We need to find a fairer way of providing Goods and Services to the rest of the people on Earth.Cryptocurrencies and/or Gold Standard of money....maybe the answer to fight hyperinflation caused by too much printing of paper/fiat currencies by Governments and Central Banks all over the World. (https://nomorefiatmoneyplease.blogspot.com)
South Korea's Jeju island to get new airport as visitors surge
South Korea announced on Tuesday plans to construct a US$3.5 billion second airport on the resort island of Jeju, to handle a spike in passengers fuelled by Chinese tourists.
PHOTO: CHAN BROTHERS TRAVEL
[SEOUL] South Korea announced on Tuesday plans to construct a US$3.5 billion second airport on the resort island of Jeju, to handle a spike in passengers fuelled by Chinese tourists.
The one-runway new airport will be built on the eastern part of the island, with completion scheduled for 2025 at the latest, the land and transport ministry said.
The island is currently served by Jeju International Airport, which is the country's second busiest after Seoul's Incheon airport, processing 23.2 million passengers last year - up 16 per cent from 2016.
Jeju international, located on the northern shore of Jeju, has been overwhelmed in recent years as low budget airlines have triggered a surge in passenger volume.
Jeju is particularly popular with Chinese visitors, who numbered 2.9 million last year, a jump of 58 per cent on 2013.
Unlike the rest of South Korea, Jeju is visa-free for Chinese tourists and is just a one-hour flight from Shanghai and 2.5 hours from Beijing.
[COPENHAGEN] Always envious? Got a non-existent social life and struggle to concentrate? All this might be down to Facebook if you believe a study showing those who go a week without using the social network feel happier than others.
Carried out by the Happiness Research Institute, the study involved a sample of 1,095 people in Denmark who were divided into two groups, half of whom continued using Facebook while the others stopped.
"We focused on Facebook because it is the social media that most people use across age groups," Meik Wiking, HRI's chief executive told AFP Tuesday in Copenhagen, the Danish capital.
After a week, those people who hadn't been on Facebook said they were more satisfied with their lives, with 88 percent of them describing themselves as "happy" compared with 81 per cent from the second group.
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Some 84 per cent said they appreciated their lives compared with 75 per cent in the other group, and only 12 per cent described themselves as dissatisfied, compared with 20 per cent among those who continued using Facebook.
At the end of the experiment, the abstainers reported having a richer social life and fewer difficulties in concentrating, while the others reported no such change.
"Instead of focusing on what we actually need, we have an unfortunate tendency to focus on what other people have," the authors of the study wrote.
In other words, Facebook users are 39 per cent more likely to feel less happy than non-users.
China central bank chief sees yuan as global currency by 2020 on deepening reforms
Zhou Xiaochuan, governor of the People's Bank of China (PBOC), attends a news conference in Beijing, China, on Thursday, Mar 12, 2015.
PHOTO: BLOOMBERG
[SHANGHAI] China will deliver a slew of economic and financial reforms over the next five years, which will help the yuan become an international currency by 2020, central bank governor Zhou Xiaochuan said in an article.
The reforms will also include improving central bank communications and guiding market expectations to enhance monetary policy, Mr Zhou wrote in the Caixin article published on the magazine's website.
Mr Zhou said the government will strengthen supervision of its financial system to prevent "systemic risk", explaining China's proposed 13th Five-Year economic plan for the years 2016 to 2020.
The comments around policy priorities come amid growing doubts in global markets about China's commitment to see through comprehensive financial reforms.
Those doubts were sparked after Beijing intervened in the stock markets during a share price rout that started in June and saw the main Shanghai Composite Index plunge as much as 40 per cent.
Beijing has also intervened in its currency market after an abrupt devaluation by the central bank in August caused widespread worries over the yuan's future value.
Mr Zhou said China will foster new mechanisms to promote financial liberalisation and development, as well as "enhance the efficiency of the financial system to serve the real economy." "It will effectively use and develop financial risk control tools, and reduce levels of leverage so as to prevent systemic risk," he said.
Mr Zhou pledged to improve central bank communications on policy intentions, but didn't offer details on whether policy makers will provide routine briefings to accompany rate announcements similar to other developed economies.
[Beijing] China will seek to push its own vision of an Asia-Pacific trade pact at a regional summit next week, senior officials said on Tuesday, just weeks after the release of a rival US-led deal that pointedly excludes the Asian giant.
Beijing sought to promote the Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific (FTAAP) at last year's Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) summit, which it hosted.
At the meeting's close, participants endorsed efforts to explore the idea, which was seen as a potential rival to the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a Washington-led trade coalition that includes the region's largest economies, except for China.
Little has been heard of the FTAAP since, while the long-secret text of the TPP deal was released Thursday, receiving cheers from global business interests and jeers from labour, environmental and health groups, which vowed to fight its ratification.
China said it would report the findings of a study on FTAAP at next week's Apec summit in the Philippines, to be attended by President Xi Jinping.
"We need to actively work for the establishment of FTAAP," Chinese vice finance minister Wang Shouwen told a briefing, adding that FTAAP would be "a facilitator for regional integration in APEC." It would be the world's largest free trade area, encompassing TPP and other regional frameworks.
Apec's 21 members account for more than 50 per cent of global GDP and nearly half of world trade.
Although it gathers some of the world's most important leaders, the group's annual meeting is a better known for its group photos of powerful people in matching shirts than substantive deals.
But Mr Wang said China remains hopeful that the group will complete a roadmap for establishing the FTAAP framework.
"Our objective is to complete the joint strategic study next year and to present operable suggestions and recommendations to the leaders at next year's summit," he said.
China has latched onto the FTAAP, first proposed by Apec in 2006, as a hedge against the US-led TPP, a key element of Washington's "Asia pivot".
The TPP would be the world's biggest free trade area, an attempt to break down barriers to commerce and investment between 12 countries comprising about 40 per cent of the global economy.
Although the US has said it is open to Chinese participation in the TPP, it has pointedly excluded the world's second largest economy from negotiations.
US President Barack Obama has insisted he wants China "to do well" despite simmering tensions between the world's two largest economies.
"The United States welcomes the rise of a prosperous, peaceful and stable China," he said at last year's APEC summit.
But at home, he has repeatedly used Beijing as a bugbear to scare up cooperation from an intransigent Congress to support the deal.
Mr Obama, who strongly pushed the TPP as a foundation for "21st century trade", heralded the pact as a boost to the US economy that would also protect workers and the environment.
But he also said that ratifying the deal "means that America will write the rules of the road in the 21st century" rather than China.
Myanmar's Suu Kyi set for sweeping power as election wins mount
Fresh results from Myanmar's election on Tuesday showed the opposition taking control of most regional assemblies as well as forming the next government, handing democracy champion Aung San Suu Kyi sweeping powers and reshaping the political landscape.
PHOTO: AFP
[YANGON] Fresh results from Myanmar's election on Tuesday showed the opposition taking control of most regional assemblies as well as forming the next government, handing democracy champion Aung San Suu Kyi sweeping powers and reshaping the political landscape.
The ruling party, which was created by the country's former junta and is led by retired military officers, on Monday conceded defeat in an election that was a major milestone on Myanmar's rocky path from dictatorship to democracy.
But results dribbled out by the election commission have shown that their Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) was not just beaten in the polls, it was trounced.
Ms Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD) said its own tally of results posted at polling stations around the country showed it was on track to take more than two-thirds of seats in the lower house of parliament, enough to form Myanmar's first democratically elected government since the early 1960s.
The election commission said the NLD won 49 of the 54 seats declared so far for the 440-strong lower house, where - under the constitution drawn up by the former junta - a quarter of the seats are unelected and reserved for the military.
Official results also showed that Sunday's election had handed the NLD a landslide win in the battle for regional assemblies, with Ms Suu Kyi's party winning 97 of the 107 seats declared so far for local legislatures and the USDP just three. "The difference between the parties is huge. It's a clear win," said Sitida, a 37-year-old Buddhist monk in the central city of Mandalay who marched in the country's 2007 "Saffron Revolution" protests that were bloodily crushed by the junta.
Sitida, who was sentenced to 70 years in prison for his role in the demonstrations but was given amnesty as part of political reforms in 2011, said the military would now have to accept the NLD's win and negotiate an orderly retreat from politics. "Daw Suu can make this happen. Daw Suu can convince them,"he said, referring to Ms Suu Kyi with an honorific.
However, while the USDP has been cut down and much of the establishment shaken by the extent of Suu Kyi's victory, the army remains a formidable power.
In addition to its guaranteed bloc of parliament's seats, the commander-in-chief nominates the heads of three powerful and big-budget ministries - interior, defence and border security - and the constitution also gives him the right to take over the government under certain circumstances.
Although the military has said it will accept the outcome of the election, analysts say a period of uncertainty still looms for the former Burma because it is not clear how Ms Suu Kyi will share power easily with the generals.
Sunday's vote was Myanmar's first general election since its long-ruling military ceded power to President Thein Sein's quasi-civilian government in 2011, ushering in a period of reform and opening up to foreign investment.
It is also a moment that Ms Suu Kyi will relish after spending years under house arrest following a 1990 election, when her NLD won a landslide victory that was ignored by the junta.
Ms Suu Kyi is barred by the constitution from taking the presidency herself, though has said she will be the real power behind the new president, regardless of a charter she has derided as "very silly".
Washington on Monday welcomed the election as a victory for Myanmar's people but said it would watch for the democratic process to move forward before making any adjustments to US sanctions on a country long considered a pariah.
India announces plans to open up foreign investment
New Delhi
India's government on Tuesday announced plans for a sweeping liberalisation of its foreign direct investment (FDI) regime, as Prime Minister Narendra Modi seeks to counter accusations his reform drive is stalling.
The government said it would undertake a raft of reforms to open up 15 areas of the economy, including lifting the caps on FDI in the critical defence, banking and construction sectors.
It said the reforms were aimed at making it easier for overseas companies to do business in India, notorious for its red tape and labyrinthine regulations.
"This exercise... is intended on the one hand to further open up sectors for more foreign investments in the country and also to make it easy to invest in India," the Commerce Ministry said in a statement.
A spokesman contacted by AFP said details of the new FDI limits for specific sectors were not immediately available, although he said further details would be announced later in the day.
The reforms come after Mr Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party suffered a drubbing in state elections in Bihar, in a battle fought largely over development in India's poorest state.
They also appear to be a signal of intent ahead of the prime minister's first visit to Britain as leader later this week, where he will be seeking investment from the former colonial power.
Modi stormed to power in 2014 promising sweeping reforms to revive the faltering economy.
Growth is now chugging along at seven percent, putting India among the fastest-growing of the G20 nations.
But complaints have been mounting about the Indian leader's failure to nail down major reforms to boost investment and help create jobs for India's tens of millions of young people.
Saudi Arabia will diversify oil economy to slow climate change
[OSLO] Saudi Arabia, the world's largest crude oil exporter, plans to diversify its economy to help combat climate change in a move that could reduce expected carbon emissions by up to 130 million tonnes a year by 2030, the government said on Tuesday.
Opec member Saudi Arabia is the last of the Group of 20 major economies to submit a plan to the United Nations before a summit in Paris from Nov 30-Dec.11 about ways to slow global warming.
It said it was aiming "to achieve mitigation co-benefits ambitions of up to 130 million tons of carbon dioxide equivalent avoided by 2030 annually through contributions to economic diversification and adaptation." The kingdom did not give details of its emissions. The World Resources Institute think-tank estimates that Saudi Arabia emits 527 million tonnes of carbon dioxide a year, or 1.22 per cent of the world total.
The mere submission of a plan by Saudi Arabia, which says its economy is threatened by a global shift from fossil fuels to renewable energies, is a positive sign for Paris. "Thanks Saudi Arabia," Christiana Figueres, head of the UN Climate Change Secretariat, wrote in a Tweet, saying it was the 158th such national plan meant to combat heat waves, floods, droughts, downpours and rising sea levels.
Saudi Arabia said its plan was based on a main scenario in which it would diversify the economy with a "robust contribution" from export earnings from oil.
Earnings would be channelled into lower emission sectors"such as financial services, medical services, tourism, education, renewable energy and energy efficiency technology to enhance growth," it said.
An alternative scenario, not planned for now, would involve using more oil at home to fuel carbon-intensive industries such as petrochemicals, cement, mining and metal production, it said, thereby increasing domestic rather than overseas emissions.
It said it aims to use energy more efficiently and invest in solar, wind and geothermal power.
Saudi Arabia said in April it aimed to save the equivalent of 1.5 million barrels of oil a day through efficiency measures, limiting domestic consumption to sell more oil abroad.
Saudi Arabia's climate plan says it aims to build a plant capturing and using 1,500 tonnes of carbon dioxide a day for use in other petrochemical plants. It would operate a pilot plant at the Othmaniya oil reservoir.
The kingdom has previously launched a pilot project to use solar energy to desalinate energy intensive seawater.
The government would also encourage investments in natural gas. It would seek to adapt to climate change, with measures ranging from reducing desertification to improving public transport.
