Slackening

Financial aid, trade agreements, and diplomatic relations, all powerful tools in the European arsenal, could have been wielded to enforce a reversal, or at least a slackening, of the tightening noose.

But judging from NBS data, there has been hardly any slackening this year at all.

The storm was downgraded early yesterday to a depression with wind speeds slackening as it moved into the Andaman Sea, Thailand’s weather bureau said.

Trade growth and investment have been slackening on the back of tariff hikes, the Paris-based economic think tank says.

Authorities have been slow to implement reforms in the civil service, and the pace of the privatisation programme is also slackening and donors have urged its advancement.