Day: February 10, 2024

Aozora Bank’s US property woes offer a warning to Japan investors

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Tokyo stocks are bumping at about 34-year highs and foreign investors are pouring money into the market, but Japan’s Aozora Bank has reminded the country that its lenders retain the ability to deliver nasty shocks.  Since the mid-sized bank revealed this month that exposure to the crisis-hit US office market would push it into an annual loss, analysts and investors have been scrambling to assess whether such dangers could be widespread in the Japanese financial sector. Shares in Aozora, which the government saved from outright collapse 25 years ago in…

Tourism booms for China’s ice sculpture city Harbin in post-Covid revival

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The 25-year-old’s sympathies were not with the disappointed visitors. “Their demand wasn’t very reasonable, but Harbin still satisfied their requests, so everyone [online] thought Harbin handled it very well and started to pay attention to Harbin,” he said. Li and his friends spent three days in the city last month, keen to see the festival that had been trending for weeks, as well as Harbin’s other tourist attractions which have been lighting up social media platforms in China. 02:54 Frosty photoshoots, icy sports and winter festivals in China’s ‘ice city’…

In charts: how the Widodo era remade Indonesia’s economy

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Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. Over the past decade, Joko Widodo has reinvented Indonesia’s economy to make it one of the world’s most attractive investment markets, thanks in no small part to a boom in demand for green energy technology. Indonesia’s president, who took office in 2014, has wielded the country’s nickel deposits — the largest in the world — to upgrade a domestic mineral processing industry and bring in foreign investments, while breaking its…

Three Candidates Vie to Become Indonesia’s New Leader

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Of the 50 or so countries that have held or are holding elections in 2024, none will have more people going to the polls on a single day than Indonesia. The current president is on his second term and ineligible to run, leaving Indonesians with three choices to replace him when they head to the polls Wednesday. In Jakarta, Indonesia, VOA’s Ahadian Utama reports. Devianti Faridz and Yuni Salim contributed to the report. Voice of America

Bad economy, nosy relatives: Young Chinese put off by Lunar New Year

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Many of China’s nearly 380 million internal migrants only go home once a year – and the Lunar New Year, the most important festival for family reunion, is usually the time to do it. That is why the Spring Festival travel rush, known as “chunyun”, is the world’s largest annual mass migration. Authorities are expecting a record nine billion trips this time for the Year of the Dragon. BBC

Republican China committee chairman Mike Gallagher retiring from US Congress

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US congressman Mike Gallagher, who chairs the House select committee on competition with China, said on Saturday he will not run for re-election, four days after he was one of only four House Republicans to buck party leadership and vote against impeaching President Joe Biden’s top border official. Gallagher, 39, a four-term House member and former Marine Corps intelligence officer, issued a statement noting that the authors of the US Constitution had not intended elective office to be for a lifetime. “Electoral politics was never supposed to be a career…

What cost love: are China’s efforts to stamp out expensive caili betrothal gifts aiming at the wrong traditions?

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But the Chinese government has been trying to stop the tradition to make weddings more affordable and encourage births. In the past, local governments held “zero-caili weddings” and sought out “the most beautiful mother-in-law” to reward a bride’s family for not seeking money. They even had women volunteer to sign letters declaring they would only marry for love. In a fresh legal push, China’s Supreme People’s Court issued a document on how to solve conflicts involving betrothal gifts, with changes coming into effect this month. The court said extorting money…

Facing Setbacks From Rebels, Myanmar Activates Conscription Law

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bangkok —  Myanmar’s military government on Saturday activated for the first time a decade-old conscription law that makes young men and women subject to at least two years of military service if called up, effective immediately. The announcement of the measure on state television amounts to a major, though tacit, admission that the army is struggling to contain the nationwide armed resistance against its rule. Under the 2010 People’s Military Service Law, passed under a previous military government, males between the ages of 18 and 45 and females between 18…

Canadian Man Opens Thai Airways Plane Door Before Takeoff

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BANGKOK —  A Canadian tourist opened the door of a Thai Airways flight that was preparing to take off from Chiang Mai airport bound for the capital, Bangkok, local broadcaster ThaiPBS and officials said this week. “The whole plane was in chaos,” wrote Facebook user Ananya Tiangtae, who was on the flight, adding that officials escorted the passenger off the plane. “What if we were 30,000 feet above sea level? What would happen?” Ananya wrote. A passenger opened the emergency door, causing the inflatable slide to activate and the aircraft…