http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/2015/06/116_181666.html
"... It is only in this way that we can hope to arrive at truth, and fulfill the great responsibility which we hold to God and our country. Should I keep back my opinions at such a time, through fear of giving offense, I should consider myself as guilty of treason towards my country, and of an act of disloyalty toward the Majesty of Heaven, which I revere above all earthly kings."....I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!"
Saturday, June 27, 2015
JAPAN AND THE US TO RESOLVE ITS BILATERAL TPP ISSUES TO BE RECONCILED IN JULY–OPENING UP FOR THE 12 NATION TPP AGREEMENT TO MOVE FORWARD -THE DEAL WOULD OPEN THE US MARKET TO THE 40% OF THE WORLD’S ECONOMY–THE FINAL DEAL IS FOR CONGRESS TO HAVE ITS FINAL VOTE IN DECEMBER 2015
Japan and the United States are likely to resolve outstanding bilateral issues so that a 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) deal can be struck at a multilateral ministerial meeting expected in July, a senior Japanese official said on Friday.
A deal between the United States and Japan, the world’s largest and third-largest economies, is vital to clinching the multilateral TPP pact, which would cover 40% of the world economy. The deal is a key part of U.S. President Barack Obama’s strategic rebalance to Asia in the face of a rising China.
The politically touchy matters of access to Japan’s market for farm products including rice and the U.S. market for auto parts are among remaining bilateral issues, the official said told Reuters.
“It is not anticipated that these remaining issues will be stumbling blocks for a U.S.-Japan agreement,” the official said. “We are confident we will be able to resolve them in time for concluding TPP negotiations overall.”
After a six-week Congressional battle, the U.S. Senate voted 60 to 38 on Wednesday to grant Obama “fast-track” power to negotiate trade deals and speed them through Congress.
Japan and some other countries had wanted fast-track to be approved before making final offers on the trade deal. The Japanese official declined to give details of the negotiations.
Intellectual property protection including for newly-developed drugs ranks high among the issues to be resolved to clinch the multilateral TPP deal, which would harmonise rules and standards and lower trade barriers among the 12 developed and emerging nations.
“If not conducted satisfactorily, it could very well be a reason for the U.S. Congress to reject TPP. So it is a prerequisite for a TPP agreement to include high standard protection for new drugs,” the Japanese official said.
But the official nonetheless sounded an optimistic note.
“I don’t think any remaining issues cannot be resolved if there is sufficient political attention and input required to solve these in time for the ministerial meeting that we expect to be held before the end of July,” he said.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has touted TPP as an engine of reforms needed to drive growth. Japanese officials also hope the pan-Pacific deal will help anchor ally Washington in Asia and create a rule-based regime that would eventually draw in China.
If the TPP is agreed in late July or early August, the deal could be up for a final vote in U.S. Congress in the first half of December. Other countries also have to seek lawmakers’ approval.
SHANIA TWAIN THE SAGA LIKE A KOREAN DRAMA–WHERE SHANIA GREW FROM RAGS TO RICHES TO BECOME THE RENOWNED COUNTRY SINGER TO HER BEST FRIEND MARIE ANNE TAKING IT ON WITH HER HUSBAND MUTT LANGE AND RUNNING AWAY TO MARRY AND SHANIA SWITCHES TO HER BEST FRIEND MARIE ANNE HUSBAND FREDERIC THIEBAUD A NESTLE EXECUTIVE TO MARRY IN 2011–TO HER LOSS OF THAT PRECIOUS COUNTRY VOICE DUE TO AN ILLNESS NOT ABLE TO PERFORM ANY LONGER
AS SHANIA Twain embarks on her farewell tour, it’s hard not to think of her life as one long country song.
There’s the grinding poverty of her rural Canadian childhood; her loss, at 22, of both parents in a car crash; the illness that silenced her singing voice; and the betrayal that broke her heart — when her husband/manager ran off with her best friend.
“When that happened, I thought, ‘Forget it, this is more than I can handle — I’m never going to sing again,’” Twain tells The New York Post of that scandalous 2008 affair between Robert “Mutt” Lange and Marie-Anne Thiébaud. “I had to grieve through it.”
As she revealed in “From This Moment On,” her 2011 page turner of a memoir, there’s nothing like being stabbed in the back to make you lose face — even if that face has been called “perfectly proportioned,” and you’ve sold 75 million albums.
But the writer of the feminist-inflected country-pop anthems “That Don’t Impress Me Much” and “(If You’re Not in It for Love) I’m Outta Here!” wasn’t down for long.
For one thing, she fell in love — with Marie-Anne’s ex, Swiss-born Nestlé exec Frédéric Thiébaud, whom she married in 2011. For another, she had a son to bring up — Eja, now 13. It’s for Eja’s sake, she says, that her relations with her ex are cordial.
WITH $21 TRILLION SAVINGS INSIDE THE BANKS OF CHINA–THE ERA IS HERE IN THE NEXT 15 YEARS WHERE CHINA TO BECOME THE EXPORTER OF MONEY INVESTMENT TO THE WORLD TO RIVAL THE WORLD BANKS OF THE US, EUROPE, JAPAN
Few events will be as significant for the world in the next 15 years as China opening its capital borders, a shift that economists and regulators across the world are now starting to grapple with.
With China’s leadership aiming to scale back the role of investment in the domestic economy, the nation’s surfeit of savings -- deposits currently stand at $21 trillion -- will increasingly need to be deployed overseas. That’s also becoming easier, as Premier Li Keqiang relaxes capital-flow regulations.
The consequences ultimately could rival the transformation wrought by the Communist nation’s fusion with the global trading system, capped by its 2001 World Trade Organization entry. That stage saw goods made cheaper across the world, boosting the purchasing power of low-income families at the cost of hollowed-out industries.
Some changes are easy to envision: watch out for Mao Zedong’s visage on banknotes as the yuan makes its way into more corners of the globe. China’s giant banks will increasingly dot New York, London and Tokyo skylines, joining U.S., European and Japanese names. Property prices from California to Sydney to Southeast Asia already have seen the influence of Chinese buying.
Other shifts are tougher to gauge. International investors including pension funds, which have had limited entry to China to date, will pour in, clouding how big a net money exporter China will be. Deutsche Bank AG is among those foreseeing mass net outflows, which could go to fund large-scale infrastructure, or stoke asset prices by depressing long-term borrowing costs.
‘Historic Proportions’
“This era will be marked by China shifting from a large net importer of capital to one of the world’s largest exporters of capital,” Charles Li, chief executive officer of Hong Kong Exchanges & Clearing Ltd., the city’s stock market, wrote in a blog this month. Eventually, there will be “fund outflows of historic proportions, driven by China’s needs to deploy and diversify its national wealth to the global markets,” he wrote.
The continuing opening of China’s capital account will also promote the trading of commodities in yuan, and boost China’s ability to influence their prices, according to an analysis by Bloomberg Intelligence.
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