Two key events will hog the headlines this week: G20 leaders meet on Monday in Los Cabos for a two day summit, where the eurozone will be top on the agenda, overshadowed by mounting fears about Spain and Italy. On Wednesday, the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, or Rio+20, opens for a three-day conference.
Monday, June 18
Outgoing World Bank Chief Robert Zoellick has said that European leaders have acted too late and done too little to contain its sovereign debt crisis, and now risks losing its global influence.
In an interview with German magazine Der Spiegel, Zoellick added that Europe’s inaction only managed to buy time, but with little done to address the region’s underlying structural problems.
Calling on European leaders to act quickly, he said short-term measures will no longer suffice and European leaders must now make deeper fiscal and structural reforms.
Japan will overtake Germany and Italy to become the world’s second largest market for solar electricity, reported Bloomberg News on Monday, with the government set to introduce a new premium tariff on solar energy.
Chinese companies will begin offering more jobs to Taiwanese citizens under new preferential employment policies, reported the China Daily on Monday, as both governments seek to promote more cross-Straits trade and people-to-people exchanges.
UK Chancellor George Osborne and Bank of England Governor Mervyn King have announced a £100 billion credit scheme aimed at stimulating the British economy amid fresh concerns that the eurozone’s “large black cloud of uncertainty” could lead to another severe credit crunch and high interest rates in Britain.
China, the world’s second largest consumer of oil, has been building up its oil reserves at a rate not seen since 2008, reported Bloomberg News on Thursday, as the country embarks on the second stage of a plan for strategic reserves in order to manage price swings.
The Spanish “indignant” movement, which began a year ago to protest economic inequality and spending cuts, have expanded their operations to include the creation of food banks for the poor, reported AFP on Thursday, as the activists attempt to shift their focus from simply protesting to building the just society that it advocates.
We all probably know a few tips on how to manage personal finance. Some of us may even have a few good habits on spending and saving that we try to impart to the younger generation. But some personal finance statistics we’ve found are just shocking.
For example, a survey from CareerBuilder last year found that nearly half of American workers live from pay check to pay check to make ends meet. When we dig deeper into the numbers, it is revealed that 14 percent of workers who earn six figures say they live pay check to pay check.
Crude prices fell to an eight-month low yesterday amid market speculation over the future of oil supplies and uncertainty over global energy demand. OPEC oil ministers meet in Vienna later today for a policy meeting, but deep divisions within the group are already surfacing.
Crude prices have fallen more than 20 percent from its peak in May, and price hawks in the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries are concerned that the deepening eurozone crisis and weak global economic climate will send crude prices plummeting further.
China is now one of the fastest growing international buyers in the U.S. real estate industry, reported the Financial Times on Wednesday, with a “huge” influx of wealthy mainland Chinese said to be looking towards purchasing high-end properties across the U.S.
