News stories by Analysis by Kalinga Seneviratne

This tiny island republic sits on trillions of dollars in foreign reserves. Yet, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said in a BBC interview this month that his country cannot spend its way out of the economic downturn, until the global economy heals.

The year 2008 may well go down in history as a watershed in which the global financial crisis, precipitated by the collapse of Western economic models, ‘decolonised’ Asians minds, say observers.