Free Republic

NEW DELHI: India is the strictest when it comes to tardiness as 42 per cent of employers in the country seem to have fired an employee for being late, the highest in the world, says a CareerBuilder survey. According to the survey, 42 per cent of employers in India have fired an employee for being late and among the nine surveyed countries. Brazil came in second, a distance 16 per cent behind, where 26 per cent of of employers have fired a staff for coming late, followed by France and Russia jointly at the third place (22 per cent). Meanwhile,...

NEW DELHI: Inflation is forecast to have risen to uncomfortable levels for policymakers in October due to stubbornly high food prices, adding to the pressure for further interest rate rises despite slowing economic growth. Data on Tuesday is forecast to show annual consumer inflation at 9.9 percent in October, up slightly from September, and figures on Friday are expected to show wholesale inflation running at an eight-month high of 6.90 percent, according to Reuters polls of economists. In a more positive sign, factory output is forecast to have risen 3.5 percent in September from a year earlier, much faster than...

KOLKATA: This may be music to Chidambaram's ears. The finance minister's efforts to curb gold imports are expected to bring down inflow of gold from overseas in the fourth quarter of calendar year 2013 by 71.23 per cent vis-a-vis last year. The country had imported 255 tonne during Q4 of calendar year 2012. The fourth quarter is the time of the year when gold demand increases in India. Bullion traders and jewellers say that India had imported only 23 tonne of gold in October for Dhanteras, when the entire country enters into a major gold buying spree. They say imports...

Fareed ZakariaBEIJING—“We are all struck by the contrast between Beijing and Washington,” said George Yeo, the former foreign minister of Singapore. He was referring to the quality of governance in the two capitals—in particular, the sense pervasive in Asia that the United States has lost its ability to execute public policy with competence (see Iraq, Obamacare). Beijing, on the other hand, has been carefully and systematically planning a series of reforms that will likely make China the world’s largest economy within a decade. The contrast is particularly striking because China faces huge challenges and will need to make major economic,...

The Chinese Ministry of Public Security has warned against groups suspected of abducting and swindling Vietnamese brides, and promised to strictly crack down on illegal profiting from foreign marriage intermediaries, the Beijing News reports. As numerous Chinese netizens participated in the nationwide shopping spree on November 11, or Double 11, foreign marriage intermediaries also found business opportunities during the buying rush. A group purchasing website offered a lottery draw where winners could travel to Vietnam for a blind date for free. It claimed to provide legal services for Chinese men looking to become grooms. Both the Chinese and Vietnamese governments...

At least six people have been confirmed dead and another six were injured after a blast triggered by liquid nitrogen occurred late Monday night in Urumqi, capital of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. The Xinjiang regional bureau of work safety said on Monday that the blast happened at around 11:30 p.m. in a plant owned by Xinjiang No. 8 Steel Structure Co. Ltd. The source said that five workers were killed on the spot. One of the seven injured died in hospital. The cause of the blast is still under investigation.

HANOI, Nov. 11 (Xinhua) -- Vietnam will take great efforts to further strengthen cooperation with Russia, including in energy, said Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung. Dung expressed his pleasure at the effective cooperation between Gazprom Neft and the Vietnam National Oil and Gas Group ( PetroVietnam) in recent years during the meeting with Alexander Dyukov, CEO of Russian oil and gas group Gazprom Neft, in Vietnam' s capital Hanoi on Monday. Dung affirmed the Vietnamese government's support for energy cooperation between Russian oil and gas enterprises, including Gazprom Neft, with PetroVietnam for mutual interests and boosting multifaceted ties. The...

KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 12 — As a growing chorus of extremism threatens to dominate public dialogue, former minister Datuk Zaid Ibrahim said Putrajaya must coax reason and sensibility back into local politics for Malaysians of all races to once more communicate intelligently with each other. Saying that political discourse has devolved into “mass stupidity”, the former de facto law minister warned of the consequences of allowing public exchanges to be dictated by those whom he described as aloof to views and ideologies different from their own. “Today, the prime minister cannot expect Perkasa and Utusan (Malaysia) to talk intelligently to...

Ten pirates, armed with guns and knives, hijacked a Panamanian-flagged oil tanker off the Malaysian coast in the Straits of Malacca, according to the International Maritime Bureau. The incident occurred near Malaysia's Pulau Kukup on Thursday. The armed robbers forced the ship's master to steer the vessel to a spot where an unidentified orange hull tanker parked itself alongside forcing the crew to transfer gas oil from the vessel to their ship, the bureau's piracy reporting centre said. The pirates tied up the crew and locked them in a cabin. After stealing the gas oil, the pirates robbed the crew...

NEW DELHI: India today assured Japan to augment its port infrastructure, particularly at Ennore and Chennai to facilitate import of automobile components and cars from Japan and at the same time, evinced interest in seeking assistance for its port projects. The development comes in the wake of Shipping Minister G K Vasan leading a delegation to Japan, which met Minister of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism, Japan, Akihiro Ohta. "Vasan discussed several issues relating to logistics, infrastructure and development of port sector in India. He explained the developments that were taking place in India in the ports sector and assured...

Days after a terrorist attack at the historic Tiananmen Square in the heart of Beijing, China for the first time expressed strong support for "counter-terrorism" cooperation with India and Russia at a meeting here Sunday. Sources told The Indian Express that Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi "red-flagged" the issue on his own as he held talks with External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov at the 12th Russia-India-China (RIC) trilateral meeting. Wang reportedly said that the attack at Tiananmen Square involved jehadist elements. The RIC joint statement, released after the meeting, made a mention of the...

UNITED NATIONS — China, Russia, Saudi Arabia and Vietnam are among the nations running unopposed for seats on the Human Rights Council, the U.N.’s highest rights watchdog body, a prospect that has independent human rights groups crying foul. On Tuesday, the General Assembly will elect 14 new members to the 47-seat, Geneva-based council, which can shine a spotlight of publicity and censure on rights abuses by adopting resolutions — when it chooses to do so. It also has dozens of special monitors watching problem countries and major issues ranging from executions to drone strikes. New York-based Human Rights Watch pointed...

David Cameron has delayed the Treasury’s Autumn Statement on the economy in order to conduct a major diplomatic visit to China. The Prime Minister will visit China in the coming weeks, ending a diplomatic row that had seen Britain struggling to make high-level contact with the Chinese leadership after Mr Cameron last year held a private meeting in London with the Dalai Lama, the spiritual leader of Tibet. On Monday night a Treasury spokesman said: “Tonight the Prime Minister announced that he will lead a delegation to China in early December. As a result the Autumn Statement will now be...

Lee Jung-hee, chairwoman of the Unified Progressive Party, has sparked controversy by calling President Park Geun-hye “Ms. Park Geun-hye” at a public protest rally. At the rally at Seoul Station on Saturday, Lee never used the term "president" and referred the president as “”Ms. Park Geun-hye,” “dictator,” and “dictatorial Park Geun-hye force.” “’Park Geun-hye ssi (Ms.)’ is none other than a dictator, who even fires the prosecutor-general if the latter does not follow order,” Lee said. “Park Geun-hye ssi is none other than a dictator, who fabricates the crime of rebellion collusion against an opposition party for criticizing the administration,...

China's top two oil and gas companies have accelerated shale gas exploration. PetroChina Co, China's largest oil and gas producer, announced on Friday that its first shale gas project in Daqing, Heilongjiang province, started test runs in early October. Sinopec Co, the country's largest refiner, said it has discovered enough shale gas resources for commercial scale production in Chongqing on Oct 28. The company said its shale gas block in Chongqing has reached the maximum daily output of 547,000 cubic meters. Insiders said the top two oil and gas companies – PetroChina Co and Sinopec Co – have accelerated their...

Ethiopian Airlines is set to roll out flight service to Shanghai next April, said Tewolde Gebremariam, CEO of the African carrier enterprise at a press release held in Beijing on November 7. 2013 marks the 40th anniversary of Ethiopian Airlines' uninterrupted service to China. The airline made its maiden flight to China on February 21, 1973, the first African carrier and the fourth globally to fly to China. Since then, Ethiopian has continued its operations to its key market of China, continuing to be one of the most important destinations for the airline. As trade, investment and tourism ties between...

South Africa's capital Pretoria welcomed its first of a kind Tshwane-China Shopping Mall on November 2, 2013, with traditional Chinese dragon and lion dances northeast of the city. Tshwane-China Mall Shopping Mall specializes in “Made in China” household appliances, clothing, luggage and bags and toys. According to director Shenton Sun, the Tshwane-China Shopping Mall that covers an area of 30,000 square meters and can accommodate more than 80 businesses. The premises is currently 80 percent occupied, and the seven larger venues, each excessing 200 square meters, are reserved for hypermarkets. He said that the mall will provide a platform for...

For 99.9% of our tenure on Earth we've been wanderers. ... And the next place to wander to is Mars. - Carl Sagan (1943-1996), cosmologist, New York, 1976. Asia's first Mars mission took off on November 5 from India's south-east coast, in a blaze of fire, vapor and humanity's happily soaring aspirations in outer space. The Mars craft-loaded rocket, blasting off like a US$72 million version of Diwali festival fireworks, made India the third country to attempt a Mars visit - after the United States and Russia. The European Space Agency has also targeted the red planet. The 1,340-kilogram Mars...

SINGAPORE: After holding the top spot for the past two years, Singapore has fallen to third place in an annual global survey on the most desirable countries for expatriates to work and live in. The Republic lost its crown in the HSBC survey this year - ranking behind China and Germany - amid concerns among respondents over job market security, integration with locals and the rising cost of living. The survey results were released last week. In particular, more than half the respondents in Singapore - compared to a global average of 39 per cent - cited job security as...

SYDNEY: Australian Immigration Minister Scott Morrison said on Monday there was "no rhyme or reason" as to why Indonesia had accepted two boatloads of asylum-seekers picked up by Australian vessels but refused others. Thousands of asylum-seekers, many from Iran and Afghanistan, board rickety wooden boats in Indonesia every year to try to make the perilous sea crossing to Australia. Stopping the influx was a key issue at September elections won by Tony Abbott, who vowed to turn boats back to Indonesia when it was safe to do so -- a policy received coolly by Jakarta. Morrison said two boatloads of...