April, 2016

• 19 April

  Taiwan protests after officials ‘barred by China’ at OECD

    Taiwan / AFP Taiwan said on Tuesday it would protest to Beijing and Belgium after its delegation was barred at a global industry conference in Brussels due to complaints from China. It is the latest bout of diplomatic sparring between Taiwan and China as tensions simmer ahead of the inauguration of Taiwan’s president-elect, Tsai Ing-wen, in May. Beijing does ...

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• 19 April

  S Korea, Japan, US warn Pyongyang over N-test

  

    South Korea / AFP South Korea, Japan and the United States on Tuesday warned North Korea of harsher sanctions and deeper isolation if it went ahead with a fifth nuclear test or other provocations. The warning, which followed a trilateral meeting of top diplomatic officials, came amid growing speculation that Pyongyang is in the final stages of preparing an ...

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• 19 April

  Ukraine, Russia reach deal to release ‘pilot’

  

    MOSCOW / AP Ukraine and Russia have reached a deal to release a jailed Ukrainian pilot, President Petro Poroshenko said on Tuesday, without elaborating if it would entail a swap for two Russian servicemen convicted by Kiev. Nadezhda Savchenko was sentenced to 22 years in prison in Russia last month for her alleged role in the deaths of two ...

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• 19 April

  EU to provide humanitarian funding for refugees in Greece

    ATHENS / AP The European Commission says it will be providing 700 million euros in emergency humanitarian funding for Greece until 2018 to help it deal with the massive refugee crisis that has seen tens of thousands of people stranded in the country — the first time such funding has been used to help a European Union member. The ...

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• 19 April

  US puts immigrant kids with ‘illegals’

  

    LOS ANGELES / AP The vast majority of immigrant children who arrive alone at the US border are placed by the government with adults who are in the country illegally, federal data reviewed by The Associated Press show. The government has long said that it places the children with family and friends regardless of immigration status. But since more ...

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• 19 April

  China’s future may be sleepier than you think

  

    The debate over how China’s economy might evolve over the next decade generally breaks down into two opposing cases. Bulls are confident that Chinese leaders will make the hard reforms needed to clean up local government debt, reform state companies, open more markets to private-sector competition and liberalize the financial sector. This should enable China to achieve another 10-15 ...

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• 19 April

  Brazil’s economy needs a saviour

    Brazilian business leaders and the opposition count on looming impeachment of embattling President Dilma Rousseff, with hope to bail out the country from a deep recession to revive the sagging economy. The economic woes Brazil is experiencing and charges against Rousseff to have illegally manipulated public accounts in order to conceal a budget deficit during an election year, have ...

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• 19 April

  Watch the budget deficit, not the debt

    Narayana Kocherlakota I’m often asked: What level of government debt can the U.S. sustain? The answer is that it can handle a lot more. What’s much more important is its longer-term ability to reduce the federal budget deficit — and eventually run a surplus. Before I explain, let’s define some terms. Debt refers to the value of all securities ...

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• 19 April

  The real accomplishments of G7 foreign ministers meeting

    The G7 meeting held in Hiroshima last weekend marks a major diplomatic accomplishment for Japan. In addition to their Joint Communique, appropriate to the location of the meeting, the G7 foreign ministers adopted the Hiroshima Declaration on Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament following the meeting. Two additional statements–one on maritime security and the other on general non-proliferation and disarmament—were also ...

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• 19 April

  Seoul’s economic diplomacy in Mexico

  

    After attending the 2016 Nuclear Security Summit on April 1 in Washington D.C., South Korean President Park Geun-hye and Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto headed down to Mexico City to hold their second bilateral summit, albeit the first one hosted by one of the two countries. Before that, Park and Peña Nieto had met at the sidelines of the ...

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