German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Thursday that while she would support an agreement to reopen talks with Turkey about joining the European Union, human rights and democratic values are “non-negotiable” elements for accession into the Union and European leaders cannot “pretend that nothing had happened” in light of violent crackdowns in anti-government protests across Turkey.
China’s central bank chief on Friday said it stands ready to preemptively “adjust” liquidity in the market to ensure stability, a policy that would prioritise the need for reform in China’s economy while keeping the lid on speculative lending in the country’s booming shadow banking sector.
The European Union on Wednesday agreed to reform the Common Agricultural Policy to favour small farms over big businesses which now stand to lose up to 30 percent of their current subsidies.
Details of Wednesday’s deal have not been disclosed, but under a previous draft agreement member states would have to ensure that by 2019 each farmer receive at least 60 percent of the average national or regional subsidy per hectare.
Italy could face losses of about 8 billion euros on derivative contracts that were restructured at the height of the eurozone crisis, reported the Financial Times and Italian daily La Repubblica, which also alleged that Rome used the contracts to “window dress” its public accounts to join the euro in 1999.
The newspapers, which quoted a 29-page report from the Treasury, said the contracts worth about 32 billion euros were taken out in the 1990s while European Central Bank president Mario Draghi was Director General of the Italian Treasury.
The United States has overtaken China for the first time since 2001 in an annual survey on foreign direct investment sentiment, an indication of growing investor confidence and optimism in the world’s largest economy, a study showed on Wednesday.
The United States narrowly outscored China to reclaim first place in this year’s foreign direct investment confidence survey by consulting firm A.T. Kearney of executives from 302 companies worldwide.
Massive defence spending in the Asia-Pacific region is driving an “explosion” in the global arms trade, and Asian military budgets are likely to eclipse the United States’ by 2021, a study by respected analysts IHS Jane’s showed on Tuesday.
The global arms trade jumped by 30 percent to $73.5 billion between 2008-2012 in spite of the economic downturn, driven by surging exports from China and demand from countries like India, and is set to more than double by 2020, defence and security consultancy IHS Jane’s said on Tuesday.
The speed at which oceans are warming could see parts of the world become uninsurable if climate change is not checked, warned the Geneva Association, a global insurance think-tank, adding that governments need to invest more in flood defences and tighten building restrictions in risky locations to mitigate the fallout from extreme weather hazards.
Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff on Monday proposed to set aside $25 billion in public transport investments and offered to hold a referendum on political reforms amid unprecedented social unrest that sparked two weeks of nationwide street protests against poor governance.
The average pay of top bankers in the United States and Europe fell by 10 percent in 2012, according to a report by the Financial Times, after a series of high-profile revolts and legal scandals forced banks to place caps on executive remuneration.
Studying the total pay awarded to the chiefs of 15 leading U.S. and European banks, Equilar, a U.S. executive compensation research firm, found that top banking executives took home an average $11.5 million in 2012, 10 percent less than in the previous year.
EU leaders meet in Brussels this week for a special economic summit aimed at boosting growth in the 27-nation union. South Korean President Park Geun-hye meets with her Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping on Friday and will likely seek Beijing’s support for a denuclearised Pyongyang.
Monday, June 24
Elvira Nabiullina takes over as the head of Russia’s central bank, the first woman to head a Group of 8 central bank.
