Month: August 2018

A senior Chinese diplomat said on Saturday that China hoped Australia would not voice “groundless suspicions” so that ties between the two countries could return to health and stability.
Relations soured last year when Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull accused Beijing of meddling in Australian affairs – including the media, universities and politics. China has denied the charges.
A schedule for Foreign Minister Julie Bishop to visit China for a series of meetings held…

Here’s a quiz. How often in these past weeks have you read about the duplicitous Chinese tricking other governments with false investment promises? Quite a lot, probably, given the volume of reportage on the supposed pullback of Chinese cash in the Philippines. These reports argue that China’s US$24 billion commitment to the Philippines, comprising US$15 billion in foreign direct investment (FDI) and US$9 billion in aid, has barely materialised since an agreement in October 2016 in…

Kazakhstan’s government is facing growing popular resentment against China, one of its major economic partners, as accounts emerge of Chinese-Kazakhs and Kazakh nationals being sent to “political re-education camps” in China’s Xinjiang region.
In a widely followed case, a Kazakh court on Wednesday allowed an illegal Chinese immigrant to stay in the country after she gave details about an indoctrination centre in Xinjiang where she had been employed. “In China, they…

Homes destroyed. Crops ruined. Livelihoods snuffed out. This week witnessed another trail of devastation caused by catastrophes in Southeast Asia, scenes that are depressingly familiar in the world’s most disaster-prone region. At least 16 people died and more than 500 hikers needed rescuing from the slopes of Indonesia’s Mount Rinjani after an earthquake struck on Sunday night – while more than 5,000 local residents on the island of Lombok were effectively left homeless…

The Bank of England’s monetary policy committee (MPC) has unanimously voted to increase the central bank interest rate (‘base rate’) to 0.75%, in what is only the second increase since the financial crisis of 2008.

The market for card-acquiring services is set to be scrutinised by a UK regulator after concerns were raised about the way fees are levied and the ease with which retailers can switch providers.

The effect that businesses controlling access to data has on competition in markets is to be scrutinised by a new panel that has been set up in the UK.

Clutching his elephant toy, Avyaan’s conversation is pretty much limited to a happy gurgle, but the nine-month-old might be about to go down in history for helping make breastfeeding in public more socially acceptable in prudish India.
Public breastfeeding carries a social stigma in much of the world – a situation that World Breastfeeding Week until August 7 hopes to change – but in highly conservative India it is particularly taboo.
The country’s hundreds of millions of…

All businesses regulated to provide payment services in the UK will be required to adhere to high-level standards that many other regulated financial services firms are already obliged to meet under new proposals outlined by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA).

Thailand will lose more than half a million Chinese tourists in response to a deadly boating accident that killed nearly 50 people last month, a potential blow to the country’s vital tourism sector.
The Phoenix was carrying 105 people – mostly Chinese – when it sank on the way back from a popular snorkelling spot on July 5 off the southern resort island of Phuket.
It was among three vessels which ignored a bad weather warning against island day trips.
The boat’s captain…