World leaders yesterday closed in on a deal to jumpstart the sputtering global economy at one of the most important summits of recent decades.
After sharp differences over how to restore confidence, representatives of US President Barack Obama and other G20 leaders agreed the IMF could get up to US$500 billion in extra funding and a tax haven black list could be drawn up.
The British summit hosts expressed confidence an agreement would be clinched from the divisions at the meeting, which is being widely watched by markets and has sparked anti-capitalism riots in London in which one man died.
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said in his opening speech to the summit that there was a “very high degree of consensus.”
The summit has focused on measures to regulate financial markets, a clampdown on excessive corporate salaries and tax havens and increasing funding for the IMF.
Delegations were discussing ways to find hundreds of billions of dollars for the IMF and other institutions, diplomats said.
There was broad agreement on drawing up a “shame and name” blacklist of tax havens to force changes in banking secrecy.
Tax havens that refuse to share information with other countries will face “sanctions,” Stephen Timms, financial secretary to the British treasury, told reporters.
“In due course there will be a list produced of countries that don’t sign up ... what’s being discussed today is the timing,” he said. “The era of banking secrecy is over.”
A draft summit communique also called for restrictions on bonuses for bankers to discourage short-term risks.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon warned in an article for Britain’s Guardian newspaper that more than economics was at stake in London.
He said that unless decisive action was taken, the crisis could lead to a “growing social unrest, weakened governments and angry publics who have lost all faith in their leaders and their own future.”
Inside the summit, rifts “persisted” on how to draw up a new rule book for international finance and stimulus measures and combat protectionism, Britain’s Business Secretary Peter Mandelson told reporters.
France and Germany have demanded tough action by G20 leaders on regulation of global finance.
Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who last week blamed “white people with blue eyes” for the global economic crisis, tried to dampen expectations for the summit’s final statement.
“We cannot leave with nothing,” he said, noting that traders around the world were looking to London for a sign. “We can only hope for the best possible agreement.”
Meanwhile, Russia yesterday expressed regret that the idea of a new supranational currency that could in the future replace the dollar as a reserve currency was not on the table at the G20 summit.
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev told the economic gathering in London that it was important to address ways to improve the global currency system in the coming months, said a Kremlin official familiar with the matter.
A list of new regional currencies also has to be expanded to boost the global currency market which currently remained unstable, Medvedev said.
However, he cautioned that Russia did not seek to weaken the established currencies like the dollar, the pound or the euro.
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
Taiwan was ranked the fourth-safest country in the world with a score of 82.9, trailing only Andorra, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar in Numbeo’s Safety Index by Country report. Taiwan’s score improved by 0.1 points compared with last year’s mid-year report, which had Taiwan fourth with a score of 82.8. However, both scores were lower than in last year’s first review, when Taiwan scored 83.3, and are a long way from when Taiwan was named the second-safest country in the world in 2021, scoring 84.8. Taiwan ranked higher than Singapore in ninth with a score of 77.4 and Japan in 10th with
SECURITY RISK: If there is a conflict between China and Taiwan, ‘there would likely be significant consequences to global economic and security interests,’ it said China remains the top military and cyber threat to the US and continues to make progress on capabilities to seize Taiwan, a report by US intelligence agencies said on Tuesday. The report provides an overview of the “collective insights” of top US intelligence agencies about the security threats to the US posed by foreign nations and criminal organizations. In its Annual Threat Assessment, the agencies divided threats facing the US into two broad categories, “nonstate transnational criminals and terrorists” and “major state actors,” with China, Russia, Iran and North Korea named. Of those countries, “China presents the most comprehensive and robust military threat