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Investment treaty pact “soon”: Hillary
- The U.S. will soon resume technical level discussions on a new Bilateral Investment Treaty (BIT) with India
- Describing India as an “Asian tiger,” she suggested to the Economic Club of New York on Saturday that the U.S. could learn from emerging powers like India and Brazil, which “put economics at the centre of their foreign policies”
- the U.S. has BITs with over 48 countries worldwide, Sri Lanka being the only South Asian nation among them.
- the BIT has a three-fold aim from the U.S. point of view. First, it protects U.S. investment abroad in those countries where investors' rights are not already protected through existing agreements. Second, it encourages the adoption of market-oriented domestic policies that treat private investment in an open, transparent, and non-discriminatory way. Third, the U.S. BIT supports the development of international law standards consistent with these objectives.
Lula, Kufuor recognised for eradicating chronic hunger
- two former Presidents were awarded the 2011 World Food Prize for their success in tackling chronic hunger in their countries.
- John Agyekum Kufuor, former president of Ghana, and Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, former president of Brazil, were honoured for creating and implementing government policies that alleviated hunger and transformed the lives of the poor.
- The award, which was instituted in 1987 by Nobel Peace Prize winner and father of the Green Revolution Norman Borlaug, has in the past been given to agricultural scientists such as M.S. Swaminathan of India — winner of the first ever WFP award. It has also sometimes gone to social entrepreneurs such as Muhammad Yunus, formerly of the Grameen Bank, Bangladesh.
- These achievements put Brazil and Ghana on track to meet or exceed the objectives of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals, making the two leaders model examples in realising an end to hunger and poverty worldwide
- the experiences in Brazil and Ghana could be compared to the situation of India, where sharp food price fluctuations have occurred in recent years with the poor feeling the brunt of food shortages despite government silos being well-stocked.
China meet to set cultural agenda
- The more than 350 members of the Communist Party of China's (CPC) powerful Central Committee on Saturday began their annual five-day meeting
- focus on reforms related to the “cultural development”
- The meeting would draft “further guidance, goals and major measures” to stick to the path of “Socialist cultural development with Chinese characteristics
- The meeting is expected to lay down guidelines for the Chinese media industry to strike a balance between growing demand for entertainment and ensuring adherence to Party policy
- “culture has increasingly become a major source of national cohesion and creativity”, as well as “a backbone of the country's economic and social development”.
- The meeting is also expected to discuss the sensitive issue of policies to determine the administration of the increasingly vibrant Internet, with analysts expecting new restrictions on the emergence of microblogs, which are playing a greater role in shaping public debate.
‘Occupy' protests go global
- Protesters burned cars in Rome and scuffled with police in London as anger boiled over on Saturday in worldwide demonstrations against corporate greed and government cutbacks.
- The oubreak of violence marred an overwhelmingly peaceful protest, inspired by America's “Occupy Wall Street” and Spain's “Indignants”, targeting 951 cities in 82 countries across the planet.
- Encompassing Asia, Europe, Africa and the Americas, it was the biggest show of power yet by a movement born on May 15 when a rally in Madrid's central Puerta del Sol square sparked a worldwide movement.
- In the largest single rally of the day, tens of thousands marched in Rome, which was under a security lockdown.
- Anger over unemployment and opposition to the financial elite hung over the protests, which coincided with a Paris meeting of G20 financial powers pre-occupied by the eurozone debt crisis.
- Scuffles broke out in London where about 800 people rallied in the financial district by Saint Paul's Cathedral
- In Madrid, 100 people in one of a series of five marches set off for an evening rally in the emblematic Cibeles square
- About 50 protesters gathered outside Africa's biggest bourse, the Johannesburg Stock Exchange, to voice concern over the widening gap between rich and poor.
- 500 people gathered in the heart of Hong Kong's financial district to vent their anger at the inequities and excesses of free-market capitalism.
- About 100 demonstrators in Tokyo also voiced fury at the Fukushima nuclear accident.
- 600 demonstrators in Sydney set up camp outside Australia's central bank
- In New York, where since September 17 several hundred people have occupied a small park in the financial district, organisers have called a rally in Times Square
