Indonesia Executes Drug Smugglers

I was surfing the Internet and found this interesting article titled, "Australia recalls ambassador after Indonesia executes prisoners," by Hilary Whiteman, Mariano Castillo, and Kathy Quiano. The article starts off with the Australian government recalling its ambassador form Indonesia back to Australia. The Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbot did not approve the execution of the smugglers he believed that it was "cruel and unnecessary," but I believe that any killing of human life is cruel and unnecessary. The Prime Minister does not know what action they will take against Indonesia, but it is believed that relations will be yet again restored because of their dependent markets. The president of Indonesia said, "Our legal sovereignty must be respected. We also respect other countries' legal sovereignty". This means that he believes the executions were necessary.

Synthetic Drug Trade Asia

I was looking for an interesting article on the Internet and I found one published by Voice of America, and the article is titled, "UN: Little Progress Against Asia's Booming Synthetic Drugs Trade," by Ron Corben. This article is about the illegal drug trade in Asia, and the growth of drug trade in Southeast Asia. The United Nations had a conference in Bangkok about this issue and how drug dealers are using the internet to sell drugs now. East and Southeast Asia drug trafficking has risen in the past year. The UN believes that if these countries make it more difficult for the drug dealers to get the chemicals needed to create these drugs then the production will slow down. The country with the most trafficking, and production problem is Burma. So if anyone wants to go to Burma do not go wondering off in the forest by your self thats how people end up dead. China is having an issue with consumers that are using these drugs because all the drugs made in Burma end up in China and Thailand.    

Rubber

I found this article titled, "Expanding Rubber Plantations 'Catastrophic' for endangered Species in Southeast Asia," by Physic.org. The first thing that i found interesting is that rubber comes from a plant I thought it was an element or mineral. The plants are also not dark as a traditional rubber product looks like. The research was done by University of East Anglia and it estimates that 8.5 million of hectares will be needed by 2024 to keep up with the demand. People this means that more things will be made out of rubber. Hectares are a metric way of measuring land like acres, but in a metric system hectares is the way to measure. If rubber planters thing that they can just expand their plantations its going to be difficult because planting rubber causes negative effects on the natural environment. Rubber plants are almost similar to the oil palm, which apparently is bad as the article says. But, big companies like Goodyear and Michelin want the rubber to produce tires for cars and airplanes. In order to plant these rubber plants trees need to be cut down meaning that companies are just destroying Southeast Asia's natural resources.  

North Korea is at it Again!!!

Surfing the internet with my mighty mouse I found an interesting article titled "US research; Hundreds of NKorea missiles threaten Asia," by Matthew Pennington. this article says that North Korea can be a threat to the United States of America if it can get its hands on technology needed to guide the missiles to the US. The United States of America also says that North Korea will be fully nuclear on 2020. But, this of course is an estimate what if it goes nuclear sooner then what. I feel like they are slowly trying to sell us this war. In a couple of years we will be invading North Korea. Iran should not be concern to the United States of America because they are not conducting atomic test explosions like the North Koreans are. The US has put missiles radars in Japan just in case if any missile wants to go toward the US and the United State of America plans on putting defense systems in South Korea. The US's greatest concern is a long range missile called KN-08 this missile can be launched from any road at anytime. North Korea is developing nuclear weapons what does it plan to do with it. If they attack any country they will be invaded by the UN. I feel like this is just a dumb cause for North Korea they should just stay low key. As soon as they develop nuclear war heads the US, China, South Korea, Europe, and Russia will go in to disarm this country.

Vietnam is Becoming a Powerhouse

I found an article on Bloomberg Business they published an article titled "Meet Asia's New Manufacturing Powerhouse: Vietnam". The article says that Vietnam is becoming a power house because they have a young population and have low wages. I can't imagine this wages in China are low how much are they paying the people in Vietnam empanadas are payment. Vietnam is going to compete with China, South Korea, and Thailand. The article also shows that Vietnam is borrowing more money from HSBC and is manufacturing a lot of products. Last year Vietnam became one of the biggest exporters of products to the US. Companies that are in Vietnam are Intel, Siemens, and Samsung. They also have a lot of shoe apparel companies yet again the article says that Vietnam has cheap wages lower than China. This is great for Vietnam, but its not great for the common people who have to work these horrible hours and conditions. But, Vietnam does not like Chinese factories in Vietnam they protested and had Chinese companies closed they do not want anything to do with China.  

Iran's Cheap Oil

Upon surfing the internet I found a very interesting article published by Bloomberg Business an article titled "Asia Readies for Iran Oil Bargains on Potential Nuclear Deal," by Sharon Cho, Debjit Chakraborty and Yuji Okada. The article is about how Asia is excited to hear that maybe the sanctions on Iran will be lifted and they are ready to buy cheap oil. Six Asian refiners want the oil form Iran and cannot wait to get the deal cheap oil from Iran. Asia has to pay top dollar for Oil because they have to import the oil as far as Colombia. The U.S. is currently negotiating with Iran to lift the sanctions that limit Iran's economy. Iran can produce 2.5 million barrels a day meaning that gas prices could drop even more if sanctions are lifted. But, Asian countries will benefit the most of Iranian crude oil the top countries are Japan, China, South Korea, and India. Although the sanctions did not prevent oil trade between Iran and Asia, but it does limit how much oil they can purchase. India's Mangalore Refinery said that it would help the country of India.  

No More Cheap Chinese Labor

I found an article online that caught my attention titled "A Tightening Grip," by Jiaxing and Yangon. The article starts with some obvious facts that China is one of the largest manufactures of the world and they have the best machinery and tools that only China has to develop products. They can make steering wheels and major car parts. The article also states that cheap Chinese Labor has helped the development of China to the power that it is today. Then, we go into some historical facts about Asia and its development of becoming the manufactural power it is today. It began in the 1960 the leader of this movement was Japan it began to export electrical goods. By the 80's Japan began to open up plant in South East Asia, but when China got involved in the game China became the top manufacturer in the world real quick. China today accounts for 46.5% of everything that is exported from Asia. The issue is that since 2001 the wages for Chinese workers have rise 12% and this is supposedly bad for Chinese people. This means according to the article that Chinese days of manufacturing are limited.