Free Republic

The Vatican’s new Apostolic Nuncio to Iran says Pope Francis seeks closer bilateral relations between the Catholic government and the Islamic Republic.

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use.The following analysis was adapted from testimony given by USBICEF Research Fellow Alan Tonelson before the U.S. Senate Commerce Committee hearing on international trade policy, August 1, 2001. I. TRADE AND INVESTMENT AGREEMENTS ARE DIFFERENT The flurry of U.S. trade agreements negotiated during the 1990s has generally been presented to Congress and the public as net creators of American jobs and growth, and boosters of wages for American workers. The key supposedly was their capacity to increase exports. The stated logic behind these agreements was compelling. The United States was the world's...

<p>German Retail Sales Decline for Third Month in Four (Update2) Oct. 1 (Bloomberg) -- German retail sales unexpectedly slipped for the third month in four in August as unemployment close to the highest in 4 1/2 years and record temperatures kept consumers away from stores in Europe's largest economy.</p>

<p>European Economies: Solbes Says Europe Won't Muster 2% Growth Sept. 22 (Bloomberg) -- European Union Monetary Affairs Commissioner Pedro Solbes said the dozen countries that use the euro won't muster the 2 percent economic growth he predicted for next year after a weaker-than-forecast pace of expansion in 2003.</p>

Sept. 19 (Bloomberg) -- When Goldman Sachs Group Inc. chief China strategist Fred Hu predicted during the 1997 Asian financial crisis that China would retain its three-year currency peg against the U.S. dollar, he contradicted Asia's leading traders and economists. He was right: The peg stayed. Now Hu, formerly a paid-up member of China's Communist Party, expects the world's sixth-biggest trading nation to let the yuan appreciate as early as this year. China has fixed the currency at about 8.3 to the dollar since 1995, ``China's business cycle is different from the U.S., so there's no reason why the dollar...

STRESA, Italy, Sep 12, 2003 (AP Online via COMTEX) -- France and Germany faced mounting pressure Friday to cut their budget deficits as their smaller euro-zone partners feared the big two's expanding debt risks destabilizing the currency bloc. "We cannot have divisions whereby some obey the rules and others don't, because in the end we'll all have to pay a price for that," said Austrian Finance Minister Karl-Heinz Grasser. The worsening dispute over deficits and more gloomy data on the European economy were expected to dominate two days of talks among European Union finance ministers opening in this picturesque lakeside...