Fiscal Study

President Vladimir Putin arrived with a message of support, when he became the first Kremlin leader to visit Iran since Stalin, pledging to stand by the country's nuclear program and co-signing a declaration with a thinly veiled warning against U.S. interference, The Moscow Times writes:

But while maintaining in an interview with Iranian television that Moscow would honor its commitment to build a nuclear power site near the southwestern port city of Bushehr, Putin refused to set a date for the start of operations at the facility.

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Posted by fiscalstudy at 8:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Japan's demand for services rose at the fastest pace in four months as consumers returned to shops after a stormy July and factory production rebounded from earthquake-related stoppages, Bloomberg reports:

The tertiary index, a gauge of money households and businesses spend on phone calls, power and transportation, climbed 1.3 percent in August from July, when it fell a revised 0.4 percent, the Trade Ministry said today in Tokyo. The median estimate of 39 economists surveyed by Bloomberg News was for a 1 percent gain.

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Posted by fiscalstudy at 8:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Can a group of banks succeed where the monetary authorities have failed? Despite the best efforts of central banks to deal with the credit crunch that took hold over the summer, some debt markets remain dysfunctional, The Economist reports:

Buyers are still on strike in an important part of the market for commercial paper (short-term corporate debt): the bit in which so-called structured investment vehicles (SIVs), which have mushroomed in recent years, borrow in order to invest in higher yielding assets. Now many of those vehicles are finding it difficult to roll over their debts and the banks that stand to lose most from their demise are scurrying for solutions.

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Posted by fiscalstudy at 7:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Turkey's parliament was poised on Wednesday to grant its army permission to enter northern Iraq to crush Kurdish separatist rebels based there, but Iraqi leaders stepped up a diplomatic offensive to avert any attack, Reuters reports:

The United States, Turkey's NATO ally, is also strongly opposed to military action, fearing it will destabilize the most peaceful part of Iraq and possibly the wider region by encouraging other neighbors such as arch-foe Iran to intervene.

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Posted by fiscalstudy at 7:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)