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.
DISCONTENT: The CCP finds positive content about the lives of the Chinese living in Taiwan threatening, as such video could upset people in China, an expert said Chinese spouses of Taiwanese who make videos about their lives in Taiwan have been facing online threats from people in China, a source said yesterday. Some young Chinese spouses of Taiwanese make videos about their lives in Taiwan, often speaking favorably about their living conditions in the nation compared with those in China, the source said. However, the videos have caught the attention of Chinese officials, causing the spouses to come under attack by Beijing’s cyberarmy, they said. “People have been messing with the YouTube channels of these Chinese spouses and have been harassing their family members back in China,”
The Central Weather Administration (CWA) yesterday said there are four weather systems in the western Pacific, with one likely to strengthen into a tropical storm and pose a threat to Taiwan. The nascent tropical storm would be named Usagi and would be the fourth storm in the western Pacific at the moment, along with Typhoon Yinxing and tropical storms Toraji and Manyi, the CWA said. It would be the first time that four tropical cyclones exist simultaneously in November, it added. Records from the meteorology agency showed that three tropical cyclones existed concurrently in January in 1968, 1991 and 1992.
GEOPOLITICAL CONCERNS: Foreign companies such as Nissan, Volkswagen and Konica Minolta have pulled back their operations in China this year Foreign companies pulled more money from China last quarter, a sign that some investors are still pessimistic even as Beijing rolls out stimulus measures aimed at stabilizing growth. China’s direct investment liabilities in its balance of payments dropped US$8.1 billion in the third quarter, data released by the Chinese State Administration of Foreign Exchange showed on Friday. The gauge, which measures foreign direct investment (FDI) in China, was down almost US$13 billion for the first nine months of the year. Foreign investment into China has slumped in the past three years after hitting a record in 2021, a casualty of geopolitical tensions,
‘SOMETHING SPECIAL’: Donald Trump vowed to reward his supporters, while President William Lai said he was confident the Taiwan-US partnership would continue Donald Trump was elected the 47th president of the US early yesterday morning, an extraordinary comeback for a former president who was convicted of felony charges and survived two assassination attempts. With a win in Wisconsin, Trump cleared the 270 electoral votes needed to clinch the presidency. As of press time last night, The Associated Press had Trump on 277 electoral college votes to 224 for US Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic Party’s nominee, with Alaska, Arizona, Maine, Michigan and Nevada yet to finalize results. He had 71,289,216 votes nationwide, or 51 percent, while Harris had 66,360,324 (47.5 percent). “We’ve been through so
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