Two reports in Chinese media highlight different aspects of China’s unfolding demographic crunch. The Ministry of Education reported Aug. 21 that more than 13,600 primary schools closed nationwide in 2012. The ministry looked to China’s dramatically shifting demographic profile to explain the widespread closures, noting that between 2011 and 2012 the number of elementary-aged students fell from nearly 200 million to 145 million. It also confirmed that between 2002 and 2012, the number of students enrolled in primary schools dropped by nearly 20 percent. The ministry’s report comes one day after an article in People’s Daily, the government newspaper, warned of China’s impending social security crisis as the number of elderly is expected to rise from 194million in 2012 to 300 million by 2025.  China’s Demographic Problem

Edmund Phelps, a Nobel prize winner in Economics and director of Columbia University’s Center on Capitalism and Society, has found that pride in job is more common in the US, and apart from salary, makes a job satisfying.  US Way Out Front in Job Satisfaction

“I don’t think they were thinking of making history, just that it was a nice name,” Echevarria said. “But apparently there was a bar that was called the same, Zorba, like two blocks away, and the owner of the bar came and said, ‘This is going to confuse things to have two Zorbas.’ They had already made the molds for the letters in the sign, so they just rearranged them to see what they could find. They found Zara.”

And what a good find it was. Short, sweet, rolls off the tongue. Just like Sara, but less common, more pizazzzzz. And nothing like some British royalty to up the ante. The birth in 1981 of Zara Phillips, a granddaughter of Queen Elizabeth II, probably wasn’t bad for sales. Nor is Kate Middleton’s flair for weaing the fashionable yet affordable brand.  Mera of Zara Dies

It is when you take your passion and your deep knowledge and create a business that you are often successful.  The locker room is a new jumping off point for women entrepreneurs.  Women Start Up Sports’ Businesses

For many years the road network connecting Nairobi and Thika,an industrial town about 40km north-east of the Kenyan capital was known for notorious traffic snarl ups. Businesses avoided that part of town and land prices stagnated. Despite this, one man held onto his property along the route. Gerald Taylor, managing director of Willmary Development, says his family kept the land his grandfather bought in Kenya in the 1930s because it didn’t make sense to sell.  His gut instinct proved correct.  For Entrepreneurs, Timing Is Crucial