Economics & Business Archive

From the start, the eurozone crisis has been a battle over who will ultimately be liable for the billions worth of actual and potential losses on sovereign debt held by European financial institutions. With neither the issuance of collectively backed Eurobonds nor the use of the European Central Bank (ECB) as lender of last resort initially available as options, the European Union, the ECB and the International Monetary Fund decided to protect bank bondholders at all costs, choosing instead to impose losses on taxpayers, even at the risk of stretching governments’ solvency to the breaking point. But because voters’ tolerance […]

Tokyo has said that it will support the U.S.-led sanctions on Iran, and will steadily reduce its orders of Iranian oil. World News Videos by NewsLook

This week, a general strike has paralyzed much of Nigeria’s economy while anti-government protests have occurred in many of the country’s major cities. The protests were triggered by the federal government’s decision to remove a subsidy on fuel on Jan. 1. The ensuing rise in the cost of a liter of fuel, from approximately $0.45 to $0.94, dealt a powerful blow to most Nigerians, many of whom live on less than $2 a day. Some protesters, fearing for their economic survival, feel they have no choice but to take to the streets. But the protests also encompass concerns that extend […]

In supporting her proposal to reverse the Australian ban on uranium exports to India at the Australian Labour Party’s conference in early December, Prime Minister Julia Gillard argued that, “We should take a decision that is in our nation’s interest, a decision about strengthening our strategic partnership with India in this, the Asian century.” The proposal, which was successfully passed at the conference, comes at a time when U.S. President Barack Obama is orchestrating Washington’s strategic pivot to Asia and signals that further space is being negotiated for India in the existing regional order. Washington seems to be using its […]

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy meet today for the first time in 2012, as they seek to craft a master plan for rescuing the euro over the next three months. Finance News Videos by NewsLook

News arrived this week that the second-largest oil company in China has agreed to pay $900 million, and contribute as much as $1.6 billion to future drilling costs, for a one-third stake in five American exploratory oil projects. The foray into American energy investment, the first by China Petrochemical Corp., known as Sinopec, comes in the form of a partnership with Oklahoma-based Devon Energy Corp. to develop shale reserves. “It’s a marriage of convenience and opportunity,” said Clayton Dube, associate director of the University of Southern California’s U.S.-China Institute. “This is further evidence of Chinese firms and the Chinese state […]

According to an unnamed administration official cited by the Atlantic’s Steve Clemons this week, Vice President Joe Biden has been tasked by the White House with overseeing U.S.-China relations. As such, Biden will work directly with his Chinese counterpart, Vice President Xi Jinping, who is currently responsible for the Chinese side of the strategic dialogue between Beijing and Washington, but is widely expected to succeed to the Chinese presidency later this year. As Clemons concluded, the move reflects the Obama administration’s assessment that the “management of U.S.-China policy has become so central to a vast array of other policy challenges […]

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said that Exxon Mobil Corp.’s demand for as much as $12 billion in international arbitration for assets seized in the South American country in 2007 was “crazy.” World News Videos by NewsLook

Iran’s exchange rate is experiencing unusual volatility, with the U.S. dollar and the euro both rising by more than 25 percent against the Iranian rial over the past three weeks, despite attempts by Iran’s central bank to stabilize its currency. This volatility has coincided with the approval by the United States and the United Kingdom of a new round of sanctions against Iran targeting the Iranian central bank (ICB). The sanctions will deny access to U.S. markets to any firm that engages in financial transactions with the ICB. Since Iran’s commercial banks have already been targeted by similar sanctions, the […]

During the Cold War, the Soviet Union’s military-industrial complex sustained the massive Soviet military institution, which regularly gobbled up 15-25 percent of the nation’s GDP. In an odd and unexpected twist to the end of the Cold War, the Russian arms industry has turned to sustaining itself by arming a pair of Asian giants: Arms exports to China and India have proven lucrative for Russia — and have even had a synergistic and competitive quality. The unease each country has felt due to the other increasing its military capability has led to higher revenues for Rosoboronexport, the Russian state-owned arms […]

Hundreds of demonstrators in Nigeria’s commercial capital of Lagos shut petrol stations, formed human barriers along motorways and hijacked buses in protest of the shock doubling of fuel prices after a government subsidy was removed. World News Videos by NewsLook

In 2011, Myanmar astonished the international community with a series of political openings that led even U.S. President Barack Obama to see “flickers of progress” in the country. The approval by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Summit last November of Myanmar’s bid to chair the regional bloc in 2014 and the historic visit of U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to the country seem to have launched a regional race for gaining a “special relationship” with the Myanmar authorities, themselves eager to attract new foreign investment. But it is doubtful that increased economic involvement with neighboring countries will […]