Benedict Bingham

Barack Obama made his first trip to South America, visiting BRAZIL and CHILE as well as EL SALVADOR. He advocated more trade between the region and the United States, and promised new money to fight drug- trafficking.



Google claimed that China was again interfering with its service in the country. This time the problem centres on GMAIL, with numerous frustrations reported by users. China has stepped up its censorship of the internet in recent weeks, after the uprisings in the Middle East and an anonymous campaign calling for a Chinese "jasmine revolution".



GOOGLE'S plan to put millions more books online was dealt a blow when a federal judge threw out a 2008 agreement on copyright reached with the associations that represent authors and publishers. The judge ruled that the settlement circumvented copyright law and would "further entrench" Google's dominance in internet searches. He suggested that the parties should revise their deal.



AMAZON opened an online store selling apps for Google's Android smartphone operating system. However, Apple claims that Amazon's "Appstore" infringes its own trademark "App Store", and has filed a lawsuit.



Led by the Bank of Japan, the central banks of the G7 countries undertook their first co-ordinated intervention in currency markets for more than a decade to stabilise a soaring YEN. The yen had reached a record high against the dollar amid speculation that Japanese companies would tap their huge foreign assets to help pay for reconstruction and insurance costs after the recent earthquake and tsunami.





Vietnam seeks to cure growth 'addiction'

AFP 23 March 2011



Vietnam is looking to balance its long-standing "addiction" to growth with measures to stabilise the troubled economy, but its success depends on restoring public confidence, analysts say. The moves follow months of concern from investors and economists over the Southeast Asian nation's rising inflation, struggling currency and other economic woes that accompanied the high growth rate. Strong action began only in February when the State Bank of Vietnam announced the country's largest currency devaluation in years, a 9.3 percent adjustment whose scale surprised experts. The government then proclaimed fighting inflation to be its number one priority, raising key interest rates and setting a series of targets to help stabilise the economy.



"I think the government's now sending a much more clear message about giving stability a higher priority compared to growth," said Vu Thanh Tu Anh, research director of the Fulbright Economics Teaching Program in Ho Chi Minh City. Authorities have directed commercial banks to keep growth in credit, or loans, to below 20 percent this year, with the proportion lent to the "non-productive" property and stocks sectors particularly restrained. State spending is to be cut by 10 percent, and the budget deficit reduced to below five percent. State-owned enterprises, which comprise a key part of the economy but are known for their inefficiency, have been ordered to sell foreign exchange to the banks. And in a bid to reduce traditional reliance on gold, the government is planning to ban unofficial trade in gold bars and has proposed hefty new fines for black market foreign exchange trading.



Benedict Bingham, country representative for the International Monetary Fund, welcomed the measures, which he said are seen as "a fairly decisive shift", with growth now seemingly "subordinated to a focus on macro-stability". He said th
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