The ongoing eurozone debt crisis is the single greatest threat to Britain’s current state of national security, claimed the UK’s Chief of the Defence Staff General Sir David Richards on Wednesday.
“I am clear that the single biggest strategic risk facing the UK today is economic rather than military,” said Richards in his end of year analysis speech in London, as quoted by AFP.
The Chinese government has unexpectedly imposed new anti-dumping and anti-subsidy tariffs on sport utility vehicles and midsize and large cars imported from the US, in what many believe to be a retaliatory move against similar actions by the US towards Chinese-made products.
The new tariffs, which will take effect on Thursday, are largely seen to be a symbolic gesture, considering how many US automakers now primarily make much of what they sell in China domestically through joint ventures with other Chinese auto companies.
Hong Kong has edged out the United States and the United Kingdom, for the first time, to come out tops in the World Economic Forum’s Financial Development Index.
According to the Geneva-based non-governmental organisation, Hong Kong is also the first Asian country to top the scoreboard, in the WEF’s annual report released Tuesday.
The recently concluded European Union Summit only proved one thing: that Europe’s leaders were still in denial about the true causes of the eurozone’s problems, and thus were unable to resolve them. The proposed fiscal stability union may indeed prevent a collapse in the short run – though that is far from certain – but treaty negotiations outside the EU framework, and the ratification procedures that will follow, are a recipe for even more uncertainty when Europe needs it least.
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO), a non-partisan federal agency within the legislative branch of the US government, recently released an infographic detailing the US’s federal budget and debt burden through fiscal year 2011, which ended in September.
From its data, the CBO revealed that the US is currently “facing significant and fundamental budgetary challenges.” For fiscal year 2011, the federal government’s budget deficit was $1.3 trillion; making it the third-largest shortfall in the past 40 years. Check out their highly informative infographic below:
The Catholic Church in Italy could soon be forced to pay property taxes to the government, after intense pressure from Italy’s left wing parties called for the country’s newly reinstated property tax to be extended to commercial properties operated by the Church.
China will further open its economy and “actively expand imports” in the coming years, said its President Hu Jintao to a high-ranking forum commemorating the country’s 10th anniversary of joining the World Trade Organization on Sunday.
In a keynote speech entitled “China’s Opening-Up Strategy toward the Future”, Hu said that his government was committed to opening up the agricultural, services and cultural industries in the country, while adding that more emphasis would be placed on offering equal market access to all types of businesses.
The UK’s financial regulatory bodies have shown a surprising “hear no evil” attitude to criminality in its banking and financial sector. At times, the financial regulators almost seemed to want to pretend that criminality and fraud didn’t, or couldn’t exist in the domain they are supposed to police. Unless this issue is addressed, London risks losing its mantle as a world leading financial centre.
United Kingdom’s Office for National Statistics released yesterday a report “Hours worked in the labour market,” a survey that aims to track trends and changes in the working patterns of British workers, compared with their EU counterparts.
In what may come as a surprise, neither the Germans nor British put in the longest hours at work.
The number of divorces in England and Wales has risen for the first time since 2003, a 5 percent increase in 2010, leading some experts to suggest that the recession and economic turmoil could be at fault.
