New Investment Platforms Raise Questions for China's Banking System

The growth of large online investment platforms has captured the attention of Chinese authorities in recent months. Non-state enterprises such as Alibaba Group Holding Ltd., which runs the e-commerce website Taobao, and Tencent Holdings Ltd., a social media conglomerate that runs the popular WeChat online messaging program, are an emerging force in China's financial system.

The question is whether these online financing platforms could start to chip away at state-controlled banks' effective monopoly over the country's vast pool of household and corporate savings. For now, funds invested into new online financing platforms such as Alibaba's Yu'e Bao are equivalent to a little more than 1 percent of the state-controlled banking sector's roughly 74.2 trillion yuan ($12 trillion dollars) in consumer deposits. But the platforms are growing rapidly.

One can fire at any target from the Black Sea

 

Photo: Igor Kasatonov. novayagazeta.ru

If necessary, modern arms are quite capable to fire at any target, said ADM Igor Kasatonov, adviser to Russia's Chief of the General Staff on TV show "Informal Talk".

Old Powers Re-emerging in the Wider Black Sea

Dr. Marat Terterov

 

The current outlook and the changing dynamics of the Wider Black Sea security.

The Black Sea is located between Europe to the West, the former-Soviet Union territories and Asia Minor to the North and South respectively, and the Caucasus to the East. Referred to as Pontus Euxinus in antiquity, the Black Sea has played an important economic and political role in the wider-region within which it is located. Its geopolitical importance has survived, losing none of its significance during our present time. According to some, it is still, just as in the Nineteenth Century, the door to the heartland of Eurasia, the domination of which has eternally played a role in the struggle for global hegemony.

Will Ukraine's Crimea region be Europe's next 'frozen' conflict?

 

 Joerg Forbrig

 

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Armed men seize parliament building in Ukraine's Crimea region
• Crimea is last big bastion of opposition to new government in Kiev following President's ouster
• Tensions have simmered since President Yanukovych's overthrow last week
• Forbrig: Ukraine must decide if it's worth risking recent progress over restive Crimea