China and Australia have developed a free trade agreement, one of many as China forges new economic alliances through programs and investments like the Silk Maritime Route and the Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank. “The ‘Chinese Dream’ that modern China is pursuing under Xi Jinping involves the...
Read the article from The Drum.
Millions of Indians are questioning power’s corrupting influence, after Anna Hazare, 74, launched a hunger strike this week. His demand: parliamentary consideration of a bill to establish an ombudsman’s office for investigating and punishing corrupt politicians and government employees. “Archaic...
Click here for the article in The Guardian.
Spies have long studied publicly available news reports or cultural events to gather data. Recorded Future is a new firm that tries the same with the internet, explains Noah Shachtman for Wired magazine, by analyzing connections, plotting momentum and trends, and predicting the future while...
Click here for the article in Wired.
Leaving behind its history as an underdeveloped state dependent on US foreign aid and security umbrella, South America’s largest nation has ridden the wave of globalization to become a formidable economic and diplomatic power. In just two decades, Brazil cultivated a middle class by opening its...
Teasing Washington: Brazilian President Lula da Silva receives Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
WASHINGTON: In 1964, in the lead up to a coup that opened 21 years of military rule in Brazil, a popular bumper sticker in Rio de Janeiro read: “...
Reality always trumps theory. Nayan Chanda points out that this was seen when aftershocks from the American stockmarket meltdown put to rest the theory of ‘decoupling’. The stockmarket jitters that ran from Tokyo to Shanghai to Mumbai shows that Asian growth is very much linked, further proving...
Reality always trumps theory. We saw this when aftershocks from the American stockmarket tremors put to rest the theory of ‘decoupling’, which held that the rise of China and India has created an Asian sphere...
Oil prices are in decline around the globe, reflecting a slowdown in China and the eurozone combined with increased production in nations whose budgets and stability rely on steady revenues. OPEC, which controls about 40 percent of production, fails to coordinate. Low prices mean lower revenues,...
The global oil benchmark, Brent crude, fell Thursday to about $92 per barrel before rebounding to finish the day at around $94 per barrel, the lowest price since mid-2012. The latest sell-off follows one of the sharpest declines in a quarter in...
Europe has suffered through a debt crisis, but governments are trimming, not abandoning, social welfare programs. Such modifications could become a model for economic globalization around the globe, suggests Joergen Oerstroem Moeller, a senior research fellow with the Institute of Southeast Asian...
Creative destruction? Protesters denounce Greek parliament plan to eliminate government jobs (top); young and old queue up in Spain looking for employment
SINGAPORE: The eurozone crisis has unleashed a string of buzzwords – from rating downgrade to...
Wealthy countries tend to have lower birth rates – but now that trend has also emerged in rural areas with low literacy rates and few economic opportunities for women, such as Africa and South Asia. Other countries that once discouraged large families as an effort to eliminate poverty have since...
Click here to read the article in Reason magazine.
