October 23rd, 2020
Via NHIP CAU, a report on Vietnam’s economic growth: The Southeast Asian country’s GDP in 2020 is estimated to reach $340.6 billion, exceeding Singapore with $337.5 billion and Malaysia with $336.3 billion. The organisation has forecast Vietnam’s 2020 GDP growth at 1.6 percent, while Singapore’s economy will contract 6 percent Meanwhile, Thailand’s GDP this year […]
Read more »US Sanctions Drove Iran Into Huawei’s Arms
October 23rd, 2020
Via The Diplomat, an article on how – since U.S. sanctions kicked Ericsson out of Iran – Huawei, the Chinese telecom giant, is poised to win the 5G race in the country: The Chinese high-tech giant Huawei is apparently capitalizing on Beijing’s major 25-year partnership deal with Iran to gain a monopolistic position in the development […]
Read more »October 23rd, 2020
Via Asia Times, a report on Ankara’s hints that EU allies seeking to diversify from Russian gas should see Karabakh hostilities as a wake-up call: Turkey’s support for the war for Nagorno-Karabakh, a strategic mountainous enclave overlooking two Turkish-backed pipelines, is being propelled by a gas competition with Russia. “Russia is neither an ally, nor an […]
Read more »Iran Wants A “Strategic Partnership” With China
October 18th, 2020
Courtesy of The Economist, commentary on China’s relationship with Iran: China commands a certain mystique in the Middle East. For politicians in Lebanon, broke and on the brink of hyperinflation, it is an atm waiting to dispense billions if they can only find the passcode. For the regime of Bashir al-Assad in Syria it is a deus ex […]
Read more »October 18th, 2020
Courtesy of The Economist, a look at Cuba’s economic plan: Long queues and empty shelves are old news in Cuba. Recently, though, the queues have become longer and the shelves emptier. Food is scarcer than it has been since the collapse in 1991 of the Soviet Union, which supported the island’s communist regime. Now shoppers […]
Read more »East Timor : From Democratic Success to Failed Petro-State
October 18th, 2020
Via Asia Nikkei, commentary on how East Timor went from democratic success to failed petro-state: “Like Bali before the tourism boom.” That is how I described East Timor — a young country brimming with hope — when I first arrived there to work as a correspondent in 2009. The factional violence of 2006-2008 had finally ended and […]
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