The European Central Bank on Thursday left its benchmark interest rate at a historic low of 0.75 percent, after President Mario Draghi insisted that the political gridlock in Italy had little bearing to the region’s overall financial stability.
The United States’ rebuilding effort has achieved little despite $60 billion spent in a vast reconstruction effort in Iraq since the 2003 invasion, said an auditor’s report published on Wednesday.
The ambitious plan to transform the country after the fall of Saddam Hussein has been marked by half-finished projects and crushed expectations, according to the final report of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, Stuart Bowen.
Beijing has outlined plans to shift its economy away from reliance on investment and exports by boosting domestic demand, as the ruling Communist Party attempts to introduce painful reforms meant to rebalance the world’s second largest economy.
The European Commission on Wednesday fined U.S. giant Microsoft 561 million euros ($732 million) for failing to provide consumers with a choice of Internet browser, as it had promised to do.
EU Competition Commissioner Joaquin Almunia said this is the first time a company has been punished for failing to meet its obligations, making it a “very serious infringement.”
Is climate change and global warming a threat for our generation or is it a challenge only for future generations? The answer is plain to see, as the extreme events of 2012 are what climate scientists have been warning of for 25 years.
The Obama administration has asked U.S. lawmakers to approve an increase in the United States’ contribution to the International Monetary Fund, as well as changes to the voting process within the Fund that will boost the influence of emerging economies like China and Brazil in the global financial institution.
The Treasury Department on Tuesday sought Congressional permission to approve a 2010 International Monetary Fund reform package that would change the distribution of voting power within the organisation.
China’s largest oil firm, the state-owned China National Petroleum Corp (CNPC), could purchase its first U.S. shale asset this year, according to Bloomberg on Wednesday, after the company set aside $40 billion to partake in the U.S.’s energy renaissance.
The United States and China have reached an agreement for a new round of “tough” sanctions against North Korea, underlining Beijing’s deepening frustrations with Pyongyang after a third nuclear test last month.
According to China’s U.N. ambassador, Li Baodong, the U.N. Security Council is set to vote on Thursday on a draft sanctions resolution, which was agreed to by Washington and Beijing after three weeks of negotiations.
The United States has called for drunk diplomats to be barred from United Nations meetings, proposing that negotiation rooms “should in future be an inebriation-free zone”.
Speaking at the UN General Assembly’s budget committee, also known as the Fifth Committee, U.S. ambassador for management and reform at the United Nations, Joseph Torsella on Monday censured his colleagues for excessive drinking during delicate budget meetings and debates which often turn into heated marathon sessions that run into the early hours of the morning.
South Africa’s President Jacob Zuma has warned the West that it needs to change its “colonial” approach towards Africa or risk losing to competition from China and other developing nations.
In an interview published in the Financial Times on Monday, Zuma said businesses and governments in the West have a “psychological problem” and are still prone to lecturing Africa from positions of strength where they could “make the rules”.
