Beijing is the capital city of great China. Its current population as our hospitable guide Grace told us, is around 20 million. What else? A big city, not as huge as Shanghai, but has its own charm. I will be sincere now and the weather is the best compared to the South and North, the two cities we have been depicting previously (those of Changchun and Shanghai) – quite a mild one. However, frankly speaking, this is the city where one gets really exhausted in a transport – a lot of traffic jam. Bicycle as in Shanghai, is a very popular form of transport. Surprisingly enough, there are no special tracks for the people to ride them, but they still do – no matter how old they are, whether they are male or female, etc. Now, our journey begins:

In terms of income, Georgia is among the least equal countries in the former Soviet Union. The Soviet Union was itself extremely equal. As the old saying goes, “everybody had plenty of money, but there was nothing to buy. Now you can buy anything you want but nobody has any money.” Well some people have some money. Economists and mathematicians measure how equal or unequal a society is by using a number called the Gini Coefficient. The lower the number out of one hundred, the more equal, the higher the number the less equal.

Our Reporter in China

Here we go again. This is Shanghai, the hottest city of China in all senses of this word, and of course the most ultramodern one. Frankly speaking, if one had asked me before what I was that I would be most interested to discover in China, I would not have had a ready-made answer – Shanghai. Shanghai – can you believe that I was there?! I myself can hardly believe it. It was in Shanghai, the city of marvels. And my friend was with me taking a lot of photos, being as productive as she could possibly be.

People disagree on what is best for business or even how much business matters to an economy. The Soviet Union had an economy of sorts and didn't really have any legal business that was driven by market principals. In many parliaments and certainly in the US Congress there is disagreements about how to help the economy and how to promote business. A few years ago, United States Treasury Bills were downgraded in their ratings. Some members of Tea Party wing of the Republican Party had made statements that it wouldn't matter if the US defaulted on its debts. So the rating agencies downgraded what everybody had believed was the safest long term investment in the world and it became more expensive for the US to borrow. Since before it was completely clear what would happen with US Treasury Bills, then it became a little less certain, some people got nervous.

There is plenty of conversation about local self government in Georgia but it tends to focus around boundaries and elections and spheres of competence rather than on tax. But where the money comes from and where it goes is usually the best way to look at these things. Currently almost all state revenues are national and come from VAT, income tax, and import tariffs. Taxing something discourages it, so VAT raises prices and makes people buy less, an income tax discourages employers from hiring people, and import tariffs makes goods that are imported more expensive so increases prices on imports.

There is a new draft law about philanthropy, charity and volunteerism. This law takes several important steps desperately needed in Georgia. For many years, legislation has suffered from a problem that mirrored a wider issue in Georgian society. Georgian laws, most importantly tax laws, have assumed that all people are selfishly motivated, will cheat every chance they can and are only interested in getting as much money for themselves as possible. With the neoliberal worldview of the previous government, many senior officials believed that all businesses should peruse only money and pursuing any other goals was somehow socialistic and dangerous. Much of this is a product of the Soviet and communist systems, that talked of higher goals but were the most cynical regimes in history. Even now more than twenty years after the death of these systems, Soviet countries have the lowest social trust of any countries in the world.

The last several weeks have seen two important developments in Russian politics. The first involves the Kremlins position on homosexuality. The second involves Putin’s relationship with the church and how he is using it to assist his imperial project.

Approximately a year has passed when so-called “Anti-Terrorist Sweeping Operation” was conducted in Lafankuri highland village in Telavi district, Eastern Georgia, in the Lopota Gorge. The site of the firefight is in close proximity to the international border between Georgia and the Russian Federation.
The much acclaimed human tragedy occurred in the Lopota Gorge at the end of August 2012, and many questions are still unanswered as to whether this was an antiterrorist operation or a staged ambush planned to clear up loose ends in the alleged government support for Chechen fighters.

The latest data on telecom data services indicates that recent nine months from the date of birth Tango service got 13 million users in 212 countries and localized in 35 languages. You need just to download from www.tango.me to your Smartphone free of charge software. Eric Setton, one of the founders of Tango looks quite optimistic as the forecast is 60 billion USD. The segment of free video calls competing with paid video calls in 3G networks. Skype launched in August, 2003 got in the first year only 9 million 500 thousand users.Tango video call quality is not perfect, you can switch video camera from front to rear panel to show the picture of surrounding landscape. Users can import their profile from Facebook to Tango. The bottom-line is to introduce soon paid value added services on Tango platform.