Is a Russia-Saudi deal on the horizon? lweb.es/f640
OEF REVIEW:Russian president Vladimir Putin met with Saudi Defense Minister in Sochi on October 11th, while Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov was holding a meeting with his Saudi counterpart. The parties discussed Syria and agreed upon the necessity to prevent the creation of a terrorist caliphate. The levers of a hypothetical Russian-Saudi deal would be: a rise in oil prices, possibly accompanied by Saudi arms purchases, and on the Russian side, the guarantee that Assad will leave after a transition period, along with some kind of a Saudi “right of scrutiny” on Russian arms sales to Iran.
OEF REVIEW: China’s president Xi Jinping has made major pledges in foreign aid, and Africa will foreseeably benefit greatly from the new packages. Even though developing countries and the development community have welcomed the aid pledges there has been harsh criticism of them from within Chinese society.
OEF REVIEW:“Moody’s defines China’s rebalancing challenge as the need to engineer economic restructuring, policy reform, market liberalization and slower credit uptake with the aim of shifting economic growth drivers away state-led investment – all without sacrificing short-term macroeconomic stability.” “As the authorities are — we believe — prioritizing stability in the current environment, the likelihood of a slowdown in policy reform is increasing,” says Rahul Ghosh, a Moody’s Vice President and Senior Research Analyst.