1 US rate rise ‘some time this year’ (Straits Times)
Janet Yellen has said she expects the Federal Reserve to begin raising interest
rates "at some point this year," saying delaying the long-awaited
move risks the economy overheating. But the Fed chair also stressed the economy
still showed weaknesses, with significant job market slack not reflected in the
5.4 percent jobless rate.
The comments came after minutes of the Fed's policy
board made clear that slow economic growth in recent months meant it was not
expecting to increase the benchmark Fed funds rate before July, despite earlier
forecasts of a mid-year hike. Yellen said she expects the economy to bounce
back from the stall in the first quarter, but that any decision needed to be
based on clear improvement in the data.
2 Ireland first to legalise gay marriage by popular
vote (Henry McDonald in The Guardian) Ireland has as voted by a huge majority
to legalise same-sex marriage, becoming the first country in the world to do so
by popular vote in a move hailed as a social revolution and welcomed around the
world.
Some 62% of the Irish Republic’s electorate voted in
favour of gay marriage. The result means that a republic once dominated by the
Catholic Church ignored the instructions of its cardinals and bishops. The huge
Yes vote marks another milestone in Ireland’s journey towards a more liberal,
secular society.
All but one of the republic’s 43 parliamentary
constituencies voted Yes to same-sex marriage. And fears of an urban-rural,
Yes/No split were not realised either. Health minister Leo Varadkar, who this
year came out as the country’s first openly gay minister, said the campaign had
been “almost like a social revolution”.
3 Britian resigns as a global power (Fareed Zakaria
in Khaleej Times) On Monday, the Right Honorable David Cameron, prime minister
of Britain, gave his first major speech after being re-elected to his high
office —once held by Pitt, Gladstone, Disraeli, Lloyd George, Churchill, and
Thatcher. Confronting a world of challenges — from Greece’s possible exit from
the Euro, a massive migration crisis on Europe’s shores, Ukraine’s perilous
state, Russia’s continued intransigence, the advance of Daesh, and the
continuing chaos in the Middle East — Cameron chose to talk about ... a plan to
ensure that hospitals in the UK would be better staffed on weekends.
OK, that’s a bit unfair. Leaders everywhere,
including the US, understand that “all politics is local.” But spending a few
days recently in Britain, I was struck by just how parochial it has become.
After an extraordinary 300-year run, Britain has essentially resigned as a
global power.
Over the next few years, Britain’s army will shrink
to somewhere around 80,000. A report from the Royal United Services Institute
predicts that the number could get as low as 50,000, which would be smaller
than at any point since the 1770s. No wonder, then, that Britain has been a
minor, reluctant ally in the airstrikes against the Islamic State.
The same story is true of other elements of
Britain’s global influence. In Cameron’s first term, the Foreign Office budget
was cut by more than a quarter, and further trims are likely. The BBC World
Service, perhaps the most influential arm of the country’s global public
diplomacy, has shuttered five of its foreign-language broadcasts, and the
entire organisation has seen its budget slashed, with more to come.
Britain essentially created the world we live in. Britain
managed to become the first great industrial economy and the modern world’s
first superpower. It colonised and shaped countries and cultures from Australia
to India to Africa to the Western Hemisphere, including of course, its
settlements in North America. Had Spain or Germany become the world’s leading
power, things would look very different today.
It is a paradox, readily apparent to visitors to the
UK, that London continues to thrive as a global hub, increasingly cosmopolitan
and worldly. More than a third of Londoners were born outside the UK. And this
government has been more than willing to travel around the world petitioning
for investment whether it be Chinese, Russian or Arab. That is fine as a
strategy for an aspiring entrepot or financial safe haven, but Britain is not
Luxembourg. It is, even now, a country with the talent, history and capacity to
shape the international order. Which is why the inward turn of the UK is a
tragedy not just for them but for all of us.
No comments:
Post a Comment