BEIJING (AP) — China's decision to abolish its one-child policy is a boon to couples and to sellers of goods from formula to diapers to toys. And it might help defuse economic stresses caused by an aging population. The impact of the surprise change announced Thursday is expected to be gradual. But with incomes rising in the world's most populous country, even a small uptick in births could translate into higher demand from Chinese that could ripple around the world.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House is welcoming China's move to end its "one-child" policy but says the decision doesn't go far enough. China said Thursday it would allow all married couples to have two children, signaling the end after 35 years of the unpopular "one-child" policy.BEIJING (AP) — China said Thursday it would allow all married couples to have two children, signaling the end after 35 years to its drastic and unpopular "one-child" policy that has been blamed for skewing the gender balance, forcing women into unwanted abortions and bringing about a rapidly aging workforce. The decision was the most significant easing of strict population policies that were long considered some of the ruling Communist Party's most onerous intrusions into family life and had been gradually relaxed in recent years. Many rural families and some urban ones already were able to have two children.
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korea's ruling party said Friday it will hold its biggest convention in decades next May. The Workers' Party said in a dispatch carried by state media that it has decided to hold its 7th congress as the North is faced with "the heavy yet sacred task" of building a "thriving" nation. It didn't elaborate on what it will discuss.
TOKYO (AP) — Japan's core inflation rate, which excludes volatile food prices, edged down 0.1 percent in September while household incomes and spending also fell, the government said Friday. Getting consumers and businesses to spend more, a key aim of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's economic policies, has so far proven difficult. Slow progress toward a 2 percent inflation goal has raised expectations that the central bank might announce an expansion of its already lavish monetary easing at a policy meeting that wraps up later in the day.
WASHINGTON (AP) — American warships will continue to "regularly" sail within the 12-nautical mile limit of islands built by China in the South China Sea, a senior U.S. official said Thursday, despite protests from Beijing after the USS Lassen's passage near one of the man-made islets this week. The comments came in the wake of a quickly-arranged video-conference call Thursday between Navy Adm. John Richardson, chief of naval operations, and his Chinese counterpart. And they served as a warning that such sail-by operations would be somewhat routine, although it was unclear how frequent they would be.
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (AP) — A senior leader of Cambodia's opposition party has been removed as the vice-president of parliament in an unexpected vote that was attended only by the ruling party and boycotted by his supporters. The removal of Kem Sokha by a 68-0 vote is the result of maneuvering by Prime Minister Hun Sen to get rid of his most bitter critic. Friday's vote was not on the National Assembly's agenda, and the opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party members were taken aback when it was announced. All 55 lawmakers of the CNRP boycotted the vote in the 123-member house.
BEIJING (AP) — China's Communist Party says all families will be allowed to have two children, ending the 1-child restriction that's lasted more than three decades. Key events in the history of China's family-planning policy: 1953: Chinese leaders suggest that the population should be controlled and approve a law on contraception and abortion, but the plan is stranded by political upheaval and the 1959-1961 famine.
— "I have looked forward to this for so many years — even had dreams about it! I cried every time when I woke up and realized it wasn't yet true. I thought it was so unfair. I do not care if the second child is a boy or a girl, at my age, as long as he or she is healthy." — Su Weihua, 36, of Guangzhou, who has an 8-year-old daughter and wants to have a second child. — "I am pleased at being given a choice for us to decide whether we would like to have a child or not. As a father, I very much would like to have a second child, so does my wife. But we need to discuss it carefully and then make the final decision. Many couples at our age have missed the opportunity to have a second child and it is very regrettable." — Wei Guang, a father of an 8-year-old son in Beijing. Wei is 51 and his wife is in her 30s.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House says the U.S. military scrambled fighter jets earlier this week to escort Russian bombers that flew near the aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan. White House spokesman Josh Earnest says the Ronald Reagan was conducting a military exercise with South Korea in international waters in the Sea of Japan. He says Korean aircraft first intercepted the Russian planes.
YANGON, Myanmar (AP) — After Myanmar's military yielded to a civilian government in 2010, foreign investors rushed to set up factories and raze old neighborhoods to build luxury housing estates. Five years on, the country has only a precarious foothold in the global economy. The government has loosened curbs on the media and political dissent. Many people have access to the Internet and cell phones for the first time. New hotels and shopping malls stand like beacons among the ruined colonial mansions and crumbling socialist era apartments of Yangon, the biggest city.
THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — An international tribunal ruled Thursday that it can take on a case between China and the Philippines over disputed territory in the South China Sea, overruling objections from Beijing that the arbitration body has no authority to hear the case. The Philippine case, which was filed before the tribunal in The Hague in January 2013, contends that China's massive territorial claims in the strategic waters do not conform with the 1982 U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea and should be declared invalid. The Philippines also asserts that some Chinese-occupied reefs and shoals do not generate, or create a claim to, territorial waters.
UNITED NATIONS (AP) — A United Nations investigator accused Myanmar of discrimination and urged the government to take immediate action to allow minorities and migrants to vote in November elections. Yanghee Lee, the special rapporteur on human rights in Myanmar, also urged the country's Election Commission to establish an independent process to review the disqualification of candidates, many of them Muslims — including two current members of parliament.
NEW DELHI (AP) — Prime Minister Narendra Modi described India and Africa as bright spots of hope and economic opportunity and offered technology and credit to match rival China at a summit with more than 40 African leaders Thursday. As Modi opened the meeting in the Indian capital, he said Africa was now more settled and stable and "its initiatives are replacing old fault lines with new bridges of reforms and economic integration."
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korea's highest court on Thursday sentenced the head of a ferry operator to seven years in prison over a ship sinking last year that killed more than 300 people. The Supreme Court upheld a lower court ruling that sentenced Kim Han-sik, president of Chonghaejin Marine Co., to seven years in prison on charges including manslaughter. The court found Kim responsible for failing to prevent the overloading of cargo and improper storage on the ship that judges said contributed to the sinking.
Toa Maoni Hapa Chini
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