All posts tagged: world-economy

Biden and Netanyahu’s fraught relationship hits new low

Biden and Netanyahu’s fraught relationship hits new low

Published by skeptic

“It’s definitely an earthquake.” That’s how American diplomat Richard Haass described the stunning declaration by U.S. President Joe Biden that his administration would stop supplying certain weapons to Israel if it went ahead with a planned invasion of Rafah in the Gaza Strip. “This was building up for a while, and Rafah was the straw that broke the camel’s back,” Haass, former president of the Council on Foreign Relations and policy advisor during the George W. Bush administration, said in an interview with Israeli newspaper Haaretz. “There’s real skepticism in the administration that Rafah will bring about a deal for the hostages, like the Israelis have been saying.” The last several weeks have seen a fraught back and forth between Israel and Hamas and the Qatari, Egyptian and American mediators trying to come up with a deal that will allow a cease-fire between the warring parties and a release of the hostages still held by the Palestinian militant group. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has long pushed for an invasion of Rafah — Gaza’s southernmost …

Oil refinery in Russia region damaged in Ukraine drone attack: Authorities

Oil refinery in Russia region damaged in Ukraine drone attack: Authorities

Published by skeptic

Slavyansk oil refinery in Russia’s Krasnodar region was damaged in a Ukraine drone attack, local authorities said on Saturday. There were a total of nine attacks on the tank farm and distillation column, Roman Siniagovskyi, head of the Slavyansk administrative district, said on Telegram. “The tank farm was not damaged due to the organized protection system. The distillation column was. The fire was eliminated by joint efforts of responsible services,” Siniagovskyi said. A fire broke out in small area at the refinery, local emergency services said, and was later extinguished. Russia’s Defence Ministry said on Saturday its air defense units had intercepted and destroyed 66 Ukrainian drones over the territory of the Krasnodar region, and two more over the Crimean peninsula. Source link

Blinken calls for US, China to manage differences ‘responsibly’ ahead of talks

Blinken calls for US, China to manage differences ‘responsibly’ ahead of talks

Published by Sam

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken called Thursday on the United States and China to manage their differences “responsibly” as he went on a charm offensive ahead of expected tough talks. Issued on: 25/04/2024 – 04:41 1 min A day before meeting Beijing’s top brass, Blinken visited the bustling metropolis of Shanghai where he sampled local food, watched a basketball game and strolled along the city’s famous Bund promenade on the busy Huangpu River. Visiting the local Communist Party leader in a reception room with sweeping views of the Shanghai skyline, Blinken said President Joe Biden was committed to “direct and sustained” dialogue between the world’s two largest economies after years of mounting tension. “I think it’s important to underscore the value — in fact, the necessity — of direct engagement, of speaking to each other, laying out our differences, which are real, seeking to work through them,” Blinken said. “We have an obligation for our people — indeed an obligation to the world — to manage the relationship between our two countries responsibly,” Blinken …

Treasury Department to impose sanctions on Iran after Israel attack

Treasury Department to impose sanctions on Iran after Israel attack

Published by skeptic

Janet Yellen, US treasury secretary, during a news conference at the Treasury Department in Washington, DC, US, on Tuesday, April 16, 2024.  Tierney L. Cross | Bloomberg | Getty Images Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said Tuesday that the U.S. is preparing new sanctions on Iran after the country launched hundreds of drones and missiles at Israel over the weekend. “Treasury will not hesitate to work with our allies to use our sanctions authority to continue disrupting the Iranian regime’s malign and destabilizing activity,” Yellen said in remarks ahead of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank’s Spring Meetings this week. “The attack by Iran and its proxies underscores the importance of Treasury’s work to use our economic tools to counter Iran’s malign activity.” Yellen’s comments come as Israel’s wartime Cabinet is weighing how to respond to the attack, which Iran launched in retaliation for an Israeli strike on an Iranian consulate in Syria earlier this month. Israel said it intercepted 99% of the more than 300 projectiles from Iran that came in on Saturday. The …

U.S. economy world’s best; Trump claims ‘cesspool.’ Data is clear

U.S. economy world’s best; Trump claims ‘cesspool.’ Data is clear

Published by skeptic

U.S. President Joe Biden delivers remarks on the U.S. economy and his administration’s effort to revive American manufacturing, during his visit to Flex LTD, a factory that makes solar energy microinverters, in West Columbia, South Carolina, July 6, 2023. Jonathan Ernst | Reuters President Joe Biden is fighting to convince inflation-weary voters that the U.S. economy is healthy. “America has the best economy in the world,” he told NBC’s “TODAY” on Monday, laying out an argument that is central to his reelection campaign. America’s economic standing in the world is becoming an early flashpoint on the campaign trail, where former President Donald Trump routinely depicts the United States as a commercial wasteland. “We are a nation whose economy is collapsing into a cesspool of ruin, whose supply chain is broken, whose stores are not stocked, whose deliveries are not coming,” Trump shouted at a Georgia rally last month. But the numbers paint a different picture, one more in line with Biden’s narrative of American economic dominance than Trump’s apocalyptic warnings. Inflation has fallen sharply from …

Former Trump advisor John Bolton says Gaza war still in early stages

Former Trump advisor John Bolton says Gaza war still in early stages

Published by skeptic

Former National Security Adviser John Bolton speaks to reporters after speaking in a panel hosted by the National Council of Resistance of Iran – U.S. Representative Office (NCRI-US) at the Willard InterContinental Hotel on August 17, 2022 in Washington, DC. Anna Moneymaker | Getty Images Former U.S. national security advisor John Bolton believes Israel’s war in Gaza is “still in the very early stages” and says it has been complicated by Iran’s involvement. Framing the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas as “an Iranian war against Israel,” Bolton told CNBC’s Dan Murphy: “The fact that Iran has not yet been held to account for any of it, suggests that we’re still in the very early stages of the war.” Israel declared war on Hamas after the Palestinian Islamist group launched a surprise terror attack on Oct. 7, killing around 1,200 people including women and children, and kidnapping more than 200 others. Some 130 are presumed to be still in captivity in the Gaza Strip, which is controlled by Hamas. “This is not a Gaza versus …

First ship carrying aid approaches Gaza Strip as Israel accused

First ship carrying aid approaches Gaza Strip as Israel accused

Published by skeptic

The Open Arms vessel docked in the Cypriot port of Larnaca. – | Afp | Getty Images An aid ship was approaching the Gaza Strip’s coastline on Friday with much-needed deliveries for the Palestinian people, as relief organizations warn that thousands in the besieged enclave are on the brink of famine. The ship — called Open Arms and run by a Spanish charity of the same name — carries around 200 metric tons of supplies including flour, rice and water, from Larnaca port in Cyprus. Video footage from the AFP news agency showed the ship visible off the shore of the Gaza Strip on Friday morning London time. The circuitous route comes as numerous trucks of food and aid await permission to enter the Gaza Strip via either the Kerem Shalom crossing, which borders Israel and Gaza, or the Rafah crossing, which borders Egypt and Gaza. Israel last year agreed to work with Cyprus in setting up an aid corridor across the sea between the European Union member and the Gaza Strip. Earlier this month, the …

The economic goals in Chinese leaders’ coded language

The economic goals in Chinese leaders’ coded language

Published by Sam

China’s “Two Sessions” congress that began this week is the country’s most important political event of the year. To understand what’s at stake, it helps to have some fluency in Chinese Communist Party (CCP) parlance. Terms such as “new productive forces” and “new three” appear vague, but they speak volumes about the party’s agenda during the 10-day congress. China’s annual political extravaganza has attained cruising speed. The “Two Sessions” congress of two of the country’s most important political bodies has already touched on economic recovery, the modernisation of the army, foreign relations and the question of Taiwan. During the event, nearly 3,000 members of the National People’s Congress (NPC) – China’s parliament – meet to set the legislative agenda for the coming year. The 2023 session set the roadmap for more than 2,000 measures that were adopted, according to the official Xinhua news agency. Alongside the NPC meeting, the congress also hosts the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, a body meant to give its opinion on the political priorities for the year. Some 2,000 members of …

WTO chief warns of ‘tough’ economic outlook as trade ministers gather in Abu Dhabi

WTO chief warns of ‘tough’ economic outlook as trade ministers gather in Abu Dhabi

Published by Sam

The head of the World Trade Organization warned on Monday that war, uncertainty and instability are weighing down the global economy and urged the bloc to embrace reform as elections across nearly half the world’s population could bring new challenges. Issued on: 26/02/2024 – 04:03 2 min WTO Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala sought to offer some praise for her organization as it held its biennial meeting in the United Arab Emirates, even as it faces pressure from the United States and other nations.  But she was blunt about the risks ahead, as higher prices for food, energy and other essentials sting people’s pockets, “fueling political frustration.” “People everywhere are feeling anxious about the future and this will be felt at the ballot box this year,” she said.  None are perhaps more critical for the WTO than the U.S. presidential election on Nov. 5.  Running again is former President Donald Trump, who threatened to withdraw the U.S. from the WTO and repeatedly levied tariffs — taxes on imported goods — on perceived friends and foes alike. A …

Netanyahu’s first post-war plan seeks security buffer in Gaza — in blow to U.S. diplomacy

Netanyahu’s first post-war plan seeks security buffer in Gaza — in blow to U.S. diplomacy

Published by skeptic

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu looks on as the US Secretary of State gives statements to the media inside The Kirya, which houses the Israeli Defence Ministry, after their meeting in Tel Aviv on October 12, 2023. Blinken arrived in a show of solidarity after Hamas’s surprise weekend onslaught in Israel, an AFP correspondent travelling with him reported. He is expected to visit Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as Washington closes ranks with its ally that has launched a withering air campaign against Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip. Jacquelyn Martin | Getty Images Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu disclosed his first official plan for the post-war future of the Gaza Strip, calling for Israel’s ongoing military presence in the enclave and for the preservation of a security buffer zone — a step antithetical to the wishes of closely-allied Washington. In a sparse document released overnight and translated by NBC News, Netanyahu outlines the previously stated immediate goals of demilitarizing and eradicating the governance of Hamas, as well as rescuing Israeli hostages held by the …