Opinion

Can Thailand’s military government achieve its ambitious 3.5 percent gross domestic product growth target and stave off social instability amid mounting signs of structural economic decline? As exports swoon amid a global slowdown and consumption gasps under high household debts, Thailand’s near-term growth will necessarily be state-led. Whether Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha’s military administration lives up to the policy challenge ...

Lots of Americans, especially Republican-Americans, are pretty steamed about illegal immigration. Stopping it with a big new wall at the Mexican border is one of the signature campaign promises of GOP front- runner Donald Trump. As journalists and others have pointed out, though, the number of undocumented immigrants in the U.S. appears to have peaked in 2007. To put it ...

Frequently predicted but never reached, “peak oil” — maximum possible production — has been postponed yet again, this time because of fracking. “Peak Sanders” was prematurely announced because of persistent underestimations of how underwhelming Hillary Clinton is as a candidate. The Vermont senator’s peak might not arrive soon because his fundraising prowess will allow him to continue campaigning to outlaw ...

For Asia to continue leading the global economic growth, it has to introduce a series of structural reforms in different sectors. This theme of structural reform has been echoed repeatedly by International Monetary Fund chief Christine Lagarde in many of her visits worldwide, of which the last was New Delhi. Asia already accounts for 40 percent of the world economy ...

A Chinese mega-project in Sri Lanka is set to recommence, after the Sri Lankan government announced that its concerns regarding the project “have been resolved.” Xinhua reports that Sri Lankan Minister of International Trade Malik Samarawickrema gave the green light for the $1.4 billion project to construct “Port City” near the Colombo Harbor. He promised that the government would officially ...

On Thursday, Myanmar’s parliament met to put forward presidential candidates four months after opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) swept historic elections in the country. Under Myanmar’s complicated selection process, the country’s next president is chosen from among three vice-presidents elected by its parliament or Pyidaungsu Hluttaw, with one candidate from the lower house (Pyithu ...

Currency depreciation is not always bad for a country’s economy, but after a series of stock market crashes this past summer, the Chinese economy seems to be going down on what many experts perceive to be a spiral of decline. Many wealthy Chinese people have been going out of their way to move their financial assets abroad, aiming to get ...

When Ieng Ty first stepped onto Otres beach in southern Cambodia, it was empty. He stood for a while, looking over translucent green waters to the hazy blue sky. Behind him, scrubby trees swayed in the firm breeze. An upsetting memory surfaced and, for a second, the surf sounded like the raspy breath of those people he’d seen starve in ...

Is the American economy stronger than we think? Perhaps. A persisting puzzle about its recent performance is the stark contrast between growth of jobs (which has been unexpectedly robust) and the growth of the economy’s output (which has been unexpectedly weak). How could a struggling economy produce so many jobs? The puzzle would disappear if the economy’s output is consistently ...

The EU-Turkey’s draft deal seems practical as it could stop smugglers from exploiting desperate refugees, and stem the flow of migrants to Greece, which has no capacity to accommodate them. Yet, the pact has come under fire from the UN and rights groups. The EU consensus shows European leaders are resolved to give a window of opportunity for refugees through ...