bobbing Voltaire
The retail, hospitality and construction sectors said the planned VAT rise and the scrapping of income-tax loopholes would further damp consumer spending, whose stubborn weakness contrasts with robust exports and rising corporate investment. . Foreign donors lined up to pump up to $2bn a year into the Palestinian economy to secure a peace dividend from the Gaza withdrawal, while James Wolfensohn, the quartet special envoy at the centre of this weekend’s efforts at a settlement, even put up his own money to secure evacuated settler greenhouses on behalf of the Palestinians.
