Markets

In October 2015, the Ubud Writers and Readers Festival cancelled the launch of three books containing testimonies collected from survivors of Indonesia’s worst political genocide of the 20th century. Why is discussing history so controversial in Indonesia? In October 2015,...

The Janus-faced nature of Xi Jinping’s China was again on show in 2015. In September, a dour-looking Xi reviewed soldiers and ballistic missiles at a military parade in Beijing to celebrate the 70th anniversary of Victory Day, which marks China’s...

This year has been a year of resilience for Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. Consider what he has faced: a contentious debate over national security reforms, widespread opposition to nuclear reactor restarts, a pension record hack that played on public...

House prices rose by an average of 64% in Sydney and Melbourne in the decade from 2004 to 2014. At the same time foreign investment proposals in developed real estate rose by almost tenfold. This correlation led to many anecdotal...

Every five years, Vietnamese dare to hope that this time, the ruling Communist Party will take a chance on change. Four successive party congresses have just kicked the ball down the road. They have redistributed positions mainly with a view...

It is no exaggeration to say that 2015 will be remembered as a major turning point for Sri Lanka as a nation. The Sri Lankan people made a decisive choice towards democracy and good governance, towards communal reconciliation and for...

Christmas has come early for advocates of tobacco control, with tobacco giant Philip Morris’s lawsuit against Australian plain packaging legislation ruled invalid. Australia will not have to pay any damages to Philip Morris. Indeed, it is likely that there will...

The sixth Forum on China–Africa Cooperation (FOCAC), held on 4–5 December 2015, set in motion a deeper pattern of exchanges with its partners that could drive economic transformation across the continent. In ‘scaling-up’ measures to ease African bottlenecks in infrastructure,...

1) Argentina eliminated capital controls and allowed the peso to float, 2) Argentina also eliminated export taxes on agricultural goods that include beef, wheat, and corn, 3) Fitch joined S&P in cutting Brazil to sub-investment grade BB+ with a negative...

This year was a year of stillness in Thailand, at least in the political realm. The military staged a coup that ousted Yingluck Shinawatra’s elected government in May 2014. Throughout 2015, the military regime of General Prayuth Chan-ocha — Thailand’s...

China’s state monopolies survive alongside a cutthroat private sector. China’s state monopolies survive alongside a cutthroat private sector. The recent announcement of China Minmetals merger with MCG and this year’s mergers of China North Rail with China South Rail have...

The second World Internet Conference (WIC), also known as the Wuzhen Summit, will take place Dec 16 -18, in Wuzhen, Zhejiang. Chinese President Xi Jinping will attend the conference and address the opening ceremony. It takes place amid dramatic expansion...

All eyes are on the US Federal Reserve, which is expected to raise interest rates for the first time in nearly a decade. Since the financial crisis in 2008, the US, along with the Eurozone, UK and Japan have held...

We all know by now that Britain has a productivity problem. The average British worker simply doesn’t make as much stuff as those from other major countries and for all the agreement that something must be done, there is little...

There is still optimism that the Japanese economy will prevail. Projections are that the economy is rebounding and Japan will achieve reasonably good growth for the next several years. Some progress has been achieved in the three years of Abenomics,...