The last time a French Presidential election was anywhere near this wild was in 2002. Jacques Chirac, the center-right President, was supposed to face Lionel Jospin, the center-left Prime Minister. (The two men had been sharing power in a “cohabitation” government.) The extreme-right candidate, Jean-Marie Le Pen—Marine’s father, an eyepatch-wearing former paratrooper and gleeful racist, […]
…Since President Xi Jinping took power in 2012, nationalism has grown even stronger, which means “historical nihilism” isn’t likely to go away any time soon. At the annual meeting of the National People’s Congress in Beijing in March, lawmakers made the defamation of communist heroes and martyrs a civil offence. Read Here – South China […]
If President Trump’s rhetoric really is pushing companies to alter their practices, it wouldn’t be the first time he has used the bully pulpit to literally bully businesses into change. In that way, H-1B reform may be playing out in a way not unlike the deal president-elect Trump struck with Carrier, a manufacturer that was […]
The future of amphibious warfare looks like a constellation of bots large and small. The main challenge now is getting them to talk to each other Read Here – Defense One
The crusty shell of Russia’s Communist Party may be associated with pensioners, but the movement is undergoing a face-lift. Read Here – The Moscow Times
A confluence of factors appears to be raising rather than lowering the risks to emerging markets. Start with debt levels. While many companies have sought to pay back their dollar loans, the level of foreign-currency debt in emerging markets — uncovered by foreign-currency revenue or hedges — remains worryingly high. U.S. dollar credit to overseas nonbank borrowers has […]
China’s interest in Latin America is both economic and strategic. It was the accelerating Chinese economy’s voracious appetite for raw materials that keyed its entry to the region, a land of plenty when it comes to natural resources. Iron, soybeans, copper, and oil make up the bulk of Chinese imports from the region. In turn, […]
Twenty years ago next month, the British government gave the Bank of England the freedom to set interest rates. That decision was part of a trend that made central bankers the most powerful financial actors on the planet, not only setting rates but also buying trillions of dollars’ worth of assets, targeting exchange rates and […]
Donald Trump is inviting the wrong Asian dictator to meet him in Washington. Instead of focusing on Philippine leader Rodrigo Duterte, he should extend an invitation to North Korea’s Kim Jong-un. His comments today that under the “right circumstances” he would be “honoured” to meet with Kim were welcome ones, but he should go even […]
Google and Facebook attracted 20% of global advertising spending last year, nearly double the figure of five years ago, research shows. Internet-only media companies are grabbing the biggest slices of the online advertising market, while traditional news publishers have fallen far behind and been forced to make cutbacks. Read Here – Marketing
looking beyond borders 