April, 2016

• 13 April

  Obamacare is smaller than anyone expected

    My recent column on the sixth anniversary of the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, generated some energetic criticism — or, rather, half a paragraph of it did. While I acknowledged that many Americans have benefited from the law, I also said that the Obama administration was too eager to give it credit for slowing the growth of ...

  Read More »
• 13 April

  Is Australia the key to US containment of China?

  

  While the attention of the United States continues to be focused on the Middle East and the battle against IS — despite President Obama’s hope to “pivot to Asia” — China has been behaving in an increasingly aggressive way in the Eastern Pacific, claiming large swaths of ocean as its territorial waters. It has built artificial islands on reefs in ...

  Read More »
• 13 April

  China’s medical diplomacy

    Pending government approval, a group of 35 doctors and nurses based in Shanghai will soon become the nation’s first medical team to join the World Health Organization’s emergency response system, specializing in disaster relief. It’s a big step, but China is no tenderfoot. Long gone are the days of the chijiao yisheng, or “barefoot doctors,” when farmers with rudimentary ...

  Read More »
• 13 April

  Dividends are a better bet than share buybacks

    The biggest source of fresh cash in American equities isn’t speculators or exchange-traded funds — it’s companies buying their own stock, by a 6-to-1 margin. There’s been a lot of chatter about stock buybacks the past few years. Some people believe share repurchases are propping up the market; others think this is a myth, or a non-story. There is ...

  Read More »
• 13 April

  Four Crystal Lagoons to feature in $250mn project in Egypt’s Sokhna mountains

  

    Bloomberg Crystal Lagoons, the patented technology developer of giant crystalline lagoons and only global company with the technological capability to make the development of giant controlled manmade bodies of water economically viable, has joined forces with Egyptian real estate development company, TatweerMisr, to develop the first man-made lagoons in the Sokhna mountains. The development will bring six stunning lagoons ...

  Read More »
• 13 April

  Reuben bros get nod to turn London Tower into luxury apartments

  

    Bloomberg Billionaire property investors David and Simon Reuben won approval to turn one of the oldest office towers in London’s Westminster borough into luxury apartments. The brothers will be allowed to turn the Millbank Tower complex near the Palace of Westminster into 207 homes with a skybar and a 150-bedroom hotel, the borough council decided at a meeting. Soaring ...

  Read More »
• 13 April

  Design features that sell your home faster, for more money

  

    Bloomberg It used to be a real estate listing with “Jacuzzi tub” or “crystal chandelier” would draw a lot of eyeballs, leading to higher prices and a speedy sale. These days, a barn door might be the golden (or wooden) ticket. According to a report released on Tuesday by Zillow Digs—the real estate site’s design and home improvement cousin—a ...

  Read More »
• 13 April

  Vietnam’s design evolution: From fast fashion to ethical couture

  

    Cao Bang, Vietnam / AFP Long a bastion for cheap, fast-fashion manufacturing, a new crop of designers are trying to transform the Made in Vietnam label and save the country’s rich ethnic heritage in the process. In the remote hills of Cao Bang, some 300 kilometres north of the capital Hanoi, Vietnamese designer Thao Vu is gleefully dropping swaths of ...

  Read More »
• 13 April

  Women-only trains, ride-share programmes gaining full steam

  

    Relexnews The concept of gender-segregated transportation such as women-only ride-share schemes and trains is gaining steam around the world, most recently with the launch of an ‘Uber for women’ and calls for ‘pink carriages’ on Australian public rail lines. Though women-only buses, rail and subway cars have been in place for years in countries like Japan, Malaysia, India and ...

  Read More »
• 13 April

  You will soon text robots as often as your friends

  

    San Francisco / AP The robots are coming — to help run your life or sell you stuff — at an online texting service near you. In coming months, users of Facebook’s Messenger app, Microsoft’s Skype and Canada’s Kik can expect to find new automated assistants offering information and services at a variety of businesses. These messaging “chatbots” are basically ...

  Read More »