Tag Archives: Asia

Selfie sticks banned at US attractions

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“Dozens of attractions in the US have banned the use of the camera extension devices known as ‘selfie sticks’, due to safety concerns. The Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Getty Center in Los Angeles, and the Smithsonian’s Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington DC, are among those to have imposed a ban on the gadgets, claiming concerns over the safety of their artwork as well as visitors. Last year, South Korea banned the sale of unlicensed selfie-sticks, claiming the signals emitted by the blue tooth equipped devices could pose a disruption to other equipment using the same radio frequency.  Offenders face a $27,000 fine or up to three years in prison.”

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/travelnews/11402619/Selfie-sticks-banned-in-US-attractions.html

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Seoul to let women activists march from North to South Korea

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“The WomenCrossDMZ group, headed by activist and feminist Gloria Steinem, says it plans to embark on the May 24 march from the North Korean capital Pyongyang to the DMZ separating the two Koreas to ‘call for an end to the Korean War’.  ‘There are some procedural steps left but we are headed in the direction of giving a green light,’ a government official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.  North and South Korea are technically still at war after the 1950-53 Korea War ended in a truce, not a peace treaty. Despite its name, the DMZ is one of the most heavily militarized and fortified borders in the world.”

http://www.businessinsider.com/r-seoul-to-allow-women-activists-to-march-from-north-to-south-korea-2015-5

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Nepali State to Seize All Relief Funds from Bank Accounts

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“After the money grab led to a public outcry, Nepali state actor Narayan Malego claimed that the seizure was justified, promising that the Nepali bureaucracy will ensure that ‘benevolent donations are not misused and the rights of victims are protected.’  But The Economist reports that after speaking to politicians, journalists and activists all across Nepal, they found the state apparatus there to be ‘marked by systematic fraud, [with] the financing of political networks [benefiting] powerful local figures and, indirectly, criminal gangs.’ And as for the ‘rights of victims,’ The Jackson Sun reports that the Nepali state has already been blocking the delivery of aid items by holding up the goods in airports.”

http://cointelegraph.com/news/114158/nepali-state-to-seize-all-relief-funds-from-bank-accounts

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North Korea joins new era as property bubble grows

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“It’s a capitalist’s fantasy: a fast-developing city filled with entrepreneurs and speculators, and a soaring property market. Restaurants are opening, shiny apartments are springing up, and the nouveaux riches are indulging themselves with cars, clothes and perfume.  This, however, is not one of the southeast Asian tigers, but North Korea, the most isolated and repressive totalitarian dictatorship in the world.  It is more than 15 years since the country’s communist rulers began to permit the small-scale buying and selling of food and household goods as an exception to its strict socialist economy. Now Pyongyang is experiencing a modest version of that familiar first-world phenomenon: a property bubble.”

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/world/asia/article4414908.html

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Russia’s new Eurasian Economic Union could get its own single currency

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“The union is still in its early days, having formally begun only in January, but the bloc has tentatively agreed to bring in a single currency and a Eurasian Central Bank by 2025. Belarus’ Mikhail Myasnikovich, prime minister until 2014, is calling for the process to be fast-tracked so the currency is ready in the next four years, according to Belarusian state news.  And Putin instructed Russia’s central bank earlier this month to work with both the government and other central banks ‘to determine the future direction of integration in the monetary and financial sectors in the framework of the Eurasian Economic Union with the study of the feasibility of establishing in the future monetary union.'”

http://www.businessinsider.com/russia-eurasian-economic-union-could-get-its-own-single-currency-2015-3

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Chinese Binge on Hong Kong Stocks Rescues City’s Flagging Bonds

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“The flood of Chinese money pouring into Hong Kong stocks has had a spillover effect: rescuing the city’s flagging yuan bond market.  Southbound flows through the Shanghai-Hong Kong equities link exceeded those headed to the mainland by more than 30 billion yuan ($4.8 billion) this month, swelling the offshore supply of China’s currency. As banks in the former British colony take in more yuan, they’re reducing deposit rates, making Dim Sum debt yields more attractive to investors.  Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index has jumped 11.6 percent this month after China made it easier for mainland funds to use the cross-border link to buy stocks.”

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-04-16/chinese-binge-on-hong-kong-stocks-rescues-flagging-dim-sum-bonds

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Valuations of Hong Kong’s stock market operator go interstellar

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“For the first time analysts are more bullish about the operator of Hong Kong’s stock market than fast-growing Chinese firms like Lenovo Group and Tencent Holdings.  Shares in Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Ltd (HKEx) have risen about 40 percent in the past six days on an unprecedented flood of mainland investment in Hong Kong stocks.  Fund managers are stacking their chips on HKEx after Beijing allowed institutional investors to buy discounted shares in Hong Kong via a landmark stock pipeline scheme.  HKEx is well placed to benefit from more initiatives such as the planned Shenzhen-Hong Kong connect scheme, and as investment quotas for the Hong Kong-Shanghai pipeline are increased.”

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/04/16/hkex-stocks-idUSL4N0XD1HU20150416

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Hong Kong stocks soar as investors flood market

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“Many of China’s biggest companies are dual-listed in Hong Kong and Shanghai, and savvy investors have long turned a profit by playing off the different share prices in the two markets.  Trading activity is also flooding Hong Kong through the ‘stock connect’ pilot program, which linked trading in the Hong Kong and Shanghai markets starting late last year.  The much-anticipated program drew lackluster interest from investors at first. But now, the China Securities Regulatory Commission has started letting mutual funds invest through the ‘stock connect,’ boosting trading volume.  The program has a daily quota for trading activity in both directions — from mainland China to Hong Kong, and the reverse.”

http://money.cnn.com/2015/04/09/investing/hong-kong-stocks-surge/index.html

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Taiwanese parents required to stop kids spending time on computers

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“Lawmakers have expanded existing legislation to say that children under 18 on the island “may not constantly use electronic products for a period of time that is not reasonable.” The law now equates spending excess time on electronic devices with other more commonly-accepted vices, such as smoking, drinking, drugs, watching sexual or violent imagery, and chewing betel nuts.  Parents who expose their kids to electronic products to the point where become ‘physically or mentally’ ill are liable for a $1,600 fine. Of course, the law doesn’t say exactly how much time is unreasonable, which will no doubt complicate enforcement.”

http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2015/01/26/parents-country-legally-obliged-stop-their-kids-spending-time-computers

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Jim Rogers On Putin, Oil Prices, And A 26-Year-Old’s Advantage

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“To Russia’s credit, Russia has not been sitting around supporting the ruble in any big way. My view of markets is you let them clean themselves out, let the system find a clearing price. To my astonishment, the Russians are being more capitalist than the Western capitalists. They are letting the currency find its own bottom. That will change soon. It will find its own bottom, and then Russia will be a good place to invest.  I was bearish on Russia for 46 years. I went to Russia in 1966 and came away with the idea that this will not work; this cannot work. And only in the last couple of years have I realized that something was going on and changing at the Kremlin.”

http://www.businessinsider.com/jim-rogers-on-oil-russia-investing-mistakes-2014-11

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