Economist, Aug 15, 2015

choi

(1) Temporal politics | Rulers of Time; Clocks and calendars provide a timeless way for regimes to illustrate their power.
http://www.economist.com/news/le ... r-power-rulers-time

Note:
(a) "By order of the Roman Senate, the month of July was so named in honour of Julius Caesar, when he reorganised the calendar starting in 45BC; August was later named after Augustus Caesar, which required the lengths of several months to be adjusted to ensure August was no shorter than July."

Augustus
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augustus
(63 BC - 14AD; born Gaius Octavius; Following the assassination of his maternal great-uncle Julius Caesar in 44 BC, Octavian was named in Caesar's will as his adopted son and heir)

(b) “The Navajo Nation observes daylight-saving time, even though the rest of Arizona (including the Hopi Reservation, which is entirely enclosed by the Navajo Nation) doesn’t.”
(i) Navajo
www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=Navajo&allowed_in_frame=0
(ii) Hopi: "Pueblo people of the US southwest, from Pueblo hopi, literally 'well-mannered, civilized' "
www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=Hopi

choi

(2) The Unquiet Past; Seven decades on from the defeat of Japan, memories of war still divide East Asia. Under the heading "Essay[:] Asia's second-world-war ghosts").
("For Sumie IKEDA 池田 澄江, as Ms XU Ming 徐明 knew herself to be [in Japan]")

My comment:
(a) Counting photographs, the essay amounted to six pages.  There is no need to read it, except the last session (that started with "Xu Ming remembered the first time * * *"). Of course, if yo are familiar with her story, there is no need to read the session, either.
(b) There is a Chinese translation:

stonecome2345 (译者), 不平静的过去. 译言网, Aug 16, 2015.
rticle.yeeyan.org/view/545958/465158

choi

(3) The devaluation of the yuan | The Battle of Midpoint; China initiates market reforms of its currency, then backtracks.
http://www.economist.com/news/fi ... n-backtracks-battle

Quote:

"TRICK question: did China’s central bank intervene over the past week to weaken the yuan or to strengthen it? Given all the headlines about devaluation, weakening would seem the obvious answer. In fact, the opposite is true: it first tried to stand aside, giving the market more say in the yuan’s value, and then backtracked, intervening to stem the ensuing decline. The volte-face reveals much about both the oddities of China’s economy and the difficulty of reforming it.

"For much of the past year, however, the central bank has in fact tipped the scales in the opposite direction, preventing a depreciation even as the Chinese economy weakened and the dollar surged.

"This raises the question of what the central bank is hoping to achieve.