Europe’s four major powers have vowed to do all they could to prevent Wall Street’s turmoil from destabilizing their banking systems — even as a 35 billion euros (US$48 billion) plan to save a German lender fell apart.
But aside from vague statements of intent and calls for tighter regulation, the leaders of Germany, France, Britain and Italy shied away on Saturday from the sort of massive bailout passed by the US Congress a day earlier.
Europe’s four largest economies pledged to coordinate national responses to help banks in distress, but their failure to agree an EU-wide plan reflects divisions in Europe on how to deal with the crisis washing up on the continent’s shores from the US.
France had mooted a multi-billion-dollar EU-wide government bailout plan, but backed off after Germany said banks must find their own way out.
The EU’s failure during the past week to pull together on dealing with the crisis has caused worry. Both Ireland and Greece angered their EU neighbors by acting independently and guaranteeing to protect all savings.
The Saturday afternoon summit was arranged hastily with the aim of reassuring jittery markets and investors. On Friday, US legislators approved a US$700 billion government plan to buy up bad debt from banks and help unfreeze lending.
The four leaders — French President Nicolas Sarkozy, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi — vowed to ensure the soundness and stability of Europe’s banking and financial system, but they gave few specifics.
Instead, they took a swipe at European subsidy rules designed to ensure fair competition by preventing governments propping up failing companies.
Given the “exceptional circumstances,” they said, EU regulators should be flexible on laws that restrict how much governments can give companies in trouble.
Super Typhoon Kong-rey is the largest cyclone to impact Taiwan in 27 years, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said today. Kong-rey’s radius of maximum wind (RMW) — the distance between the center of a cyclone and its band of strongest winds — has expanded to 320km, CWA forecaster Chang Chun-yao (張竣堯) said. The last time a typhoon of comparable strength with an RMW larger than 300km made landfall in Taiwan was Typhoon Herb in 1996, he said. Herb made landfall between Keelung and Suao (蘇澳) in Yilan County with an RMW of 350km, Chang said. The weather station in Alishan (阿里山) recorded 1.09m of
NO WORK, CLASS: President William Lai urged people in the eastern, southern and northern parts of the country to be on alert, with Typhoon Kong-rey approaching Typhoon Kong-rey is expected to make landfall on Taiwan’s east coast today, with work and classes canceled nationwide. Packing gusts of nearly 300kph, the storm yesterday intensified into a typhoon and was expected to gain even more strength before hitting Taitung County, the US Navy’s Joint Typhoon Warning Center said. The storm is forecast to cross Taiwan’s south, enter the Taiwan Strait and head toward China, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The CWA labeled the storm a “strong typhoon,” the most powerful on its scale. Up to 1.2m of rainfall was expected in mountainous areas of eastern Taiwan and destructive winds are likely
The Central Weather Administration (CWA) yesterday at 5:30pm issued a sea warning for Typhoon Kong-rey as the storm drew closer to the east coast. As of 8pm yesterday, the storm was 670km southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻) and traveling northwest at 12kph to 16kph. It was packing maximum sustained winds of 162kph and gusts of up to 198kph, the CWA said. A land warning might be issued this morning for the storm, which is expected to have the strongest impact on Taiwan from tonight to early Friday morning, the agency said. Orchid Island (Lanyu, 蘭嶼) and Green Island (綠島) canceled classes and work
KONG-REY: A woman was killed in a vehicle hit by a tree, while 205 people were injured as the storm moved across the nation and entered the Taiwan Strait Typhoon Kong-rey slammed into Taiwan yesterday as one of the biggest storms to hit the nation in decades, whipping up 10m waves, triggering floods and claiming at least one life. Kong-rey made landfall in Taitung County’s Chenggong Township (成功) at 1:40pm, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The typhoon — the first in Taiwan’s history to make landfall after mid-October — was moving north-northwest at 21kph when it hit land, CWA data showed. The fast-moving storm was packing maximum sustained winds of 184kph, with gusts of up to 227kph, CWA data showed. It was the same strength as Typhoon Gaemi, which was the most
RSS