President Obama’s key political appointments and early executive decisions have provided unmistakable signs of the direction his Administration is likely to take. The pomp and ceremony surrounding the inauguration of Barack Obama as 44th President of the United States has been unprecedented — not only in America, but throughout the rest of the world. In…
For Taiwan, the China boom is well and truly over, reports Jeffry Babb. Different nations have different expectations of governments. These days, for example, most people in Australia don’t expect government to be a major housing provider. Getting residents out of welfare housing is almost impossible, even when their economic situation improves. Most Australians would agree that when people fall on hard times, due to unemployment or because of a handicap, they deserve income support from the government, but they wouldn’t expect the government to prop up the stock market. Exactly the reverse is true in Taiwan. This is because…
The priority of financial institutions should be to fund the development and maintenance of the real economy, writes Colin Teese. Don’t get too excited just yet about the G20 summit. The rest of the world is yet to share our view of its importance. More than anything else, this probably explains why President George W. Bush, when talking to our Prime Minister, revealed that G20 wasn’t within his immediate attention span. Even so, the meeting was probably worthwhile, and G20 may turn out to have a brighter future than the hopelessly unrepresentative G7. It also gave President Bush a chance to…
The idea of weeding out imperfect humans to develop an ideal race has been around for quite some time, writes Bill Muehlenberg. Margaret Sanger(1879-1966),founder ofPlanned Parenthood Most people know about Hitler’s plan to create a master race and to weed out the unfit and inferior races. His horrible plans resulted in World War II, the deaths of millions, and the Holocaust. His notions of racial and national superiority did not come out of thin air, however, but were based upon ideas and practices going back at least to the 19th century. As a matter of fact, the idea of weeding…
China has a thousand missiles aimed at Taiwan and exercises a de facto veto over the island-state’s entry into UN-sponsored organisations, writes Jeffry Babb. The United States has reaffirmed the crucial role of Taiwan in its Asian strategy by approving a multi-billion-dollar arms package to strengthen the island’s defences against mainland China. Washington is required by the Taiwan Relations Act, which governs relations between the two nations, to supply Taiwan sufficient weapons to counter Beijing’s armed forces. When President Jimmy Carter recognised Beijing as the government of all China, such was the outrage in the US Congress over dumping a…
Mainland China is blocking Taiwan’s latest bid to participate in UN specialised agencies such as the World Health Organization (WHO). This could have dire health consequences for the world, warns Taiwanese government spokesperson, Vanessa Shih. As the 63rd session of the UN General Assembly gets underway this week, it is the hope of the people of…
