Nuclear talks collapsed on Thursday, postponing a new round of talks until after President-elect Barack Obama is sworn into office.
Four days of negotiations in Beijing ended in an impasse after North Korea refused to agree to a system of verifying that it had ended all nuclear activity, which it had pledged to do. Among other things, the North Koreans have objected to allowing soil and air samples to be taken near nuclear facilities and sent overseas for testing.
Falling oil prices are pushing Russia to consider working with the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Nations to cut oil output.
The New York Times reports that a Russian official floated the idea of storing oil, rather than exporting it, to help OPEC stabilize prices, but this is the first time that the Kremlin has offered to reduce output.
Six-party talks on North Korea’s nuclear program stalled after the North rejected a Chinese proposal outlining how monitors could verify its past atomic activities.
Chinese exports took its deepest plunge in nearly a decade last month, suggesting that the global recession could be far worse than many economists had previously predicted. According to statistics released by the Chinese government Wednesday, exports fell 2.2 percent from November 2007 to November 2008 — the largest year-over-year monthly decline since April 1999.
Or was it more of a fist in the air? Benicio Del Toro’s turn as Cuba’s second-most important icon, the Argentinean Ernesto “Che” Guevara, won acclaim from those who are closest to his myth.
CNN reported that the movie was screened Saturday in the Yara movie theater in Central Havana as part of hte 30th International Festival of the New Latin American Cinema.
“Del Toro personifies Che in a spectacular manner, not only his physical appearance but also his masterly interpretation,” the state newspaper said.
Cambodian real estate sales are down, signaling an end to the roaring housing market in the Southeast Asia Kingdom.
The end of Cambodia’s property boom is increasingly being being felt across the economy as a downturn in land sales means fewer newly-rich Cambodians hit the capital with money to spend.
Chinese exporters are the latest victims of the global recession as sales slow and buyers in the U.S., Europe and Japan drive prices lower. At the same time, employee wages and benefit costs are rising following demands from customers that they enforce new labor laws.
The crunch may close a fifth of Guangdong’s factories and leave 6 million migrants without work next year, according to Bloomberg.
With oil wealth evaporating and international investments fleeing following the war with Georgia, Russia braces for more hard times.
Economists say Russia is indeed slowing – oil prices are in the basement and nearly $200 billion in foreign investment has left the country following the recent war with Georgia. This week, for the first time since the 1998 crisis, Russia’s long-term debt rating was lowered.
“As a society, Russians have been traumatized repeatedly,” says Martin Gilman, a former Russia-based official of the International Monetary Fund who now teaches at Moscow’s Higher School of Economics. “There’s a psychological component here, unlike with most people in the West, which has inured them to what’s happening now. But there certainly is a lot of confusion out there.”
U.S. Air Force planes are not and cannot possibly be garrisoned at the Almaty airport, a Kazakh Foreign Ministry spokesman told Xinhua.
The spokesman denied during a routine press conference previous reports that U.S. planes had been stationed at the Almaty airport. Kazakhstan agreed to let the U.S. Air Force use its airspace at the request of the United States after the Sept .11, 2001attacks.
reports Xinhua:
Foreign ministers of 10 ASEAN nations will meet in Jakarta next week to formalize the ratification of the ASEAN charter, ASEAN Secretariat said here Tuesday.
The group planned to formalize the charter when Thailand holds the 14th ASEAN summit meeting on Dec. 15-18 in Chiang Mai, but the political unrest in the country led to the postponement of the schedule.
“The entry into force of the Charter is a historic milestone for the organization, repositioning ASEAN to better meet the challenges of the 21st century,” Secretary-General Surin Pitsuwan said in the statement.