Indonesia should cross the river by feeling for stones

In mid-November of 2011, Indonesia will host the sixth East Asia Summit (EAS) in the newly built Nusa Dua Convention Center in Bali.

Based on the Kuala Lumpur Declaration of 2005, this year’s summit will continue to be a forum for dialogue on broad strategic, political and economic issues to promote “common security, common prosperity and common stability”. The EAS is welcoming two new members — the US and Russia — into the East Asian community.

Oman is among most peaceful countries

The Global Peace Index (GPI) report published yesterday by the Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP) puts the Sultanate of Oman on fourth position in the Arab region and 41st among the 153 world countries.

The GPI is the world’s leading measure of global peacefulness. It gauges ongoing domestic and international conflict, safety and security in society and militarisation in 153 countries by taking into account 23 separate indicators.

Obama stresses increased British-U.S. cooperation

President Obama called for a new chapter in the long history between the United States and Britain, saying Wednesday that global economic, military and climate challenges require "remaking ourselves to meet the demands of a new era."

Even as he spoke of how much the world has changed since the allies emerged victorious from World War II, Obama told a joint session of Parliament that U.S.-British cooperation - in military, diplomatic, economic and humanitarian efforts - remains essential to ensuring global security.

Barack Obama to stress importance of special relationship to global security in speech at Westminster Hall

Barack Obama will insist the US-UK alliance is key to providing global security after a ''difficult decade'' today as he gets down to the real political business of his state visit.

The US president and Prime Minister David Cameron are to spend the morning holding in-depth talks on issues ranging from the military campaigns in Libya and Afghanistan to the Middle East, terrorism and global economic reform.

Global economic situation is far from easy: PM

India on Tuesday dubbed as "outmoded and under stress" the global institutions of governance in the face of new challenges like food and economic security and pitched for closer cooperation among developing countries.

"The current international economic political situation is far from easy, particularly for developing countries," Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said addressing the Second Africa-India Forum Summit being attended by 15 African countries.

Anne Sinclair's millions keeping accused rapist husband Dominique Strauss-Kahn out of jail

Dominique Strauss-Kahn better hope his long-suffering, third wife stands by her man as it's her fortune bankrolling his freedom.

The former International Monetary Fund chief is out on a $6 million bail package but only on the condition he pony up for a $200,000-a-month security detail to monitor his every move.

Themes of Obama’s European tour highlight changes since his election

President Obama and Europe were bound together during his first two years in office by the global economic downturn and the collective effort to resolve it. But the dominant themes of the president’s European tour, set to begin Monday, highlight how much the world has changed over that time.

As he enters the second half of his term, security issues, in South Asia and the broader Middle East, have replaced the economy as the chief shared interests of the world’s wealthiest and most powerful allies.

Moily calls financial crisis a 'Credit Tsunami'

Calling a financial crisis a 'Credit Tsunami', Union Law Minister Veerappa Moily has emphasised the need for a comprehensive legal mechanism to avoid a repeat of global financial crisis.

Addressing the Round Table on "Legal security of business transactions, investments and financial instruments-New Challenges of the Global Crisis" in St. Petersburg, Moily said: " The question today is not about the global financial crisis, but is about making suitable enforcing legal mechanism at the domestic and at international level, and to institutionalize the same to avoid any further credit tsunami.'

Challenge for Global Cooperation

The state of the world is fraught with unprecendented imbalances and tremendous risks, and institutions are struggling to keep up with the changing times.

From a lack of progress on international trade and climate change negotiations to challenges involved in meeting energy and food security and the Millennium Development Goals, we are witnessing a number of failures in international governance. Moreover, the 2008-2009 global financial crisis starkly illustrated the systemic nature of risks, demonstrating how the integration of financial and trade markets quickly transmit turbulence in one economy regionally and internationally.

Can innovation plug the development funding gap?

The G20 should start a serious discussion about how innovative financing mechanisms could accelerate global development, but this should not distract from concrete commitments on aid

After years of talking about finding innovative ways to raise money for development – and indeed years of using innovative ways to raise money for development – the issue has well and truly hit the global political agenda. Not only has the Robin Hood tax campaign gained momentum as a result of the financial crisis, but President Nicolas Sarkozy has adopted the issue of innovative finance as one of the priorities for his G20 presidency. He has even brought Bill Gates on board to look at the issue as part of a review of the future of development finance more generally.

China and Russia Increasing the Speed of Military Modernization

The Kremlin recently revealed that Moscow has pledged $640 billion in an effort to bring 80% of the Russian military establishment up to modern standards by 2020. Consequently, Vladimir Popovkin, deputy defense minister in charge of arms procurement, recently suggested to the media that the Russian defense ministry plans to buy around 600 airplanes and 1000 helicopters. He further stated that the Ministry was planning to fund the development of a “new liquid fuel heavy intercontinental ballistic missile to replace aging RS-18 Stilleto and RS-20 Satan”. These missiles would be able to carry up to 10 warheads with solid fuel missiles each carrying a maximum of three warheads. It was further revealed that the Russian government plans to lend $24 billion to defense companies to help prepare for bigger contracts after 2015.

Securing global economic security

Inflation is a significant factor of global economic security and has the innate capacity to upend carefully laid plans

French growth accelerates, but deficit widens

PARIS: France’s growth accelerated to one percent in the first quarter of the year but its public deficit nevertheless widened slightly, the national statistics institute said on Friday. According to the INSEE agency, between January and March the economy grew at the strongest rate since the second quarter of 2006, before the credit crunch triggered a global economic crisis, hitting one percent. And the state body forecast that GDP growth for the year would be no less than 1.6 percent.

Prime Minister Spencer has said it; let's do it

PRIME Minister Baldwin Spencer of Antigua and Barbuda was spot on in his analysis of the threat posed to the Caribbean by organised crime.

"We are living in extraordinary times for our region," he told the 26th annual conference of the Association of Caribbean Commissioners of Police held in his country this week.

Donor countries should wake up to work to end poverty

Youth unemployment is at crisis levels in many developing countries, so job creation must move up donors' policy agendas

Job creation and retention is a central political strategy for most rich countries, but employment has been surprisingly absent from development thinking. Until now.

GCC trade highlights global economic shifts

Few places in the world better symbolise the power and opportunities of globalisation than Dubai. Without large oil reserves, our future depends on our success as a trading hub and our strategic position in the world. We are an open society not just in economic terms but in the make-up of our population. More than 200 nationalities live and work in harmony within our borders.

Africa: New Dimensions of Human Security

From its traditional notions of national security, that has the nation-state as the soul guardian of security around realist motivations of appropriating both military and economic power over the pursuit of ethics and ideals, a paradigmatic shift to new dimensions of security emerged in the last three decades.

The Cost of Bin Laden: $3 Trillion Over 15 Years

As we mark Osama bin Laden's death, what's striking is how much he cost our nation--and how little we've gained from our fight against him. By conservative estimates, bin Laden cost the United States at least $3 trillion over the past 15 years, counting the disruptions he wrought on the domestic economy, the wars and heightened security triggered by the terrorist attacks he engineered, and the direct efforts to hunt him down

Africa needs higher education, trade for global competitiveness

African economies would require more investments in higher education, trade development, and tourism as well as women entrepreneurship if they are to compete favourably with other players in the global economic market place.

A new report, The Africa Competitiveness Report 2011, launched yesterday at the opening of the 14th session of the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Cape Town, South Africa, which contains detailed competitiveness profiles of the 54 countries in the continent, noted that improving the region's economic prospects on a global scale would be difficult without taking care of these key factors.

How will Bin Laden’s Death affect Global Economic Equations ?

News regarding Osama Bin Laden’s death on the night of May 1st did two big things for the U.S: it gave closure to a number of families grieving since the 9/11 attacks, and a massive job-approval boost for U.S President Barack Obama.

But how is the world’s most wanted man’s death likely to affect the global economy?

ILO-ADB report decries women’s limited access to jobs

ASIA and the Pacific are losing up to $47 billion annually because of women’s limited access to employment opportunities, according to a new report.

The report, a joint publication of the International Labor Organization and the Asian Development Bank, also said while the annual average employment growth for 2000-2007 was higher for Asian women than for men, 45 percent of working-age Asian women were inactive compared to 19 percent of men.

America doesn't only have a spending problem; it's got a revenue problem, too

"The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread."

So wrote Jacques Anatole Francois Thibault, the real name of French novelist Anatole France, the 1921 Nobel laureate in literature.