By Yashaswini Swamynathan U.S. stocks looked set to climb further on Thursday after a record day on Wednesday, as strong economic data added to the optimism about the U.S. economy. Wall Street’s main indexes rallied on Wednesday and the Dow Jones Industrial Average sailed past the 21,000 mark, boosted by President Donald Trump’s more measured tone in a speech to Congress and as bank stocks surged on […]
Jeff Sessions, the US attorney-general, failed to disclose during his confirmation hearings that he twice met the Russian ambassador while acting as a close adviser to Donald Trump during last year’s presidential campaign. Mr Sessions met Sergey Kislyak on September 8 in the then senator’s private office in the US Capitol building, after having spoken with him briefly two months earlier at an event sponsored by the […]
CK Chow struck a cautious note at the start of the week when revealing the Hong Kong Exchange’s annual results. With average daily turnover down 37 per cent, the exchange chairman’s wariness was understandable as he talked of a “challenging” outlook and volatile markets. Yet such caution is out of step with the mood in the market. Hong Kong’s blue-chip Hang Seng index and the Hang Seng […]
By John Ruwitch | SHANGHAI SHANGHAI The fortunes of the richest 100 members of China’s parliament and its advisory body – all dollar billionaires – grew about 64 percent in the four years since Xi Jinping rose to power, according to data from an organisation tracking wealth in China. Xi has overseen a crackdown on corruption and decadence, and made the fight against poverty a top priority […]
By Christian Shepherd | BEIJING BEIJING Chinese state media said on Thursday that a prominent Chinese rights activist had made up “fake news” of torture to grab international headlines, but his defenders said the accusations were a coordinated attempt to smear his name. State media said disbarred lawyer Jiang Tianyong, 46, was behind news reports of police torturing another detained rights activist, Xie Yang, and that Jiang […]
SEOUL Isolated North Korea is developing sophisticated tools to digitally spy on its citizens, who are increasingly using mobile devices to connect to each other, a U.S. government-funded report released on Wednesday says. The report, “Compromising Connectivity”, says North Korea has allowed the growing use of mobile phones and domestic internet access in return for the detailed information the network feeds Pyongyang’s surveillance state. “By giving citizens […]
Cheung Kong Infrastructure and Fosun International are among several Asian groups that have submitted bids for Q-Park, one of Europe’s largest parking lot operators, in a deal that could fetch more than $2.4bn. China Oceanwide, a Beijing-based conglomerate owned by a billionaire banking magnate, and Shougang Group, a state-owned Chinese steel company, also joined the first round of bidding on the Netherlands-based parking group, two people familiar […]
In 2011, the Kabul foreign press corps numbered 85, by the reckoning of Dominic Medley, who has worked here for many years as a press officer for NATO, the American military and the United Nations. The American military was surging, reaching more than 100,000 troops by 2012. The press surged as well, with regular visitors in addition to the resident press corps, plus dozens of reporters going […]
A display of smartphones at last year’s Mobile World Congress. Lightening-fast 5G mobile internet is due to be up and running by 2020 Chinese telecoms giant ZTE unveiled Sunday what it said is the world’s first smartphone compatible with the lightening-fast 5G mobile internet service that networks expect to have up and running by 2020. The company said the Gigabit Phone is the first smartphone capable of […]
Snap Inc, owner of popular messaging app Snapchat, will price its initial public offering after the U.S. stock market closes on Wednesday in the most eagerly awaited technology IPO since Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba went public in 2014. The pricing will be the first test of investor appetite for a social-media app beloved by teenagers and 20-somethings but which has yet to turn a profit. The company’s […]
King Salman’s extravagant travel arrangements have captured the public imagination ahead of the Saudi monarch’s high-profile visit to Indonesia beginning Wednesday, but billions of dollars in oil and other investment deals are also at stake. The trade deals could be worth as much as $25 billion, including a $6 billion project between the two nation’s oil companies, according to Indonesian officials who briefed reporters on the scheduled […]
Barely a year ago, Vale, the Brazilian mining company, was reeling. Prices of iron ore, its principal export, were at an all-time low, investors were ditching its shares and China — the market on which it most depends — looked as if it was heading for a rapid and uncontrolled slowdown. Fast forward 13 months and iron ore is back in fashion. Vale is producing record amounts […]
With US stock markets hitting record highs last week, the question has to be asked. Has the Trump reflation trade — long in equities, short in bonds — run its course? In the equity market it has been a crowded trade for quite some time. On the bond side, futures market data are telling us that there are exceptionally large speculative bear positions in the market. This […]
By Stephanie Nebehay and Joseph Sipalan | GENEVA/KUALA LUMPUR GENEVA/KUALA LUMPUR South Korea called for “collective measures” to punish North Korea for using chemical weapons to kill the estranged half-brother of its leader Kim Jong Un, as Malaysia said on Tuesday it would charge two women with murder over the airport attack. Police have said the women smeared VX nerve agent, a chemical on a United Nations […]
BEIJING China’s Foreign Ministry on Tuesday said it hoped U.S. defence spending would be beneficial to maintaining global peace and stability, after the White House proposed a 10 percent increase in military spending. The proposed rise in the Pentagon budget to $603 billion comes as the United States has wound down major wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and remains the world’s strongest military power. An official familiar […]
By Joseph Sipalan | KUALA LUMPUR KUALA LUMPUR Two women – an Indonesian and a Vietnamese – will be charged with murder on Wednesday over their alleged involvement in the killing of the estranged half-brother of North Korea’s leader at Kuala Lumpur’s main airport, Malaysia’s attorney general said. Police have said that the women smeared VX nerve agent, a chemical on a U.N. list of weapons of […]
BEIJING China cemented President Xi Jinping’s position as the “core” of the Communist Party on Monday, making it part of ideological teaching in colleges and universities as Beijing tightens its hold on education. Political thought and party leadership in China’s places of higher learning should “closely revolve around the Chinese Communist Party with comrade Xi Jinping at the core”, the State Council, China’s Cabinet, said in a […]
BEIJING Chinese state media has reacted with anger and threats of boycotts after the board of an affiliate of South Korea’s Lotte Group approved a land swap with the government that will enable authorities to deploy a U.S. missile defence system. The government decided last year to deploy the U.S. Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system, in response to the North Korean missile threat, on land […]
The fact that farm incomes have come under increasing pressure over the past couple of years should come as little surprise to our readers (for those who missed our latest update, see: “Midwest Farm Bubble Continues Collapse As Farm Incomes Expected To Crash In 2017“). Unfortunately, at least according to Bank of America’s Global Ag Chemical team led by Steve Byrne, farmers shouldn’t expect a reprieve any […]
SHANGHAI An undisclosed buyer has placed the largest overseas order for China’s home-developed military drones, the Xinhua news agency has reported, in a boost for the Chinese arms industry’s efforts to increase export volumes. The order for the Wing Loong II was placed before the next-generation unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) successfully completed its maiden flight, Xinhua said late on Monday, citing the system’s developer Chengdu Aircraft Design […]
Chinese companies have borrowed more money from the international bond market than from domestic investors so far this year, breaking with tradition as authorities in Beijing focus on curbing capital outflows. Banks and other corporate borrowers have been quietly encouraged to raise money offshore in other currencies, limiting the need for Chinese companies to sell renminbi to finance overseas investments. Borrowing more outside the mainland also allows […]
BEIJING A youth named by China as the second-highest figure in Tibetan Buddhism, but reviled as a fake by many Tibetans, has praised the Communist Party’s religious policies in Tibet in a lunar new year message, saying they made him feel “very happy”. Although officially atheist, China selected Gyaltsen Norbu as the 11th Panchen Lama in 1995 in a drive to win the hearts and minds of […]
Narrowband Internet of Things (NB-IoT) and 5G are Huawei’s biggest opportunities for growth in Australia, according to the Chinese network technology giant, which is pushing into the IoT space via research programs and project partnerships. Speaking at Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona on Monday, Huawei Australia chair John Lord said providing NB-IoT solutions for such businesses as the agricultural sector, wineries, cattle stations, and energy utilities […]
Arto Nummela, Chief Executive Officer at HMD Global, shows the new re-launched Nokia 3310 phone, ahead of Monday’s opening of the Mobile World Congress wireless show in Barcelona, Spain, Sunday, Feb. 26, 2017. Finland-based HMD Global is re-launching the simple Nokia 3310 model along with unveiling three new devices at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti) Samsung’s product showcase Sunday is notable for what’s missing: […]
