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.

Time is GMT + 8 hours Posted: 31 October 2003 2024 hrs Unemployment rises in France, casting clouds over economic outlook PARIS : France's jobless rate edged higher in September, data released by the Labour Ministry showed, confirming an upward trend that bodes ill for the French economy and government hopes to cut the number of people out of work. The ministry reported France's unemployment rate rose from 9.6 percent of the workforce in August to 9.7 percent in September, when 25,300 people joined the jobless roles. Advertisement The number of people looking for work in France now comes to...

Drive down Berlin's Unter den Linden these days, and it's easy to imagine you're in the capital of a vibrant new Europe. The rebuilt, buffed-up avenue now rivals the Champs-Elysées as the Continent's most majestic thoroughfare. Daringly designed buildings are everywhere, the Berlin Wall a fading memory. The Brandenburg Gate is freshly cleaned and polished. Nearby, Chancellor Gerhard Schröder governs from a new, grandiose, nine-story residence and office complex that makes the White House look like a summer cottage. The refurbished Reichstag is a paean to the power and prosperity of unified Germany, the linchpin of the European Union. That's...

International Perspective, by Marshall Auerback Is China Starting To Slow? October 21, 2003  "I would stake my reputation on employment growth happening before Christmas. I'd bet dollars to doughnuts that we're going to see a pickup in jobs in the next few months." - US Treasury Secretary John Snow, Times of London, Oct. 20, 2003While the industrialised world has been mired in stagnation, China and emerging Asia continue to be conspicuous beacons of growth.  Emerging Asia ex China suffered a steep recession in the year and a half post the 1997/98 Asian financial crisis, but China's comparative resilience during...

Just as the German government seeks to expedite passage of one of the most ambitious reform packages in the post-World War II era, it admitted just how badly Europe's largest economy is suffering on Thursday. Following the recent downward growth forecast revisions of the country's leading economics institutes, the Economics Ministry on Thursday said the German economy would stagnate this year. Minutes later, the Finance Ministry jumped on the bad news bandwagon, announcing that deficit spending for the year would reach a previously unsurpassed €43.4 billion ($53.1 billion.) Though Economics Minister Wolfgang Clement shaved estimated growth from 0.75 to zero...

Like hundreds of other CFOs in Asia, Oh Se Kang has spent a good part of this year assessing the merits of a new investment in China. In particular, he's looked at whether or not to build a US$300 million paper mill in Hebei province, 280km southwest of Beijing, to feed the local market with newsprint. Oh's analysis was exhaustive but, in the end, positive. On September 10, his firm, Singapore-based Pan Asia Paper, decided to go ahead. When the plant opens in late 2005, it will make the company the biggest producer of newsprint in China. The business case...

<p>Germany's Schlauch Says Euro Above $1.20 `Danger' to Recovery Oct. 10 (Bloomberg) -- German Deputy Economics Minister Rezzo Schlauch said the euro's exchange rate against the dollar would threaten the economy's efforts to pull out of recession if the dozen-nation currency exceeds $1.20.</p>

Germany sinks deeper in the red 26 September 2003 WIESBADEN - Germany's public sector continued to go deeper into the red in the first half of 2003, boosting the total national debt to nearly EUR 1.29 trillion, officials said Friday. The Federal Statistics Office in Wiesbaden said the figure as of June 30 was 5.1 percent higher than that 12 months earlier. The increase in the debt came as expenditures continued to rise while income nearly stagnated in the first six months, the office reported. It said that while spending increased by 2.3 percent to EUR 501.5 billion, revenues were...

TAIPEI — Taking a more tempered approach to Asia's hottest market, Texas Instruments CEO Thomas Engibous said Monday that China's transformation into an electronics powerhouse will be a lengthy affair that is guided by the hand of influential Taiwanese firms already on the ground. “China is in the very early stages of developing their own electronics industry. I wouldn't say that anybody should be shaking in their boots,” said Engibous, speaking on the sidelines of Taiwan's Computex, Asia's largest computer-oriented trade show. “China is really just a large market for products today but a very large direct competitor down the...

Good afternoon. I am delighted to be here. I would like to thank both the U.S.-Taiwan Business Council and the Fabless Semiconductor Association for organizing this important conference. My Bureau at the Commerce Department – the Bureau of Industry and Security – actually deals with a range of issues at the intersection of business and national security, including export controls, anti-boycott compliance, defense trade and offsets, imports and foreign investment that affect our security, and monitoring the health of our defense industrial base. The People’s Republic of China and Taiwan figure prominently in several of these areas. This afternoon I...

<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>

Germany and France open their coffers Ambrose Evans-Pritchard in Brussels (Filed: 19/09/2003) France and Germany yesterday unveiled a Keynesian spending blitz to pull their economies out of slump and halt the "de-industrialisation" of Europe, deftly side-stepping the spending constraints of the Growth & Stability Pact. Jacques Chirac: side-stepping stability pact In a return to the dirigiste policies of the 1970s, France's Jacques Chirac and Germany's Gerhard Schröder outlined a 10-point list of headline projects, including high-speed railway lines, the Galileo satellite navigation programme, digital television, and broadband internet links. Paris and Berlin already face possible sanctions for running budget deficits...

Hands Off, China Tells G7 on Eve of Talks Sept. 19 — By Alan Wheatley, Asian Economics Correspondent DUBAI (Reuters) - China bluntly told the United States on Friday not to make it a scapegoat for its economic woes by pressing for a revaluation of the yuan at this weekend's meeting of the world's leading industrial powers. The need for China and other Asian nations to let their currencies rise to help iron out major imbalances threatening the global economy will be a major talking point when Group of Seven (G7) finance ministers gather on Saturday in Dubai. With the...

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...

The United States is turning protectionist. Or at least that’s the growing risk in this tough economic climate. America is now taking dead aim on the “China problem.” Legislation has been introduced in the US Congress that threatens to impose 27.5% across-the board tariffs on Chinese exports into the US if the RMB peg is not abandoned. In my opinion, this is a classic example of opportunistic politics leading to bad economics. Such an approach would have negative impacts on the US, China, and the broader global economy. It is right out of the script of the nightmares of the...

This week we deal with tariff proposals and other absurdities, the Chinese and the huge rise in their holdings of US debt by foreign governments, plus one of the more profound pieces on the events in New York, presciently written more than 50 years ago. At the end, I ask my non-US readers a question about investment laws and practices in their country. A good starting place this week is the legislation introduced in the Senate (SB.1586) to add a 27.5% tariff to Chinese goods unless they allow their currency to float. This is bi-partisan idiocy of the first order,...

<p>BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The economy of the 12-nation euro zone shrank in the second quarter of this year for the first time since the final quarter of 2001, but it's expected to gradually recover in coming months, reports showed Tuesday.</p>

UPDATE - S.Korea economy in recession, H2 rebound seen Friday August 22, 3:12 am ET By Kim Kyoung-wha (Adds regional comparisons, updates markets in paras 8 and 9)SEOUL, Aug 22 (Reuters) - South Korea's economy, the envy of most Asian neighbours last year, contracted in the second quarter on flagging consumption, sliding into its first recession since the 1998 Asian crisis, the central bank said on Friday. A central bank forecast for the third quarter implied a strong rebound was now under way, although officials remained cautious and analysts pointed to ballooning consumer debt defaults and labour unrest sapping private...

Euro slumps against the dollar The euro is heading for its biggest weekly fall against the dollar in two years, as investors fret about the state of the European economy. The euro's fall was made worse by a string of upbeat economic data coming from the US, which helped the dollar. In early morning trade on Friday, the euro stood at $1.092, down nearly 2% from the start of trade on Thursday. The euro has lost 9% of its value against the dollar since June, partially reversing a sustained 33% increase since early last year. Of the world's three major...

It's time for the new Fall line-up. This is the time of the year major television networks start to announce their new fall line-up and the NFL starts to announce its line-up as the season begins in earnest, and its time for the United States to announce its new oil supplier line-up. It's time to send Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and other middle eastern suppliers packing, we don't need them anymore. Let our allies who refuse to stand beside us, like France, Germany, and Japan figure out how to deal with them. Our new realigned oil supplier list is: number one,...