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Currency controls unlikely to end soon

Submitted by cahn on 27 October, 2008 - 1:13pm

China is not ready to relax its rigid foreign exchange regime, despite a landmark stock market reform next month that could trigger an influx of overseas cash, economists said yesterday.

The imminent launch of a long-awaited scheme that allows qualified foreign institutional investors (QFII) to buy yuan-denominated A shares has prompted overseas foreign exchange markets to price in a more flexible and stronger yuan.

But restrictions slapped on foreign investors - such as a minimum one to three-year investment period - showed China's wariness in allowing the yuan to be freely convertible on the capital account, analysts said.

"The launch of QFII is faster than expected, but the high requirements show the government still holds a careful attitude towards opening the capital market," said Xi Junyang, a professor at Shanghai University of Finance and Economics.

http://biz.scmp.com/bizchina/ZZZRRJP7R8D.html

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What did I say then?

Bush appears to contradict anti-torture pledge | FT

Submitted by cahn on 6 January, 2006 - 10:16am

President George W. Bush has asserted that he retains the right to authorise abuse of detainees under extreme circumstances, despite agreeing to legislation last month that explicitly prohibited such treatment.......

A senior administration official told the Boston Globe this week that while the administration intended to abide by the law, there might be extreme circumstances under which the president would have to waive the law to protect national security.

The language attached to the bill marks the latest attempt by the White House to assert that under the US constitution, Congress has no authority to tie the president"™s hands in the "œwar on terror". The administration is defending on the same grounds Mr Bush"™s secret decision to authorise the National Security Agency to monitor communications inside the US, ignoring the legal requirements set by Congress nearly 30 years ago.

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