Katrina Shankle/Jan. 25, 2008/ 3:42 p.m.
Participants from eighty-eight countries gathered in Switzerland to discuss the state of the global economy. The outlook for the new year is grim due in large part to the economic slow-down of the United States. A credit crisis brought on by overexposure to sub-prime mortgage securities changed the forecast for a strong global economy that was predicted at last year's conference.
A potential aid to global economic turmoil caused by the slow down in the U.S. is China as it broadens its trade with countries other than the United States. Other countries, primarily Canada and Mexico, whose exports to the United States account for roughly twenty-five percent of their GDP are likely to feel the sting from the U.S. recession.
Other matters to be discussed in the forum include terrorism, a workable solution to pacification in the Middle East, and technology and the way it has changed social networking by removing borders.
Representatives from the United States appearing at the forum include U.S. Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice, former Vice President Al Gore, and Microsoft founder Bill Gates.
Rice is slated to hold a closed doors session with Afghan President Hamid Karzai and Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf. This is the first meeting between the Secretary of State and the President of Pakistan since the December assassination of the opposition leader Benazir Bhutto, an event that sank the country into near chaos.
No comments:
Post a Comment