Sol W. Sanders Paying a visit to my phlegmatic Punjabi physician in New Delhi in the early 1960s, I found him uncharacteristically upset. Amniocentesis had come to India and some of his patients were asking him to abort fetuses if they were female. Out of moral scruple, he was refusing, losing patients — and […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By Willy Lam, East-Asia-Intel.com Since territorial disputes erupted between China and Japan in the early 1970s over the Diaoyu islets (called the Senkakus in Japan), Beijing has stuck to late patriarch Deng Xiaoping’s famous dictum: “Leave the question of sovereignty for the next generation; let’s put the emphasis on joint [economic] development.” […]
Times247.com As Japan’s birthrate plummets, the estimated worth of its pet industry has risen to $10bn, with pampered pooches enjoying holidays at hot spring resorts, yoga classes and designer clothes. While the birthrate has been falling dramatically and the average age of Japan’s population has been steadily climbing, Japan has become a pet superpower. Official […]
John J. Metzler UNITED NATIONS — Despite the persistent economic headwinds which are expected to slow economic expansion this year, “growth in the Asia and the Pacific area remains better than in any other region; continuing as an anchor of stability and a new growth pole for the world economy.” That’s the guardedly optimistic prognosis […]
Sol W. Sanders Looking around the world, the striking characteristic is waiting out a number of crises. Their outcome seems almost artificially suspended, and their interaction on one another and their ultimate effect on the world is at issue. We start with the Euro. Chancellor Angela Merkel’s supplications in Beijing were perhaps laudable but a […]
Sol W. Sanders The new year’s worldwide economic downturn has an interlocking effect: every national economy is searching to accommodate itself politically as well as economically to what looks to be an extended period of low growth. After longer or shorter periods of historically unrivaled prosperity, they are feeling for a “bottom” — a level […]
Sol W. Sanders A new era of increasing instability is opening in East Asia. The death of North Korean leader Kim Il-Jong is only adding another, if explosive, element to an already volatile equation: China enters a period of substantially slower economic growth, if not a crash, on the eve next autumn of a takeover […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By Donald Kirk, East-Asia-Intel.com MINAMISOMA, Japan — The soulful notes of Silent Night wafted from an outdoor sound system on the near-empty main street to the station of this coastal city on the northern edge of the 20-kilometer “exclusion zone” around the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. The doleful refrain set the […]
John J. Metzler UNITED NATIONS — With the historic visit of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to Burma, the highest profile American diplomatic contact in fifty years, the United States has entered a high stakes geopolitical chess game in Southeast Asia. Burma, a political pariah state has long been courted by China, coveted by India, […]
Sol W. Sanders Creeping up on the outer edges of Wall Street soothsayers’ economic crystal ball, until now dominated by American and Euro crises, is growing concern about China. The inane idea China [and India, which is also in trouble] would somehow rescue the world economy is now, finally, dismissed by the pundits — without […]
