EU ministers will ask Britain to contribute 30.9 billion euros toward an IMF package aimed at rescuing the single currency, the Daily Telegraph reported yesterday.
Britain will be asked for the cash injection, equivalent to US$40.3 billion, when EU finance ministers hold talks over the 200 billion euro fund (US$260 billion) scheduled for yesterday, an EU official told the Telegraph.
If Britain agrees, it would be the second-biggest contributor to the package behind Germany and level with France. However, British Prime Minister David Cameron, who blocked plans for EU treaty changes aimed at saving the currency, has repeatedly promised not to directly fund a bailout kitty.
Britain is already liable for 14.3 billion euros of loans and guarantees to Greece, Ireland and Portugal. With several members of the 17-strong eurozone, of which Britain is not a part, under threat of credit rating downgrades, the key focus of the telephone conference will be to boost coffers to enable the new fund to come to the aid of floundering economies.
A government source said on condition of anonymity that the so-called eurogroup ministers would “discuss what happens after the European summit of Dec. 8 and Dec. 9” on saving the eurozone.
At that summit, member countries announced plans to pump 200 billion euros into the warchest.
Eurozone members were to provide about three quarters, and other EU countries the rest. The aim was to allow the IMF to come to the aid of eurozone countries in trouble, and the summit gave leaders 10 days to work out the details.
The eurosceptic wing of Cameron’s Conservative Party is urging their leader to resist attempts to make Britain pay towards any bailout of heavily-indebted eurozone nations.
“We did not agree any increase in bilateral resources last week,” a spokesman for Cameron said on Friday. “We made very clear in that meeting that we were not contributing to that 200 billion euros.”
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
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