Leaving message for boss

Wang Zhishen was thrilled when Danish shipper A.P. Moller-Maersk (MAERSKb.CO) gave him two months’ paid leave, relishing the chance to spend time with his wife and daughters in China’s remote northwestern Gansu province. But his euphoria over what he thought was an unexpected bonus quickly turned to despair when Maersk fired Wang on January 3, less than a month after he packed his bags in the southern Chinese manufacturing center of Dongguan. Wang said he was one of 2,000 workers laid off at the company’s Dongguan transport container factory which has been idle since early December, as the impact of a trade war between Washington and Beijing ripples through industries from logistics to autos and technology. "I was sure it was a holiday," said Wang, 35, who said he worked as a painter at Maersk for nearly six years until he was sacked two weeks ago via China’s WeChat messaging service. Maersk, the world’s biggest container shipper, confirmed in an email to … [Read more...] about Job jitters mount as China’s factories sputter ahead of Lunar New Year

Trang Nguyen. Photo courtesy of Trang Nguyen Trang Nguyen and her colleagues at SMBC Nikko Capital Markets Limited, a Japanese investment bank, have sealed five deals worth over $16.45 billion so far this year. The largest was a $10-billion deal with AB Inbev of Belgium, the world’s biggest beer company. Trang is a director at Nikko, and her role is to advise clients on bond issuance. Last year she closed two deals for the firm worth over $2.6 billion with TenneT, a Dutch power company, and Airbus. Trang tells VnExpress with a laugh: "It seems I am destined to be in the financial industry. I used to run away because there was way too much pressure." In 2000 Trang left her hometown Hanoi to study in Connecticut College in the U.S. After graduation she spent five months as an intern in Singapore and then joined Barclays bank in London because it offered "a higher salary than in the United States." For the next three years she was constantly in a state of stress, mentally and … [Read more...] about Juggling billion-dollar career and home: how this Vietnamese woman copes

Some critics are saying that an overly nationalistic Chinese stance may have hardened the U.S. position, according to four sources close to the government. President Xi Jinping still has a firm grip on power, but an unusual surge of criticism about economic policy and how the government has handled the trade war has revealed rare cracks in the ruling Communist Party. A backlash is being felt at the highest levels of the government, possibly hitting a close aide to Xi, his ideology chief and strategist Wang Huning, according to two sources familiar with discussions in leadership circles. A prominent and influential academic whose views have found favor in some party quarters has also come under attack for his strident views on Chinese power. Wang, who was the architect of the “China Dream”, Xi’s vision for China to become a strong and prosperous nation, has been taken to task by the Chinese leader for crafting an excessively nationalistic image for the country, which … [Read more...] about Handling of US trade dispute causes rift in Chinese leadership: sources

Gina Haspel, the veteran CIA undercover officer President Donald Trump picked on Tuesday to head the agency, is supported by many in the U.S. intelligence community but has faced criticism for overseeing a secret CIA prison in Thailand where detainees were tortured. Intelligence officers who served with her, and congressional officials said that in 2002, during Republican President George W. Bush's administration, she was responsible for the secret prison code-named "Cat's Eye." Two suspected members of the al Qaeda militant group were subjected to waterboarding and other harsh interrogation techniques at the facility. Three years later, still during Bush's presidency, she carried out an order to destroy videotapes of the waterboarding, which simulates drowning and is considered a form of torture, according to those people. Haspel is generally held in high regard at the CIA, working as deputy director under Mike Pompeo, whom Trump nominated to be the next secretary of state on … [Read more...] about Trump’s pick for new CIA chief dogged by secret prisons