WORLD High-level officials from the world’s two largest economies, U.S. and China, are scheduled to meet in Beijing on Thursday and Friday to smooth over their trade differences escalated in recent months with both sides threatening to impose reciprocal additional tariffs on each other’s products.
WORLD Following the two Koreas first summit in over a decade and the historic agreement to end hostilities and work toward “complete denuclearization” of the Korean peninsula, small steps towards reconciliation are taken. For instance, South Korea removes the loudspeakers that blared propaganda across the border. In return, North Korea decided to shift its clocks to align with South Korea.
WORLD North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and South Korean President Moon Jae-in met for the first round of talks on Friday, in the Korean Demilitarized Zone, for the two Koreas first summit in over a decade. Kim became the first North Korean leader to visit South Korea since the 1950-53 Korean War rendering this visit an historic one.
WORLD Today’s focus will be on the ECB’s monetary policy meeting, where no change is expected to the policy settings underplaying worries over recent softness in the euro zone economy. Markets are looking forward to seeing whether recent Euro sell-off and its trading around its lowest level since mid-January against the greenback rendering it undervalued ahead of the European Central Bank’s policy update. The ECB decision is due at 1145 GMT and president Mario Draghi will begin his press conference at 1230.
WORLD Macron makes use of the official state visit to the States in an attempt to pave the way for a new, more expensive nuclear deal with Iran, as the 12th May deadline for Trump to restore U.S. economic sanctions on Tehran is close. On the other side, Tehran warns that they might quit a treaty designed to stop the spread of nuclear weapons if the U.S. President abandons the nuclear accord Iran signed with world powers in 2015.