CHINA’s economy will grow slightly faster than expected this year at 6.9 percent and its shift to fostering services and private consumption is helping support regional growth, the Asian Development Bank says. An ADB report says Asia’s developing economies remain resilient to economic weakness in industrialized countries and are on track to grow 5.8 percent in 2015 and 6 percent in 2016.
MALAYSIA Human Rights Watch has slammed a proposed new security law by Malaysia’s government that will give sweeping powers to a council led by the prime minister, warning it is a step toward a dictatorship.
NORTH KOREA A U.S. website says North Korea is building a new tunnel at its nuclear test site. The website, 38 North, says a nuclear test does not appear imminent, but the new tunneling adds to North Korea’s ability to conduct more nuclear tests in coming years if it chooses to do so.
JAPAN Toyota Motor Corp. is harboring big ambitions to become a significant player in the growing market for robots that help the elderly and other people get around in everyday life. The company believes it can use its manufacturing expertise to become as crucial in a field it calls “partner robots” as it is to auto-making.
BRAZIL Already struggling with weak popularity over Brazil’s economic ills and a political corruption scandal, President Dilma Rousseff now must fight an impeachment effort launched by a political foe who heads Congress’ lower house. Speaker Eduardo Cunha opened impeachment proceedings against Rousseff yesterday, citing a court’s finding that her administration violated fiscal responsibility laws by using money from state-run banks to fill budget gaps and pay for social programs.
UK British lawmakers vote by a wide margin to join the international campaign of airstrikes against the Islamic State militant group in Syria, after Prime Minister David Cameron asserts that bombing the “medieval monsters” in their heartland will make Britain safer.
RUSSIA-TURKEY A Turkish Foreign Ministry official says the Turkish and Russian foreign ministers have met on the sidelines of a European security meeting in Serbia’s capital. Yesterday’s meeting in Belgrade between Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Turkish counterpart Mevlut Cavusoglu was the first between the countries senior officials since Turkey downed a Russian plane near its border with Syria, touching off a crisis between the two states that previously enjoyed warm ties.
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