Opinion

The borrowing spree has started to boomerang, leading global economy to moan under a record pile of debt. On record, the world has continued to borrow since the 2008 financial crisis, adding nearly $60 trillion, pushing the worldwide debt load to $200 trillion in 2014, nearly three times the size of the entire global economy. History has it that the ...

Bill SAVADOVE A new stock market regulator chief could give China’s beleaguered shares a short-term lift, but analysts say Liu Shiyu faces the same old problems as his ousted predecessor: shattered market confidence and the need for sweeping reforms. Xiao Gang was dismissed as chairman of the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC), state media reported Saturday, after a three-year tenure ...

China’s Air Force has created a new unit dedicated solely to tracking and responding to drones, according to China Daily. In a press release, the PLA Air Force said the unit would focus on “small, slow-moving drones flying at an altitude of less than 1,000 meters,” China Daily reported. The language in the report makes it seem as though military ...

The Indonesian government is to issue the details of a new regulation that will allow foreign investors to hold 100 per cent ownership of geothermal power plants with a capacity of 10 MW or more. For plants with a capacity of less than 10 MW, foreign investment will be capped at 67 per cent. While it represents Indonesia’s efforts to ...

In recent years, the “Occupy” movements and “Arab Spring” came to symbolize popular actions for social change across the world. In Southeast Asia, the massive gathering of citizens against an unjust political order is more widely known as an expression and legacy of “People Power.” The idea of People Power became a potent political force when it led to the ...

Tom Pu-chih Hsieh Le Cordon Bleu and Taiwan’s National Kaohsiung University of Hospitality and Tourism (NKUHT) have been trying to set up a branch of the famous French cooking school in Taiwan since 2011. However, due to protectionism sentiment and bureaucracy on the island, the French chefs cannot show Taiwanese students how to cook and instead can only teach the ...

Lyndon Johnson simply was exasperated. Barack Obama’s mischief was methodical. Four days before the 1966 congressional elections, Johnson, asked about criticism from Richard Nixon, testily responded: “I do not want to get into a debate … with a chronic campaigner like Nixon.” Johnson’s disparagement endeared Nixon to Republican voters, thereby propelling him toward the presidency. Four days before Saturday’s South ...

Unrestrained growth has a price. The case in point is China’s overcapacity in heavy industries whose over-proportional development is causing damage to its own and the global economy, even as Beijing struggles to regulate and reform its industries. The hardest hit is China’s steel industry, which manufactures more than the next four largest producers combined — Japan, India, the US, ...

In assessing Russian President Vladimir Putin’s ability to stay in power and defy the West, one crucial question is how much longer his government’s finances can stand extremely low oil prices. Judging from an analysis by economists at Deutsche Bank, he might be able to hold out longer than previously thought. Russia is peculiarly sensitive to energy prices, in part ...

The so-called war on cash has been getting a lot of airtime in recent days. On one side of the battleground are European Central Bank President Mario Draghi and former US Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers, calling for the abolition of high-denomination banknotes to (they say) combat crime. Opposing the plan are skeptics who fear it will lead to abolishing cash ...