By William Cohan From the Financial Times, April 22 2009. So, what do all the $12.7bn (€9.8bn, £8.7bn), and counting, in first-quarter profits from what used to be known as Wall Street add up to? Have the past two years been one giant head fake, despite what we have been led to believe? Is […]
The first ever EU-wide survey on racism has revealed what most of us already knew. Racism is endemic and minority groups are the targets of violence, discrimination, and harassment. It’s a sad testimony for a continent that prides itself on the values of enlightenment. Published by the European Agency for Fundamental Rights , the report compiled […]
Henry Kissinger, Zbigniew Brzezinski, C. Fred Bergsten and others are pushing for the United States and China to jointly tackle issues of global concern. The thinking goes that the so-called G2 partnership is central and the relationship should be strengthened. In the current issue of Foreign Affairs, Elizabeth C. Economy and Adam Segal, both senior […]
Today, April 22nd, marks Earth Day 2009, the day also launches The Green Generation Campaign, for which is based on three main points; A carbon-free future based on renewable energy that will end our common dependency on fossil fuels, including coal. An individual’s commitment to responsible, sustainable consumption. Creation of a new green economy that […]
A website has been launched to help push for the release of Iranian-American journalist Roxana Saberi, who has been sentenced in Iran to eight years in prison on charges for spying for the United States. I don’t think I can add anything to the many articles that have already been written about the case. I […]
. . . and resorting to ‘accounting tricks‘ to solve the problem of systemic risk and the failures of the financial crisis is not the answer. Why..?? I read about an interesting anecdote at a House Financial Services Committee hearing last month, so I looked it up (see the video below). Robert Herz of the Financial […]
Florida’s Republican-controlled House of Representatives supported a measure yesterday to allow drilling in state waters. It is a major change in policy as supporting such legislation even just a few years ago would have almost been political suicide as so many citizens in the state feared for the cleanliness of the their beaches. The likelihood […]
The Kung-Fu hero, the drunken monkey king, and karaoke master has some disturbing ideas on democracy. I won’t go into any detail. It’s just too absurd to take seriously. But for the fans out there – enjoy this little article from the Taipei Times. Jackie Chan: Friend of repression
The current issue of Newsweek has an interesting commentary titled, “As Economies Sink, Religious Radicals Suffer Setbacks.” Apparently, the financial crisis is killing the prospects for more political Islam. The examples given are from: Turkey, Indonesia, Iran, and Lebanon. In Turkey, the AKP has lost support after focusing on Islamist platforms instead of Turkish economic […]
Today is Yom HaShoah, the Jewish holiday commemorating the victims of the Holocaust. It’s particularly appropriate to take a moment to remember those victims this year; the day before Yom HaShoah, a UN Conference allowed Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to deliver an address vehemently critical of Israel and which, in its original draft, referred to the Holocaust […]
Representatives of several leading Western countries walked out of a U.N. conference on racism in Switzerland yesterday when the president of Iran continued the same vitriol leveled at Israel at the previous conference. This report from The Washington Post has the details on the proceedings: Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad argued before a U.N. anti-racism conference […]
Central Asia has taken center stage this week in series of military maneuveres and developments. In a broad way, these developments can be seen as evidence of larger posturing between Russia (and to a lesser extent, China) on one hand and NATO and the US on the other. First, on Saturday, China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan […]
Shanghai, often recognized for its free-market tendencies and environmental leadership, is introducing China’s first municipal trading mechanism as a means to curb pollution. Last Friday, in advance of a major carbon trade industry event taking place in Beijing this week, word began surfacing in the Chinese media that Shanghai plans to pilot an emissions trading […]
JPMorgan Chairman and CEO Jamie Dimon, in a 1Q Report letter to shareholders, blamed the economic crisis on the Iraq war and investor freed. Interestingly, culpability by Wall Street risk-taking, accounting tricks, insolvent balance sheets, deregulation, toxic assets, short-selling, corporate welfare, ‘self-regulatory’ schemes and other financial industry misdeed was conspicuously missing from Mr. Dimon’s analysis.
In order to demonstrate the country’s responsible and “peaceful rise” and protect its interests abroad, China has increased its participation in United Nations peacekeeping efforts. Last week, the International Crisis Group released a report detailing China’s growing role in UN peacekeeping. “China now has over 2,000 peacekeepers serving in ten UN peacekeeping operations, making it […]