China’s next Five-Year Plan is due for formal approval by the National People’s Congress in March 2016. One of the areas of focus is the role of China’s State-Owned Enterprises, generally viewed with suspicion by the West and seen within China as bloated and in need of a cleanup.
Former president Mahinda Rajapaksa’s failed bid to return to power as Sri Lanka’s prime minister is seen by many as a major blow for Beijing’s growing influence in the country and the region. The outcome of August’s parliamentary elections, which followed Rajapaksa’s ouster in January, seems to signal a return to Sri Lanka’s more traditional foreign policy orbit: balancing India’s security sensitivities with its pursuit of other relationships, including with China.
For a long time, historical and territorial disputes plagued relations between Japan and China. So far, the frictions show no sign of abating. Instead, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has taken a nationalistic approach towards China. China has reportedly regularly intruded into Japanese territorial waters near the disputed Senkaku/Diaoyu islands and repeatedly demanded Japan to apologise for its wartime atrocities. These events have heightened tensions between the two countries.
On 27 August, Osaka Mayor Toru Hashimoto abruptly announced his resignation from the Japan Innovation Party (JIP). Hashimoto, who founded the party, has arguably been the single most important driving force behind the JIP’s electoral success and its emergence as the second-largest opposition party after the centre-left Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ). His resignation not only throws the party into disarray, but it could also usher in a wave of political realignment as Japan’s opposition parties respond.
British workers are making more money as costs are growing at a lower rate in the Eurozone.
In the UK, earnings both including and excluding bonuses rose by 2.9% in the three months to July, above analysts’ expectations and at the fastest growth rate since 2009. According to the Office for National Statistics, workers are able to make more money in the UK.
The Conservative government is introducing a bill that will restrict the right of trade unions to organise and take industrial action in the UK. It has been criticised by union leaders and politicians across the political spectrum. Here is why.
The proposals are a response to a number of public sector strikes in recent years, particularly where workers taking industrial action affect third parties (who have no association with the dispute). This, for example, could include the travelling public in the case of rail strikes, or parents when teachers walk out of schools.
Malcolm Turnbull was all smiles after his overnight ascension to the prime ministership, but the fact is he has inherited some grim economic realities. He said yesterday that he decided to challenge Abbott for the leadership because, among other reasons:
Over the past 20 years, Africa has been steadily growing and is expected remain one of the fast growing regions in the near future. Central to this is entrepreneurship and the role of entrepreneurs.
The BOJ placed a hold on easing, hoping the economy will make a recovery. The Japanese economy contracted 1.2 percent from April to June amid such factors as China’s market turbulence, falling domestic demand and lagging exports. So far, the BOJ purchased 79 percent of quota-based bonds and assets in 2015, in order to inject more cash into the economy, notes Bloomberg.
One of the lingering questions of Singapore politics over the last couple of decades has been how to measure the effectiveness the National Education program introduced to schools in the second half of the 1990s. The program was designed to instil into the next generation a deep sense of gratitude to founding father Lee Kuan Yew and the People’s Action Party (PAP) government that he led for 30 years.
