The sovereign debt crisis in Europe shows that the world’s economic woes are “far from over” and highlights the need for reforms, a World Economic Forum (WEF) official said on Sunday.
“What we ... see as we gather in the growing storm of a European sovereign debt crisis is that the [global] crisis is far from over, that it is in many ways rekindled in a dangerous new contagion,” WEF vice chairman Mark Malloch-Brown said.
“The need to get the right international financial reforms in place remains as pressing as ever,” Malloch-Brown said at the opening session of a two-day World Economic Forum Global Redesign Summit in Doha.
But, “this is not about any kind of single global fix,” he said on the sidelines of the summit. “It’s finding smart ideas which work for particular issues.”
The European crisis has stemmed from Greece’s heavily indebted economy and from turmoil in the Spanish banking sector and has raised fears that some eurozone economies will no longer be in a position to repay debts.
World stocks and the euro, which dropped to a four-year low against the dollar last week, have been under severe pressure due to concerns over the debt crisis.
A panelist at a later session, Abraaj Capital CEO Arif Naqvi also said that continuing difficulties in Europe indicate that the world is not yet out of the crisis.
“I think the euro crisis proved to us that we’re actually just at the edge of a cataclysmic event. We’re still at the point where we can’t take anything for granted,” he said.
However, Malloch-Brown said that Europe’s debt troubles could provide an impetus for reforms.
“If last year’s experience is anything to go by, a lot of the work on improved financial systems occurred while the crisis was very hot,” he said. But “we’ll have to see whether a renewal of the crisis has that effect or not.”
The wide-ranging, 600-page Global Redesign Initiative report presented at the summit identifies areas of weakness in the international financial and monetary system, highlighted by the global crisis, which it says need to be addressed.
Global economic imbalances, insufficient risk management and a lack of transparency have contributed to the crisis, the report said, adding that high institutional and consumer leverage exacerbated it and liquidity dried up as it unfolded.
And the failure of some financial institutions that were thought to be strong “lead to a crucial loss of confidence in the markets,” the report said.
“[In 2008-2009] the full extent of the world economy’s systemic weaknesses and cooperative deficits were laid bare,” the report said.
“It would be a serious, historic error to revert to complacency and return to business as usual,” it said.
ROLLER-COASTER RIDE: More than five earthquakes ranging from magnitude 4.4 to 5.5 on the Richter scale shook eastern Taiwan in rapid succession yesterday afternoon Back-to-back weather fronts are forecast to hit Taiwan this week, resulting in rain across the nation in the coming days, the Central Weather Administration said yesterday, as it also warned residents in mountainous regions to be wary of landslides and rockfalls. As the first front approached, sporadic rainfall began in central and northern parts of Taiwan yesterday, the agency said, adding that rain is forecast to intensify in those regions today, while brief showers would also affect other parts of the nation. A second weather system is forecast to arrive on Thursday, bringing additional rain to the whole nation until Sunday, it
CONDITIONAL: The PRC imposes secret requirements that the funding it provides cannot be spent in states with diplomatic relations with Taiwan, Emma Reilly said China has been bribing UN officials to obtain “special benefits” and to block funding from countries that have diplomatic ties with Taiwan, a former UN employee told the British House of Commons on Tuesday. At a House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee hearing into “international relations within the multilateral system,” former Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) employee Emma Reilly said in a written statement that “Beijing paid bribes to the two successive Presidents of the [UN] General Assembly” during the two-year negotiation of the Sustainable Development Goals. Another way China exercises influence within the UN Secretariat is
Taiwan’s first drag queen to compete on the internationally acclaimed RuPaul’s Drag Race, Nymphia Wind (妮妃雅), was on Friday crowned the “Next Drag Superstar.” Dressed in a sparkling banana dress, Nymphia Wind swept onto the stage for the final, and stole the show. “Taiwan this is for you,” she said right after show host RuPaul announced her as the winner. “To those who feel like they don’t belong, just remember to live fearlessly and to live their truth,” she said on stage. One of the frontrunners for the past 15 episodes, the 28-year-old breezed through to the final after weeks of showcasing her unique
LANDSLIDES POSSIBLE: The agency advised the public to avoid visiting mountainous regions due to more expected aftershocks and rainfall from a series of weather fronts A series of earthquakes over the past few days were likely aftershocks of the April 3 earthquake in Hualien County, with further aftershocks to be expected for up to a year, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Based on the nation’s experience after the quake on Sept. 21, 1999, more aftershocks are possible over the next six months to a year, the agency said. A total of 103 earthquakes of magnitude 4 on the local magnitude scale or higher hit Hualien County from 5:08pm on Monday to 10:27am yesterday, with 27 of them exceeding magnitude 5. They included two, of magnitude