CBC News' Pete Evans reports on this deeply symbolic move by President Trump, marking the end of an effort to build a US-centered trade network in the Pacific and the beginning of a new threat to North American integration.

The new U.S. president made good on one of his campaign promises Monday, formally withdrawing the United States from the ( Read more... )

Bloomberg's Yu-Huay Sun reports on how Taiwanese islands voted not to employ their insularity as the basis for a casino industry.

Residents of Taiwan’s Penghu County voted against having casinos on the islands to attract tourists, dampening sentiment around legislation proposed to attract overseas investments to the area ( Read more... )

Bloomberg's Pooja Thakur Mahrotri and Frederik Balfour report on how the two Chinese-majority city-states in East Asia are dealing, differently, with real estate prices.

On the surface, the property markets in Singapore and Hong Kong have much in common. The two Asian financial hubs have both moved to rein in runaway home prices in recent years ( Read more... )

At Demography Matters, I have a links post following up on old posts, everything from Georgia's continued population shrinkage to the plight of Haitian-background women in the Dominican Republic to stateless children of North Korean women in China.

• Bad Astronomy shares a stunning photo of the Tarantula Nebula, in the Large Magellanic Cloud.
• The Boston Globe's Big Picture shares photos from the world of Chinese opera, in Thailand.
• blogTO has a humourous list of signs you've survived, and suffered, on the 29 Dufferin bus.
• Centauri Dreams reflects on the possible ancient ocean of Charon.
• Dangerous ( Read more... )

Bloomberg's multi-authored article on the prospects for ailing Japanese corporation Sharp can be best read as another data point reflecting the decline of Japan's economy.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe came into office on a pledge of resuscitating the economy with market reforms and stimulus programs. Now his government’s commitment to ( Read more... )

Stephen Stapczynski's Bloomberg article shares some good news.

The number of visitors to Japan rose to a record for the month of October, as arrivals from China doubled in response to the cheap yen and looser visa laws, a sign that the government’s efforts to boost tourism are paying off ( Read more... )

Bloomberg's Rich Miller suggests, based on the example of Japan in the 1990s, that decelerating growth in China may not doom the world economy.

When Japan’s economy downshifted dramatically in the 1990s, the rest of the world managed to do just fine. Now, as China suffers a sustained slowdown, there’s a group of economists who say the same may ( Read more... )

Bloomberg View's William Pesek notes that despite China's slowdown, some other Asian economies are doing well. This is a consequence of more-informed investors.

How panicked were investors last week about China's stock market plunge? Enough to treat the Korean peninsula, a place that was teetering on the brink of war, as a safe haven. Even as ( Read more... )

William Pesek of Bloomberg View notes the extent to which the Japanese economy depends on China's, to the extent that a Chinese slowdown could really hurt Japan.

Bank of Japan Governor Haruhiko Kuroda has a new strategy to support his country's listing economy: talking up China's ( Read more... )