Chinese officials say the latest round of tariff increases in Europe have essentially closed off the European market to Chinese businesses.
On September 15, the EU placed tariffs on Chinese flooring tile, as high as 69.7%! This will directly affect more than 1,000 Chinese businesses!
Chinese officials say the Europeans are raising their tariff rates to protect European tile makers, who’ve seen a 40% drop in sales since the debt crisis began. Europeans says it’s to make up for ‘dumping’ of Chinese products on European markets.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta met Australian Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd and defense chief Stephen Smith in San Francisco, California, for talks on September 15.
The subject was cyber attacks. Panetta called cyberspace the battlefield of the future, and most of the intensive cyber attacks in the past year are believed to have originated in China.
The new cyber war policy involves putting U.S. troops in Australia, for training purposes.
Starting with the October 12, and then the November 9 and December 7 loan tenders, the European Central Bank will make U.S. dollars available for three-month loans.
The Bank of England, the Bank of Japan and the Swiss National Bank made similar announcements. This is being done in coordination with the U.S. Federal Reserve (the privately run central bank for the United States).
The European banks will trade their money (Euros, Pounds, Yen and Swiss Francs) for U.S. dollars, for a fixed exchange rate. This is an attempt to prevent money markets in Europe and Japan from locking up.
The U.S. Department of Justice says Japanese tire maker Bridgestone has agreed to plead guilty to bid rigging, and bribing Latin American governments.
It involves giant hoses used to transfer oil from oil tankers to storage facilities.
The illegal practice of bribing and bid rigging went on for ten years, from 1997-2007. Bridgestone admitted that it bribed government officials in Mexico and other Latin American countries to secure deals. They are facing a fine of only $28 million.
September 16, Japan’s Meteorological Agency says Tropical Storm Roke could trigger more damage.
The storm is expected to bring up to 40 millimeters (1.57 inches) of rain per hour in Okinawa and the southern part of Kyushu through Saturday. As much as 250mm (9.8 inches) of rain is expected.
Officials are stepping up their monitoring of rivers that were dammed up by recent record rainfalls from Typhoon Talas.
In Wakayama Prefecture, officials are checking images taken by a surveillance camera near the lake, as well as a buoy used to monitor the water level.
Officials in Totsukawa Village, Nara Prefecture, issued evacuation advisories due to the possibility of an older lake overflowing. The lake was formed by landslides 120 years ago.
Earlier this year Netflix tested internet connection speeds in several countries, the United States sucked!
Apparently Netflix ranked the U.S. at 32. Countries like Canada did much better.
The thing is that much faster connection speeds are available in the United States, it’s just that most people can’t pay the outrageous fees. Also, most internet service providers don’t guarantee a faster connection rate, their fine print misleadingly says “speeds up to”. This means they aren’t able to consistently provide faster connection speeds.
“TB is an old disease that never went away, and now it is evolving with a vengeance.”-Zsuzsanna Jakab, UNWHO
The United Nations World Health Organization is warning European countries to be alert against the extensively-resistant tuberculosis (XDR-TB), and multi-drug resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB).
Estimates show 15 of the 27 countries with the highest burden of MDR-TB are in the European region. More than 80,000 MDR-TB patients are diagnosed in the region annually. London, U.K., has been the hardest hit capital city with 3,500 new cases diagnosed each year.
About half of the newly diagnosed MDR-TB patients are expected to die!
“Since the democratic transition in Spain, we have not seen such a hard attack on social services and essential public services. This is an attack by Madrid’s regional government against employment and public education.”-Cayo Lara
Spain’s attempts to pay down its debt has seen huge cuts to education spending, at least 13,000 temporary teachers will lose their jobs.
The public school system in Spain has never had a good track record: One of Europe’s highest dropout rates with nearly 30% of students under the age of 16.
More education strikes are planned for September 20 & 21.
September 15, scores of protesters hurled smoke bombs and other objects, even a cow’s lung, at the police.
The riots took place outside the Italian Parliament. Italian politicians are trying to come up with a new debt reduction plan. The plan will be similar to the Greek plan, meaning Italian taxpayers, and the unemployed are going to suffer.
The Italian government is trillions in debt. The latest debt reduction plan hopes to have the debt paid off by 2013. It can only be done with drastic tax increases and cuts to taxpayer funded government services (which will mean more people getting laid off).