Wednesday, March 19, 2008

BBC Global News Podcast Summary

Saddam Hussein's absence has been replaced by Sectarian violence.  Though violence in Iraq has continued, they now at least have a chance to fight against it.  Jalal Tlabini, president of Iraq, said that Iraq needs US and GB for at least one more year (www.gulfnews.com)

The Federal Reserve Bank has made a 3/4% cut to the Interest Rate.  The author of the book, Devil Take the Hindmost, Edward Chancellor, had the following to say about the "credit crisis" in the US:
-there is always a build up of debt and wreckless behavior, followed by the collapse of a large financial institution (...Bear Sterns anyone??)
-this is followed by Fear + Distrust = Impact on the Economy
-there is no consensus about "Recession" right now (like we talked about in a Global Economics class yesterday, though, we never know until we are on the outside of a Recession, that we were in one--Kondratiev Cycles)
-Ben Bernanke, who is seen as an expert on the Great Depression attempts to counter what was the biggest criticism of the Fed in previous generations-reacting TOO slowly. 
-basically it all boils down to a failure to regulate irresponsible growth of credit

Tibetan protesters in GanSu provence:
interesting fact: 1/2 of the Chinese population lives outside the tibetan province.  More frustration than previously known.  

Kenya was talked about also in this BBC podcast, which is a topic very close to my heart.  The coalition power deal between PM and Pres looked at as a positive.  However, it seems to me that the severity of what happened in Kenya has been lost.  Perhaps not completely, but to go from people starving and not being able to get out of compounds, to news comments on the two men who killed over power joking with each other at parliamentary meetings  seems to take the event too trite.  

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