Much of the rest of the time, winter-fleeing northerners pack beaches on both the Pacific and Caribbean coasts, crowds in the party town clubs spill out into the streets, and the tourism industry is in full swing.

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Japan should quickly join the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) with the aim of becoming a party to this major free trade agreement.

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That, in turn, would leave the party with relatively few representatives outside their strongholds in the north-east and along the Pacific coast: an ironic reversal, when some Democrats claimed in 2008 that the Republicans were destined to be reduced to a southern rump.

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He is not ruling out the businesses of Indonesia's Salim family, which holds 31% of First Pacific. (Other Salim allies control 23% more.) Two conditions have to be met: the acquisition must make commercial sense for First Pacific and its minority shareholders, and it must satisfy Hong Kong's rules on connected-party transactions.

CNN: ASIA ON HIS MIND