A North Korean Trio’s Quick Spurt down South The US and its allies have added systematic attacks on North Korea’s human-rights record to their traditional arsenal of tactics for exerting pressure on that country. These…
Category: Japan
US President Obama was joined by European leaders last weekend in trying to turn the G20 summit in Australia into a forum for baiting Russia, rather than dealing with the more onerous problem of…
It’s long overdue but better late than never that Europe might just be back-pedalling on America’s aggressive agenda towards Russia. The business-like visit to Moscow this week by Germany’s Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier suggests that Europe can come to its senses to seek a diplomatic resolution of the escalating tensions over the Ukraine crisis – tensions that could spark a wider continental war, or worse. Steinmeier met with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov in which the pair stressed the need to find a political end to the violence in Ukraine. The German diplomat – the first high-level European envoy to Moscow in several months – also talked about normalising relations between his country and Russia and of finding a way to rescind the economic sanctions that Brussels has imposed on Moscow over recent months.
European companies now have the opportunity to settle trading accounts in Chinese yuan. The Bank of China in Frankfurt has become the first to operate European yuan clearing. Trading costs will be cut as there will be no dollar exchange first. More than 10 German regional and international banks including Deutsche Bank, Commerzbank, DZ Bank AG, and Landesbank Hessen-Thueringen Girozentrale, have opened accounts at Bank of China in Frankfurt. In June the People’s Bank of China chose Bank of China Ltd. to clear payments in the eurozone. The last five months were spent building the settlement infrastructure before the official start of clearing Monday.
A recently signed agreement between China and Thailand sheds light on the dynamics of the Maritime Silk Road. Amid all the fanfare and media buzz about China’s re-envisioning of its two Silk Road projects, the…
There’s hardly a more graphic illustration of where the multipolar world is going than what just happened at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Beijing. Take a very good look at the official photos. This is all about positioning – and this being China, pregnant with symbolic meaning. Guess who’s in the place of honor, side by side with President Xi Jinping. And guess where the lame duck leader of the “indispensable nation” has been relegated. The Chinese can also be masters at sending a global message.
Vladimir Putin took part in a meeting of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Forum’s CEO Summit on the Asia-Pacific region’s significance for Russia. Mr Putin said, in particular, that Russia views cooperation with the…
Russian natural gas supplies to China via the “western route” pipeline could exceed deliveries to Europe in the mid-term perspective, Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller said Sunday in Beijing. Miller, who heads Russia’s state-run energy…
Eventually the tired game will exhaust itself. Beneath the billions of dollars U.S. elections are lifeless events. The predictable flopping from Democrat to Republican and back again, with voters given no real choice but…
Hong Kong is frustrated, its people divided. Demonstrations and counter-demonstrations are now paralyzing this city known for its hedonism, consumerism and extreme form of individualism. At the North Point in Hong Kong, near Kowloon Ferry,…