Friday 08:00 GMT Overview Equity markets are steady, holding near recent highs, as the dollar’s bounce to a 14-year peak on expectations of a more hawkish Federal Reserve pauses for breath. Bond markets are calmer too after the recent battering that pushed yields to their richest in many months, while gold edges up. Hot topic The dollar and surging bond yields has been one of the biggest […]
Allergic reactions to peanuts cause around 500 hospitalizations and even some deaths in the United States each year. Food that contains trace amounts, because it was produced with factory equipment or kitchen tools that came into contact with peanuts, can prove fatal for allergic individuals who consume it unsuspectingly. Accidentally ingesting as little as a third of a single peanut — about 70 milligrams — can send […]
Chinese government bond yields retreated slightly after the central bank eased a credit squeeze that has been exacerbated by the US Federal Reserve’s rate increase. On Friday morning the People’s Bank of China injected a net Rmb45bn ($6.5bn) into the interbank market through reverse repos, bringing total net injections for the week to Rmb250bn. This marked a reversal from last week when the central bank drained more than […]
By J.R. Wu | TAIPEI TAIPEI Before getting too carried away with Taiwan’s elevated status under a Donald Trump presidency, President Tsai Ing-wen might want to check her bank balance. Trump’s suggestion that the “one China” principle – that Taiwan is a part of China – was up for negotiation has already prompted sabre-rattling from Chinese state media and some in the military establishment. Taipei’s ability to […]
BEIJING China’s military has carried out its first ever live-fire drills using an aircraft carrier and fighters in the northeastern Bohai Sea close to Korea, state media said. China’s growing military presence in the disputed South China Sea has fuelled concern, with the United States criticising its militarization of maritime outposts and holding regular air and naval patrols to ensure freedom of navigation. Ten vessels and ten […]
Friday 02:10 GMT Overview The US dollar has climbed to a 14-year high in the wake of the Federal Reserve’s decision this week to lift interest rates, putting pressure on Asian currencies and prompting caution among traders of regional stocks. Hot topic The dollar has been one of the biggest stories of the December quarter thanks to a more robust outlook for US inflation and growth. That […]
By Kiyoshi Takenaka and Katya Golubkova | TOKYO TOKYO Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Russian President Vladimir Putin hold a second day of talks on Friday after Abe made little headway a day earlier in his quest to resolve a territorial row that has festered since World War Two. Putin looked set to come away with a slew of economic deals and achieve what experts said […]
BEIJING The “one China” principle is the basis for developing ties with China and no country can be an exception to this rule, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi told his French counterpart. U.S. President-elect Donald Trump has upset China by speaking with the president of self-ruled Taiwan, which China claims as its own, and casting doubt on Washington’s nearly four-decade policy of recognising that Taiwan is part […]
DETROIT General Motors Co (GM.N) Chief Executive Mary Barra said on Thursday the automaker will expand testing of self-driving vehicles to Michigan, and will build its next generation of self-driving cars in the Michigan plant that builds the Chevrolet Bolt electric car. Separately, Barra declined to discuss a statement by a Chinese government official that a U.S. automaker could be subject to penalties for price-fixing. “I don’t […]
Drones launched from an autonomous vehicle could help guide it by mapping surrounding areas beyond what the car’s sensors can detect, according to Ford company officials Ford Motor Co. is studying a system to use drones to help guide self-driving vehicles, including on off-road adventures, company officials said. Drones launched from an autonomous vehicle would help guide it by mapping the surrounding area beyond what the car’s […]
Caitlin Johnston and Anthony Cormier spent so much time with a 182-page plan from the Florida Department of Transportation that it became like a bible to them: important, instructive, kind of mysterious and confusing. But the truth that came out of its pages aren’t the result of thousands of words of copy. It’s revealed, instead, through Legos. Johnston, a transportation reporter, and Cormier, an investigative reporter at […]
By Leonardo Goy | SALGUEIRO, Brazil SALGUEIRO, Brazil The rusting tracks of Brazil’s Transnordestina railway peter out and give way to a dirt trail in a remote corner of the country’s arid northeast, far from the ports or farms it was meant to serve. No trains run on these tracks and the cleared path for one of Brazil’s most ambitious infrastructure projects is used only by local […]
15 December 2016 – Beijing, People’s Republic of China China Oceanwide (together with its subsidiary, “Oceanwide Resort Paradise HI LLC”) entered into a management agreement today with subsidiaries of Kerzner International Holdings Limited (“Kerzner”), a leading international developer and operator of destination resorts and ultra-luxury hotels, for a new, Atlantis resort in Ko Olina, a 642 acre development on the white sand beaches of the island of […]
WASHINGTON/BEIJING China’s plan to punish a U.S. automaker accused of price-fixing is a sign of how Beijing could retaliate if President-elect Donald Trump upends decades of relations between the two nations. Trump’s assertion that the United States need not be bound by the policy that Taiwan is part of “one China” would erode a bedrock of U.S.-China ties that has underpinned the vast increase in trade and […]
In Ottessa Moshfegh’s short story, Bettering Myself, a divorced, alcoholic teacher comes across an encyclopedia of worms in the old library of her school. She reads about all the different kinds: “Worms with two heads and worms with teeth like diamonds and worms as large as house cats, worms that sang like crickets …”. The descriptions of those slightly grotesque, unusual worms, could serve as a useful […]
Thursday 11:00 GMT Overview Stock markets are trading cautiously as Treasury yields hit fresh highs after the Federal Reserve’s decision to raise interest rates for only the second time since the financial crisis. The prospect of the US central bank perhaps having to tighten policy faster than expected to reflect any additional boost to growth from president-elect Trump’s fiscal plans is lifting the dollar to a 14-year […]
The offshore renminbi exchange rate grew stronger than its onshore counterpart on Thursday after a closely-watched borrowing rate in Hong Kong for loans denominated in China’s currency broke back into the double digits for only the fourth time in 2016. The Hong Kong interbank borrowing rate for offshore renminbi (CNH) overnight loans (CNH Hibor) rose another 4.4 percentage points to 11.8 per cent today, taking the overnight […]
The AWS cloud now has 42 Availability Zones in 16 regions but the two empty circles in France and China represent the location of two more regions coming online next year. Image: AWS Amazon Web Services cloud computing platform is now available from UK-based datacenters. The launch of the AWS Europe (London) Region means that AWS’s suite of cloud services is now available out of 16 regions […]
BEIJING A court in eastern China on Wednesday sentenced the former Communist Party chief of the major city of Nanjing to 12-1/2 years in jail, after finding him guilty of corruption. Yang Weize, Nanjing’s top official, was put under investigation early last year by the party’s internal anti-graft watchdog. The court in Ningbo said Yang accepted bribes, either directly or through his wife, worth 16.4 million yuan […]
SYDNEY Investigators looking for missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 are making their last sweep of the search area in the Indian Ocean, Australian authorities leading the search said on Wednesday. Flight MH370 disappeared in March 2014 with 239 passengers and crew on board, most of them Chinese, en route to Beijing from the Malaysian capital of Kuala Lumpur. Its whereabouts have become one of the world’s greatest […]
China’s Ministry of Culture on Tuesday ordered all operators of live streaming platforms in China to apply for a permit from relevant authorities, which shall clearly state that its business scope includes “online performance”. The new requirement came after the State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television (SAPPRFT), and State Internet Information Office (SIIO) — the other two Chinese regulatory departments — in September and […]
Wednesday 02:20 GMT Overview Stock markets across Asia were mixed as anticipation of the Federal Reserve’s policy decision dulled the effect of another set of record highs for Wall Street. What to watch All eyes were on the end of the Fed’s two-day policy meeting later in the day, with the US central bank expected to raise interest rates 25 basis points. Roughly a year ago the […]
HONG KONG HSBC has launched a $290 million lending facility aimed at technology start-ups and other new industries in China’s Pearl River Delta region, intensifying the battle for a slice of a business that is growing despite a slowing economy. Showered with money from private investors over the last few years, the promising technology start-ups in China, the world’s second-largest economy, have shunned traditional lenders, seeking to […]
The former minister of mines and geology for the African Republic of Guinea was arrested on Tuesday in New York and charged with taking $8.5m in bribes in exchange for assigning lucrative investment rights to a Chinese-owned conglomerate. Mahmoud Thiam, an American citizen, was arrested at his home in Manhattan and was expected to appear in court later in the day. Mr Thiam, a former UBS banker, […]
