Britain is planning a new effort to help poor countries reduce their huge debts by offering to pay off 10 percent of the total owed to international agencies and challenging other nations to follow suit, said Chancellor of the Exchequer Gor-don Brown.
In an address scheduled for yesterday to an advocacy group called the Trade Justice Movement, Brown planned to repeat a proposal that the IMF should revalue its vast gold reserves, currently priced at a tenth of their market value, and use the proceeds to cancel some Third World debt, according to the a text of his remarks published on Saturday in The Guardian and later confirmed by the Treasury.
The issue is rising once more on the international agenda because a previous mechanism for debt relief, set up in 1996 by the World Bank and the IMF, is to be renewed in December for two years. James Wolfensohn, the president of the World Bank, said on Friday in Washington that the White House had devised a plan to cancel some Third World debt, Reuters reported. Senator John Kerry has also pro-mised to lead efforts to cancel the debts of impoverished countries if he is elected in November.
Brown's proposal is significant because it comes just days before the annual meetings of the World Bank and the IMF in Washington. The finance ministers of the G7 major industrial nations, including Brown, are also to meet just before those gatherings.
"What we hope is that this will break the logjam that has been there for some time," said Brendan Cox, a spokesman for Oxfam, a nonprofit group that has urged accelerated moves to cancel Third World debt.
"If others follow suit it will be a massive turning point in efforts to end the burden of international debt," Cox said.
Brown was scheduled to tell the meeting of anti-debt campaigners yesterday that Britain will set aside the equivalent of US$180 million a year to pay off 10 percent of the money owed by 32 countries to international lenders, notably the World Bank and the African Development Bank.
"Because the poor cannot wait, we intend to lead by example by paying our share of their payments to the World Bank and the African Development Bank," Brown was planning to say. "We do this alone today, but we urge you to use your moral authority to urge other countries to follow suit so that poor countries can look forward to a future free from the shackles of debt."
Brown will also argue that the debt owed to the IMF could be cut by a revaluation of the fund's gold stocks, currently worth US$8.5 billion when valued at US$40 per ounce. The market price for gold is now more than US$400 an ounce.
"Because we cannot bury the hopes of half of humanity in the lifeless vaults of gold, the cancellation of debt owed to the IMF should be paid for by the better use of IMF gold," Brown planned to say.
Some estimates put the total debt owed by the poorest countries at around US$200 billion.
Tropical Storm Usagi strengthened to a typhoon yesterday morning and remains on track to brush past southeastern Taiwan from tomorrow to Sunday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. As of 2pm yesterday, the storm was approximately 950km east-southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan proper’s southernmost point, the CWA said. It is expected to enter the Bashi Channel and then turn north, moving into waters southeast of Taiwan, it said. The agency said it could issue a sea warning in the early hours of today and a land warning in the afternoon. As of 2pm yesterday, the storm was moving at
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,”
UPDATED FORECAST: The warning covered areas of Pingtung County and Hengchun Peninsula, while a sea warning covering the southern Taiwan Strait was amended The Central Weather Administration (CWA) at 5:30pm yesterday issued a land warning for Typhoon Usagi as the storm approached Taiwan from the south after passing over the Philippines. As of 5pm, Usagi was 420km south-southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan proper’s southernmost tip, with an average radius of 150km, the CWA said. The land warning covered areas of Pingtung County and the Hengchun Peninsula (恆春), and came with an amended sea warning, updating a warning issued yesterday morning to cover the southern part of the Taiwan Strait. No local governments had announced any class or office closures as of press time last night. The typhoon
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.
RSS