Newsbyte December 2016:


πŸ‘‰Japan prime minister, Shinzo Abe, visited Pearl Harbour on the 75th anniversary of the Japanese attack on the harbour that triggered WWII. Although previous Japanese ministers have visited the harbour before, this visit will be first where the country's leader will give a speech as part of the commemoration.

πŸ‘‰ George Michael, the singer who gave us hits like Careless Whisper, Last Christmas, Faith, I Want Your Sex, etc., passed away. He was part of the duo called Wham! that was a huge success back in the 80s. Interestingly, in 1985, Wham was the first Western pop band to stage a concert in the People's Republic of China. Here is one of their 1984 hit song Last Christmas (it is quite amazing to know that every year come Christmas the song enters the chart again and as recently as 2016, it shot up all the to number 7 on the UK chart):




πŸ‘‰ On December 2, Taiwan president, Tsai Ing Wen made a phone call to US president-elect, Donald Trump, to congratulate the latter in winning the presidential election. The call is significant as it is because it marks the first official contact between the two countries' leaders since 1979 when the US ended official relations with Taiwan and instead formally recognised China.
Global Academic Rankings

2015 Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) for Mathematics for 15 y.o. (Top 10):
                                   Score
(1) Singapore               564
(2) Hong Kong              548
(3) Macau                     544
(4) Taiwan                    542
(5) Japan                      532
(6) China BSJG              531
(7) Korea                      524
(8) Switzerland              521
(9) Estonia                    520
(10) Canada                  516


Finland (13), Australia (25), UK (27), USA (--)

2015 Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) for Reading for 15 y.o. (Top 10):
                                   Score
(1) Singapore               535
(2) Hong Kong              527
(3) Canada                   527
(4) Finland                   526
(5) Ireland                   521
(6) Estonia                   519
(7) Korea                     517
(8) Japan                     516
(9) Norway                   513
(10) New Zealand         509


Australia (16), UK (22), USA (24)


2015 Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) for Science for 15 y.o. (Top 10):
                                   Score
(1) Singapore               556
(2) Japan                     538
(3) Estonia                   534
(4) Taiwan                    532
(5) Finland                   531
(6) Macau                    529
(7) Canada                   528
(8) Vietnam                  525
(9) Hong Kong              523

(10) China BSJG           518

Finland (--), Australia (14), UK (15), USA (25)



From a different organisation, the 2015 Trends in International Maths and Science Study (TIMMS) for Mathematics (Top 5):
                                          Score (10 y.o.)   Score (14 y.o.)
(1) Singapore                      618                   621
(2) Hong Kong                     615                   594
(3) Korea                            608                   606
(4) Taiwan                           597                   599
(5) Japan                            593                   586

Finland (--), USA (14), Australia (--), England (--), Malaysia (--)


2015 Trends in International Maths and Science Study (TIMMS) for Science (Top 5):
                                         Score (10 y.o.)   Score (14 y.o.)
(1) Singapore                     590                   597
(2) Korea                           589                   556
(3) Japan                           569                   571
(4) Russia                          567                   544
(5) Hong Kong                    557                   546

Taiwan (6), Finland (--), USA (10), Australia (--), England (--), Malaysia (--)
The Girls growing up quickly.