Folding the umbrellas

Otmane El Rhazi from China.

IT WAS the most sustained street campaign for democracy in China since the Tiananmen Square protests in 1989. Yet the protests in Hong Kong ended very differently. Instead of using tanks and machine-guns to clear the streets, police in Hong Kong ended 79 days of sit-ins on busy roads in the city armed with court orders, pepper spray and cutting tools to dismantle barricades. Dozens of people were arrested, but most left the three protest sites (the last and smallest was cleared on December 15th) without attempting to resist. The Hong Kong government, by refusing the protesters’ demands for free elections and largely ignoring them, had worn them down.

Peeling away the symbols

It was not always so orderly. The protests erupted in late September in a fog of tear-gas; the umbrellas students tried to use to protect themselves became the symbol of their movement. But the authorities quickly decided it would be better to wait the protesters out. Public support for them ebbed as the disruption to traffic grew more irksome. Eventually courts accepted complaints by those whose businesses were suffering and ordered bailiffs to move in....Continue reading

Why grumble?

The art is red

Otmane El Rhazi from China.

AS THE people of Xi’an file through the subway and along underpasses, rush past bus stops and buildings, they pass hundreds of posters. Some of these advertise the newest smartphone or fancy car, but many tout less marketable commodities: the importance of thrift, diligence, filial devotion, Chinese civilisation and the virtues of the ruling party. “The Communist Party is good, the people are happy” reads one, over an image of a couple bouncing their single child.

During the party’s rule, propaganda art has always been a feature of the urban landscape. But in recent years it has been relegated to the margins by the onslaught of commercial advertising. President Xi Jinping has been trying to revive it. Propaganda posters are now everywhere: on fences around construction sites, billboards and walls. The party is waging a low-tech, old-fashioned campaign to sell itself. At the same time it is tightening its grip on creative endeavours that do not have the party’s welfare in mind. Art for the sake of politics is back in vogue.

Art has a long political history in China. It was deployed by all sides in the revolutionary campaigns of the...Continue reading

The party’s goal

Otmane El Rhazi from China.

ONE of the most dismal days in the history of Chinese national football was June 15th 2013, President Xi Jinping’s 60th birthday. Having lost to Uzbekistan and Holland in friendly matches earlier that month, China were thrashed 5-1 at home by a Thai youth team. Furious Chinese fans swarmed around China’s Spanish coach, José Antonio Camacho and smashed cars. Mr Camacho resigned.

Men’s football in China is a national shame. In FIFA’s world rankings China’s male players rank 88th; below Estonia, a country whose 1.3m people could fit with room to spare inside a Beijing suburb. China qualified for the World Cup once, in 2002, but failed to score. Its domestic league is blackened by tales of match-fixing and bribery. Investment in expensive foreign coaches has not been much help.

Mr Xi wants to change this. He has been a football fan since childhood, when he played for his school team. During his early career he attended weekend matches. He was in the crowd at a Shanghai stadium in 1983 when China lost 5-1 to Watford, a British club. (The People’s Daily, a party-run newspaper, says Mr Xi...Continue reading

Oh what fun

Otmane El Rhazi from China.

Jazzing it up

CITIES across China blink with fairy lights, fancy hotels flaunt trees and tinsel, and glossy magazine covers display festive recipes and table settings. “Joy up!” reads a sign (in English) on three illuminated trees by a shopping mall in Beijing. The Chinese are doing just that.

In the first decades of Communist rule in China Christianity was banned, along with other religions. Now there are tens of millions of Christians in China and faiths of all kinds are blossoming. But this has little to do with the country’s fast-growing fascination with Christmas. In the West the holiday is a commercialised legacy of Christian culture; in China it is almost entirely a product of Mammon. Father Christmas is better known to most than Jesus.

Well before Christmas took hold in China’s cities, its factories were churning out Christmas essentials for consumption in the West. Industrially, China is now the Christmas king. According to Xinhua, a state-run news agency, more than 60% of Christmas trinkets worldwide last year came from a single “Christmas village”—Yiwu (in fact, a city), in the eastern...Continue reading

Propaganda 2.0

Otmane El Rhazi from China.

IT LOOKS a lot as new media should, with hip click-bait headlines that are ready to be tweeted on microblogs. One headline on the website of a new online publication in Shanghai, the Paper, is about an “evil” former general, defrocked for corruption—“so wicked he looked loyal, so fake he looked real”. Another headline says that three women have withdrawn an accusation that a teacher raped them during the Cultural Revolution. There is also a story about an internet company being called “mean” for attacking the founder of a Chinese dating app ahead of the app firm’s initial public offering.

This is not the standard packaging of Communist Party propaganda. The party is still getting its message across, but in the style of America’s Huffington Post, a news and opinion site. The Paper aims to be accessible to a generation of Chinese that uses smartphones and social media. The Shanghai Observer, another new-media publication that is part of the same state-owned group as the Paper, made a splash in October by publishing a...Continue reading

Tiger in the net

Otmane El Rhazi from China.

HE HAS always looked a rather nasty piece of work, and China’s press now tells us just how nasty. Zhou Yongkang is a thief, a bully, a philanderer and a traitor who disclosed state secrets. The spider at the centre of a web of corrupt patronage, he enriched himself, his family, his many mistresses and his cronies at vast cost to the government. Many Chinese reading the reports of his arrest released early on December 6th must have felt delighted that at last his comeuppance had arrived. But many must also have asked themselves how such a thoroughly bad egg came so close to the pinnacle of political power in China. And some may have wondered why, in its 93-year history, the Chinese Communist Party had promoted so many villains to its upper ranks.

Mr Zhou was for five years the party’s most senior official responsible for the pervasive internal-security apparatus. He is the most senior Chinese politician to face criminal charges since the “Gang of Four” of Chairman Mao’s close associates was arrested in 1976. Since then serving or retired members of the party’s highest body, the Politburo’s Standing Committee, have been immune from the most...Continue reading

Are you being served?

Otmane El Rhazi from China.

ZHU Xinli has gone from prey to predator. The firm he runs, China Huiyuan, is the country’s largest privately owned juice firm. In 2008 Coca Cola, the largest drinks firm in the world, tried to buy his company but was prevented from doing so by Chinese regulators. Today, Mr Zhu is on the prowl for big acquisitions of his own—down under.

China’s juice king joined nearly two dozen of China's leading private businessmen on a recent visit to Australia. The group, which calls itself the China Entrepreneurs Club, wanted to investigate new opportunities created by an ambitious free trade agreement (FTA) that was agreed in principle by President Xi Jinping of China and Australia’s prime minister, Tony Abbott, on the sidelines of a recent G20 summit in Brisbane. Such is the importance Australia attaches to this deal that on December 1st Mr Abbott himself met the visiting fat cats.

One important aspect of the FTA, which is to be formalised in a few months, is that it makes life easier for private Chinese firms. In the past state-owned firms looking for big energy or mining deals dominated southerly investment flows—and, in the process, provoked wails of a takeover by China of Australia's crown jewels (Australia's natural resources are in huge demand in China: see chart).

Continue reading

The world is Xi’s oyster

Otmane El Rhazi from China.

XI JINPING, China’s president, has lately had little choice other than to ponder foreign policy. Last month his country played host to the leaders of the 21-member Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation forum; he then flew to Brisbane for a G20 summit, going on to visit other parts of Australia, New Zealand and Fiji. In between, his prime minister, Li Keqiang, was in Myanmar for yet another summit, the 18-nation East Asian one. This welter of diplomacy seems to have inspired Mr Xi—the most powerful leader in a generation of a country more powerful than for centuries—to spell out his foreign-policy vision. He did so in a speech at the end of November apparently intended in part to reassure China’s neighbours that a strong and rising China need not be feared. It was a good attempt, but not entirely successful.

Reassurance is needed. Hopes that China’s spectacular climb to superpower status might be completed without conflict have been dented in recent years. Its assertive approach to old but until recently largely quiescent territorial disputes with Japan, the Philippines, Vietnam and India has jangled nerves. In Asia, defence spending has risen...Continue reading

Losing hearts and minds

Otmane El Rhazi from China.

THE Communist Party’s strategy for bringing the self-governing people of Taiwan into its fold has long been tricky seduction. Ply them with money and favours (and tourists from the mainland) if they play along, and with threats of cutting them off if they don’t. Let them see how happy and prosperous the people of nearby Hong Kong are under Chinese rule.

That strategy is faltering. China is not winning hearts and minds in either Taiwan or Hong Kong. On November 29th voters in regional and municipal elections in Taiwan delivered a drubbing to the ruling Kuomintang party (KMT), which under President Ma Ying-jeou has forged closer economic links with Communist leaders in Beijing but has failed to soothe widespread dissatisfaction with the economy. More than 60% of the 23m people of Taiwan will now be governed by mayors who belong to or are supported by the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), which opposes union with China. Mr Ma is now an unpopular lame duck serving his second (and final) four-year term, and the DPP has the early advantage in the presidential election due to be held in early 2016.

The electoral rout of the KMT is even more...Continue reading

Home truths

Otmane El Rhazi from China.

THE most recent occasion when Ms Fan’s husband beat her until her eyes were black and blue was a row over 100 yuan ($16). Ms Fan, who did not want to reveal her full name, is a 37-year-old cleaner. She helped her husband deliver gas canisters on the outskirts of Shanghai but hid some of the proceeds lest he fritter them away on gambling and booze. When he noticed the missing money, her lies did not convince him. “He hit me in the mouth until my lips split against my teeth,” she says.

For more than a decade women’s rights advocates in China have lobbied for a law to afford women better protection. On November 25th an office of the State Council, or cabinet, released a draft of China’s first anti-domestic violence law. At last, the government seems serious about confronting an endemic problem.

Many Chinese families suffer violence. According to a report by the All-China Women’s Federation, a state-controlled NGO, nearly 40% of women who are married or have a boyfriend have experienced physical or sexual violence. And it found that about 53% of boys and 34% of girls are physically abused by their parents. Only 7% of those...Continue reading

106 ways to annoy

Otmane El Rhazi from China.

SPAM, as every user of mobile phones in China is aware to their intense annoyance, is a roaring business in China. Its delivery-men drive through residential neighbourhoods in “text-messaging cars”, with illegal but easy-to-buy gadgetry they use to hijack links between mobile-phone users and nearby communications masts. They then target the numbers they harvest, blasting them with spam text messages before driving away. Mobile-phone users usually see only the wearisome results: another sprinkling of spam messages offering deals on flats, investment advice and dodgy receipts for tax purposes.

Chinese mobile-users get more spam text messages than their counterparts almost anywhere else in the world. They received more than 300 billion of them in 2013, or close to one a day for each person using a mobile phone. Users in bigger markets like Beijing and Shanghai receive two a day, or more than 700 annually, accounting for perhaps one-fifth to one-third of all texts. Americans, by comparison, received an estimated 4.5 billion junk messages in 2011, or fewer than 20 per mobile-user for the year—out of a total of more than two trillion text...Continue reading

Stretching the threads

Otmane El Rhazi from China.

EVERY day hundreds of trucks rumble across the border between China and Laos, carrying wood, textiles and agricultural goods to China, and home appliances, small machinery and building materials back. The Laotian frontier town of Boten is largely empty, apart from a few dusty shops selling snacks or machine parts, a row of rusting cars, vacant buildings and some geese; an advertisement for a Thai ladyboys’ performance hall is a rare sign of passing trade.

Over the Chinese border the roads are smoother: palm trees line the main street of Mohan, which is flanked by logistics firms, translation companies, express-delivery services, mechanics and stores selling Thai bags, cosmetics and coffee; few buildings are more than ten years old (a spiffy-looking customs post, pictured above, is among the newest). Many residents are newcomers, too. Yet the Chinese town is no metropolis. Chickens walk the streets. Firms shut for several hours after lunch. Money-changers sit at the base of a banana tree accosting visitors.

Both frontier towns aspire to something better. A deserted marketing suite just inside Laos features plans for a cross-border golf...Continue reading

Clearing up

Otmane El Rhazi from China.

THE change in tone in Hong Kong newspapers that are sympathetic to the Communist Party says it all. Once hysterical about the territory’s pro-democracy protests, their commentators are now smugly dismissive and condescending. The “Occupy” demonstrations had begun “with madness”, declared an editorial in Ta Kung Pao, one of Hong Kong’s staunchest pro-party rags, on November 19th, and were “ending in failure”. A few days earlier Global Times, a nationalist newspaper in Beijing, had crowed that the protesters had been “forgotten” by the world.

Nearly two months after the use of tear gas by police drew more than 100,000 demonstrators onto the streets and prompted protesters to set up barricaded encampments on several major roads, the authorities are beginning once again to step up pressure, this time with little resistance.

The protesters, now numbering only a few hundred, are demoralised. On November 18th police, enforcing a court order, quietly cleared some of the barricades from in front of an office building near the government’s headquarters. They have orders to do the same at other protest sites. It looks like the beginning of the end for the unexpectedly protracted standoff. Protest leaders watched the police without interfering. They still have the support of younger Hong Kong...Continue reading

A lack of will power

Otmane El Rhazi from China.

IN RECENT weeks China’s leaders have been talking up the need to enhance the rule of law. Their aim is to strengthen the Communist Party’s grip on power while at the same time ensuring that justice is served more fairly. This may improve the lives of some. Many people complain bitterly that courts often pay more heed to the whims of officials than to the law. But in the realm of death, it is the law itself that is the problem. The country’s statutes on inheritance remain little changed from the days when few had any property to bequeath. The rapid emergence in recent years of a large middle-class with complex property claims has been fuelling inheritance disputes. The crudity of the law is making matters worse.

Today’s inheritance law was adopted in 1985 when divorce and remarriage were rare and international marriage nearly unknown. Few owned homes, cars or other valuable property. The law does at least grant men and women equal rights to their kin’s estates, but otherwise it is based largely on tradition. It is specific when it comes to handing down “forest trees, livestock and poultry” but runs out of steam when it comes to newfangled...Continue reading

A matter of honours

Otmane El Rhazi from China.

FINE porcelain, Chinese-landscape scrolls and calligraphy adorn the office of Shi Yigong, dean of the School of Life Sciences at Tsinghua University in Beijing. Little about his ornamentation hints at Mr Shi’s 18 years in America, where, like thousands of Chinese students, he decamped for graduate study in the early 1990s. Mr Shi eventually became a professor at Princeton University but he began to feel like a “bystander” as his native country started to prosper. In 2008, at the age of 40, he returned to his homeland. He was one of the most famous Chinese scholars to do so; an emblem for the government’s attempts to match its academic achievements to its economic ones.

Sending students abroad has been central to China’s efforts to improve its education since the late 1970s, when it began trying to repair the damage wrought by Mao’s destruction of the country’s academic institutions. More than 3m Chinese have gone overseas to study. Chinese youths make up over a fifth of all international students in higher education in the OECD, a club mostly of rich countries. More than a quarter of them are in America.

Every country sends out...Continue reading

Analects says "Goodbye"

Otmane El Rhazi from China.

IT IS TEMPTING to start this farewell note with some pithy yet profound quote from Confucius about the nature of change, the importance of rituals or how all good things must come to an end. But this is a temptation that should be resisted. For as we explained as clearly as we could when we launched the blog and decided to name it “Analects”, the choice was not meant to imply our endorsement for Confucius’ philosophy. Or to take sides in the political battles over his legacy . Or—heaven forfend—somehow to compare ourselves to this (or any other) great sage. The Confucian connection to the word Analects of course helped make it suitable for our purposes, but far more important was its appeal as an English word, derived from ancient Greek, denoting “things gathered up”, “literary fragments” or “gleanings”.

That seemed to fit well with what we tried to do in nearly 400 posts over the past three years, and it...Continue reading

Bone China

Otmane El Rhazi from China.

Throw her a bone

A GIANT, pinkish femur juts out of the ground, longer than a person is tall. The area is littered with the fossilised vertebrae, leg and arm bones and skull of this Hadrosaurus. For 70m years it and other dinosaurs have lain buried here. Now the site in Zhucheng, in Shandong province in eastern China, is known as “dinosaur valley” for its more than 10,000 fossils found to date. The hunt for dinosaurs only properly began in China in recent decades. Already more species have been identified there than in any other country.

The bonanza is explained by China’s great expanses of rock from the Mesozoic era, when “fearful dragons”, as they are called in Chinese, roamed. In many areas rivers, floods, sandstorms and earthquakes buried the animals soon after they died, so preserving them. An unusually large amount of the rock from this era is now close to the surface, so the troves of bones, eggs and footprints have been uncovered comparatively easily. A recent discovery in Liaoning province, the Changyuraptor yangi, is the largest known four-winged flying reptile and marks another vital...Continue reading

The Chinese order

Otmane El Rhazi from China.

FOR the past week China’s state media have conveyed an almost imperial choreography playing out in the Great Hall of the People, in Zhongnanhai, the Chinese leaders’ compound next to the Forbidden City in Beijing, and at Yanqi Lake just outside the capital. Every day, on television and in newspapers, President Xi Jinping (above, right) is portrayed receiving lines of grateful world leaders. And every day he is seen arranging prosperity, ordering peace or, in an agreement with Barack Obama, America’s president, (above, left) on carbon emissions, even saving the planet. It escaped no visitor that not since Mao Zedong has a Chinese leader conducted foreign affairs with such eye-catching aplomb. Yet this was not only Mr Xi’s moment, but also China’s—a diplomatic coming-out party of sorts.

On several fronts, a country known for a somewhat reactive diplomacy has made the running. China was host this week to the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation—APEC, a regional trade gathering that rarely makes waves. Yet in quick succession China declared free-trade agreements with South Korea and Australia, two sizeable Asian economies, all but signed. It...Continue reading

Out of the deep freeze

Otmane El Rhazi from China.

AFTER Japan’s prime minister worshipped at Tokyo’s Yasukuni shrine last December, China declared Shinzo Abe to be beyond the pale; principles are principles. But Chinese ones are, well, nothing if not adaptable, and on November 10th President Xi Jinping met Mr Abe for the first time. A “four-point agreement” comes as a welcome signal that tensions between Asia’s two biggest powers might, at least for now, begin to ease.

The thorn in the side of relations is Japan’s Senkaku islands, which China claims and calls the Diaoyus. Chinese aircraft and coastguard vessels have greatly raised tensions from 2012 onwards, by making incursions around the Senkakus. So it is progress that Japan and China now acknowledge “the emergence of tense situations” there. For the first time Japan has referred to the Senkakus in a document with China. Chinese analysts claim a diplomatic victory. Even if obliquely, Japan acknowledges a dispute over sovereignty, Huang Dahui of Renmin University argues. Yet the wording also left ample room for Japanese diplomats to insist that they have not acknowledged any such thing.

The negotiations seem mostly about avoiding the hard issues. On Yasukuni, it beggars belief to think the Japanese promised Mr Abe would not visit the shrine where high-ranking war criminals are honoured. The joint statement says that Japan and China will...Continue reading

Crosses to bear

Going out

Otmane El Rhazi from China.

A big reason for its fast economic growth is that China has been a magnet for the world’s investment capital. Over the past two decades, China attracted more foreign direct investment (FDI) than any country save America. So the recent prediction made by the Centre for China and Globalisation, a Beijing think-tank, that this year China’s outbound investments would exceed its inbound ones, is noteworthy (see chart).

This is not—yet—because China is becoming less attractive to multinationals, which are squeezed by local rivals and targeted by overzealous regulators and the state media. Inward investment has topped $100 billion a year in the past five years. Rather, Chinese firms are increasingly venturing abroad. Earlier waves of investors were led by state-owned enterprises in search of resources in Africa and Latin America. Today’s pioneers are often private firms. They seek brands, talent and technology to bring back to the Chinese market.

Losing focus

Otmane El Rhazi from China.

SPARKLY, spotted or Hello Kitty: every colour, theme, shape and size of frame is available at Eyeglass City in Beijing, a four-storey mall crammed only with spectacle shops. Within half an hour a pair of prescription eyeglasses is ready. That is impressive, but then the number of Chinese wearing glasses is rising. Most new adoptees are children.

In 1970 fewer than a third of 16- to 18-year-olds were deemed to be short-sighted (meaning that distant objects are blurred). Now nearly four-fifths are, and even more in some urban areas. A fifth of these have “high” myopia, that is, anything beyond 16 centimetres (just over six inches) is unclear. The fastest increase is among primaryschoolchildren, over 40% of whom are short-sighted, double the rate in 2000. That compares with less than 10% of this age group in America or Germany.

The incidence of myopia is high across East Asia, afflicting 80-90% of urban 18-year-olds in Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan. The problem is social rather than genetic. A 2012 study of 15,000 children in the Beijing area found that poor sight was significantly associated with more time spent studying, reading or using electronic devices—along with less time spent outdoors. These habits were more frequently found in higher-income families, says Guo Yin of Beijing Tongren Hospital, that is, those more likely to make their...Continue reading

Showing off to the world

Otmane El Rhazi from China.

THE factories have closed down for a few days, and millions of cars have been ordered off the roads. Clear blue skies appearing over a usually smog-choked Beijing always mean one thing: a big event is about to get under way.

From November 10th President Xi Jinping will welcome world leaders to this year’s Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation (APEC) summit. Not since the Olympics in 2008 have so many leaders gathered in the capital, and they will include the heads of the United States, Russia and Japan. It is a defining moment for Mr Xi’s foreign policy. Having established himself at home as China’s most powerful leader since Deng Xiaoping, he now seems to want to demand a bigger, more dominant and more respected role for China than his predecessors, Deng included, ever dared ask for.

Respect begins by putting on a good face to guests. Chinese bullying over disputed maritime claims has done much to raise tensions in the region. But now Mr Xi appears to be lowering them. In particular, China’s relations with Japan have been abysmal. The government has treated Japan’s prime minister, Shinzo Abe, with both venom and pettiness, implying he...Continue reading

Manufacturing Rebounds On Strong Demand, Low Prices

Otmane El Rhazi from Investors.com.



Manufacturing activity was brisker than expected in Oct., the Institute for Supply Management said. Its overall PMI touched 59, rebounding 2.4 points from a Sept. pullback that followed the best month since early 2011. New orders led the way, surging 5.8 points from an already strong reading to 65.8. Production added 0.2 point to touch 64.8, and employment rose nearly a full point to 55.5. But the PMI also got a boost from softer price pressures....

U.S. Factories Rev Up, Leave Rest Of World In Dust

Otmane El Rhazi from Investors.com.



Manufacturing activity surged in October, industry reports showed Monday, confirming that the U.S. economy is picking up steam even as the rest of the world falters. The Institute for Supply Management's manufacturing index regained the 3 1/2-year high of 59 it hit in August. The underlying details were even better: The production gauge hit a 10-year high of 64.8, and new orders rose nearly 6 points to its second-best level of...

Economic News: U.S. Factories Roar, Eurozone Mixed, Japan Stimulus?

Otmane El Rhazi from Investors.com.



Manufacturing roars higherISM's gauge touched 59 in Oct., higher than the 56.6 in Sept. and besting expectations for a slight decline. Survey respondents liked the combination of "strong" growth and weaker input prices. The new orders gauge shot up to 65.8, backlogs swung solidly back to expansion at 53.0 and employment added nearly a point to 55.5. Americans reported spending an average of $89 per day in Oct., Gallup....

出口業受日本擴大QE重擊 韓股今收低

KOSPI指數今天以低盤﹝1,959.66點﹞開出，開低走低，終場下挫0.58%收在1,952.97點。﹝法新﹞

2014-11-03  17:10 〔本報訊〕上週日本央行意外宣佈擴大QE，刺激國內出口，首當其衝的就是日本鄰國南韓，今日南韓出口類股一應下跌，讓本就疲軟的南韓出口業再吃一季重錘；KOSPI指數3日以低盤﹝1,959.66點﹞開出，開低走低，終場下挫0.58%收在1,952.97點。

《彭博》報導，南韓10月貿易順差金額達75億美元、創單月歷史新高。其中，出口金額年增2.5%、進口年減3%。

《路透》報導，南韓10月製造業採購經理人指數﹝PMI﹞自9月的48.8降至48.7、創今年6月﹝48.4﹞以來新低，為6個月以來第5度低於榮枯分界點﹝50﹞。
LED大廠首爾半導體﹝Seoul Semiconductor﹞股價暴跌11.72%收在16,200韓元，跌破週線、月線、季線支撐，創2009年2月5日以來收盤新低。

現代汽車的勞資糾紛判決將出爐，南韓媒體報導，若現代輸掉官司，初期賠償金額恐達5兆韓元﹝約新台幣1395億元﹞，今日股價重挫5.88%收在160,000韓元。Otmane El Rhazi.

Moscow recognises Ukraine separatist vote

Otmane El Rhazi from World News.



EU’s new foreign policy chief calls polls ‘a new obstacle on the path towards peace’

Nusra ousts Syrian rebels from Idlib

Otmane El Rhazi from World News.



Military bases and weapons caches surrendered to al-Qaeda affiliate

British banker in court over HK murders

Otmane El Rhazi from World News.



Ex-equities trader at Bank of America Merrill Lynch charged after bodies found at his flat

Bomb kills 57 at Pakistan-India border

Otmane El Rhazi from World News.



Blast is most severe terror attack by Sunni Muslim extremists in Pakistan for more than a year

Banker charged after Hong Kong murders

Otmane El Rhazi from World News.



Suspect to appear in court on Monday after one victim found in suitcase

Merkel considers British exit from EU

Otmane El Rhazi from World News.



Chancellor is reported to have told the prime minister the UK is approaching ‘point of no return’

McConnell in pivotal fight for Senate prize

Otmane El Rhazi from World News.



Prospective senate majority leader if GOP wins six seats and Kentucky senator holds his own

Burkina Faso army urged to give up power

Otmane El Rhazi from World News.



The country is an important ally of France and the US in the fight against jihadi groups

Report says cost of saving climate is low

Otmane El Rhazi from World News.



Greenhouse gas emissions need to be cut to nearly zero by the end of this century

Russian-backed regions of Ukraine hold poll

Otmane El Rhazi from World News.



A week after Ukraine elected an EU-friendly government, a vote in breakaway regions could lead to a fresh diplomatic standoff between Moscow and the west

Virgin Galactic head rejects risk-taking claims

Otmane El Rhazi from World News.

China hails moon orbiter success

Otmane El Rhazi from World News.



Another step forward in long march into space

Obama’s energy past hurts Democrats

Otmane El Rhazi from World News.



Republicans gain the upper hand in states resentful of president’s policies

Syrian jihad lures disaffected Tunisians

Otmane El Rhazi from World News.



Nation that led Arab Spring leads in numbers fighting with Isis

Talks with Ocalan enter perilous phase

Otmane El Rhazi from World News.



Justice minister warns unexplained murders of Turkish soldiers are threatening the talks

Lieutenant Colonel takes control in Burkina Faso

Otmane El Rhazi from World News.



Seventh time that military officer has taken over as head of state since independence from France

Virgin Galactic ship suffers fatal crash

Otmane El Rhazi from World News.



Company says ‘serious anomaly’ resulted in loss of SpaceShipTwo in Mojave desert

Burkina coup threatens anti-Islamist fight

Otmane El Rhazi from World News.



Departure of Compaoré, a western ally, poses dilemma for France and US

Med becomes a no-man’s land for migrants

Otmane El Rhazi from World News.



Journey to Europe looks set to become still more perilous

Democrats make last stand in Georgia

Otmane El Rhazi from World News.



Demographic changes offer hope to the party in the South

Polish spies return amid east-west tensions

Otmane El Rhazi from World News.



Eastern European intelligence agencies fear Russian interest

Burkina Faso protests follow army coup

Otmane El Rhazi from World News.



West African nation an important ally of US and France

Russia raises interest rates to 9.5%

Otmane El Rhazi from World News.



Central bank acts to steady the weakening rouble amid geopolitical isolation

ECB moves house after three-year delay

Otmane El Rhazi from World News.



Glass tower will not have enough space for the bank’s staff and costs have spiralled to €1.2bn

Lapid vetoed spending on settlements

Otmane El Rhazi from World News.



Israeli finance minister says he refused funding that would have caused an international crisis

Hungary abandons plan for internet tax

Otmane El Rhazi from World News.



Viktor Orban’s announcement follows demonstrations against the Fidesz government

Beijing subway bans Halloween costumes

Otmane El Rhazi from World News.



Fears that subversive outfits could crop up under the guise of celebration costumes

BoJ unexpectedly expands easing programme

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Japan central bank attributes move to weak demand and lower oil price

Russia and Ukraine reach gas deal

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Agreement forestalls potential winter energy crisis for Europe

China hits back over cyber hacking claims

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Beijing’s internet tsar says his country is the world’s biggest victim of the practice

Burkina Faso power bid provokes violence

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Parliament set ablaze after President Compaoré tries to prolong his 27-year rule

Russia and Ukraine close to gas deal

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EU-brokered agreement would end months-long standoff

Iraqi Kurd fighters enter Kobani

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Western-backed foreign forces join the fight on the ground in Syria for first time

UK court to hear Gaddafi rendition claims

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Libyan torture victim claims Jack Straw and MI6 were ‘co-conspirators’ in his illegal detention

Zambia investors uneasy after Sata death

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Investor-friendly reputation has been on the wane

Turkey faces criticism over border control

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Ankara says progress against foreign fighters is under-appreciated by the west

Illinois woes leave governor race wide open

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Federal probes have offered hope to the GOP in the Democratic stronghold

Spanish recovery lays bare social crisis

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Concern over the fate of Spain’s rapidly-swelling ranks of long-term unemployed

Acid attacks on women spread fear in Iran

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Up to eight women in the central city of Isfahan have been injured in acid attacks this month

Jerusalem on edge after shooting of rabbi

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Attack on US-Israeli religious activist raises fears of broader Israeli-Palestinian confrontation

Brazil raises rates to three-year high

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Disagreement over level was a battleground of election

US election will be won at the letterbox

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Republicans say increased voting by mail encourages fraud

EU top-up bill row masks payments rise

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Net UK contributions almost double to £8bn over five years

Incoming EU digital chief slams Google

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Günther Oettinger says US tech group could be taxed for displaying copyrighted material

Obama-Netanyahu relationship hits new low

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Unnamed official quoted in the context of fraying relations with Washington

Nato jets intercept Russian nuclear planes

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‘Significant military manoeuvres’ conducted in the past 24 hours

State elections are referendum on economy

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German exports to Russia tumble

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Mittelstand businesses rattled by EU restrictions

Fed eyes first rate rise after ending QE

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Central bank inserts ‘get out’ clause to allow for earlier rate rise

Eurozone lending conditions improve

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ECB survey shows easing of terms on loans to companies

JLR faces first pay dispute for a decade

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Trouble brews as carmaker opens new Wolverhampton engine plant

Nato urged to join fight against Ebola

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Epidemic a threat to world peace, say two of the group’s former secretary-generals

Sturgeon calls for Scottish veto on Brexit

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More Swedes favour Nato membership

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Poll shows shift in popular opinion since the hunt for a foreign submarine in Swedish waters

Pirates target southeast Asia ship lanes

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Busy shipping lanes off Singapore, Indonesia and Malaysia are world’s worst affected

France grapples with homegrown jihadis

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Authorities fear returning fighters will attack French targets

Australia terror laws raise liberty fears

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Critics say legislation demonises Muslim community and impinges on freedoms

Rocket explosion destroys ISS mission

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Antares carrying 5,000lbs of Nasa supplies blows up on launch

Zambian President Michael Sata dies

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The 77-year-old was three years into his term after winning 2011 elections in Africa’s second-largest copper producer

UK loses out on migrant talent, minister says

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Boles is first Tory minister to question policy on migration

Britain gives F-35s permission to take off

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Lightning II stealth aircraft designed to fly from new carriers

Iraqi peshmerga to join Kobani fight

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City’s officials say Isis outnumbers them by almost two to one, a ratio unlikely to change

Brussels clears France and Italy’s budgets

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Move comes after Paris and Rome agree to additional fiscal tightening

Russia behind cyber attacks, says firm

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Security analyst FireEye claims to be tracking a ‘focused, longstanding espionage effort’

Almunia stresses moral purpose in his legacy

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Europe’s antitrust chief once dubbed ‘the mule’ cites autonomy in reply to critics

Unicef criticises UK over child poverty

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Charity blames jump on austerity programme and benefit cuts

Digital divide exacerbates US inequality

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FT analysis of new Census Bureau data shows the scale of the task facing the Obama administration

China military figure admits taking bribes

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Xu Caihou is former vice-chairman of Central Military Commission

UK data show house price slowdown

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Annual rate of increase slows slightly to 7.2%

Western women deploy ‘soft-power’ of Isis

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Tech-savvy women show a gentler side of Isis, promoting a ‘jihadi girl power subculture’

Beijing efficiency drive targets mah-jong

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Officials should instead be brushing up their Communist party ideology and discipline

Toronto mayoral election ends Ford era

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Curtain for reign marked by scandals over illegal drug use and drunkenness

Sweden’s central bank cuts rates to zero

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Riksbank says interest rates need to stay low until inflation picks up

Isis spectre looms over Pakistan

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Anxiety over possibility of Islamic militants expanding their footprint

US issues guidelines over Ebola

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White House seeks to end dispute over quarantine of medical workers

Brown out of race to lead Scottish Labour

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Decision leaves Jim Murphy as favourite after Johann Lamont’s acrimonious departure

France bows to EU pressure on deficit

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Paris to cut an additional €3.6bn in effort to avoid fight over public finances

Election marks turning point for Ukraine

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Balance of power shifts between dominant pro-EU parties

Egypt steps up crackdown on militants

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Vital infrastructure put under military authority after spate of attacks

Prosecutors to contest Pistorius sentence

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Grounds for appeal to be made public when papers are filed

Forecasts sap hopes for German economy

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Sixth consecutive monthly fall in Ifo index

Republicans look to lock up the House

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The party could cement control of the chamber for years

Tensions rise after Israel homes plan

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Rioting in Jerusalem inflamed over push for 1,000 more homes

Brussels warns Cameron over €2.1bn bill

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European Commission budget official says refusal would open ‘Pandora’s Box’

Real falls sharply on Brazil election result

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Markets react with concern to Dilma Rousseff’s victory

Abe’s cabinet rocked by new scandal

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Trade minister admits taking inappropriate donations from a foreign-owned company

Hungary struggles with ‘Orbanomics’

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Critics warn radical economic measures have hit investor confidence

Kim finds mission in Ebola crisis

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World Bank president positions institution at forefront of response

Tunisia secular party claims poll victory

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Nida Tunis says exit polls suggest it has won about 80 seats in the 217-member parliament

Five ministers to watch in Widodo cabinet

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Indonesia president’s new 34-strong cabinet contains some characters worth watching

Uruguay presidential poll goes to run-off

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Leftwing candidate Tabaré Vázquez fails to win outright

Italy under pressure as nine banks fail stress tests

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Capital hole under ‘adverse’ scenario found in 25 European lenders

Corporate America starts to spend again

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Cash piles fall for the first time since the recession but business remains wary about investment

Rousseff scores narrow victory in Brazil

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President must reunite a country divided by bitter campaign