Mario Draghi of Italy was set to be appointed president of the European Central Bank (ECB) by eurozone finance ministers yesterday, at a pivotal point in the eurozone debt crisis.
The drama at the top of the IMF over the arrest of its director, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, on sex assault charges puts a keen edge on the ECB leadership talks in Brussels even though there was little doubt that Draghi would get the job.
Draghi became the almost certain successor to French Jean-Claude Trichet when German Chancellor Angela Merkel endorsed him last week.
For months German media had reported that Merkel wanted him to take over the IMF instead of the ECB when Strauss-Kahn’s term ends next year.
Draghi, who heads the Italian central bank and is known in Italy as “Super Mario,” had already received the backing of the other key leader in the eurozone, French President Nicolas Sarkozy.
With the ECB spearheading herculean efforts to contain a year-long debt crisis overhanging the euro, observers would like to see a smooth transfer when Trichet steps down in October.
Luxembourg Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker, who heads the Eurogroup of finance ministers, also voiced support for Draghi last week and called for a quick decision on the next ECB chief, saying it would “show a great deal of decision-making authority ... in these difficult times.”
In addition to picking the next ECB president, the EU finance ministers meeting yesterday and today must seal a 78 billion euro (US$110 billion) bailout for Portugal and discuss the possibility of new aid to Greece.
EU heads of state and government will make the final decision on the ECB chief at a summit next month.
Draghi is highly regarded in the global financial sector and has earned kudos as head of the Financial Stability Board, an international body tasked with reforming the sector in the wake of the global economic crisis.
A member of the ECB governing council, which makes key decisions on interest rates, the former Goldman Sachs executive will take over at a stormy time for the euro following EU-IMF rescues for Greece, Ireland and now Portugal.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained