Fifteen countries have formed the world's largest trading bloc, covering nearly a third of the global economy. The Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) is made up of 10 Southeast Asian countries, as well as South Korea,China, Japan, Australia and New Zealand. The pact is seen as an extension of China's influence in the region. The deal excludes the US, which withdrew from a rival Asia-Pacific trade pact in 2017.
Members of the RCEP make up nearly a third of the world's population and account for 29% of global gross domestic product. The new free trade bloc will be bigger than both the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement and the European Union.
The RCEP is expected to eliminate a range of tariffs on imports within 20 years. It also includes provisions on intellectual property, telecommunications, financial services, e-commerce and professional services.
But it's possible the new "rules of origin" - which officially define where a product comes from - will have the biggest impact. Already many member states have free trade agreements (FTA) with each other, but there have been limitations = Businesses with global supply chains might face tariffs even within an FTA because their products contain components that are made elsewhere. Currently, a product made in Indonesia that contains Australian parts, for example, might face tariffs elsewhere in the Asean free trade zone. Under RCEP, parts from any member nation would be treated equally, which might give companies in RCEP countries an incentive to look within the trade region for suppliers.
UNpresident Puppet-in-Cheat pulled the (failing) USA out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) shortly after taking office. The TPP deal was to involve 12 countries and was supported by Putin's Puppet's predecessor Barack Obama as a way to counter China's surging power in the region.
Negotiations over the RCEP began in 2012. The deal was signed on Sunday on the sidelines of a meeting of theAssociation of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), hosted by Vietnam.
India was also part of the negotiations, but it pulled out last year over concerns that lower tariffs could hurt local producers. Signatories of the deal said the door remained open for India to join in the future.
Japan held an election on 21-10-31 and yet again the ruling Liberal Democratic Party won. This is the 21st electoral win since their formation in 1955, with them only out of power for 4 years. So in this video we run through how the election played out, how they won again & if this means that Japan really has a one party state.
Born into a prominent political family, Abe was elected to the House of Representatives in the 1993 election. He was appointed Chief Cabinet Secretary by Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi in September 2005, before replacing him as prime minister and LDP president in September 2006. He was subsequently confirmed as prime minister by a special session of the National Diet, becoming Japan's youngest post-war prime minister, and the first to have been born after World War II. Abe resigned as prime minister just after one year in office, because of medical complications from ulcerative colitis, shortly after his party lost that year's House of Councillors election. He was replaced by Yasuo Fukuda, who became the first in a series of five prime ministers who each failed to retain office for more than sixteen months.
After recovering from his illness, Abe staged an unexpected political comeback, defeating Shigeru Ishiba, the former defense minister, in a ballot to become LDP president for the second time in September 2012. Following the LDP's landslide victory in the general election that December, he became the first former prime minister to return to the office since Shigeru Yoshida in 1948. He led the LDP to two further landslides in the 2014 and 2017 elections, becoming Japan's longest-serving prime minister. In August 2020, Abe announced his second resignation as prime minister, citing a significant resurgence of his ulcerative colitis. He tendered his resignation on 16 September, upon the Diet electing Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga as his successor.
CultScam:Family Federation for World Peace and Unity (Unification Church): "The Divine Principle, a retelling of the Christian Bible and the core scripture of the Family Federation for World Peace and Unity. In the Divine Principle, Genesis is actually about Eve cheating on Adam with Satan, and Jesus is essentially an incel loser who didn’t get married like God wanted. It also declares the divinity of its author, [cult founder] Sun Myung Moon, the man [supposedly] born to do what Jesus couldn’t: score some chicks and save humanity. ... But Moon’s Christianity fanfic isn’t just obsessed with sex. It also has a lot to say about Japan…and money. Moon was Korean and grew up under the brutal yoke of Japanese imperial occupation, something he claimed was the modern manifestation of Eve’s original sin of betrayal against Adam. Therefore, reparations to Korea—via his church, conveniently—were necessary spiritual rebalancing. ... Moon’s church isn’t some two-bit po-dunk backyard bible study. These are just a handful of the Church’s locations in Japan, never mind their outposts all over the world or their massive headquarters in New York City, or their nationally distributed and shockingly influential newspaper, the Washington Times. ... As the Times suggests, the church has paid keen attention to political investments. Over the years, it’s developed tight relationships with politicians all over the world but especially with Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party, donating money and organizing volunteers in exchange for political protection. Among those friends? Shinzo Abe. Why all the investment in Japan? Because Japan is the church’s cash cow, and its fundraising habits aren’t exactly…kosher. Between 1987 and 2021, about 30,000 Japanese victims donated almost a billion dollars to the Church, and the usual tactic involved targeting older Japanese citizens, hounding and shaming them over Japan’s (very real) abuse of the Korean people, guilting them into contributions which ranged from minor donations to devastating depletions of entire life-savings. One such victim: the assassin’s mother."
After being expelled from Malaysia, Singapore became independent as the Republic of Singapore on 9 August 1965, with Lee Kuan Yew and Yusof bin Ishak as the first prime minister and president respectively. In 1967, the country co-founded the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). Race riots broke out once more in 1969. Lee Kuan Yew's emphasis on rapid economic growth, support for business entrepreneurship, and limitations on internal democracy shaped Singapore's policies for the next half-century. During the 1980s, Singapore began to shift towards high-tech industries, such as the wafer fabrication sector, in order to remain competitive as neighbouring countries began manufacturing with cheaper labour. Economic growth continued throughout the 1980s, with the unemployment rate falling to 3% and real GDP growth averaging at about 8% up until 1999. Singapore Changi Airport was opened in 1981 and Singapore Airlines was formed. The Port of Singapore became one of the world's busiest ports and the service and tourism industries also grew immensely during this period.
Singapore is the only country in Asia with a AAA sovereign rating from all major rating agencies. It is a major financial and shipping hub, consistently ranked the most expensive city to live in since 2013, and has been identified as a tax haven. Singapore is placed highly in key social indicators: education, healthcare, quality of life, personal safety and housing, with a home-ownership rate of 91%. Singaporeans enjoy one of the world's longest life expectancies, fastest Internet connection speeds and one of the lowest infant mortality rates in the world.
For years tensions have been escalating in the South Xina sea, with Xina trying to use the waters to exert greater influence over the region. However, Xina's tactic of building new islands and general Xinese controversy has caused the issue to bubble over recently.
In planning an invasion of Taiwan, Xina needs to make sure that it doesn't face resistance from Guam, the closes US territory to Taiwan in the Pacific. Home to some 170,000 US troops and several military bases, Guam represents a real threat any XiXiP attack of Taiwan.
On January 1, 2021, African countries began officially trading under a new continent-wide free trade area. The African Continental Free Trade Area aims to bring together 1.3 billion people in a $3.4 trillion economic bloc that will be the largest free trade area since the establishment of the World Trade Organization.
Every African country except Eritrea has signed on to the free trade area framework agreement, and 34 have already ratified it. Although such an action could be interpreted as a continuation of globalization, it may take decades before African countries create a single market, common currency, as well as common fiscal and monetary policies.
Centuries of division built one of the most unequal countries on earth. For decades, South Africa was under apartheid: a series of laws that divided people by race. Then, in the 1990s, those laws were dismantled. But many of the barriers they created continue to divide South Africans by skin color - which in turn determines their quality of life, access to jobs, and wealth. Racial division was built into the fabric of cities throughout South Africa, and it still hasn't been uprooted.
That's partly because, while apartheid was the culmination of South Africa's racial divisions, it wasn't the beginning of them. That story starts closer to the 1800s, when the British built a network of railroads that transformed the region's economy into one that excluded most Black people -- and then made that exclusion the law.
The agreement was brokered by the African Union (AU) and was signed on by 44 of its 55 member states in Kigali, Rwanda on March 21, 2018. The agreement initially requires members to remove tariffs from 90% of goods, allowing free access to commodities, goods, and services across the continent. The United Nations Economic Commission for Africa estimates that the agreement will boost intra-African trade by 52 percent by 2022. The proposal was set to come into force 30 days after ratification by 22 of the signatory states. On April 2, 2019, The Gambia became the 22nd state to ratify the agreement, and on April 29 the Saharawi Republic made the 22nd deposit of instruments of ratification; the agreement went into force on May 30 and entered its operational phase following a summit on July 7, 2019.
The general objectives of the agreement are to:
create a single market, deepening the economic integration of the continent
establish a liberalised market through multiple rounds of negotiations
aid the movement of capital and people, facilitating investment
move towards the establishment of a future continental customs union
achieve sustainable and inclusive socioeconomic development, gender equality and structural transformations within member states
enhance competitiveness of member states within Africa and in the global market
encourage industrial development through diversification and regional value chain development, agricultural development and food security
resolve challenges of multiple and overlapping memberships
