December 17 - 21, 2011
World News
TURKS AND CAICOS WEEKLY NEWS
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French banker says UK Lagarde: No country’s economy should be downgraded first immune from rising risks THE chairman of the French central bank, Christian Noyer, has said ratings agencies should downgrade the UK before France because its economy is weaker. US agency Standard and Poor’s recently warned France its rating could suffer over the eurozone crisis and downturn. “The downgrade does not appear to me to be justified when considering economic fundamentals,” Mr Noyer said. The British Government responded by saying the UK had a credible plan for dealing with its deficit. Speaking to French regional newspaper Le Telegramme, Mr Noyer said any downgrade should start with Britain “which has more deficits, as much debt, more inflation, less growth than us and where credit is slumping”. Britain was not identified as a credit risk by Standard and Poor’s in its report earlier this month. The spokesman for UK Prime Minister David Cameron said: “Credit ratings are a matter for credit rating agencies but we’ve put in place a credible deficit reduction plan and you can see that credibility in the UK’s bond yields.” There is a sense of frustration across the eurozone that last week’s summit in Brussels seems to have done little to calm the financial markets, the BBC’s Chris Morris
Christian Noyer heads France’s central bank.
reports. Relations have been strained between France and Britain, which vetoed changes to the Lisbon Treaty that would have allowed for closer economic integration. Hungary and the Czech Republic raised concerns on Thursday about the plans for a closer fiscal union, saying they should apply only to eurozone states. Loss of the top credit grade would have serious economic implications for France, increasing the interest rate it paid for new state borrowing. Mr Noyer accused ratings agencies of putting at risk “the positive feeling that existed on the markets the day after the Brussels summit”.
IMF head Christine Lagarde has said the world economic outlook is “gloomy” and no country is immune from rising risks. She said all nations, starting with Europe, needed to head off a crisis with risks of a global depression. “There is no economy in the world immune from the crisis that we not only see unfolding but escalating,” she said. “It is going to be hopefully resolved by all countries, all regions actually taking action.” Meanwhile, ratings agency Standard and Poor’s downgraded 10 Spanish banks by applying new ratings criteria. And France’s official statistics agency, INSEE, said that it expects the Europe’s second-largest economy to fall into recession in the final three months of this year and the first quarter of 2012. France, Spain and Italy have been facing rising borrowing costs. Many investors fear one will be the next eurozone member to need a bailout. Speaking at the US State Department in Washington, she said global economic leaders now needed to take a rounded approach towards addressing monetary weaknesses, such as those underscored by the current eurozone debt crisis. “It is going to require efforts, it is going to require adjustment, and clearly it is going to have to start
One in five women has been raped in the US – CDC ONE in five American women will be raped in the course of her lifetime, according to a survey released by the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention in the United States of America. The shocking detail was part of a comprehensive report on various types of sexual violence. The National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey is ongoing, CDC officials say, and data is being compiled through telephone surveys throughout the country. The report highlights several other statistics that highlight the frequency of sexual violence in America, particularly violence that occurs in intimate relationships: * One in four women has or will be a victim of severe physical violence by an intimate partner in her lifetime. * One in six women will suffer a terrifying experience at the hands of
Feminist leaders and activists hold signs to protest sexual violence.
an abuser or stalker. * One in six women has been the victim of a stalker, and the act of stalking often occurs via text messages, social networking sites or unwanted phone calls. * 80% of rape victims were attacked before the age of 25. * Men also experience violence in intimate relationships, though they are far less likely than women to
report it. * Roughly 1 in 7 men has experienced severe physical violence at the hands of an intimate partner at some point in their lives. * One in every 19 men claims to have been stalked to the point that they believed their lives were in danger. * More than 25% of male rape victims were first assaulted when they were 10 years-old or younger.
IMF chief Christine Lagarde was speaking at the US State Department.
from the core of the crisis at the moment, which is obviously the European countries and in particular the countries of the eurozone.” Ms Lagarde mentioned economic bright spots in Asia and Latin America, which she said had taken, with IMF help, steps during crises in the 1980s and 1990s to address weaknesses in their banking systems and their financial frameworks. “All those challenges that they
faced in the days of the Asian crisis, of the Latin American crisis, have now served them well,” Ms Lagarde said. On Thursday, a closely-watched survey suggested the downturn in the 17 economies that share the euro had eased slightly in December. The composite survey of thousands of firms by Markit showed a continued contraction - but at a slower rate than in November. (BBC)