on the global financial markets, urging banks to make “full and prompt disclosure” about write-downs in the wake of the credit crunch.

In a joint communique issued after a summit here, the two countries said they would “address vigorously the current problems in the financial markets” after the crisis in the US subprime mortgage sector last year.
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Filed by Anita Li under International Financial Architecture Reform, Financial Supervision, Corporate and Public Governance

• Source: Organisation of Asia-Pacific News Agencies

Japan is negotiating with China a special statement on climate change for adoption when Chinese President Hu Jintao visits in May, in hopes of securing cooperation from the major emitter to underscore Tokyo’s leadership ahead of July’s Group of Eight summit, government sources said Thursday. Senior officials of the Japanese Foreign Ministry arrived in Beijing earlier the same day and began talks with their Chinese counterparts on the draft, but the sources said negotiations are expected to face high hurdles given China’s cautious stance toward setting national emissions cut targets. One of the challenges will be for Japan to gain China’s support for the ‘’sectoral approach'’ proposed by Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda, which is to calculate reduction potentials on sector-by-sector basis to compile a national target.
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Filed by Anita Li under The Environment, Climate Change

• Source: Reuters News

Finance ministers and central bankers from the Group of Seven industrial nations will meet in Washington on Friday, April 11, for their regular spring gathering as they try find a solution to the credit crunch, a G7 source told Reuters.

The Financial Stability Forum of senior representatives of national financial authorities, meeting in Rome on Friday and Saturday, will also present the G7 policymakers with its final recommendations on beefing up surveillance of the global monetary system.
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Filed by Anita Li under Global Financial Crises, International Financial Architecture Reform

• Author: Adrian Croft
• Source: Reuters News

French President Nicolas Sarkozy said on Thursday he hoped Britain would organise a new meeting of Europe’s big four economies on financial markets in October, but British officials took a wait-and-see stance.

“On financial market transparency, I refer to the meeting we had in London at the end of January, and I hope you will organise another one in October,” Sarkozy told British Prime Minister Gordon Brown at a news conference in London.
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Filed by Anita Li under Global Financial Crises, International Financial Architecture Reform

• Author: ELI LAKE
• Source: The New York Sun

Senator McCain is going further than President Bush or the Democrats vying for the White House in identifying Russia as a rival and not an ally.

In a major speech on foreign policy, Mr. McCain said the group of eight industrialized nations must include Brazil and India but exclude Russia, a state he called “revanchist.” He rejected Russian threats against nations aspiring to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization from the “Baltic to the Black Sea,” a direct reference to Ukraine, whose membership in NATO has so worried Moscow that the Kremlin has threatened to aim its nuclear arsenal at Kiev if it joined the alliance.
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Filed by Anita Li under East-West Relations and Russia, Regional Security, Democratization and Human Rights

• Author: Yukihiro Kawana
• Source: Nikkei Report

The solar cell market will likely continue to expand by 40% a year because power generation by the photovoltaic cells is becoming more cost competitive, according to Noboru Ishihara, a consultant at International Finance Corp., a member of World Bank Group.

Solar cells are drawing increasing attention, Ishihara told The Nikkei Business Daily, now that people realize that the threat of global warming has to be dealt with immediately. Other reasons for the growing interest include the fact that the environment will be an important theme at the Group of Eight summit to be hosted by Japan in July and that the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry selected solar power generation as one of the 21 innovative technologies that should be given higher priority in efforts to combat global warming.
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Filed by Anita Li under Other, Development, The Environment

• Author: David Lawder
• Source: Reuters News

The United States and Japan should both encourage China to move towards a market-determined yuan exchange rate and open its economy to more foreign goods and competition, a senior U.S. Treasury official said on Thursday.

David McCormick, Treasury undersecretary for international affairs, said in prepared remarks to the Japan Society in New York that Japan, along with the United States, recognizes the value of a floating exchange rate.
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Filed by Anita Li under International Financial Architecture Reform, Exchange Rate Management and Monetary Policy

• Author: William L. Watts & Lisa Twaronite
• Source: MarketWatch

The dollar was down from session highs Thursday but still held onto most of its modest gains against its major rivals, after benign U.S. economic data.

The Commerce Department left its 0.6% estimate for fourth-quarter gross domestic product unrevised from the previous two estimates, as expected, and the Labor Department said first-time jobless claims fell 9,000 to 366,000 last week. (RELATED ARTICLE: GDP unrevised at 0.6%, weakest U.S. growth since 2002) See GDP story.(RELATED ARTICLE: U.S. weekly initial jobless claims fall 9,000 to 366,000) See jobless claims story.
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Filed by Anita Li under Exchange Rate Management and Monetary Policy

• Source: Agence France Presse

The International Monetary Fund’s executive board on Friday will weigh a proposed voting rights reform, aimed at raising the developing world’s voice but already criticized by experts as inadequate.

The reform package is the first major test of IMF managing director Dominique Strauss-Kahn, who took office in late September pledging to restore legitimacy to a heavily criticized institution that is losing relevance.
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Filed by Anita Li under International Financial Architecture Reform

• Author: ANDREW WARD
• Source: Financial Times

John McCain yesterday vowed to lead a fresh global push towards nuclear disarmament if elected president, acknowledging that the US did not need all the atomic weapons in its arsenal.

The Republican presidential candidate made the pledge in a foreign policy speech that combined doveish commitments to multilateral diplomacy with hawkish rhetoric on Iraq, terrorism and Russia.
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Filed by Anita Li under Arms Control, Proliferation and WMD, Democratization and Human Rights

• Author: Matthew Vincent
• Source: Financial Times

It was in November 2001 that Goldman Sachs economist Jim O’Neill coined the term now used to describe the rapidly emerging markets of Brazil, Russia India and China, in the research paper “Building Better Global Economic Brics”. He argued that these four economies could make up more than 10 per cent of world gross domestic product by the end of the decade.
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Filed by Anita Li under Other, Investment and Competition Policy

• Source: The Economist

The Western alliance is in trouble in Afghanistan. But France is ready to help take on the Taliban, and others still want to join

ANOTHER fighting season beckons in Afghanistan, and the strain is beginning to tell. Many European countries are weary of the war, America is growing tired of reluctant allies and Afghans are becoming disenchanted. Still, NATO says it retains the initiative: the Taliban have been forced to abandon set-piece battles in favour of “asymmetric” suicide-bombs.

This is brave talk. Last year was the bloodiest yet, with more than 230 Western soldiers killed. Opium-poppy production is at a record high, financing the Taliban and corrupting the government in Kabul. The old truth of counter-insurgency still holds: armies can win every battle, yet lose the will to fight an intractable war.
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Filed by Tina Park under Regional Security

• Source: The Economist

America’s foreign policy may change under the next president, but confusion over Iraq, worries about overstretch and divisions over the country’s role in the world will remain, says Adrian Wooldridge (interviewed here)

THE most striking spectacle of America’s election season has been the sight of crowds of up to 20,000 cheering Barack Obama. Mr Obama never has any trouble summoning up applause, but he gets his most heartfelt response when he turns to foreign policy. He reminds his supporters that he opposed the Iraq war from the start. He insists that America should be focusing on al-Qaeda rather than Iraq. And he pledges that he will begin to withdraw American troops from Iraq as soon as he becomes president.

Hillary Clinton, his rival in the nail-biting fight for the Democratic nomination, lacks Mr Obama’s silver tongue, and is handicapped by having voted to authorise the invasion of Iraq in 2002. But she, too, can work the crowd into a frenzy when she talks about foreign policy. She promises that she will begin to withdraw American troops from Iraq within 60 days of becoming president, and accuses George Bush of pursuing one of the most disastrous foreign policies in American history.
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Filed by Tina Park under Other

• Source: Daily Yomiuri

Major greenhouse gas emitters China and India as well as African countries including South Africa will be invited to participate in the Group of Eight summit meeting to be held in July in Toyakocho, Hokkaido, as nonmember countries.
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Filed by Anita Li under The Environment, Climate Change

• Source: Asia Pulse

The UK on Wednesday invited the Indian industry to explore bilateral trade potential, saying there is tremendous scope for collaboration in education, research and development, infrastructure and power, and financial services.
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Filed by Anita Li under Multilateral Trade

• Source: Asia Pulse

Chief Adviser Dr. Fakhruddin Ahmed and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown have agreed that Bangladesh and Britain would enter into a new strategic partnership based on shared values and vibrant economic ties.
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Filed by Anita Li under Multilateral Trade, Investment and Competition Policy

• Author: Steve Whitehouse
• Source: AFX International Focus

The OECD said the US economy is now moving sideways, if not contracting outright, but it is too early to say whether it is in recession.

Meanwhile, the euro zone and Japan are expected to continue growing, but at a more moderate pace, it said.
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Filed by Anita Li under Global Financial Crises, Exchange Rate Management and Monetary Policy

• Source: M2 Presswire

Foreign Ministers from across Africa will meet in Libreville, Gabon, on 20-21 March to lay the groundwork for this year’s largest global gathering on African development: the Fourth Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD IV), to be held from 28 to 30 May in Yokohama, Japan.
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Filed by Anita Li under Development, Climate Change, The Environment, Regional Security

• Source: M2 Presswire

The UK will remain the world’s leading donor to the Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Partnership (REEEP), with GBP2.5 million in funding for the coming year announced by UK Energy Minister Energy Malcolm Wicks in Japan this week.
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Filed by Anita Li under The Environment, Climate Change

• Author: Gleb Bryanski, Reuters News

Volatility in the foreign exchange markets in recent weeks has been excessive, European Central Bank Vice President Lucas Papademos said on Thursday.

But Papademos stopped short of describing the moves as brutal, a key phrase used by ECB President Jean-Claude Trichet in the past to signal concern about currencies.
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Filed by Anita Li under Global Financial Crises, Exchange Rate Management and Monetary Policy

• Author: David Milliken
• Source: Reuters News

The euro’s surge to a fresh record this week brought it closer to levels that could push the European Central Bank to intervene in currency markets, but for now the bank is likely to favour rhetoric rather than action.
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Filed by Anita Li under Global Financial Crises, Exchange Rate Management and Monetary Policy

• Source: Asian News International

Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair will meet Indian political and business leaders here today to convince them to push for clean technologies and cut greenhouse gas emissions.

Blair’s focus is expected to be on the public-private partnerships and how they can facilitate the transfer of clean technologies to bridge differences between developed and developing countries on the setting of new targets for reducing carbon emissions post the 1997 Kyoto protocol.
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Filed by Anita Li under The New Electronic Economy and Information Technology, The Environment, Climate Change