World Bank president Robert Zoellick called on G20 leaders yesterday to set an ambitious agenda of “responsible globalization” at this week’s summit.
Zoellick said the summit should include efforts to promote more balanced growth with financial stability, development and climate change, rather than the narrow focus set at the last G20 summit in London in April.
“The challenge for the G20 is how do you sustain the momentum and co-operation they were able to achieve when staring into the abyss at the time of the London summit as the crisis wanes?” Zoellick told the Financial Times.
US President Barack Obama hosts G20 leaders in Pittsburgh starting on Thursday for two days of talks aimed at tightening regulations to ensure that a similar global financial crisis never happens again.
“The core message of Pittsburgh needs to be more than implementing the agenda set in London, which was mostly about financial stability or reforming bankers’ bonuses,” he said.
“I would like the G20 to talk about responsible globalization,” Zoellick said.
“That would capture balanced global growth, financial stability, climate change, help for the poorest including our proposal for a new facility to help countries cope with economic shocks not of their own making,” he said.
Zoellick also warned of rising protectionism and called for a robust G20 response.
“We have a low-grade fever of trade tensions and the temperature is starting to rise,” he told the paper.
He urged the US and China to settle their dispute over imports. The US last week imposed punitive tariffs of 35 percent on Chinese-made tire imports — a move that prompted Beijing to lodge a complaint at the WTO.
The World Bank last week urged the G20 to step up aid to the poorest countries, saying they lack billions of dollars for critical spending to weather the global economic crisis.
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
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