The 25 companies involved come from a broad range of sectors, including payment providers Visa and Nexi, carmakers Toyota and Mercedes and global healthcare company GlaxoSmithKline.
"What was different was that it was distinctly China's G20. China did not simply host the G20 for America to sweep in, give its "leadership" and stamp to proceedings, and then to fly off. China, at this G20, made it very plain that it was leading, and to make it clearer still, it made sure that the world should see that the guest of honor was the Russian President, and not the American President (who regrettably experienced some technical difficulties that marred his ceremonial arrival). There was a deeper purpose here: to underline strategic co-ordination with Russia in the context of the display of Chinese leadership. "
"What may emerge in more concrete terms - it is too early to say - is the second strand to President Xi's global vision. In his address to the Chinese Communist Party, Xi said that relations of Russia and China should not be confined solely to economic relations, but rather, these two states should create an alternative military alliance: "we are now witnessing the aggressive actions by the United States against Russia and China. I believe that Russia and China may form an alliance before which NATO will be powerless," Xi said.
As G-20 economic policy makers prepare to meet in London on Sept. 4-5, German Finance Minister Peer Steinbrueck [...] also said he wants to discuss at the G-20 how financial markets can be brought to make a “greater, internationally coordinated contributi
"If the G-20 fails to deliver, is it really possible that we are doomed to repeat the same mistakes with regard to building up vulnerabilities in our financial system? Amazingly, the answer is yes. How can this happen, with so many smart people in governm
Toronto police have purchased four, long-range acoustic devices (LRAD) — often referred to as sound guns or sound cannons — for the upcoming June 26-27 summit, the Star has learned.
G20 Finance ministers and central bankers meet in Busan, Korea on June 4-5 ... Their leaders have agreed that banks should be made to pay for bailing out the sector in a future crisis so they can no longer believe they are "too big to fail" or that taxpay
China signed on last year to a G-20 platform for “strong, sustainable and balanced growth,” which has become a sort of motto for global the recovery. But there is little agreement on how to make the motto a reality. (NYT Yuan News)
"Focus has launched a process to update our strategic perspective and to identify new projects and approaches that will equip us, and our allies, to challenge power and bring about positive change. "
A wide range of activists, both African and European, is furious about the New Alliance(6). But the ONE campaign, co-founded by Bono, stepped up to defend it(7). The article it wrote last week was remarkable in several respects: in its elision of the interests of African leaders and those of their people, in its exaggeration of the role of small African companies, but above all in failing even to mention the injustice at the heart of the New Alliance – its promotion of a new wave of land grabbing.
The flaws in the international financial system are old and profound, and they defeat any effort to work around them. Chief among them is the lack of a mechanism to force any country with a current account surplus to reduce it. Huge imbalances – such as the Chinese surplus that sent a flood of capital into the US and helped create the financial crisis – can therefore develop and persist. The answer is what John Maynard Keynes proposed in the 1930s: an international reserve asset, rules for pricing national currencies against it, and penalties for countries that run a persistent surplus. After the financial crisis there was a flood of proposals along these lines from the UN, from the economist Joseph Stiglitz, and even from the governor of the People’s Bank of China. None has gone anywhere. Even the most basic first step towards that goal – boosting the IMF’s resources and handing more voting power to emerging markets so they can rely on it in time of need – has stalled in the US Congress.
Martin Kohr. Byron Blake -- Ambassador to the UN from his home of Jamaica, and serves as a Special Adviser to the current President of the UN General Assembly, Miguel D'Escoto-Brockmann.