US President-elect Donald Trump follows a pattern, confounding global media and world leaders with provocative statements on Twitter, at rallies or during television programs. His staff then attempts to reassure the public with interpretations and insistence that social media messages do not...
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The world would have had about 100 million more women – including many South Koreans, Indians and Chinese – without a gender bias in mortality rates in the developing world, economist Amartya Sen has posited. India and other countries have made strides in balancing sex ratios at birth. Still, in...
Mystery of missing girls: Many parents in India, China and other nations prefer boys, as revealed by gender bias in mortality rates
MELBOURNE: Gender bias in mortality has resulted in fewer women in India and other parts of the developing world....
Current debates on China focus on its growing economic strength as a threat to the West. But China, moving from a rural to an urban economy, can also offer opportunity for the West. Over the next five years China will build more than 300 new cities, requiring expertise on infrastructure, financing...
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The world has a significant informal economy, employing half the world’s workforce and estimated to be worth $10 trillion, excluding blatantly illegal activities. The so-called System D, slang from French-speaking Africa and the Caribbean, can no longer go ignored by policymakers, argues Robert...
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The outlook for agriculture through 2022, from the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development and the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization, indicates that a period of low prices for farm goods is over. High energy prices, falling growth in productivity and rising demand is already...
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The US dollar remains strong despite declining growth and bond yields in the United States and the world. Global markets may have more control than the US government over the value of the dollar. “Faced with weak growth in the rest of the world, investors gravitate to US bonds and defensive...
Introduced to Southeast Asia in the 13th century, Islam gradually supplanted Buddhism and Hinduism, but co-existed with ancient traditions over the centuries. Since the 1970s, however, fundamentalist Islam has spiked in multicultural countries such as Malaysia, with Muslim students and scholars...
KAMPUNG BUNOHAN, Malaysia -- Rohimah Zakaria, dressed in a fringed black tunic and matching pants, with a silver dagger tucked into the waist, rocked hypnotically on a wooden stage at the edge of this rural village.
The 53-year-old...
Information technology, a global marketplace, wage differentials, plenty of skilled labor and a quest for profits have made outsourcing inevitable for banking and many other businesses. Workers lose jobs as consumers consistently choose low-cost electronics, apparel, news or banking services. “No...
Click here for the article in The Vancouver Sun.