Despite obstacles, the White House continues to push preferential trade deals in Asia and Europe. However, neither can reverse the erosion of U.S. innovation and in Asia Pacific, the proposed pact is more likely to divide than unify the region.
The president of FIFA appeared impregnable for the past 17 years, but the pressure from media, the sponsors and US investigators became irresistible.
Until his surprise resignation provided another dramatic twist in this week’s FIFA revelations, Sepp Blatter seemed impregnable at the head of FIFA. For over a decade, accusations of corruption swirled around football’s international governing body, but Blatter stayed serenely in his post.
The rise of China and its growing influence in the Asia Pacific puts ASEAN unity and centrality to its biggest test in years. Although ASEAN leaders are trying to downplay the seriousness of this concern, their differences are publicly on display.
Arrests of the leaders of the international football federation FIFA on corruption charges happened in Zurich, Switzerland.
The police arrested seven FIFA officials though 14, both in and out of the group, are facing charges of high-level corruption. The arrests came from the U.S. Department of Justice, who alleged the group’s leaders were involved in a racketeering, wire fraud, and money laundering conspiracy.
As the ASEAN Economic Community’s (AEC) December 2015 deadline approaches, most observers feel that the initiative’s deliverables — an integrated production space with free movement of goods, services, and skilled labour — are unachievable. This may be true. However, the AEC is a work in progress. Simply, it will miss its deadline is to ignore other crucial facts about the AEC’s role and circumstances.
The 57 founding members of the China-sponsored Asian Investment Bank will meet on May 20 in Singapore. Many countries rushed to join the new development bank before the March 31 deadline even though key rules remained undecided. Even the size of the new institution had not it officially set.
The newly established BRICS New Development Bank (NDB) is going to be headed by Indian banker KV Kamath. The bank is headquartered in Shanghai and is an attempt to bring together emerging economies of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. Initially the governor of Indian central bank better known as the Reserve Bank of India, Mr. Raghuram Rajan, was in talks to head NDB. After he showed little interest, the role went to KV Kamath who will be taking over the new opportunity in the next ten days. The NDB holds its first meeting in Russia in July this year.
To understand the impetus for launching the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), look no further than China’s concern that the governance structure of existing international financial institutions was evolving too slowly.
With the number of founding members reaching 57, Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), is surely a diplomatic success for China. This is not the first bank initiated by the country. The development bank for Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) groups China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan (with Azerbaijan and Armenia in talks to join) has been talk and has been in talks since 2009.
Taiwan has unsurprisingly been rejected as a founding member of the China-proposed Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB). Standing outside the AIIB tent may not be a bad thing for Taiwan. It offers the Taiwanese government a chance to observe the still-opaque intents and terms of the AIIB and to buy time to address concerns about how and why Taiwan should join the Chinese initiative.
