By Brenda Goh and Andrew R.C. Marshall | KHON PI LONG, Thailand KHON PI LONG, Thailand China’s plan to blast open more of the Mekong River for bigger cargo ships could founder on a remote outcrop of half-submerged rocks that Thai protesters have vowed to protect against Beijing’s economic expansion in Southeast Asia. Dynamiting the Pi Long rapids and other sections of the Mekong between Thailand and […]
When yoga teacher Jo Phee asks her students to lie down for the Bananasana, a stretch for the oblique stomach muscles, they don’t just hold the pose for a few breaths. The aim is to hold it for about five minutes. It is all part of yin yoga – a restorative modern form of the exercise that has only grown in popularity globally in the past few […]
Dr. Steve Pieczenik, the consummate intelligence insider, made a bold claim on the Alex Jones show today, suggesting the National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster and Jared Kushner were behind a counter revolution to silence the alt-right. He cited the outing of General Flynn, the demotion of Stephen Bannon, Gorka and others, as evidence that something was happening inside the White House to silence the movement that got […]
Authored by Mark Melin via ValueWalk.com, Bullish on oil, Andurand Commodity Fund Manager Pierre Andurand looks around the world for justification of his long exposure. Since the start of 2017, patience has been emphasized by the famous French oil trader, perhaps best known for his previous BlueGold Global Fund management, who is now struggling with an -11.6% loss year to date as of March and is in the […]
WASHINGTON U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said on Monday that President Donald Trump does not intend to trade away U.S. jobs for China’s help on North Korea, adding that there are “constructive” talks with Beijing underway on trade issues. In an interview with CNBC, Ross rowed back from Trump’s comments in a CBS interview on Saturday that China’s help on North Korea “trumps trade.” Asked if the […]
By Martin Petty and Manuel Mogato | MANILA MANILA Across Asia, more and more countries are being pulled into Beijing’s orbit, with the timid stance adopted by Southeast Asian nations on the South China Sea at a weekend summit a clear sign this fundamental geostrategic shift is gathering momentum. U.S. President Donald Trump’s flurry of calls at the weekend to the leaders of the Philippines, Thailand and […]
By Matt Spetalnick | WASHINGTON WASHINGTON The White House on Sunday defended President Donald Trump’s decision to invite Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte to Washington, saying his cooperation was needed to counter North Korea, even as the administration faced human rights criticism for its overture to Manila. Trump issued the invitation on Saturday night in what the White House said was a “very friendly” phone conversation with Duterte, […]
Malaysia-born Cassandra Hsiao was accepted to all eight Ivy League schools in the US. ― File picKUALA LUMPUR, May 1 ― Cassandra Hsiao, the Malaysia-born 17-year-old who was accepted to all eight Ivy League schools in the US, announced that she has chosen to go to Yale. Hsiao, who was born to a Taiwanese father and Malaysian mother in Johor Baru, also told The Star that she […]
President Donald Trump was a distracting entertainment from the moment he launched his campaign in June of 2015 — until he wasn’t. His opening speech, in which he called Mexican immigrants “rapists” and told the world he would be the best jobs president “God ever created,” was looked at as the ravings of a man whose outsized ego was too big to be anything but hilarious. News […]
SGX, the Singapore Exchange, is looking to further boost its Chinese derivatives business by offering to collaborate with a planned new local futures venture backed by the founders of one of China’s largest hedge funds. Loh Boon Chye, the bourse’s chief executive, told the Financial Times he was willing to open its clearing infrastructure to the challenger, called Apex, so it could conduct futures trading in the […]
Authored by EconomicPrism’s MN Gordon, annotated by Acting-Man’s Pater Tenebrarum, Seeing the Light It has been said that “the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” No one quite knows who first uttered this remark; it has been attributed to Albert Einstein, Mark Twain, Benjamin Franklin, and has even been said to be an Ancient Chinese Proverb. What […]
Mexico is urging Donald Trump to reuse agreements reached under the aborted Trans-Pacific Partnership to create a manufacturing powerhouse between the US, Mexico and Canada to compete with low-cost producers in China. Ildefonso Guajardo, Mexico’s economy minister, said in an interview with the Financial Times that elements of TPP could be used to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement between the three countries. His comments came […]
WASHINGTON President Donald Trump said China may have hacked the emails of Democratic officials to meddle with the 2016 presidential election, countering the view of U.S. intelligence officials who have said Moscow orchestrated the hacks. In an interview transcript published on Sunday, Trump gave no evidence backing his allegation, first made on the eve of the Nov. 8 presidential election, that China could have hacked the emails […]
WASHINGTON President Donald Trump will speak with leaders of Singapore and Thailand on Sunday about the threat North Korea poses of massive, nuclear destruction in Asia, White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus said. “We need cooperation at some level with as many partners in the area as we can get to make sure that we have our ducks in a row,” Priebus told ABC’s “This Week.” […]
Chinese insurance group Anbang has threatened legal action against a leading investigative magazine over what it called “slanderous” allegations about financial irregularities and the marital status of its chairman, in the latest sign of the intensifying power struggle in the financial sector. Anbang, which has curbed its long acquisition spree amid heightened capital controls, said in a statement on Sunday that Caixin had “forged rumours” that chairman Wu […]
(Image: Hawking.org) It’s a pet obsession that both physicist Stephen Hawking and entrepreneur Elon Musk — two people credited with pushing the boundaries of technology and science in pioneering ways — have in common: Rampaging intelligence, borne within machines, could end the human race if utilized dangerously. “I believe there is no real difference between what can be achieved by a biological brain and what can be […]
By Sue-Lin Wong and Kevin Yao | BEIJING BEIJING Growth in China’s manufacturing sector slowed faster than expected in April, an official survey showed on Sunday, as producer price inflation cooled and policymakers’ efforts to reduce financial risks in the economy weighed on demand. The National Bureau of Statistics’ official Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) fell to a six-month low of 51.2 in April from March’s near five-year […]
By Manuel Mogato | MANILA MANILA Southeast Asian countries took a softer stance on South China Sea disputes during a weekend summit, according to a statement issued on Sunday, which went easy on China by avoiding tacit references to its building and arming of its manmade islands. A chairman’s statement of the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) was released about 12 hours after the summit […]
By Ju-min Park and James Pearson | SEOUL SEOUL South Korea said Washington had reaffirmed it would shoulder the cost of deploying the THAAD anti-missile system, days after U.S. President Donald Trump said Seoul should pay for the $1-billion system designed to defend against nuclear-armed North Korea. In a telephone call on Sunday, Trump’s national security adviser, H.R. McMaster, reassured his South Korean counterpart, Kim Kwan-jin, that […]
By Lawrence Delevingne | BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. Titans of U.S. industry and Wall Street gather in Beverly Hills this week to discuss how to navigate – and profit from – hot topics such as U.S. tax reform, the upcoming French election and Chinese economic growth. U.S. President Donald Trump’s first 100 days and the next 1,000, as well as the outlook for liberal democracy […]
This story was originally published on Medium and is being republished here with the permission of its author. Two years ago in Hong Kong, I sat around a conference table with some of the finest journalists to have worked in the Chinese media in the past two decades. Left and right of me were reporters who had broken major stories of corruption, malfeasance and cruelty, and who […]
The third Dubai Week in China, an event to promote and catalyse economic development and cultural exchange, will take place in Shenzhen, located in Southern China, later this year. The announcement was made by Falcon and Associates, a strategic advisory company that works for the Dubai leadership and initiated Dubai Week in China. Following the success of Dubai Week in China in Beijing (2015) and Shanghai (2016), […]
Emerging from an Hermès store in Shanghai with a shiny new watch costing “tens of thousands” of renminbi, Zhao Feifei is emblematic of a younger generation of Chinese consumers driving a rebound in sales of European luxury brands. “I’m earning more than before so I’m more willing to spend,” says Ms Zhao, who works in an internet finance company. The 30-year-old is one of the many customers […]
By Michelle Nichols and Lesley Wroughton | UNITED NATIONS UNITED NATIONS U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson warned on Friday that failure to curb North Korea’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs could lead to ‘catastrophic consequences,’ while China and Russia rebuked Washington’s threat of military force. The showdown in a meeting of the U.N. Security Council on North Korea highlighted the diplomatic challenges of resolving tensions over […]
