March, 2016

• 12 March

  14 anti-migrant protesters held

  France / AFP French police arrested 14 people on Saturday after a far-right group took to the streets for an anti-immigrant rally in the port town of Calais, where thousands of migrants are living in improvised camps. The roughly 80 activists blocked off two bridges close to the city centre and burned tyres, waved banners and set off smoke bombs, ...

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• 12 March

  Assad ouster ‘red line’ for regime in Syria peace talks

  

  Damascus / AFP President Bashar Al Assad’s ouster remains a “red line” for the Syrian government, the war-wracked country’s foreign minister said on Saturday ahead of fragile peace talks in Geneva. Walid Muallem also told a news conference in Damascus that the government delegation to the talks due to start on Monday will wait no more than 24 hours for ...

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• 12 March

  North Korea: Military ready for pre-emptive attack against South

  

  Seoul/ AP North Korea said on Saturday its military is ready to pre-emptively attack and “liberate” the South if it sees signs that American and South Korean troops involved in annual joint military drills are attempting to invade the North. The declaration from General Staff of the North’s Korean People’s Army on state media is the latest outburst over the ...

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• 12 March

  Donald Trump’s ‘peak’ might be coming

  

  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 ...

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• 12 March

  Structural reforms hold key to Asia’s progress

  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 ...

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• 12 March

  China’s $1.4bn Port City in Lanka gets nod

  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 ...

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• 12 March

  Who will be Myanmar’s next president?

  

  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 ...

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• 12 March

  China’s startups weather the economic slowdown

  

  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 ...

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• 12 March

  The cost of Cambodia’s progress

  

  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 ...

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• 12 March

  China industrial output, retail sales slow as property gains

  

  BEIJING/ Bloomberg China’s industrial production and retail sales both slowed in the first two months of the year, highlighting the pressure leaders will face to meet this year’s annual growth target even as the central bank governor said major stimulus wasn’t needed. Industrial output rose 5.4 percent from a year earlier in January and February, the National Bureau of Statistics ...

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