Congestion charging is one of the most debatable tools that governments have used to alleviate gridlock traffic. Cities from London to Stockholm and Singapore to Milan have experimented with such pricing schemes, but do they work?
Detriot, once a symbol of U.S. industrial power, has become the largest U.S. city to file for bankruptcy, laying the groundwork for a historic effort to bailout a city that is sinking under billions of dollars in debt and decades of fiscal mismanagement, population exodus and loss of tax revenue.
The U.S.-China split over climate change centres on the relative responsibilities of developed and major developing nations. China, along with other developing nations, argue that since advance economies continue to have far higher levels of emissions per capita, they alone should be subject to legally binding commitments to reduce emissions. Beijing sees the U.S. as containing the right of emerging nations to develop, while Washington sees China as engaging in environmental blackmail.
In its annual report on the Chinese economy, the International Monetary Fund on Wednesday warned that “time is running out” for China to shift away from its credit and investment fuelled growth model, pointing out that the government, banks and businesses are increasingly strained from years of rapid but unbalanced growth.
China on Wednesday vowed to step up its fight against bribery and corruption by multinational corporations, days after the police unveiled a litany of bribery and misconduct allegations against British drugmaker GlaxoSmithKline – a move that industry expects say could presage a broader crackdown in China’s lucrative healthcare industry.
More bankers in the United Kingdom were paid in excess of 1 million euros than in any other European Union country, according to new data released by the European Banking Authority.
Specifically, figures from the EU’s banking watchdog showed that 2,346 bankers earned more than 1 milion euros in the UK, compared with 739 in the rest of the EU in 2011.
For a long time, the US economy had been on an upward escalator, fueled by the growth of cheap energy and loans. Continued growth in debt made sense, because growth seemed likely for as far in the future as anyone could see. Governments and businesses made promises such as pensions, social security, bonds and so on. But what happens to these promises as we step off the up-escalator and on to the downward escalator?
German Chancellor Angela Merkel has called for tougher data protection laws that would require internet companies to reveal details about what personal information they have stored and to whom they have shared it with.
The fundamental law will ensure that companies such as Facebook and Google will be subject to the same strict privacy laws across all European Union member states, and not simply comply with national laws in the countries where they are registered, she said in an interview with German television channel ARD.
The slew of economic data released last week has confirmed the worst fears of many global investors: China is serious about rebalancing its economy and growth rates of 6 – 7 percent will no longer be encouraged. Attempts to keep growth above that level will simply mean that it will take much longer for China to fix the underlying problems in its economy, that the costs will be much greater, and that the risk of a disorderly crisis will increase.
The international troika of lenders visit Portugal to assess how the country is managing its 78 billion euros bailout; Central bankers and finance ministers of the G20 meet in Moscow for two-day talks; Mandela International Day is marked even as the former South African statesman remains in a “critical but stable” condition.
Monday, July 15
