March, 2016

• 19 March

  Turkey holds 5 over Ankara bombing, hits PKK in Iraq

  ANKARA / AFP A Turkish court detained five people overnight on suspicion of links to a March 13 suicide bombing in Ankara that killed 35, the Anatolia news agency reported on Saturday. The arrests came just hours before another suicide attack in a busy Istanbul shopping street which killed four and wounded 20, the city governor said. It was not ...

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• 19 March

  The GOP’s blocking of court pick is indefensible

  

  The Republican Party’s incoherent response to the Supreme Court vacancy is a partisan reflex in search of a justifying principle. The multiplicity of Republican rationalizations for their refusal to even consider Merrick Garland radiates insincerity. Republicans instantly responded to Antonin Scalia’s death by proclaiming that no nominee, however admirable in temperament, intellect and experience, would be accorded a hearing. They ...

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• 19 March

  Time to boost cyber security in banking

  The laundering of US$81 million from Bangladesh central bank demonstrates digitization — though necessary for enhancement of the banking transactions — comes with huge challenges that need to be addressed by boosting international cyber security and banking communication. The heist has prompted central banks around the world to examine cyber security measures, triggered the resignation of Bangladesh’s central bank governor ...

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• 19 March

  Good times, not anger, led to Trump’s rise

  A Catch of the Day to Kevin Drum at Mother Jones for pointing to polling showing that, no, Republicans in 2016 aren’t especially angry about the economy. And HuffPollster notes that Republicans aren’t really angry, period, at least compared with the 2012 cycle. Drum puts it this way: People aren’t more angry, or more bigoted, or more scared than usual. ...

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• 19 March

  Should America fear China’s alternative to the TPP?

  One of the key arguments used by the Obama administration to support the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is that if the United States doesn’t write the rules on trade, China will. There’s some truth here: China is, in fact, leading an effort to negotiate a massive trade agreement across the Asia-Pacific – one that excludes the United States and that will ...

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• 19 March

  Why China is foot-dragging on economic reforms

  

  In late February, hundreds of coal miners in Anyuan, where Mao Zedong first organized workers for the Great Strike of 1922, protested against their state employer over low wages and even poorer working conditions. On Wednesday, China wrapped up its most important legislative meeting of the year, announcing sweeping free market initiatives for economic recovery and long-term growth. Though clearly ...

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• 19 March

  Boomtowns are where the recovery is happening

  I spend a decent amount of time traveling around the U.S. speaking at conferences and visiting clients. Doing this is a visceral form of economic research — you can witness just how various regions are recovering and expanding with your own eyes. It doesn’t take much to realize that, to paraphrase science fiction writer William Gibson, the recovery is here, ...

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• 19 March

  Why Canada is dumping its gold — and China isn’t

  

  Canada, home to some of the world’s largest gold-mining companies, recently announced that it had effectively liquidated all of the country’s holdings of the shiny metal and is moving to what a government spokesperson described as “easily tradable” assets. It has been a long process. Canada held 1,088 tons of gold in 1955. By 2000, it was down to 46 ...

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• 19 March

  Prologis Inc. delays UK deals as buyers seek ‘Brexit’ vote get-out

  

  Bloomberg Prologis Inc., the world’s largest owner of industrial real estate, would like to buy more property in the U.K. That’s unlikely to happen until the country decides whether it wants to stay in the European Union in June. “For the sake of another quarter, let’s just wait,” Ben Bannatyne, president of Prologis in Europe, said in an interview at ...

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• 19 March

  Qatar tenants get no respite on rents

  

  Dubai / Emirates Business A slowing economy hasn’t had any sort of impact on Qatar’s residential rental market, with a 7 per cent gain last year following on from the 14 per cent annual growth experienced in 2014. But rental growth numbers are starting to pick up some slack, according to a CBRE report. Growth “during the second half of ...

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