Refugee crisis escalates in Hungary

TSCFWA -- Europe’s biggest refugee crisis since the second world war entered a new phase on Wednesday as hundreds of trapped refugees briefly broke through a border gate on the now-blocked Hungarian border, leading to frenzied clashes with Hungarian police, while hundreds of others forged a new route through Croatia.

Hungarian riot police fired teargas and water cannon across the border with Serbia after frustrated crowds, who had gathered there in their thousands when Hungary closed its frontier on Tuesday, tried to burst through a gate that connects the two countries. Hungary’s actions were met with fury by the Serbian government, which said its northern neighbours had no right to fire into Serbian territory.

Serbia’s prime minister accused Hungary of “brutal” and “non-European” behaviour and urged the European Union to respond. “We will not allow anyone to humiliate us. I call on the European Union to react, for its members to behave in line with European values,” Aleksandar Vucic told Serbian state television. “If the EU does not react, we will find a way to protect our borders and European values as well,” he said.

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North Korean Nukes... and Iran

TSCFWA -- Critics of the Iran nuclear deal often point to Bill Clinton’s nuclear accord with North Korea as a reference point for what we can expect next, and this week we were given a fresh lesson on that score. Satellite imagery shows Pyongyang is reactivating its plutonium reactor at Yongbyon, and now the regime has publicly threatened to produce more bombs and test another long-range ballistic missile.

That isn’t the nuclear-free future Mr. Clinton promised in 1994, when he claimed “the entire world will be safer” thanks to a deal that required Pyongyang to “freeze and then dismantle its nuclear program.” Oh well. For now, the interesting question is why Pyongyang is again rattling its nuclear saber. There may be an Iran angle here, too.

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Father of dead Syrian boy returns to Kobane to bury family

TSCFWA -- The father of a three-year-old Syrian boy whose body washed up on a Turkish beach in an image that shocked the world returned to his hometown Kobane on Friday to bury his family, an AFP photographer reported.

Abdullah Kurdi arrived at the Turkish border town of Suruc with the funeral caskets of his son, wife and another son who also drowned while trying to get to Europe.

The car carrying the father and the caskets entered Kobane and returned to Turkey while a convoy of journalists and activists was stopped at the border.

Twelve Syrian migrants drowned on Wednesday when two boats sank in Turkish waters as they were heading towards the Greek island of Kos, in the latest tragedy to hit migrants in the Aegean.

But attention has focused on three-year-old Aylan, whose tiny body was photographed washed up on a beach in the resort of Bodrum in an image that quickly became a viral symbol of the tragedy of refugees.

An AFP journalist on the Syrian side of the border said that preparations were under way to bury the Kurdi family members as "martyrs of Kobane who lost their lives to flee the war."

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Currency War: India to take up currency devaluation issue at G20

TSCFWA -- The recent shocks in the global economy triggered by the Chinese devaluation of yuan and its economic slowdown are likely to dominate discussions in the two-day meeting of G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors starting here tomorrow over which India has expressed serious concern.

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley arrived here today with India deprecating the recent devaluation of major currencies followed by currency depreciation

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What progress has India's economy made??

TSCFWA --  "You'll find the airport has changed dramatically, you'll be able to book a taxi using an app on your phone, and you'll see a real spring in the step of many people in India now - people are charged with optimism," one Indian businessman said when I asked what had changed in the five years I'd been away from a city that, in many ways, had been my second home.

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A Priest with 39 wives

TSCFWA -- The world's population hits 7 billion this week, but Ziona, the patriarch of what may be the biggest family in the world, is not bothered.

"I don't care about overpopulation in India ... I believe God has chosen us to be like this (have big families). Those who are born into this family don't want to leave this tradition so we just keep growing and growing," he says with a smile.

Ziona, who only goes by his first name, has 39 wives, 86 children and 35 grandchildren.

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Who crashed the economy???

TSCFWA -- When I was a schoolboy in Edinburgh in the 1960s, the head office of the Bank of Scotland was an imposing building on the Mound, the street that leads from Princes Street to Edinburgh Castle and the Royal Mile. The Royal Bank of Scotland, its arch-rival, occupied Dundas House, the finest property in the city’s Georgian New Town.

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Danger And Opportunity of China's Economic Slowdown

TSCFWA -- Misconception and exaggeration are circling China’s economy right now like a flock of hungry buzzards. If you listen only to the popular media, you might believe that the Asian giant is teetering on the brink of economic disaster, with the Shanghai Composite Index’s recent correction and devaluation of the renminbi held up as “proof.”

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Canada faces ‘strangest’ recession

TSCFWA -- Canada’s economy shrank for a second straight quarter, the weakest six-month period for growth since the Great Recession, sending the country into a technical recession even as strong growth in June suggest the pain may be short lived.

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India to Remain Fastest Growing Major Economy

For investors worried about the health of emerging economies, India's gross domestic product data for April-June should supply some cheer on Monday - the country is expected to remain the fastest growing major economy for a second straight quarter.

The median estimate from a Reuters poll of economists put GDP annual growth at 7.4 percent in the quarter, just below 7.5 percent in January-March.

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India's Economy Grows 7 Percent, Slower of Expanding??

India’s economy, defying weakness in developed countries and elsewhere in emerging Asia, expanded 7% in the April-through-June quarter, making it one of the world’s fastest-growing as China downshifts.

Asia’s third-largest economy also continued to distinguish itself from its neighbors by being fueled not by investments or exports but by consumer spending, which grew 7.4% year-on-year, according to official figures released Monday. Indians are still opening their pocketbooks despite a withering of demand in other large economies, which has sapped trade and production growth around the globe.

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