The week ahead

The coming days

The week ahead

A trade pact will draw China and Taiwan closer togther

Jun 27th 2010

jas

• IMPROVING relations between China and Taiwan will get another boost with the signing of a groundbreaking free-trade pact by the end of June. Ma Ying-jeou, Taiwan’s president, was elected in 2008 on a platform that called for better ties with China. A free-trade pact with the mainland is the cornerstone of his cross-strait policies. Taiwan, already isolated diplomatically, feared commercial marginalisation when the effects of a free-trade agreement between China and the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN) begins to be felt later this year. Mr Ma has already overseen the establishment of direct flights and shipping routes across the 110-mile-wide Taiwan Strait.

•AMERICA'S Supreme Court is likely to hand down a decision involving the Sarbanes-Oxley act of 2002 on Monday June 28th. The legislation, intended to tighten the auditing of public companies in the wake of the accounting scandals at Enron, WorldCom and Tyco, has been widely criticised for imposing costly and burdensome regulations on American businesses. The court will rule on the constitutionality of the board created to oversee independent audits of big companies. But firms may fear that if Sarbanes-Oxley is overturned a Congress on the brink of introducing tough regulation of Wall Street’s financial firms might well replace the act with something even tougher.

• THE Senate Judiciary Committee starts confirmation hearings on Monday June 28th for Elena Kagan, Barack Obama’s nominee for a seat on America's Supreme Court. Republicans have so far held fire on Ms Kagan, the country’s solicitor-general, but are likely to charge that she is a partisan who will let her liberal leanings sway her judgment and point to her lack of experience as a judge. But her background as an academic may serve her well—the lack of a judicial paper trail will starve opponents of material to use against her.

• A PRESIDENTIAL election in Germany on Wednesday June 30th will provide the latest test for the country’s chancellor, Angela Merkel, and her coalition government. Horst Köhler stepped down at the end of May triggering the vote by a special federal assembly, composed of members of the Bundestag and the country’s states, which will elect the new president. Although Mrs Merkel’s centre-right coalition should hold a majority the secret ballot may allow members of her deeply divided coalition to vote against her candidate in order to express their dissatisfaction.

• POLES go to the polls to chose a new president in a second round of elections on Sunday July 4th. The election was brought forward after the unpopular incumbent, Lech Kaczynski, died in a plane crash in April. Few gave Jaroslaw, his equally unpopular twin brother, much of a chance but Bronislaw Komorowski, Civic Platform’s candidate and the speaker of the lower house, proved a poor candidate in the first round on June 20th. Mr Komorowski emerged only narrowly ahead though he should still win the run-off if he can sweep up anti-Kaczynski votes cast for minor candidates.