UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon warned his top lieutenants on Friday that the global financial crisis jeopardized everything the UN has done to help the world’s poor.
“It threatens to undermine all our achievements and all our progress,” Ban told a meeting of UN agency chiefs devoted to the crisis. “Our progress in eradicating poverty and disease. Our efforts to fight climate change and promote development. To ensure that people have enough to eat.”
At a meeting also attended by the heads of the World Bank and IMF, Ban said the credit crunch that has stunned markets worldwide compounded the food crisis, the energy crisis and Africa’s development crisis.
“It could be the final blow that many of the poorest of the world’s poor simply cannot survive,” he said, in one of his bleakest assessments of the impact of the financial turmoil.
In a statement after the meeting, Ban picked up a theme he has stressed since the crisis erupted last month, that it should not be allowed to hit hardest “those least responsible” — the poor in developing countries.
The UN chief told reporters he would put that case to a summit in Washington on Nov. 15.
In Beijing, Asian and European leaders said yesterday they had reached a broad consensus on ways to deal with the global financial meltdown and would present their views at a crisis summit next month in Washington.
Speaking at the close of a two-day Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) in Beijing, the leaders called for new rules for guiding the global economy and a leading role for the IMF in aiding crisis-stricken countries.
The biennial ASEM generally does not make decisions, and a statement issued by the leaders indicated how much the crisis in global markets has driven world opinion and institutions.
“I’m pleased to confirm a shared determination and commitment of Europe and Asia to work together,” EU Commission President Jose Barroso said at a closing news conference.
He said participants would use the statement as the basis of their approach at the Nov. 15 Washington summit of the 20 largest economies.
The statement, adopted on Friday, calls on the IMF and similar institutions to help stabilize struggling banks and shore up flagging share prices.
“Leaders agreed that the IMF should play a critical role in assisting countries seriously affected by the crisis, upon their request,” the statement said.
Participants also agreed to “undertake effective and comprehensive reform of the international monetary and financial systems,” the statement said.
The document is one of the strongest endorsements yet for a leading role in the crisis for the IMF, long known as the international lender of last resort.
Responses to the crisis among participants have been varied thus far. The 15 euro countries and Britain agreed to put up a total of US$2.3 trillion in guarantees and emergency aid to help banks. In contrast, South Korea, China, Japan and ASEAN have merely recommitted themselves to an US$80 billion emergency fund to help those facing liquidity problems, to be established by June.
CLASH OF WORDS: While China’s foreign minister insisted the US play a constructive role with China, Rubio stressed Washington’s commitment to its allies in the region The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday affirmed and welcomed US Secretary of State Marco Rubio statements expressing the US’ “serious concern over China’s coercive actions against Taiwan” and aggressive behavior in the South China Sea, in a telephone call with his Chinese counterpart. The ministry in a news release yesterday also said that the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs had stated many fallacies about Taiwan in the call. “We solemnly emphasize again that our country and the People’s Republic of China are not subordinate to each other, and it has been an objective fact for a long time, as well as
‘CHARM OFFENSIVE’: Beijing has been sending senior Chinese officials to Okinawa as part of efforts to influence public opinion against the US, the ‘Telegraph’ reported Beijing is believed to be sowing divisions in Japan’s Okinawa Prefecture to better facilitate an invasion of Taiwan, British newspaper the Telegraph reported on Saturday. Less than 750km from Taiwan, Okinawa hosts nearly 30,000 US troops who would likely “play a pivotal role should Beijing order the invasion of Taiwan,” it wrote. To prevent US intervention in an invasion, China is carrying out a “silent invasion” of Okinawa by stoking the flames of discontent among locals toward the US presence in the prefecture, it said. Beijing is also allegedly funding separatists in the region, including Chosuke Yara, the head of the Ryukyu Independence
GOLDEN OPPORTUNITY: Taiwan must capitalize on the shock waves DeepSeek has sent through US markets to show it is a tech partner of Washington, a researcher said China’s reported breakthrough in artificial intelligence (AI) would prompt the US to seek a stronger alliance with Taiwan and Japan to secure its technological superiority, a Taiwanese researcher said yesterday. The launch of low-cost AI model DeepSeek (深度求索) on Monday sent US tech stocks tumbling, with chipmaker Nvidia Corp losing 16 percent of its value and the NASDAQ falling 612.46 points, or 3.07 percent, to close at 19,341.84 points. On the same day, the Philadelphia Stock Exchange Semiconductor Sector index dropped 488.7 points, or 9.15 percent, to close at 4,853.24 points. The launch of the Chinese chatbot proves that a competitor can
‘VERY SHALLOW’: The center of Saturday’s quake in Tainan’s Dongshan District hit at a depth of 7.7km, while yesterday’s in Nansai was at a depth of 8.1km, the CWA said Two magnitude 5.7 earthquakes that struck on Saturday night and yesterday morning were aftershocks triggered by a magnitude 6.4 quake on Tuesday last week, a seismologist said, adding that the epicenters of the aftershocks are moving westward. Saturday and yesterday’s earthquakes occurred as people were preparing for the Lunar New Year holiday this week. As of 10am yesterday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) recorded 110 aftershocks from last week’s main earthquake, including six magnitude 5 to 6 quakes and 32 magnitude 4 to 5 tremors. Seventy-one of the earthquakes were smaller than magnitude 4. Thirty-one of the aftershocks were felt nationwide, while 79
RSS