时事经纬
14-05-09
1995年起美国对朝援助规模至今达12.8亿美元
1995年开始美国向朝鲜援助了价值达12.8585亿美元的各种物资。其中,粮食援助达到225.8164万吨;1.46亿美元规模的重油,为了使朝鲜履行无核化协议,另援助了2000万美元。美国还提供了朝鲜无核化作业所需的技术与相关经费。此外,帮助朝鲜建设轻水反应堆发电站,援助4.0370亿美元。医药品等其他生活必需品的援助940万美元。
日俄首脑会谈就加快解决北方四岛问题达成共识
北方四岛问题麻生强调“在日俄行动计划中,只有和平条约问题没有取得进展。若
不去除这一障碍,日俄经济合作也将举步维艰。”普京表示“俄罗斯国内也有观点
认为不必解决北方四岛问题,但我本人持相反意见,认为有必要去除障碍。如果能
找到解决方案,相信梅德韦杰夫总统会在7月的会谈上提出。”
日本国会批准驻冲绳美军移师关岛相关协定
日本众参两院13日召开磋商会议,双方未能就驻冲绳美海军陆战队移师关岛协定达
成一致。众院议长河野洋平依照宪法规定宣布,根据众院决议该协定获得批准。该
协定此前在参院全体会议上被否决。协定规定日方仅负责当地的设施建设等事务,
费用负担上限为28亿美元。
俄拒延欧安组织格鲁吉亚使命
俄罗斯拒绝延长欧洲在格鲁吉亚的和平监督使命,坚持为南奥塞梯单独设立和平监
督使命人员,借以强化俄罗斯承认南奥塞梯为独立国家的立场。
美国计划监管金融衍生产品交易
财政部长盖特纳即将提出的方案,将呼吁建立电子监察系统来监控金融衍生产品市
场买卖。在财政部的新建议下,AIG一类的金融机构必须证明企业有充足资金来支持这些衍生产品,方可出售。新的监管机制必须包括保守的资产要求,商业操守标准、上报机制等。
通用汽车计划将在中国生产的汽车销往美国
Dow Jones Newswires获得的一份计划概要显示,通用汽车计划于2011年向美国市场
销售17,335辆在中国生产的汽车。文件显示,2012年和2013年美国从中国市场进口
的通用汽车数量将分别增至38,000辆和53,000辆以上。从韩国、日本和墨西哥等其
他国家的汽车进口量也将增加。该公司表示,计划在美国裁减21,000个生产岗位,
同时增加海外市场向美国的出口。
奥巴马政府要求通用公司在六月月一号的最后期限前完成重组计划,或是选择像克
莱斯勒公司申请破产保护一样的道路。通用公司目前的运作依赖政府提供的154亿美元的联邦贷款,而政府希望保住汽车及其相关领域的工作机会,
从中国进口汽车显然不会推进这个目标。
美国4月份零售额下滑 打击经济复苏预期
US Census Bureau公布,4月份零售额较3月份下滑0.4%。这一令人失望的消费支出
数据给美国股市带来了打击,导致道琼斯周三下挫2.2%。
在连续六个月下滑后,美国零售额在1月和2月份有所回升。但最近两个月零售额出
现下滑,给这些预期带来了打击,3月份零售额下降了1.3%。
纽约零售研究公司WSL Strategic Retail在4月份对1,500名购物者的调查发现,28%的
受访者表示他们将更多的资金用于储蓄,这一比例高于半年前的19%。过去的三年消费支出相当于美国GDP)的71%,这一比例高于八、九十年代的67%。随著美国经济对美国消费者的依赖度不断上升,中国等其他经济体也同样依赖于美国消费者。
美国会议员重提货币法案
中国是议案针对的目标。议案再次提出的时机:美贸易赤字继续扩大。
不过,贸易问题专家巴菲尔德认为,美国贸易逆差从根本上是由国内高消费和低储
蓄造成的,和人民币汇率无关。即使中国按照美国的要求大幅度调高币值,美国还
是要从其它国家进口。此外,在美国赤字开支的财政环境下,可以预见的将来仍将
依赖中国购买美国国债来为庞大的刺激计划提供融资。因此,很难想象奥巴马行政
当局会把汇率问题当成双边的首要问题。
美国财长盖特纳将于本月底前往中国访问。
Taiwan's Ma Reflects on His First Year As President
In his first year in office, Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou
has kept his promise to ease tensions with the island's
longstanding rival, China. Beijing and Taipei have signed
several historic agreements opening up direct transport
links, allowing mainland Chinese tourists to visit Taiwan,
and calling for financial cooperation. Taiwan also recently
announced Chinese would be allowed to invest in Taiwan for
the first time.
T: You have been talking about an Economic Cooperation
Framework Agreement (ECFA) with China. What do you want to
achieve with that?
M: The ECFA will be different from a normal free-trade
agreement. It will take the form of a framework that will
identify the types of items we will negotiate over time. We
want to negotiate with the mainland about some of the
products we consider most urgent. For instance,
pertrochemicals, auto parts, textiles, these products
constitute a large percentage of our exports to the
mainland. Beginning next year, the same products from
(Southeast Asian countries) will have no tariffs, but ours
will face tariff rates from 5% to 15%. That will kill our
industries. The mainland has already indicated interest in
signing an agreement with us. In the last year we've signed
nine agreements focusing on air transport; a financial
supervisory mechanism covering stocks, futures and insurance
companies, which will be negotiated in the next couple of
months; also food safety, postal cooperation, a joint effort
to combat crime and judicial assistance. These are all
milestone agreements.
T: Do you hope to have talks with China about the military?
M: No, I don't think that's very urgent.
T: So no peace agreement this year?
M: No, I don't think so, do you know why? We have already
made it very clear last year when I took office, that I'll
have a mainland policy, which is under the framework of our
constitution and which is based on three principles: no
unification, no independence, and no use of force. By no
unification I mean no unification talks with the mainland
during my term. The second is no independence. Of course
Taiwan has autonomy because we elect our own president,
parliament and run our own business, but the independence I
talk about is de jure independence. I won't do that, and we
oppose the use of force.
The reason is to assure the other side, as long as we're not
taking a policy to pursue de jure independence – that's a
reason for the mainland to use force against us – we will
maintain the status quo, which reflects what the mainstream
public opinion has been for more than 20 years. That is one
of the reasons I was elected last year, unlike my
predecessor who opted for a pro-independence policy which
caused Taiwan a lot of trouble.
T: Do you think China will pressure you to change the
political status quo?
M: Of course they hope we'll do it faster. Obviously they
understand it is not a very urgent issue in the eyes of the
Taiwanese people. You see, up to now, only one year into my
presidency, people still have a lot of doubts about China.
They fear their way of life is not something [China] can
accept, particularly in terms of freedom and democracy, so
obviously the time has not come for the two sides to
negotiate something called unification. But on the issue of
security, two years ago, [China President] Hu Jintao
formally extended an offer to Taiwan, that we should sign a
peace agreement. At the time, I was running for president,
and I responded positively. But I think that we want to make
it clear this is not an agreement on Taiwan's future buy
rather it is a security issue. Taiwan's future is related to
unification and I made it very clear that I won't touch that
issue during my presidency.
Iran Intelligence: Saberi indeed a spy
Intelligence Minister Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Eje'i told
reporters on Wednesday that the court had found Saberi
guilty of espionage. Eje'i explained that Saberi was
in fact convicted and handed a jail sentence but the
sentence had been suspended for five years at the discretion
of the judge. Her jail sentence was then reduced to a
two-year suspended sentence after a court of appeals
reviewed her case and she was released from Iran's Evin
house of detention.
Nikbakht said Saberi had been convicted because she had
copied and kept a "confidential Iranian government document"
about the US invasion of Iraq and because she had visited
Israel, travel which is banned by the Iranian government.
Saberi had confirmed in her May 10 appeal that she obtained
the document and copied it out of "curiosity" while she was
working as a freelance translator for the influential
Expediency Council, according to Nikbakht.
The suspended sentence for Saberi will be automatically
lifted if she undertakes no unlawful activities in the next
five years.
Militants seek bloodless takeover of NWFP
A pro-Taliban militant spokesman has issued a three-day
ultimatum demanding the resignation of government officials
in Pakistan's northwestern Malakand division. The militants
have threatened with repercussions unless all national and
provincial assembly members from the division in North-West
Frontier Province stepped down. 'Otherwise, we will arrest
all their families… [And] we will destroy all their
buildings', Muslim Khan said in a telephone interview with
CNN.
Iron Dome to be deployed in 2010
Israeli Air Force commander Maj. Gen. Ido Nehushtan said
that the Iron Dome system will be deployed along the
occupied territories borders in 2010--the system is capable
of intercepting and destroying rockets with a range of up to
70 kilometers - a range exceeding that of Qassam and
Katyusha rockets fired from the Gaza Strip in retaliation to
the Israeli blockade of the region. Nehushtan also added
that further laser systems, called ABL, against long-range
ballistic missiles are currently being developed. According
to the source the ABL will be capable of locating and
tracking missiles in their boost phase and destroying them
with a high-energy laser.
Kremlin's approach on the rich oil and gas fields in the
Arctic region
Russia, the US, Canada, Norway and Denmark have all been
attracted to the energy supply in the Arctic. Relations
between these states has intensified after evidence revealed
that global warming was melting the polar ice making access
to the energy supplies easier as jurisdiction over the
region is still under dispute.
Gates Takes His Battle Plan to Capitol Hill
Appearing before the House Armed Services Committee on
Wednesday, Gates faced complaints that the changes envisaged
in his latest defense budget proposal preempt the the
mammoth Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) currently underway.
The QDR, legislators argued, is an honest assessment of
military needs by military professionals, rather than a
budget-driven exercise led by political appointees.
Gates in his testimony sought to impose a rational
sensibility on a military procurement process, enabled by
lawmakers, that has run amok. He patiently swatted away
suggestions that China's air force is primed to wipe U.S.
warplanes from the sky. He poured cold water on hints that
struggling nations such as Iran and North Korea will soon be
capable of firing long-range missiles at U.S. interests
—warnings that were tied to the idea that the U.S. ought to
buy a fleet of 747s crammed with laser beams capable of
obliterating enemy rockets as they lift off.
Gates has already pushed Congress back on its heels. He
ambushed lawmakers last month with the early public
unveiling of his 2010 budget proposal, which had been
drafted in secret to preempt resistance from the defense
contractors in league with legislators protecting jobs in
their districts. In a key victory, he won the Joint Chiefs'
approval for a $534 billion budget that kills the Air
Force's F-22 fighter and the Army's Future Combat Systems,
programs each service had long viewed as among their crown
jewels.
Gates appears to have breached the "iron triangle" of the
military, the contractors and the lawmakers, whose alliances
make changing the defense budget so difficult. Lockheed
Martin, which builds the F-22, has already thrown in the
towel and made it known it will not challenge Gates'
decision to end production at 187 of the $350 million
planes. That's left the backers of mortally-wounded weapons
only one option: to complain that Gates' proposed 2010
budget is based on faulty analysis that exposes the nation
to excessive risk. "Risk," of course, is a fungible
commodity at the Pentagon — every year, the Defense
Department and Congress have to assess just how much risk,
and in which areas, the nation is willing to accept.
Lawmakers are already lining up experts to back their
positions. "The number [of F-22s] required to conduct
operations in two major regional contingencies, against
adversaries who are capable of contesting our control of the
air, is 381," former Air Force general Richard Hawley
recently told the Senate Armed Services Committee's airland
subcommittee (chaired by Joe Lieberman, whose state of
Connecticut is home to Pratt & Whitney, which makes the
F-22's engines). Hawley argued that Gates' F-22
recommendation "rests on an assertion that we cannot afford
to equip our airmen, on whom we rely to gain and maintain
air superiority, with the best weapons that our defense
industrial base has developed." But his argument only makes
sense if you believe there are two nations capable of
threatening U.S. air superiority in two theaters
simultaneously, (there aren't), and that the government is
obliged to always equip its forces with the best weapons
that defense contractors can produce. Nearly 200 F-22s have
already been bought, and Gates is trying to calibrate
capabilities with real threats, and trim excess capabilities
— something the Pentagon has been loathe to do.
The Defense Secretary told lawmakers peeved at his choices
that he was driven to make the changes in the early days of
the Obama Administration because waiting for the QDR to be
completed would mean the first budget he could craft would
be for 2012. "Frankly," he added, "by that time, I expect
somebody else will be sitting here."
Obama Administration to Expand Housing Plan
The Obama administration is expected to expand its mortgage
aid program on Thursday, announcing new measures that would
help homeowners avoid a blemished credit record even if they
don't qualify for other assistance. The new initiatives are
expected to include ways to allow borrowers to avoid
foreclosure by selling their properties or giving them back
to lenders.
One way would be to encourage a "short sale," in which the
home is sold for less than the amount owed on the mortgage
but the lender considers the debt paid off. Another option
is a deed-in-lieu of foreclosure — in which the borrower
gives the property to the lender to satisfy a delinquent
loan and to avoid foreclosure proceedings.
The number of U.S. households faced with losing their homes
to foreclosure jumped 32% in April compared with the same
month last year, with Nevada, Florida and California showing
the highest rates, foreclosure listing service RealtyTrac
Inc. said Wednesday.
More than 342,000 households received at least one
foreclosure-related notice in April. That means one in every
374 U.S. housing units received a foreclosure filing last
month, the highest monthly rate since Irvine, Calif.-based
RealtyTrac began its report in January 2005.
April was the second straight month that more than 300,000
households received a foreclosure filing, as the number of
borrowers with mortgage troubles failed to abate.
The April number, however, was less than 1 percent above
that posted in March, when more than 340,000 properties were
affected.
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