India-World's Fastest Growing Economy

http://money.cnn.com/2015/04/14/investing/india-economy-fastest-growing/index.html

This really interesting article talks about how India has the fastest growing economy in the world, and it is only continuing to grow. I was surprised because I thought China had the fastest growing economy. In another article by CNN Asia, it talks about how the speed at which China's economy had been growing has actually slowed down in recent years. Unlike plenty of other countries, including China, India's currency was not affected by the U.S. dollar. It kept its value, and there are predictions that it will continue to stand its ground, despite some market drops and the value of the U.S. dollar being so powerful.
Will this help India reach the level that China and the U.S. are economically?
Will it help with fighting the immense poverty that India faces? Or will it simply add to the gap between the rich and the poor?
*Interesting fact: I watched a movie this week called Good Hair, and it talked about how big of an export human hair is. I wonder, could the sale of human hair, and the high demand for it, be boosting the economy?

Chinese Feminists Arrested in China

This article is extremely interesting and controversial as it speaks to the arrest of five young Chinese feminists who were protesting for gender equality just days before International Women's Day. Just about a month later, these women are still jailed awaiting different charges from the original ones to be formally filed, which has to occur by Monday. The arrest of the five women has drawn a lot of criticism from the international community, including from Hilary Clinton who called the arrest and jailing of these women "inexcusable''. She received some backlash because Chinese authorities believe that political figures should respect the processes of other nations. I find it interesting that even in the year 2015, individuals are still being arrested and punished for wanting basic human rights: gender equality. It definitely shows that not the entire global community is on the same page when it comes to human right issues like this one.

http://www.cnn.com/2015/04/10/asia/china-five-women-activists/index.html

Top Gun Schools in China

http://www.cnn.com/2015/03/17/asia/china-teen-top-guns/index.html

This article talks about how military training, specifically air training, is going to start becoming more well known in China. It is going to start being offered to young boys between the ages of 14-16 who meet the requirements set by different schools. Military careers, according to this article, are not as respected in China, which is surprising to me. For a country that is so up and coming, I would think that their military is more important to them than other areas of their society. I think that China is taking these huge steps in efforts to make themselves more successful all around, and I do think that it is going to work. In years to come, China will be a leading nation with a stronger military, which would make them that much more successful than they already are.

Question: Will this make China more of a target? Will this hurt their economy?

Growing Economies

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-02-25/the-20-fastest-growing-economies-this-year

I have an obsession with economy growth around the globe, so this article titled ‘’The 20 Fastest-Growing Economies This Year’’ was somewhat shocking and very interesting. It claims that the ‘’emerging markets in Asia and Africa’’ are ‘’at the top of global growth projections over the next two years.’’ Asia was not as shocking as the fact that Africa’s economies are booming, but it was still interesting to read about. Specifically, Asian economies, like China, are not growing at the same speed that they were just a few years ago. If China’s economy isn’t booming as fast as it has in the past, but it is still leading in world-economies, is the rest of the world falling behind? Is the United States falling behind? What makes China so different that even when they are not at their absolute best financially, they are still better off than great counties with great economies? 

Stock Markets & China's Role

http://www.cnbc.com/id/102436951#.

This article was really interesting because a previous article I’ve looked at for this blog talked about the stock market in Asia and Europe and how China played a really positive roll to maintaining its stability, as well as global market stability. This article talks about the so-called “currency war’’ going on in Asia and how the attention is on China and the steps that it is going to take. Inflation appears to be a growing problem in Asia, forcing countries like Indonesia to implement ‘’rate cuts.’’ It is not predicted that Chine is going to give into ‘’deflationary pressures’’ and change anything about the yuan. It can ‘’weaken’’ the yuan, but it has chosen not to. This article made me wonder if that is because they want to make sure their economy is still leading in the world economies? If they weaken their currency, it could even out the playing field a little more.

Asian Airlines Safety

http://www.economist.com/blogs/gulliver/2015/02/asian-airline-safety?zid=306&ah=1b164dbd43b0cb27ba0d4c3b12a5e227

This article on airline safety on Asian airlines was really interesting to me because it sort of goes against what the media has portrayed about Asian airlines: that they are unsafe. This article discusses how safety checks of Asian airlines in recent years have proven that the airlines are at their highest for safety measures. It brings the question to me of why have there been so many large crashes with Asian airlines if they are at the peak of safety? Studies on safety for these airlines date back to 2011 and 2012. Is it possible that the airlines got somewhat over confident and were not as careful from the time of those studies until now? Although I do not wish to see more Asian airline crashes, I think it will be interesting to see if any happen from here on out, and if they take measures to improve their safety.

China and its economy

http://www.usnews.com/news/business/articles/2015/02/03/us-stocks-rise-again-on-higher-oil-prices-greek-debt-hopes

This article talks about the role that China is playing in the stock markets across the globe in Europe and Asia. China is the second leading economy in the world, according to this article. It talks about the European Central Bank’s decision to withdraw support that is vital for certain European countries, like Greece. Because China is involved in the same stock markets in the region, it is inevitably affected by this particular decision.  The European Central Bank is trying to avoid going into debt and so on, so that leaves countries in wealthier statuses to be ready to fill in with money where it is needed.  (That’s what I gathered from the article). In order to be able to be of positive help, China “cut the minimum level of reserves its banks are required to hold.’’ Why is this important? What does this do? Analysts are sure that it will work to help prevent a ‘’global economic shutdown’’ as well as ensure financial stability. I chose this article because I thought it was interesting how the actions of one team player affected so many countries, specifically Asia (since Europe was the one who made a large change). It was more interesting to me that it is China with the ability to bail out countries on separate continents. It became clearer to me how vital certain Asian countries are to the global economy.