IMF managing director Dominique Strauss-Kahn said on Saturday the fund had reached an agreement on providing a loan to Iceland, battered by the financial crisis, which will go to a vote next week.
Strauss-Kahn, who was speaking at a press conference after a summit of G20 leaders, did not say how much the loan was for, but said the board would vote on it on Wednesday.
“We will complete a program with Iceland next Wednesday at the board. We now have an agreement for a stand-by arrangement,” he told journalists.
Earlier reports have said the Nordic country was seeking some US$2 billion from the IMF.
Earlier on Saturday, some 6,000 people demonstrated in the Icelandic capital to call on government officials to resign in the wake of the financial crisis that has brought the country’s economy to the brink of collapse.
Protesters, who have gathered each Saturday over the past five weeks in steadily growing numbers, want new elections and the governors of the central bank to be replaced.
Iceland’s once booming financial sector collapsed under the weight of the worldwide credit crunch, forcing the government to take control of the major banks as its currency nose-dived.
The IMF had initially planned to consider Iceland’s request for a loan on Nov. 5 following a preliminary accord between the fund and the Icelandic authorities.
But that session was canceled after Britain and the Netherlands called for a dispute over deposits by their citizens in an Icelandic bank to be settled first.
Iceland’s central bank warned earlier this month that inflation rate will likely soar above 20 percent by early next year, with unemployment reaching 10 percent by the end of next year.
“A severe recession lies ahead, with an especially large contraction in private consumption ... Unemployment will rise and is expected to peak at 10 percent by year-end 2009,” the bank said.
The nation’s fastest supercomputer, Nano 4 (晶創26), is scheduled to be launched in the third quarter, and would be used to train large language models in finance and national defense sectors, the National Center for High-Performance Computing (NCHC) said. The supercomputer, which would operate at about 86.05 petaflops, is being tested at a new cloud computing center in the Southern Taiwan Science Park in Tainan. The exterior of the server cabinet features chip circuitry patterns overlaid with a map of Taiwan, highlighting the nation’s central position in the semiconductor industry. The center also houses Taiwania 2, Taiwania 3, Forerunner 1 and
FIRST TRIAL: Ko’s lawyers sought reduced bail and other concessions, as did other defendants, but the bail judge denied their requests, citing the severity of the sentences Former Taipei mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) was yesterday sentenced to 17 years in prison and had his civil rights suspended for six years over corruption, embezzlement and other charges. Taipei prosecutors in December last year asked the Taipei District Court for a combined 28-year, six-month sentence for the four cases against Ko, who founded the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP). The cases were linked to the Core Pacific City (京華城購物中心) redevelopment project and the mismanagement of political donations. Other defendants convicted on separate charges included Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Taipei City Councilor Angela Ying (應曉薇), who was handed a 15-year, six-month sentence; Core Pacific
J-6 REMODEL: The converted drones are part of Beijing’s expanding mix of airpower weapons, including bombers with stand-off missiles and UAV swarms, the report said China has stationed obsolete supersonic fighters converted to attack drones at six air bases close to the Taiwan Strait, a report published this month by the Arlington, Virginia-based Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies said. Satellite imagery of the airfields from the institute’s “China Airpower Tracker” shows what appear to be lines of stubby, swept-winged aircraft matching the shape of J-6 fighters that first flew with the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Air Force in the 1960s. Since their conversion to drones, the aircraft have been identified at five bases in China’s Fujian Province and one in Guangdong Province, the report said. J.
MORE POPULAR: Taiwan Pass sales increased by 59 percent during the first quarter compared with the same period last year, the Tourism Administration said The Tourism Administration yesterday said that it has streamlined the Taiwan Pass, with two versions available for purchase beginning today. The tourism agency has made the pass available to international tourists since 2024, allowing them to access the high-speed rail, Taiwan Railway Corp services, four MRT systems and four Taiwan Tourist Shuttles. Previously, five types of Taiwan Pass were available, but some tourists have said that the offerings were too complicated. The agency said only two types of Taiwan Pass would be available, starting from a three-day pass with the high-speed rail and a three-day pass with Taiwan Railway Corp. The former costs NT$2,800
RSS