President-elect Donald Trump's threat to slap punitive tariffs on Chinese goods is a worry for firms that trade with the country in the US Midwest, a decisive region in the Republican's election triumph. Strong support across America's "Rust Belt," and frustration at lost industrial jobs blamed on globalization, carried Trump to victory last month in key battleground states, including Michigan and Ohio. But some companies in the region that benefit from global trade are worried about early signs the president-elect plans to take a hardline stance with China. "We export a lot of products to China," said David Shogren, president…

Third Domino tumbles in wipe-out of political class The decision by France’s president Francois Hollande not to offer himself for re-election for another five year term brings to an end the heyday of client-politics in the western alliance. Known in France simply as “clientelism” the process is borrowed from industrial consumer merchandising. It amounts to identifying numerous sector or niche markets. Then tailoring a special approach to each in order to create the desired mass market, in this case of votes Mr Hollande, known in France as the King of Concensus, brought this whole technique to a fine art. Anything…

Our foreign correspondent forecast the Trump victory, and now previews the fall of France’s Francois Hollande .... | Napier, MSCNewsWire, Nov 24, 2016 | - The predicted fall of France’s president Francois Hollande in next year’s election will bring to a close the initial era of political correctness. He is scheduled to become the third big-economy leader victim within less than a year of the accelerating electoral power of the non-political class. Mr Hollande is known as the King of Consensus. His determination prior to any decision to canvass every opinion and nuance in his own Socialist Party and also…