Foreign-owned banks in Zimbabwe have been ordered to transfer 51 percent of their shares to black locals within a year, reported the Financial Times this week, though the policy is now facing opposition from some government officials.
The Italian government must repay a record 381 million euros ($471 million) to the European Union for grants involving a motorway in the south of the country, reported the Associated Press on Friday, after anti-fraud investigators alleged that the project had been riddled by mafia infiltration, corruption and kickbacks.
The “super-rich” population in India – defined by having a minimum net worth of 250 million rupees ($5.6 million) – has grown by 30 percent to about 81,000 individuals over the last year, said a new study released this week as cited by the Wall Street Journal, with the combined net-worth of ultra-rich households now at 65 trillion rupees ($1.2 trillion).
In the seven years since Beijing promised with increasing urgency to rebalance its economy, China has unfortunately managed to rebalance externally without rebalancing internally. China’s growth has been propelled by state-driven domestic investment, rather than consumption, and despite the availability of cheap capital and socialised credit risks, loan demand and investment levels remain low. Is it any wonder the number of China sceptics is on the rise?
The Indian government has enacted a $5.4 billion policy that will provide free medicine for its citizens by the end of this year, claimed a report by Reuters on Thursday, with up to half of India’s 1.2 billion population expected to take advantage of the scheme within the next five years.
According to the report, the plan was quietly adopted last year; but had not been publicised until initial funding could be allocated, officials said.
The EU summit, held in Brussels last week, managed to bring about some much needed, albeit temporary, relief for the euro. Nevertheless, the region’s fundamental weaknesses remain unresolved and confidence in Europe’s periphery is now waning.
The International Monetary Fund has pared its forecast for US economic growth this year, citing strains and risks from the eurozone debt crisis, as well as uncertainties over a “fiscal cliff” which could jeopardise the fragile economic recovery with negative spillovers to the rest of the world.
China’s government must adjust its one-child policy “as soon as possible” so as to deal with an aging population and a possible labour shortage, said a group of researchers from the State Council’s Development Research Centre (DRC) on Tuesday in an essay published on the China Economic Times.
The eurozone crisis might break European leaders’ inherent resistance to compromise, collaboration, and common action. But the longer they bicker and dither, the greater the risk that what they gain in willingness will be lost to incapacity.
NEWPORT BEACH – When it comes to describing Europe’s ever-worsening crisis, metaphors abound. For some, it is five minutes to midnight; for others, Europe is a car accelerating towards the edge of a cliff. For all, a perilous existential moment is increasingly close at hand.
As the European Union embargo against Iranian crude came into full effect on Sunday, a defiant Tehran has responded by introducing a draft bill that would block oil tankers en route to countries that have sanctioned Iran from passing through the Strait of Hormuz.
Iran has acted on its long-standing threat to close the strategic Strait of Hormuz, a water way through which about 17 million barrels a day sailed in 2011.
