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After having maintained near-zero interest rates for decades, the Japanese central bank may be forced to hike rates if inflation remains
persistently high. But Japan’s enormous government debt and vulnerable banking sector mean that doing so could trigger a systemic
financial crisis.
CAMBRIDGE – Could Japan become the world’s next great growth story? Billionaire and legendary investor Warren Buffett seems to
think so. And the International Monetary Fund expects the Japanese economy to grow by 1.4% in 2023 – an impressive figure for a
country whose population has steadily declined for the past 14 years.
But the Japanese economy could also be a ticking time bomb. Its labor market is tight, inflation remains stubbornly high despite the
introduction of gasoline subsidies, and the yen’s real exchange rate has reached a threedecade low. After decades of maintaining near-
zero interest rates, it is unclear whether the Bank of Japan can raise them without sparking a systemic financial crisis.
While the BOJ’s new governor, Kazuo Ueda, has said that the Bank will maintain its ultra-loose monetary policy, he also acknowledged
the global economy’s “very high uncertainty.” Given the forces driving up inflation and interest rates worldwide, it is increasingly clear
that Japanese monetary policy can no longer be conducted in isolation.
Over the years, many investors have bet against the BOJ, shorting Japanese bonds on the assumption that the zero-interest-rate policy
could not last. Time and again, the speculators were crushed. Now, however, the “widowmaker trade” might actually pay off.
The BOJ’s reluctance to increase its short-term policy rates is understandable, given that Japan’s gross government debt currently
stands at 260% of GDP, or 235% of GDP after netting out $1.25 trillion in foreign exchange reserves. Should the Bank be compelled to
raise its short-term policy interest rates by 3% – about half as much as the US Federal Reserve has – the government’s debt-servicing
costs would explode.
Moreover, a sharp interest-rate increase would put enormous pressure on the Japanese banking sector, particularly if long-term rates
were to rise as well. This is precisely what happened in the United States in March when the Fed’s monetary tightening triggered a
chain reaction that led to the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank and several other financial institutions.
Hiking interest rates in an environment of near-zero interest rates, when investors expect rates to remain ultra-low forever, will be
challenging, no matter how the BOJ frames its actions. But if inflation remains persistently high, policymakers will be forced to act. After
all, markets will inevitably push up rates across the yield curve.
Over the past two years, as real interest rates have soared worldwide, they have declined in Japan, despite the rise in inflation. This is
not sustainable in the long run, given the country’s deep integration into global financial markets.
As one of the first industrialized countries to grapple with population decline and a systemic financial crisis, Japan has served as the
world’s macroeconomic laboratory for more than two decades. While some pundits cite Japan as evidence that enormous government
debts do not matter, the fact is that they do. Like other highly indebted countries such as Greece and Italy, Japan has experienced
extremely low average growth over the past three decades. In the early 1990s, Japanese GDP per capita reached 75% of US levels; it
has since declined to less than 60%, even though the US experienced only modest growth during this period.
In addition to its debt problems, Japan’s economy is caught in the middle of the escalating rivalry between the US and China. Over the
past few decades, as Ulrike Schaede notes in her insightful book The Business Reinvention of Japan, Japanese firms have found a
high-value niche within the Asian supply chain. While the country’s most profitable companies may not be household names, primarily
because many of them provide intermediate products to businesses rather than final products to consumers, they operate in high-tech
sectors with huge markups.
But much of this economic reinvention has been based on taking advantage of China’s rapid growth. Now that the Chinese growth
engine is sputtering, and with heightened geopolitical tensions threatening to make things worse, it is unclear whether this unique
strategy can last.
At the same time, much like Europe, Japan faces the urgent need to boost defense spending. Alarmed by China’s growing
assertiveness, especially in light of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the Japanese government has unveiled plans to double military
spending to 2% of GDP in the next five years. With such spending likely to increase further in the long term, Japan will no longer be
able to maintain low taxes by free-riding on the US defense budget.
To be sure, as the world’s third-largest economy (after the US and China), Japan has many tools to tackle its demographic and
economic challenges. For example, it could confront outdated corporate social norms that discourage women from having children. It
could also use public-policy tools, such as welcoming more immigrants.
But policies to stem decline will only bring forward the need for interestrate normalization. The most severe financial crises often
happen where they are least expected. A resurgent Japan is good for the global economy, but resurgent Japanese interest rates could
be a major risk.
Kenneth Rogoff, Professor of Economics and Public Policy at Harvard University and recipient of the 2011 Deutsche Bank Prize in
Financial Economics, was the chief economist of the International Monetary Fund from 2001 to 2003. He is co-author of This Time is
Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly (Princeton University Press, 2011) and author of The Curse of Cash (Princeton University
Press, 2016).
Data original de publicação: 05 de outubro de 2023
Syria mourns Homs drone victims as gov’t, Russian attacks in Idlib kill 3
Al Jazeera , Redação AlJazeera
Funerals held for victims of attack on military academy during graduation ceremony.
Three civilians, including a two-year-old child have been killed in opposition-held Idlib, as Syrians began burying the dozens of people
killed in Thursday’s large-scale drone attack on a military academy in the western city of Homs.
Government forces stepped up shelling and missile attacks on Idlib after the Homs strike, the deadliest attack on government-held
territory in years. Fourteen people were killed by government attacks in Idlib on Thursday, according to the Syrian Civil Defence, before
three more were killed on Friday.
The bombardment of rebel territory came as mourners took to the streets in Homs on Friday, with coffins draped in Syrian flags laid
outside the Homs military hospital as a military band played sombre music and soldiers saluted.
On Thursday, several drones attacked a graduation ceremony in the academy’s courtyard, where families had gathered with the new
officers.
Syria’s Ministry of Health said at least 89 people had been killed, including 31 women and five children. The Syrian Observatory for
Human Rights, which monitors the Syrian conflict, put the toll at more than 120. Syria has declared three days of national mourning.
There have been no claims of responsibility for the attack, and Syria’s Ministries of Defence and Foreign Affairs and Expatriates blamed
what they described as “terrorist” groups without providing specifics. They promised to respond “with full force”.
Thursday’s attack was an unprecedented use of drones against government forces in the war, which began with protests against
President Bashar alAssad in 2011 and spiralled into a conflict that has killed hundreds of thousands of people and displaced millions.
Al Jazeera’s Zeina Khodr, who has reported extensively on Syria, said the attack represented “a major security breach, a blow to the
Syrian regime”.
“It has been years since the forces of the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, have been targeted in such an operation in the heart of
governmentcontrolled territory,” she said.
“It seems that the Syrian regime is blaming the opposition because just moments after this attack, their planes started to target
residential areas in the opposition-controlled enclaves in the northwest of the country,” she added.
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres “expressed deep concern” about the drone attack in Homs, as well as “reports of
retaliatory shelling” in northwest Syria, his spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said.
Meanwhile, Russian President and Syrian government ally Vladimir Putin sent his condolences to al-Assad, Lebanese station Al-Manar
reported on Friday.
Data original de publicação: 06 de outubro de 2023
Implementação do Ponto 7 do Consenso de Brasília - Mapa do Caminho para a Integração da América do Sul
Ministério das Relações Exteriores , Ministério das Relações Exteriores
1. Dando seguimento à Reunião de Presidentes da América do Sul de 30 demaio de 2023, os países sul-americanos adotaram,
em 5 de outubro de 2023, um Mapa do Caminho para a Integração da América do Sul, com o objetivo de retomar o diálogo regular
para impulsionar a integração regional, promover a cooperação e projetar a voz da América do Sul no mundo.
2. Considerando os desafios enfrentados pela América do Sul, o Mapa doCaminho destaca a importância de priorizar iniciativas
concretas, com impacto positivo nas condições de vida das populações e que não dupliquem esforços já em curso em outros
mecanismos de cooperação.
3. Levando em consideração o interesse em seguir fortalecendo o diálogoem áreas específicas, o Mapa do Caminho inclui um
calendário preliminar de reuniões setoriais e indica espaços que poderiam ser aproveitados para seguir fortalecendo o diálogo sul-
americano e o processo de implementação do Consenso de Brasília à margem de eventos regionais e extrarregionais.
4. Observando o Ponto 7 do Consenso de Brasília, o Mapa do Caminho paraa Integração da América do Sul baseia-se em uma
extensa avaliação das experiências dos mecanismos de integração sul-americanos nos 17 temas identificados como foco de atenção
inicial pelos Presidentes da região, a saber: Combate ao Crime Organizado Transnacional, Comércio e Investimento, Conectividade
Digital, Cooperação Transfronteiriça, Defesa, Desenvolvimento Social, Educação e Cultura, Energia, Financiamento ao
Desenvolvimento, Gênero, Gestão de Riscos de Desastres, Infraestrutura e Transporte, Integração Produtiva, Migração, Mudanças
Climáticas, Saúde e Segurança Alimentar. Avança, também, iniciativas concretas de seguimento que poderão ser exploradas para
aprofundar a cooperação e a integração na América do Sul.
5. Para permitir o seguimento adequado das várias iniciativas, acordou-se que o diálogo regular incluirá, de agora em diante,
encontros estratégicos anuais entre os Presidentes da América do Sul; reuniões de Ministros das Relações Exteriores pelo menos
duas vezes por ano; encontros frequentes entre coordenadores nacionais; a criação de redes de contato setoriais para promover o
intercâmbio e a cooperação em tópicos específicos de interesse comum; e diálogos com parceiros extrarregionais.
Data original de publicação: 06 de outubro de 2023
Scientist calls record global heat in September ‘gobsmackingly bananas’
CNN International , Laura Paddison
The Northern Hemisphere may be transitioning into fall, but there has been no let up from extreme heat. New data shows last month
was the hottest September – the fourth consecutive month of such unprecedented heat – putting 2023 firmly on track to be the hottest
year in recorded history.
September beat the previous monthly record set in 2020 by a staggering 0.5 degrees Celsius, according to data released Wednesday
by the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service. There has never been a month so abnormally hot since Copernicus’
records began in 1940.
“The unprecedented temperatures for the time of year observed in September – following a record summer – have broken records by
an extraordinary amount,” said Samantha Burgess, deputy director of Copernicus, in a statement.
September felt more like an abnormally hot July with an average global air temperature of 16.38 degrees Celsius (61.45 Fahrenheit),
making the month 0.93 degrees Celsius hotter than the 1991 to 2020 average, and 1.75 degrees Celsius hotter than the September
average for the pre-industrial era, before the world started burning large amounts of fossil fuels.
That’s well above the 1.5 degrees Celsius threshold to which countries aim to limit global warming under the Paris Climate Agreement.
While that agreement focuses on longterm average temperatures, September’s abnormal heat – which followed the hottest summer
ever recorded – has given a preview of what the world can expect as soaring temperatures supercharge extreme weather.
September alone brought devastating flooding that killed thousands in Libya and dozens across Greece, Bulgaria and Turkey. Canada
grappled with its unprecedented wildfire season, parts of South America were scorched by record-breaking heat and record rainfall
deluged New York.
Ocean temperatures were also off the charts in September. Average sea surface temperatures reached 20.92 degrees Celsius (69.66
Fahrenheit), the highest on record for September and the second-highest on record for any month, after August of this year. Antarctic
sea ice also reached record lows for this time of year.
“This month was, in my professional opinion as a climate scientist – absolutely gobsmackingly bananas,” Zeke Hausfather, a climate
scientist, posted on X (formerly Twitter) on Tuesday.
Even in October, there is little sign of heat dying down. European countries, including Spain, Poland, Austria and France, have already
broken their alltime October temperature records, according to Maximiliano Herrera, a climatologist and weather historian who tracks
extreme temperatures.
What Europe experienced in the first three days of October was “one of the most extreme (climate) events in European history,”
Herrera posted on X on Tuesday.
It now appears all but certain that this year will be the hottest year on record. The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
puts the chances of reaching this milestone at more than 93%.
The extreme September “has pushed 2023 into the dubious honor of first place – on track to be the warmest year and around 1.4
degrees Celsius above pre-industrial average temperatures,” Burgess said.
The high temperatures have been partially fueled by El Niño, the natural climate pattern that originates in the tropical Pacific Ocean and
has a warming effect. But underlying that pattern is the longterm trend of humancaused climate change.
“Temperature records continue to be broken because we have not stopped burning fossil fuels. It is that simple,” said Friederike Otto,
senior lecturer in climate science at the Grantham Institute for Climate Change and the Environment in the UK.
The significant margin by which heat records are being broken matters, she told CNN. “People and ecosystems are dying.”
Countries will gather in Dubai for the United Nations COP28 climate summit in December where they will assess progress towards
climate goals. The world is currently a long way off track, according to a recent report.
“The significant margin by which the September record was broken should be a wake-up call for policymakers and negotiators ahead of
COP28,” Otto said, “we absolutely must agree to phase out fossil fuels.” Data original de publicação: 05 de outubro de 2023