GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Fairness was the big word in the annual State of the Union address delivered by US President Barack Obama, who focused on keeping the American Dream alive. The speech serves as a reply to Republican candidates campaigning for the November 2012 presidential election and it provides the Democrats’ agenda for the year ahead. “We can either settle for a country where a shrinking number of people do really well, while a growing number of Americans barely get by. Or we can restore an economy where everyone gets a fair shot, everyone does their fair share, and everyone plays by the same set of rules,” said the president in the speech widely viewed on television Tuesday night (ed. note: viewing figures are not yet available, but Bloomberg has analyzed trends for these speeches).
Links to other sites: CNN, Guardian, UK, LA Times, Miami Herald, Minnpost, White House
Silicon Valley elites who were paying up to $35,800 dollars per couple to attend a fund raising for US President Barack Obama were over towered by Pop singer Lady Gaga who attended the party.
Last week, the singer tweeted to her followers that she planned to meet with the president to discuss “how to stop bullying” after a teen took his life.
It is not clear that the president and the singer talked at the fundraiser.
Links to: CNN and Yahoo News
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – It’s not the first time super-investor Warren Buffett has said the US government should stop giving so many tax breaks to the rich, but his op-ed piece published by the New York Times Monday 15 August had a special impact because of the crisis over the spiraling US government debt. Buffett’s suggestion that Americans with $1 million should be taxed at a higher rate was welcomed by President Barack Obama, whose popularity rating has sunk to new lows in the wake of the news 5 August that credit rating agency Moody’s had downgraded US government securities.
Warren argues that the $7 million he paid in personal income tax, about 17 percent, was the lowest rate of anyone in his office.
Links to other sites: Buffett’s op-ed, CNN, New York Times editorial on Buffett’s remarks
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – The announcement 6 June by United Nations chief Ban Ki-moon that he will run for a second term was greeted positively Tuesday by US President Barack Obama, who says he will support Ki-moon. The UN’s Secretary General is unopposed at the moment.
“Under Ban’s leadership, the United Nations has played a critical role in responding to crises and challenges across the globe, including most recently supporting democratic transitions in Cote d’Ivoire and earthquake-affected Haiti, the conduct of the referendum on South Sudan’s self-determination, and efforts to resolve the political and humanitarian crisis in Libya,” the US White House says in a statement issued Tuesday.
The White House calls the UN an “an imperfect, but indispensible institution” but notes that under Ban Ki-moon’s guidance important reforms have been made, “such as increasing the hiring of women to senior posts and proposing the deepest reduction in the UN’s budget in more than a decade. The United States strongly supports further efforts for reform to improve effectiveness, streamline bureaucracy, reduce costs, and update business practices to improve the United Nations’ ability to meet its mandate to promote global peace and security, human rights and development.”
The UN leader said, in announcing his intentions at a press conference Monday, pointed to the work ahead that he believes must be the focus for the UN: “In recent years, we have begun to make real progress on nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation. We must maintain that critical momentum.
“We must redouble our efforts to deliver on the Millennium Development Goals. For hundreds of millions of the world’s people, development means hope. We cannot fall short. And beyond that, we face the “50-50-50” challenge. By the year 2050, the world’s population will reach 9 billion – 50 percent more [than] a decade ago. By that time, the world must cut global greenhouse gas emissions by 50 percent.”
Two days after US President Barack Obama gave his State of the Union address reactions remain varied, with praise for his oratory and mixed reactions to his success at inspiring, clouded by doubts about the president’s ability to push through his programmes in a Congress where a stronger Republican presence is likely to halt any spending increases. Several liberals asked where the programme is, in the face of an Obama who may be moving more to the centre, with some complaining that the speech was too vague. Fox New’s Kevin McCullough predictably called it a “sorry state of the union” speech.
Ian Fletcher, Huffington Post, talks about bipartisan economic cluelessness while Larry Greenemeier at Scientific American says the Sputnik mentality of 50 years ago that Obama mentioned is not there today. Greenpeace looked for remarks on the environment while Iowans, in the heart of US corn country, looked for hints on biofuels policy.
ABC news doublechecked Obama’s facts “to see if they are true” while the New York Times ran the whole transcript. The San Francisco Examiner suggests he reads the New York Times too often which is why he would use a term like “working class”, which the Des Moines Register in Iowa doesn’t use much. The Des Moines Register asked its readers in this Republican state to rate the speech, however, and 40 percent of the 845 by Thursday morning gave him an “A” or top rating out of five options, with the other grades all 13-17 percent.
The president has other fans as well, who found the speech “inspiring”, including a senator from North Dakota, says the local paper and a student at Vassar, writing for the school paper.
NPR takes a look around at the mix of reactions.
, 25 January 2011
US President Barack Obama will give his annual State of the Union speech Tuesday evening 25 January US time, and it is drawing more than the usual attention, in part because of the extent to which social media will be used to include voters in the post-speech discussions. Questions cana be sent via Twitter and Facebook and the president will host an interview on YouTube Thursday. This is his second State of the Union address, on of Washington’s biggest events, with pageantry and live television streaming. It comes just after Democrats lost their House majority, with their Senate majority shrinking, maker it tougher in theory for the president to push through legislation.
Links to other sites: CNN, Economist, US Department of State, history of the State of the Union addresses, Washington Post
Live streaming for the speech, from the White House, and other streaming options
Richard Holbrooke, President Barack Obama’s point man for US policy in Afghanistan and Pakistan, has died, aged 69. Obama called him “simply one of the giants of American foreign policy”. Holbrooke served every Democratic president since Lyndon Johnson, helped to write the leaked Defense Department report on the Vietnam War that came to be known as the Pentagon Papers, and brokered the end to the war in ex-Yugoslavia in the 1990s.
Holbrooke was rushed to hospital 10 December from the State Department, where he was meeting with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and operated on for a torn aorta. After two major operations, Holbrooke remained in critical condition. His deputy, Frank Ruggiero, will temporarily stand in for him, the State Department said.
Links to other sites: Foreign Affairs, Guardian, LA Times, New York Times
US President Barack Obama has ordered an aircraft carrier task force to hold joint exercises with South Korea’s naval forces, after North Korea pounded an inhabited South Korean island near the peninsula’s disputed western maritime border 23 November. Four people are confirmed dead in the artillery attack, two civilians and two military personnel.
South Korea’s President Lee Myung-bak has come under strong domestic criticism for his measured response to the attack. He promised “stern retaliation” if North Korea continues its provocations. Major international leaders have called for calm in what is deemed the most serious incident between the two countries since the end of the Korean War in 1953.
Obama says he is outraged by the attack, coming as it did after last week’s revelations of a significant increase in the North’s nuclear production capabilities.
Links to other sites: Financial Times, Guardian, Wall Street Journal
China welcomes reform of the UN Security Council as “necessary”, two days after US President Barack Obama said the US would support an Indian bid to gain permanent member status of the body. A Chinese foreign ministry spokesman, Hong Lei, told a news conference in Beijing 1o November that “China values the role India plays in international affairs, and China understands and supports India’s willingness to play a bigger role at the UN”, according to Xinhua. He said that the Chinese government hoped that all parties could “negotiate patientlyto reach a consensus on the UNSC reform-related issues.”
Links to other sites: Christian Science Monitor, Economic Times
US President Barack Obama is touching down in Jakarta, Indonesia Tuesday 9 November for a 24-hour visit to a country he once called home. He has had to cancel two previous trips this year. He will meet Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, tour the country’s largest mosque and make a speech in which he is expected to reach out again to Muslims in this, the world’s most populous Muslim nation.
His hosts have their hands full: Indonesia is struggling with an ongoing volcanic eruption on the island of Java and the aftermath of a tsunami in western Sumatra. Indonesian farmers have been accused of burning vast swaths of jungle to clear it for crops, causing widespread air pollution in SE Asia.
Links to other sites: AP, Jakarta Post, Reuters Africa, Washington Post
(Update) Key elections for leaders in Brazil, Africa, Myanmar, US
South America
Presidential elections have been held in Brazil, Ivory Coast and Tanzania. The run-off vote in Brazil Sunday, 31 October was won by Dilma Rousseff, the first woman to be president in Brazil and out-going President Lula da Silva’s choice to succeed him. She garnered 57 percent of the vote against 44 percent for her opponent, veteran politician José Serra.
Africa
In Côte d’Ivoire, much-delayed elections took place peacefully Sunday 31 October, reports AllAfrica, in the first poll since a civil war in 2002 split the troubled country and battered its economy. A total of 14 candidates are vying for the job as president. If Sunday vote does not produce a clear winner a run-off election will be held 28 November.
In Tanzania, incumbent president Jakaya Kikwete looks set to be re-elected to a second five-year term. Results will be released 1 November in the afternoon.
Asia
Myanmar holds its first election in two decades 7 November, continuing to insist there is no need for outside observers, either media or from other governments and international bodies. Monday 1 November state-owned media carried a statement declaring that if voters stayed away from the polls in protest, the junta that has ruled since 1962 would remain in power, Reuters reports.
North America
US voters go to the polls Tuesday 2 November to elect all members of the House of Representatives, one-third of the Senators, and 37 governorships. The mid-term elections, so-called because they fall mid-way between two presidential elections, are seen as a referendum on President Barack Obama’s first two years in office.
Elections at the state level are particularly important this year because in most US states the state assembly determines the shape of congressional districts, and seats will be reapportioned following this year’s census of the US population.
Links to other sites: All-Africa, CNN, Bloomberg, New York Times, Washington Post
Jailed banker claims US Dept of Justice hushed investigations into “super-rich and politically powerful” US figures with Swiss bank accounts
WRS Birkenfeld audio interview 26 August 2010
Bradley Birkenfeld
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Bradley Birkenfeld is not taking his imprisonment for conspiring to defraud the US government sitting down quietly. The former UBS private banking manager in the US began serving a 40-month prison sentence in Minersville, Pennsylvania in January 2010. Birkenfeld accuses the US Department of Justice of having done a deal with his former UBS boss, Martin Liechti, in an interview with WRS radio Friday morning 27 August. The reason, he argues, was to protect “super-rich and politically powerful” US citizens. The DOJ, when contacted by WRS, refused to comment on his allegations.
The interview comes the day after Switzerland said it is delivering data on more than 2,000 suspect banks accounts, to the US government at its request.
Birkenfeld, who has on a number of occasions argued that it is unfair he is the only UBS banker to be jailed in connection with the investigations, told Reuters in April 2010 that the Swiss bank should be investigated further by the DOJ, saying “Pardon the expression, but they should have some balls here.” He has also been busy asking President Barack Obama to commute his sentence and trying to convince the IRS he should be paid as a whistleblower; in April Business Week ran a lengthy story detailing his history as a whistleblower in this and other cases, noting that the prosecutor who convinced the judge to jail him says he does not qualify.
Martin Liechti, onetime head of wealth management for UBS in North America, was arrested for questioning in the US in April 2008. In July 2008 he took the Fifth Amendment to protect himself, refusing to testify at a US Senate hearing. UBS announced at the start of the Senate hearings in July 2008 that it was shutting down its US wealth management activity.
Liechti, a Swiss citizen, remained in jail until August 2008 and then, unlike Birkenfeld, he was released. He returned to Switzerland, but officially lost his job with UBS in March 2009, when the bank took disciplinary measures against 24 of its offshore business employees.
Earlier this month, according to Tagesanzeiger (8 August) and Finews, Martin Liechti recently began working as a business coach.
British media are describing the budget that Chancellor George Osborne is expected to unveil Tuesday 22 June as the most “austere” in a generation, with sharp tax increases and cuts in spending. The budget deficit is 11 percent of GDP. US President Barack Obama, in the runup to the G20 Toronto meeting in four days, has cautioned other countries not to move too quickly to remove economic stimulus packages, but Prime Minister David Cameron’s spokesperson said Monday that “For some countries, such as our own, there is a need to get on and deal with the deficit more quickly,” reports Reuters UK. The tough budget cuts and tax increases, possibly including higher VAT (value-added tax) are being viewed as the first real test of the coalition government, with warnings from the left that the country should well until it is stronger before taking such strong measures or it risks falling back into recession. Nearly one million of the country’s lowest paid workers will no longer pay income tax under the new measures.
The G20 meeting 26-27 June in Toronto, where the contrast between sluggish growth in advanced economies and more robust growth in developing countries will play an important role in determining the agenda.
Links to other sites: Financial Times, Guardian, Reuters, Telegraph, Xinhua
US must also end its addiction to fossil fuels, president insists
US President Barack Obama told Americans during his first televised news conference, a 17-minute speech, that BP will be held accountable and must pay for the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico that has sent millions of tons of oil into the water for the past two months. “This oil spill is the worst environmental disaster American has ever faced,” he said”And unlike an earthquake or a hurricane, it is not a single event that does its damage in a matter of minutes of days.” Obama also insisted that Americans must see this as a signal that it is time to end the nation’s addiction to fossil fuels. He argued that the long-term cost of oil dependency is far greater than that of breaking with it.
Links to other sites: Financial Times, Houston Chronicle with text of Obama speech, Miami Herald, NPR
Obama could meet with BP executive, UK prime minister defends BP
The US government has revised its estimate of the BP oil spilling into the Gulf of Mexico last week, to twice its original figure: 20,000-40,000 instead of 12,000-19,000. BP Chairman Carl-Henric Svanberg was summoned to Washington by the head of the US oil spill response team, with no mention of the company’s CEO, Tony Hayward. In the UK, new Prime Minister David Cameron stepped in to defend BP for the first time, underscoring the importance to the US and UK economies of the oil multinational, but only after growing cries from the City in London, which has watched the company’s share prices slide.
Links to other sites: CNN, Financial Times, Telegraph
The US has sent a bill for $69 million to BP for the Gulf of Mexico oil spill that appears closer to being plugged, but which is still leaking. US President Barack Obama said on the Larry King TV show that he had not seen the kind of rapid response from BP that he would have liked, and he canceled a trip to Asia because of the continuing oil spill problems.
Links to other sites: Miami Herald, New York Times, Times, UK
Beach-lovers in Florida are watching warily as the Gulf oil spill and debris move towards them, BP shares appear to have stabilized after a slide and the US government is keen to put legislation in place to prevent another such disaster. Wednesday the British company was using submarine robots to free a trapped pipe saw, in its latest efforts to plug the underwater oil gusher that continues to send oil into the Gulf of Mexico.
Links to other sites: Financial Times, Reuters
Video, Reuters
Americans wondering what their tax returns should look like can take heart from the model return for 2010 filed by their president, Barack Obama, and his wif Michelle.
Few will be able to declare a $1,600 dog as a gift, the case for the Obama’s Bo, from Senator Ted Kennedy shortly before his death. And none will be able to claim something comparable to the $1 million he received for the Nobel Peace Prize, then gave away to charity. But many will be relieved to see how generous is the spread allowed when declaring other assets: a gift of bank shares from the estate of his grandmother sold for between $250-500,000. He made a loss on those.
The couple’s safe investments such as Treasury bonds, were valued at somewhere between $2.2 and 7.5m.
The most interesting thing for your average US taxpayer might be that the Obamas paid $1.4 million in taxes, on a salary for the president of $400,000, showing that the American dream of earning more than your boss pays you is still worth pursuing.
Links to other sites: AP, BusinessInsider, the White House tax report
Swiss ministers head for Washington for joint IMF and World Bank meeting
Credit Suisse shares fall despite CHF2.05b profits
Bern / Zurich, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Credit Suisse and UBS, Switzerland’s two largest banks, will be subject to new liquidity rules starting 30 June 2010, part of efforts by the national bank and bank supervisory body to ensure that if the banks face a major crisis they will not pull the economy down with them. The news was announced Wednesday by the Swiss National Bank (SNB) and Finma, the supervisory body that was created in January 2009, who say the new liquidity rules are necessary to replace current ones, in place since 1988. These have not been revised significantly and “cannot ensure a level of resistance to crises for big, globally active Swiss banks, which is high enough.”
Finma and the SNB defined what they call “a stringent stress scenario” which “covers a general crisis on the financial markets coupled with a creditors’ loss of trust in the bank.
US President Barack Obama and Chinese President Hu Jintao, meeting on the fringes of the Security Summit organized in Washington DC by the White House, discussed the appreciation of the Chinese currency, the yuan, with Hu saying China intends to pursue a “path of reforming its currency exchange rate formation mechanism based on its own economic and social development needs.” The US has been pushing for greater appreciation of the yuan, and Hu’s remarks appear to imply this will happen, but he also said that the US should not count on the yuan’s appreciation to solve unemployment problems or to balance trade between the two countries, reports Xinhua, the government news agency.
US President Barack Obama will present his “Nuclear Posture Review” (NPR) Tuesday 6 April, a document Congress asks each president to prepare, which outlines the government’s stance and programme on nuclear weapons. Obama’s review is expected to show deep cuts in the US nuclear arsenal and will be a dramatic shift away from the armaments programme of former President George W Bush. Two key components, according to US media that have spoken to unnamed US officials, appear to be reductions of thousands of warheads and more restrictions on when they may be used. The details are being published two days ahead of the US-Russian meeting in Prague, Czech Republic, to sign a new Start Treaty, negotiated in Geneva, Switzerland. The treaty signing will be followed by a Washington summit on nuclear proliferation.
Links to other sites: Business Week/Bloomberg, Los Angeles Times, US NPR 2009 terms of reference published in June 2009 by the US Dep’t of Defense
Doris Leuthard, Swiss president in 2010
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Swiss President Doris Leuthard will join some 40 heads of state in Washington 12-13 April at the invitation of US President Barack Obama, in a nuclear security summit. The summit takes place just days after the US and Russia are scheduled to sign a new Start treaty to reduce their nuclear weapons stockpiles.
Leuthard will argue for nuclear security agreements to cover both civil and military use. Switzerland nevertheless wants to see unrestricted development of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes and nuclear security remaining the responsibility of individual states, Bern announced.
Update 18:15 Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – US President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev will meet in Prague, Czech Republic Thursday 8 April to sign a new Start treaty, bringing to an end months-long negotiations to reduce strategic arms. The US Senate and Russian Parliament will need to ratify the treaty.
The two presidents agreed to the meeting Friday morning 26 March, in the 13th phone call they have had over the Start talks. The terms of the new agreement will reduce arms stockpiles considerably, according to the White House announcement:
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu left an unusually long meeting with US President Barack Obama smiling and talking about a “golden way” forward that had been discussed, but equally unusually there has been no official comment about the talks involved or agreements reached. Unofficially and off the record, says NPR in Washington, US officials are saying no agreement was reached and tensions remain high. The two met in what is widely being described as the worst crisis in relations between the two countries in decades, following Israel’s announcement that it would build new homes in East Jerusalem, with the news made public during a visit by US Vice-president Joe Biden to the region to restart Middle East peace talks.
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Unicef, the UN children’s fund, will have a new executive director 1 May: Anthony Lake, a US citizen, who replaces Anne Veneman, also a US citizen. Lake, 70, is professor of Practice of Diplomacy at Georgetown University in Washington, DC, USA. He has held several top US diplomatic positions, working under Henry Kissinger, President Jimmy Carter and for President Bill Clinton as his national security advisor. He also served as Barack Obama’s foreign policy advisor during his presidential campaign.
He has served on the board of Unicef USA. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon announced the appointment Tuesday 16 March in New York.
“The head of UNICEF has always been an American, largely because the United States is the largest contributor to the agency, which is active in 190 countries,” according to the New York Times.
Links to other sites: New York Times, People’s Daily, Unicef announcement
US President Barack Obama’s announcement 21 January that he intends to limit the size of some lucrative activities by American banks was cheered by France, but Asian markets have reacted negatively and the dollar lost gains it made earlier in the week. France’s Finance Minister Christine Lagarde told French media that the US was finally following her country’s lead and regulating markets for greater stability. Asian stock markets fell for a fifth straight day, with fears that China will raise interest rates coupled with concern that US banking curbs will weaken that country’s economic recovery.
Links to other sites: Bloomberg, Market Watch, NPR, Reuters,
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The Swiss government is not likely to introduce a special tax on Swiss banks, the Swiss Federal Department of Finance (FDF) says. It has taken note of US President Barack Obama’s intention to introduce a special levy on the 50 largest financial institutions in the USA in order to recover some $90 billion over 10 years, but it says that Switzerland’s financial system bore up well during the crisis and no public funds were lost.
Suicide bombers and commando-style Taliban militants have attacked several targets in the centre of Kabul, Afghanistan, leaving at least five dead and dozens wounded. The militants targeted government buildings and banks in the centre of the city 18 January, and Afghan security forces initially struggled to respond and restore order. Two central shopping centres are reported to be on fire, and Taliban militants have sought refuge in a cinema complex from which gunfire can still be heard.
A Taliban spokesman said that a suicide bomber had detonated a bomb near the entrance to the presidential palace, as President Hamid Karzai was swearing in new members of his government.
The US administration condemned the attacks as “desperate and ruthless”. Richard Holbrooke, President Barack Obama’s special envoy to the region spoke to reporters in New Dehli, India, hours after leaving Kabul earlier, saying “the people doing this certainly will not survive the attack, nor will they succeed. But we can expect this sort of thing on a regular basis,” reports Reuters.
Karzai was expected to announce a plan to integrate Taliban fighters into normal life at an aid conference in London, UK later this month.
Search-engine giant Google has said it is considering withdrawing from the lucrative Chinese market, citing concerns over its controversial acceptance of strict Chinese censorship rules in the past and a sophisticated hacking attempt on its computers that the company says originated in China itself.
The cyber attacks took place last week on several Google companies and aimed at the gmail accounts of Chinese dissidents. The US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton said “We have been briefed by Google on these allegations, which raise very serious concerns and questions. We look to the Chinese government for an explanation”. US President Barack Obama said last November on a visit to Shanghai that the USA was committed to freedom of information on the Internet.
Google opened shop in China in 2006, hoping to cash in on an online population that exceeds the entire population of the USA, some 330 million users. It agreed to restrict its search results to material acceptable to the Chinese government.
Geneva Writers' Conference
Lift 2009
Update 7 January 06:00 Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Geneva’s winter and spring schedule of conferences which are open to the public is getting underway, and it includes two favourites with the international population: the February Geneva Writers Workshop and Lift10, which moves from its previous February dates to May this year.
The Geneva Writers’ Conference, 5-7 February 2010 at Webster University, had only 10 places left, out of 180, by 6 January.
