Thailands National Disaster Warning Centre has issued an evacuation order for residents and tourists along the Andaman coast after a huge earthquake struck off Indonesian Sumatra on Wednesday.
Таиланд открыто и тесно интегрированы в глобальную экономику торговли опытных V-образный сжатия и восстановления с конца 2008 и до конца 2009
Однако, вверх ограничен из-за политической неопределенности и нормативных, в том числе от возможного политического насилия и карта Та Фут суде. План государственных инвестиций идет медленными темпами, а государственные инвестиции должны способствовать росту.
Патом Yongvanich., партнер-основатель Пии, говорит азиатские рынки имеют выгоду не только от притока международного капитала, но и от растущей изощренности азиатские инвесторы сами. ‘‘Institutional investors want to have the ability to get in or out of a stock without significantly influencing the share price.
This week’s strong earthquake that shook Japan, one of the best prepared Asian countries for natural disasters, was a stark reminder of the value of readiness in a region disproportionately targeted by the forces of nature.
While Japan continues to dig out from last year’s triple disaster, Thailand is scrambling to avert a repeat of last year’s historic floods.
С того времени, Thai authorities have set aside billions of dollars for a long-term water resource management plan that they say will ensure that the disaster will not be repeated.
Bangkok resident Suthi Sun remembered thefloodslike a bad dream. When the waters reached his residence, he said in an e-mail interview that “this was the first time I found the high level of flooding. The highest level was 1.5 meter[ы]. Meanwhile my ceiling is about 2.2 к 2.5 meters.”
Sun said the Thai government tried to do its best but had no “clear or certain policy.”Ruengrawee Pichaikul, Senior Program Coordinator for theAsia Foundationin Thailand, agreed, saying in an e-mail interview that some believed the scale of the flooding was beyond the government’s capacity.
When responding to similar charges leveled against the government during the flood, Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatraсказал, “I tell you the truth, we have done everything to the best of our ability.”
“We are facing the most severe flooding ever. We need encouragement, support and cooperation from all sectors and from all the people as well,” сказала она.
Thai authorities have also set up a disaster fund to compensate victims and are struggling to provide affordable insurance to vulnerable citizens. Similar efforts are underway in the Philippines to provide victims of a recent earthquake with insurance and compensation.
USAID’s Principle Regional AdvisorWilliam Bergerunderscored the importance of disaster preparedness, particularly building resilient infrastructure, which can be costly. “It pays to invest in disaster risk reduction. Having…buildings built to a code that meets the threats that the country is facing is absolutely critical.”
“The fact that they occur close to the population centers puts them at risk,Сказал он. “And I say that also the complicating factor is that the resources are either not available or have not been applied to protect the infrastructure that exists there against these large earthquakes.
One possibility, сказал Steven Rood, the Asia Foundation Country Representative for the Philippines and the Pacific Island Nations, is to turn historical structures into tourist attractions and use those revenues to retrofit them to withstand seismic activity. That is the approach USAID has used in Nepal since 1995. The U.S. agency has helped build government and community capacity to reduce disaster risk and foster public partnerships to reconstruct old buildings and turn them into tourist attractions.
Япония, Между тем, has invested heavily in being ready for the worst that nature can offer up. Berger was in Tokyo 24 hours after theМарта 2011 magnitude 9.0 earthquakestruck.
“I sat in those buildings in Japan. And they swayed and they rocked, but they didn’t fall down. A lot of other countries in Asia, if you were in a building, it would have fallen down,” Berger said. “So Japan is invested and understands that these things are important. And … they’re wealthy enough that they can construct buildings in a seismic-resistant fashion.”
But public awareness is also key to limiting casualties. “Part of the reason why the Japanese came through it so often is they all know what to do when an earthquake happens,” Rood said.
Brown added that Japan’s response earthquakes was good, keeping casualties and damage to a minimum. He said its state-of-the-art warning systems worked very well. Until the 2011 earthquake and tsunami.
Brown said Japan knew there was a tsunami risk, but did not know it was going to be as bad as it was. That information had “simply not worked its way through the system from scientific observations into practice early enough,Сказал он.
Hawaii’sPacific Tsunami Warning Centersent an early tsunami warning to Indonesia, which was then passed it down the official channels. But the entire region, according to the center, did not have warning systems in place that might have spared some of the more than 200,000 lives lost to the disaster.
“Indonesia is a little more prepared for a repeat because they have set up an early warning system,” said Rood. “Now that early warning system doesn’t work all the time…but other times it has actually produced a good warning so that when the earthquake happens and a tsunami threatens, the people are getting some warning.”
Arshinta, the Director ofYAKKUMEmergency Unit in Yogyakarta, Indonesia said in an email interview that the trend shows a decreased casualty rate since 2004. В 2006, о 6,000 people died in a magnitude 6.3 earthquake compared to 704 deaths in a 2009 magnitude 7.6 tremor, сказала она. And according to anIndonesian National Disaster Management Agencyreport, 1,711people died in 2010 due to natural disasters, по сравнению с 2,620 deaths in 2009.
While much has been done to empower communities, Arshinta said the capacity of Indonesian disaster agencies remains low.
But some problems “require long-term systematic changes to the way society is configured and the way it uses the landscape,” said Brown. “If you don’t build to reduce the casualties, you lose lives. If you do build to reduce the casualties, you lose money because all of that investment and infrastructure is lost to the disaster,Сказал он.
The point, в соответствии с Tom Murphy, Senior Research Fellow at theUrban Land Institute, is “to understand that you need to not act like it’s never going to happen again.”
Murphy, a former Pittsburgh mayor who coordinated rebuilding efforts in U.S. states ravaged byHurricane Katrina в 2005, said people in parts of New Orleans built 15 feet below sea level. “So you could stand in your front yard and watch a ship go by 15 feet above you in the Industrial Canal.” He said the lesson there is that “countries and regions need to be very careful about how they permit people to develop in the areas that are at risk of disaster.”
This is also true of Bangladesh, a South Asian country typically vulnerable to storms and floods by virtue of being situated on the Ganges Delta and its tributaries.
When acyclone struck the country in 1991, nearly 139,000 people perished, mostly by drowning. But the next same-size cyclone in 2007 claimed 4,000 lives – a significantly lower number of casualties. В отличие, Burger said Burma lost over 100,000 people toCyclone Nargisthe following year, even though both storms were of the same size.
“A lot of contributions and investments have been made by the international community and the government of Bangladesh in improving their response. And unfortunately, that hadn’t been done in Burma,” said Berger.
Even countries typically in the path of storms are caught unprepared. That was the case with the Philippine’s Mindanao region, an area unaccustomed to typhoons, which recently encounteredTyphoon Sendong.
When the storm struck, например, Rood said tree logs that were stacked came down with the flood and battered houses. “And because they were so unprepared, more than a 1,000 people died,Сказал он.
Rood said there is a tendency in disasters – not just in Asia – to respond rather than prepare. But as natural disasters increase in frequency, he said many people are beginning to understand that disaster risk reduction is a long-term concern. “Even the current levels of…natural disasters leave a terrible human toll,” said Rood. “And as the world gets more crowded with people, that human toll will only increase,” said Rood.
“You can’t put a price on the lives saved when we invest in disaster risk reduction,” Berger said.
Standard Chartered PLC remains bullish on the major Asian economies of India and China, encouraged by the policy outlook for the two countries this year, the bank’s Asia chief executive said.
The U.K.-based lender, which focuses almost exclusively on Asia and emerging economies, also sees European rivals retreating from those markets as they are beset with challenges at home, Standard Chartered Asia Chief Executive Jaspal Bindra said in an interview on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum.
In India last year, Standard Chartered confronted a range of challenges including slowing growth, rising interest rates and a depreciating rupee. Revenue from the bank’s India unit fell by 12% in the first half of 2011 and by the “mid-teens” in the third quarter, Group Finance Director Richard Meddings said earlier.
Г-н. Bindra blamed higher interest rates. “Interest rates went up almost 400 basis points in a short period, and it is very difficult, if you do wholesale business with the best clients in the country, to pass on a 400 basis point increase at any one time.”
But the central bank’s surprise move to loosen monetary policy this week has sent a “clear signal” that there will be no further rate hikes and the government is shifting its focus to promoting growth, Г-н. Bindra said.
The Reserve Bank of India Tuesday held its key lending rate steady for a second straight policy meeting but cut the minimum cash reserve requirement by 0.50 percentage point to ease liquidity.
“The government has for a long time shown a huge preference to manage inflation through monetary policy,Сказал он. But following the RBI cut, “I think we will see a more balanced approach.”
Г-н. Bindra also said that the recent “normalization” of the rupee exchange rate — it is up 6% against the dollar so far this year after declining 15.1% в 2011 — will encourage renewed foreign investment.
В Китае, Г-н. Bindra believes authorities will be successful in guiding the economy to a “soft landing” ahead of a leadership transition at the end of the year.
“The priority for all of 2012 and beyond is going to be ‘how do we keep things stable,’ as they have this transition of power at the top,Сказал он, adding that not just the top political leadership, but also the leaders of major financial institutions and regulators are all due to be reshuffled. “It is quite a massive-scale change of power.”
As European banks regroup and retreat from Asia, Standard Chartered sees an opening. The trend is especially pronounced in industries including shipping and commodities and in markets like Indonesia and India where dollar liquidity is scarce, сказал он.
“It gives us an opportunity to scale up market share, и второй, it gives us a little bit of pricing advantage.”
– Aaron Back. Следуйте за ним на Твиттере @ AaronBack.
В последние годы, В Китае снова активизировались о своей поддержке ведущих государственных предприятий в секторах, он считает важным, чтобы “экономическая безопасность,” явно ищет для содействия глобальной конкурентоспособности национальных чемпионов.
В 2009, Китай объявил, что 2020 это приведет к сокращению выбросов углерода 40% от 2005 уровнях.
Правительство также обращает внимание на внешнюю торговлю в качестве основного транспортного средства для экономического роста.
Реструктуризации экономики и в результате повышения эффективности внесли свой вклад в более чем десятикратное увеличение ВВП, начиная с 1978.
Различий между этими двумя секторами в совокупности привели к форме экономико-культурно-социального разрыва между сельскими и городскими районами, которая является одним из основных разделение в китайском обществе.
Технологического уровня и стандартов качества в отрасли в целом все еще довольно низким, Несмотря на значительные изменения со времени 2000, Вдохновленные в части иностранных инвестиций.
усиление интеграции Китая в мировую экономику и ее растущее стремление использовать рыночные силы, регулирующие внутреннее распределение товаров усугубляют эту проблему.
Рост как исходящие инвестиции, и входящих инвестиций, Китай отражает растущую экономическую стране власть и привлекательность в качестве объекта для инвестиций.
” Хотя эта цифра составляет уже “весьма удивительно,” объем “недостаточно велика” учитывая экономический рост в Китае и местных компаний’ растущего спроса на международные возможности, Шен сказал.
Она также планирует продать более 15 миллионов из самых экономичных автомобилей в мире каждый год к тому времени.
Хотя Китай остается развивающейся страной с относительно низким доходом на душу населения, он пережил огромный экономический рост с конца 1970-х.
С конца 1970-х, Китай decollectivized сельского хозяйства, приносит огромные успехи в производстве.
Китай является крупнейшим в мире производителем риса и пшеницы и крупнейший производитель сладкого картофеля, сорго, нация, ячмень, арахис, кукуруза, сои, и картофель.
Китай занимает первое место в мировом производстве мяса (в том числе говядины, телятина, баранина, ягненок, и свинины).
Рост внутреннего спроса в начале 1990-х годов, Однако, заставил народ импортировать большее и большее количество нефти.
Китай ведущих полезных ископаемых экспорт вольфрама, сурьма, верить, магний, молибден, ртуть, марганец, барит, и соли.
Крупные промышленные продукты текстиля, химических веществ, удобрений, машины (особенно для сельского хозяйства), переработанных продуктов питания, железо и сталь, строительные материалы, пластики, игрушки, и электроники.
Кирпич, плитка, цемент, и пищевой промышленности встречаются почти в каждой провинции.
Reuters Workers construct a new toll road in Jakarta, Индонезия. JAKARTA – While much of the world struggles with painful austerity measures to stem spreading debt problems, Indonesia needs to splurge a little more, even if that means inflating its debt load.
That was one of the contrarian messages from a presentation Tuesday by Fitch Ratings, the international debt rater that lifted Indonesia’s credit rating above junk for the first time in 14 years last month. If it wants to accelerate growth, Southeast Asia’s largest economy has to get more aggressive about spending on its infrastructure, said Philip McNicholas, director of Fitch’s sovereign ratings for the Asia-Pacific region. “If its budget deficit does blow out, we would not necessarily view that as unfavorable,” as long as the spending was on things that could put Indonesia on a “high-growth path,Сказал он. Few countries have experienced the devastation that can come from too much dependence on debt and foreign capital in the way Indonesia did in the 1990s, when the Asian financial crisis sent the country’s economy reeling.
That experience, and the painful rebuilding, has made Indonesia more cautious than most for much of the last decade. Its public debt to gross domestic product ratio (более 100% for many countries today) came down sharply from around 90% в 2000 к 25% today. В результате, the country has the opposite spending problem now – it spends too little, say some economists. While its growth rate, which has averaged more than 6% in recent years, is stretching its outdated roads, ports and power plants, year after year it fails to meet its spending targets for new infrastructure. In the meantime, its roads are getting more crowded and companies are complaining of costly delays at ports and airports.
The number of cars on Indonesia’s roads has jumped from around 15 per kilometer at the turn of the century to more than 40 today, Fitch said. Including two-wheelers, the number of vehicles has tripled to 150 per kilometer. It isn’t often that a cautious rating agency tells a country to stop worrying about debt, but Indonesia needs to live a little, сказал г-н. McNicholas. “It’s a pretty rare situation outside of the higher-rated countries,Сказал он.
Associated Press Indonesian activists gather sandals at the office of Indonesian Commission for Child Protection in Jakarta to protest the prosecution of a 15-year-old boy for stealing an old pair of sandals from a police officer. More In Indonesia Amobee Focuses on the Rest of Asia Indonesians Praise Ghost-Buster Guard Indonesian Police Shave Punks’ Heads Provocative Ad Links Women’s Success to the Bedroom BlackBerry Maker Faces Questions on Stampede Flinging footwear at people in power is so last decade; the new trend in Indonesia is to donate it. Indonesians have dropped thousands of old flip-flops and other footwear at police stations and a child protection group to protest the heavy-handed treatment of a 15-year-old boy accused of stealing a policeman’s sandals in the northern state of Central Sulawesi. After allegedly stealing the $3 slippers in 2010, the boy was beaten by three police officers and now faces up to five years in prison.
The policemen were punished for their brutality after the boy filed a complaint—which may be why the police decided to force the case to court, По сообщениям местной .
The trial of the boy, referred to by only his initials, AAL, in local media, has been going on since last month and continues Wednesday. It has sparked the anger of Indonesians frustrated with a justice system that sometimes seems too tough on citizens even as government officials accused of extorting millions escape heavy sentences.
The National Commission for Child Protection announced last week that it would take donations to buy the police officer new sandals, but people started showing up with used footwear instead .
The government-financed child protection organization, which is urging the boy’s timely acquittal , now plans to collect and deliver thousands of pairs of shoes to the officer. “The flip-flop collection is a spontaneous movement, which has sprung up since the news broke last week. It shows how people are concerned about injustice in the system,” said Sofyan Farid Lembah, the Central Sulawesi-based commissioner of the Commission for Child Protection, which has so far collected 3,000 pairs of sandals across the country. “How can an underage child be facing a five-year sentence for a petty crime?” This isn’t the first high-profile case of what seems like police harassment for small crimes. Last year two men were caught in a police sting operation for trying to sell their iPads online without local-language user manuals.
They were acquitted in October but prosecutors plan to appeal. Also last year, pop star Nazril “Ariel” Irham was sentenced to 3 1/2 years in jail for making two blurry, homemade sex videos that leaked on the Internet.
The court rejected Mr. Irham’s argument that the videos had been stolen and released without his permission, saying he hadn’t done enough to stop their distribution. Meanwhile just last month, police in the conservative state of Aceh raided a punk rock concert and detained more than 50 fans, shaving mohawks , removing piercings and forcing detainees into a 10-day rehabilitation program. –With contributions from Yayu Yuniar
Burma’s pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi met late Monday at her lakeside home with billionaire American philanthropist George Soros, the latest public figure to pay the Nobel Prize laureate a visit since her release a year ago from 15 years of on-and-off house arrest.
Soros, whose foundation supports grantees that provide uncensored news on Burma and activists who call public attention to abuse of power, arrives in the wake of a stream of visits, predominantly by senior foreign dignitaries.
Political Science Professor Carl Thayer of the Australian Defense Force Academy says influential business and political leaders are lining up to ride the crest of change in Burma and to reinforce reform efforts.
“As intelligent as she is, she has been relatively isolated,” он говорит,. “And she needs, I think, the advice of people like Soros and others, the financing and foundations, and people on the ground to provide and reinforce her efforts.”
In the past month, Aung San Suu Kyi met with the U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Thailand’s Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra, and foreign ministers from Indonesia and Japan. Later this week, British Foreign Secretary William Hague is expected to visit.
Hague’s visit will coincide with a general amnesty for prisoners announced Monday by Burma’s state media.
In what is typically a regular gesture to mark Burma’s Independence Day, selected prisoners will have their sentences reduced beginning Tuesday. It is not clear how many in jail will be affected by the amnesty or how many political prisoners will be included.
Burma is holding hundreds of people for their political beliefs. Clinton and other officials visiting Burma have joined Aung San Suu Kyi in calling for their immediate release.
Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Director of the Institute of Security and International Studies at Bangkok’s Chulalongkorn University, says Clinton’s visit opened the way for diplomatic engagement with Burma, also known as Myanmar.
“It is a green light for other countries to begin to lift sanctions [и] provide development assistance,” он говорит,. “They have to be careful by not promoting the commercial interests too much too soon. There are some dissident groups that see all of this as a big kind of commercial deal.”
Burma is a major source of natural gas, gems, and timber, but trade is limited by Western countries because of economic sanctions over the military’s suppression of democracy and human rights.
Since the government of President Thein Sein took office in March, replacing overt military rule, it won praise for a series of liberal political and economic moves. President Thein Sein held direct talks with Aung San Suu Kyi after assuming office.
Thitinan says cooperation between the two is vital for the momentum of reform to be sustained. He says there are still hardliners in the government who would derail the process if it goes too fast.
“The momentum that we are seeing is just unprecedented and breathtaking,” он говорит,. “It is going to be difficult to reverse some of it without incurring a great cost to the Myanmar rulers. Even if they want to slow it down, to reverse it, now they are in too deep. Now I think leading up to the Myanmar chairmanship of ASEAN 2014. I expect the reforms to be sustained.”
On Sunday, Burmese authorities hiked gas prices by 30 процент. A similar unannounced price jump in 2007 sparked protests that were later crushed by the military.
