The Trump show is endlessly distracting in a way that would be familiar to any connoisseur of the Latin-American strongman. The Wednesday-afternoon Oval Office appearance alone had enough fodder for countless talk-show segments: Trump grounds the airplanes! Trump lies about building the wall! Trump lies about being vindicated in the special-counsel probe —even when a federal judge says, in court, that he hasn’t been!
Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman told Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan to consider him the “ambassador of Pakistan” in Saudi Arabia moments after the two countries signed key memorandums of understanding (MoUs) worth $20 billion on Sunday in the fields of energy, petrochemicals, minerals, agriculture and food processing.
Nationalism has a bad reputation today. It is, in the minds of many educated Westerners, a dangerous ideology. Some acknowledge the virtues of patriotism, understood as the benign affection for one’s homeland; at the same time, they see nationalism as narrow-minded and immoral, promoting blind loyalty to a country over deeper commitments to justice and humanity.
The BJP and its allies went from governing six of India’s 29 states in 2014 to holding 21 by early 2018. So firm seemed Modi’s grip on power that many Indian liberals began drawing parallels to the slide toward one-man rule in Vladimir Putin’s Russia and Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Turkey. A series of surprising setbacks late last year have dissipated this aura of invincibility.
The Chinese economy ended 2018 on a weak note, but not so weak that people now fear growth will fall off a cliff. Gross domestic product growth in the fourth quarter clocked in at 6.4 per cent, the weakest since the first quarter of 2009, but in line with market expectations. The quarterly growth profile, which shows a persistent weakening trend – from 6.8 per cent in the first quarter, to 6.7 per cent, 6.5 per cent and now 6.4 per cent – is indicative of the harsher conditions facing the economy.
The Chinese economy slowed further in the fourth quarter, matching its lowest recorded reading, last reached during the global financial crisis in 2009. The fourth quarter growth rate of 6.4 per cent, year on year, matched that of the first quarter of 2009, according to data released Monday by the National Bureau of Statistics. That was the lowest growth rate since the Chinese government began publishing quarterly growth rates at the beginning of 1992.
Read Here – South China Morning Post
Also Read: Trade war or peace, China is seeking economic stability not growth
The likelihood of Britain leaving the European Union without a deal just got a whole lot higher—and Prime Minister Theresa May is largely to blame. On Tuesday, British lawmakers overwhelmingly voted against May’s negotiated agreement with the EU, delivering a damaging (albeit foreseeable) blow to her Brexit strategy.
Gulf states with deep pockets and big appetites are asserting themselves in the Horn of Africa as never before. The flurry of new economic and military investments is reshaping geopolitical dynamics on both sides of the Red Sea, as two formerly distinct regions are fast becoming one.
In focusing on the scale of Sheikh Hasina’s victory in the general election a few days ago and the allegations of rigging by her opponents in Bangladesh, it is easy to miss the significant structural change unfolding in Bangladesh and its long-term implications.
On November 14, a fight broke out in the Sri Lankan Parliament. When the Speaker tried to call a vote, a group of MPs heckled him and rushed the podium. A rival faction tried to push the hecklers back. Men traded punches. One brandished a knife. A lawmaker cut himself trying to steal the Speaker’s microphone and ended up in the hospital.
